Low of tyrannical conduct, and indirectly charging him with murder; in consequence of which representation he was officially informed that their Lordships could not “hold out hopes to him of early promotion.”
On the 10th April 1817, a court-martial was assembled in Portsmouth harbour, to investigate the serious charges thus exhibited against Lieutenant Low. The first of the only two witnessess called by his accuser, although seven had been summoned, and were in attendance, was Mr. Robert Morrison, late acting surgeon of the Cameleon, who deposed that he had attended the punishment of George L. Spain, junior,[1] for theft, drunkenness, and other offences, on the 14th June 1816; that the young man denied being guilty of theft, but acknowledged that he had drank part of some wine stolen from his commander’s cabin lockers, by the person doing duty as clerk; who, so far from attempting to exculpate himself, or to implicate Spain, candidly avowed his own criminality, and, as far as his testimony went, completely exonerated the other culprit. This witness also deposed, that Spain appeared rather dejected after his punishment; and that he believed he had deserted from the Cameleon, in Simon’s Bay, Cape of Good Hope, on the 6th Sept. 1816, until informed that his body was discovered floating alongside of the Horatio frigate on the morning of the 19th, the very day the Cameleon quitted that anchorage. On Mr. Morrison’s cross examination, however, it appeared, that he had not reported the punishment (fifty-five lashes) as severe at the time of its infliction, and that Spain was not in consequence put on the sick list; that he had not been put on it subsequently for any affection of the mind; that he knew not of any harshness or cruelty towards him practised by acting Commander Low; and that the clerk’s confession of guilt, and acquittal of Spain, was after the latter had been punished.
The evidence of the prosecutor’s other witness, Lieutenant David Bolton, went to shew, that several persons were examined in the presence of Spain and the clerk, prior to the
- ↑ Son of complainant.
