ment to vindicate the measure … I ordered him into a military arrest, his commission as assistant chaplain specifically rendering him amenable to Martial Law … and ordered a Court-Martial." According to Vale, the Governor charged him with mutiny and had him marched through the town like a deserter.[1] Marsden attempted to dissuade Macquarie from bringing Vale before a Court-Martial, and told him of Castlereagh's opinion that even under staff commissioners the chaplains were not amenable to military law, but Macquarie was determined and himself drew up the charges.
There were four charges, of which the first three differed little from one another. Vale was accused of conduct "highly subversive of all good order and discipline," of insolence, disrespect and insubordination towards the Governor and Commander-in-Chief, of "disgraceful and ungentlemanly conduct highly derogatory to his sacred character as assistant chaplain" in seizing the Traveller after "his Excellency the Governor and Commander-in-Chief … had permitted and regularly sanctioned the said schooner to be entered at this port with leave to land certain parts of her cargo". Further, his action "tended to bring odium and disrepute on the public measures of the Governor," and Vale had acted "from seditious, unworthy and sordid motives ". The fourth charge dealt with his letters to Lieutenant-Governor Molle, which were characterised as seditious and insolent. The court found him not guilty of the last charge, but guilty of the first, and of parts of the second and third,[2] and ordered him to be "publicly and severely reprimanded and admonished". The Governor, however, directed that "in consideration of his sacred character as a clergyman," he would dispense with the public reprimand, and ordered Vale to attend at Government House to have his sentence and the order upon it read to him by the Major of Brigade, and be privately admonished by his Excellency in the presence of his personal military staff and the naval officer.[3]
As to Moore, "I have," wrote Macquarie, "deemed it
