any other examination as to the manner in which it is conducted?
6th. What was the character of the evidence upon which the Board pronounced its finding against me?
Should you have any objection to speak for the Board in reply to these interrogations, I hope you will have no objection to speak for yourself, and to answer them, at least so far as your own votes and action as a member of the Board are concerned.
Respectfully, &c.,
The answers to this letter were all either evasive, negative, or insulting.
To the Right Rev. Jas. H. Otey, D. D., Bishop of Tennessee Maury wrote on the same subject as follows:—
| My Dear Friend, | University of Va., 20th, 1855. |
You will learn from the enclosed, from one Navy officer to another, that I have, without cause, been made to suffer grievous wrong. The announcement will take you by surprise, as completely as it did me. I appeal to my friends to help me to right. I have been in the service, as you know, upwards of 30 years; during all that time no complaint of duty neglected, or accusation for any cause, had ever reached the Navy Department against me. In short, whatever my shortcomings may have been as a sinful man, as an officer, accountable only to his Government, my conduct has been without reproach; and yet I have been brought into official disgrace—for what? I am as ignorant as you. The thing has been done by a Board of Navy Officers, sitting in secret, and acting mischievously. I neither know what my offence is, nor who my accusers are. . . .
This monstrous inquisition was set up under the pretence of carrying out a law of the last Congress, To promote the efficiency of the Navy, which directed that a Board of Navy Officers should decide who the incompetent were, and that the President should then approve, or disapprove, of the findings of the Board. The law did not require this Board to sit in
