INDIAN NEWS. [From the Adelaide Times, August 12.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 558, 7 December 1850, Page 3

INDIAN NEWS. [From the Adelaide Times, August 12.]

The Caldernad the Taglioni arrived on Monday the former from Singapore on the 10th of August, and the latter on the 11th. TheC&lder, spoke the Hawk in Banca Straits, lY days out, from Swan River to China, and called at King George's Sound, on her way down, leaving* jhat r port on the 24th of September. The Taglioni called at Angler Point on the 2nd of September, but has nothing later than the Colder. . The dates from China by this arrival are to the 24th of July, and from India to the 27th. The political news has not a fraction in it worth notice, and the commercial news is hardly more striking. Freights stood at £3 10s, per fifty cubic feet. Things,. however, cannot be altogether quiet, wherever there is a Napier. This remark is elicited by the following extraordinary narra» tive, which we give just as we find it in the Strait's Times of August the 6th :—: — The 14th Light Dragoons. — We regret to learn from the L hore Chronicle, July 6th, that Colonel J. W. King, of the above regiment, j committed suicide, caused, it is believed, by the j •xtreme mental uneasiness felt at the remarks < of the Commander-in-Chief on some recentproceeding? materially affecting the discipline of the regiment. By His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief in India. To H. M.'s Troops in India. Head-Quarters, Simlah, sth July, 1850. No. 43 — 1, At a General Court-Martial assembled at Lahore, on Monday, the 3rd of June, 1850, Pri ▼ate John M'Lean, No. 756, of her Majesty's 14th (or King's) Begiment of Light Dragoons, was arraigned on the following charge : — For highly outrageous and insubordinate conduct in having, on a parade of the regiment, at Lahore, on the 20th of March, 1850, after having undergone corporal punishment by sentence of a Court-martial, advanced towards Lieutenant- Colonel J. W. King, C.8., commanding, the regiment, in -a threatening' manner, using grossly abusive language to that officer, and, in having violently resisted the escort which secured him. Findjpg. — The Court is of opinion that the prisoner, No. 756, Private John M'Lean, of her Majesty's (or King's) Regiment of Light Dragoons, is guilty of the charge preferred against him. Sentence. — The Court sentence the prisoner, No. 756, Private John M'Lean, of her Majesty's 14th or King's Begiment of Light Dragoons, to transportation for seven years. Head-Qnarters, 18th Jane, 1850. Revised — In revising the proceedings of the Court, I am obliged to call its attention to some facts which demand the most serious notice. 1st — The prisoner was allowed to get drunk in the guard-room of her Majesty's 14th Light Dragoons, when under sentence of* Court Martial. 2nd. — The prisoner igas brought drunk to the parade. 3rd. — Assistant-Surgeon Fusson, whose business it was closely to have examined the state of the prisoner who was about to suffer corporal punishment, did not examine him, and did not perceive that he was intoxicated, till drink and the pain of punishment had made him so furious, that the AssistantSttrgvon'S'town words are, "/ thought he mutt de either mad or druni." 4th. — The Adjutant, Lieutenant Apthorp, equally unobserving with the Assistant-Surgeon, did not find out. that the prisoner was drunk till after he had received punishment. sth. — The consequence was that this soldier was flogged when in a state, of intoxication, and all this took place in presence of Lieutenant Colonel King, : the Commanding Officer oftthe regiment- - i . 6tb.-T-When freed from the triangles, the prisoner, infuriated by having drank nearly two bottles of arrack and some beer hi the guard room, as proved before tise Court, became Qutrageous and abusive as fnight have been foreseen. 7thc^-I ask the Court* therefore to consider and mitigate its sentence,, for however disgraceful and insubordinate the conduct of the culprit may have b'etn> it was certainly as much produced by neglect of duty in others, as by the drunkard himself. — The sentence appears to me to be severe beyond all proportion to the crime, in the peculiar circumstance above stated. (Signed) C. J.Napier, Genl., Comdr.-in-Chief, East Indies. Revised Sentence. — The Court, having carefully > considered the remarks made by his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, on the sentence passed on the prisoner, private John M'Lean, No. 756, of Her Majesty's 14th Light Dragoons, beg respectfully to adhere to that sentence. Head-Quarters, Ist July, 1850. . lam sorry that the Court felt itself called upon -to adhere to a sentence, which I have no power to commute, and cannot, in the extraordinary circumstances of the case, execute I I have therefore no alternative but to pardon the prisoner ; not excused by his drunkenness, but by facts stated in my remarks to the Courtonitsproceedingsbeingrevised — I assure the Court, that great severity without a due consideration being given to circumstances, is not justice, nor conducive to discipline. The prisoner is to return to his troop. (Signed) C. J. Napier, Genl. Comdr.-in-Chief, East Indies. Colonel . King's suicide,, however, seems to' havebttn caused by something: more than this.

Hence the following paragraph from the same aper on the same subject : — The case of trooper M'Lean in itself would be no weighty matter, but the enquiry the circumstances proroked inTolve the general state of discipline in the corps. In addition to the severe but just observations of Sir Charles Napier, on the revised sentence, it would appeal that some remarks • addressed to Colonel King by the Adjutant General of the Queen's troops had preyed deeply on his mind ; the"y referred to a case, tried a few days previously, in which another trooper of the name of Springett had called Colonel King " a coward," and added, that he, the colonel, had " run away from the regiment at Chillianwallah." It is a sad pity that a | searching enquiry has not been instituted by the authorities into the Chillianwallah affair, more especially as nearly all that have written on the subject distinctly aver that they heard the order given " threes about," but by whom the order was given was still a mystery.