On this statement I must first remark, that it is vague, erroneous, and contradictory. 1. It is admitted, that the conversation was so entirely general, that the supposition of its having any allusion to the Captain was a mere conjecture. 2. Under the belief that his opinion of this conversation might be singular, Captain Dalrymple asked some of the gentlemen present whether they concurred in his notion of it, which he alleges they did. 3. It is previously stated, that, in the opinion of several present, it contained very pointed allusions to him. 6 4. He instantly converts the above some' and 'several' into a totality, and states that he commissioned Major Dun to inform us, that it was the general opinion' that the above conversation contained a personal attack,—a message which was, on the face of the minute, untrue. This message, containing the ground on which we were deprived of our rights as passengers, is disproved by the Captain's own previous statement. He there distinctly admits, that his originally 'singular' notion was not the general opinion, but only of some or several, including, perhaps, only one or two parasites of his own, equally vindictive and narrow-minded with himself. Who these some,' or 'several,' might be, I shall not pretend to say; for even this last shred of evidence in the Captain's behalf rests on his own mere assertion. I know of no register, or written document, where I can look for its confirmation; I can, therefore, offer no remark on the impartiality or credibility of the unknown witnesses: but I shall here insert an extract from my journal, being part of a memorandum of a conversation held at the time with Captain Dalrymple's friend, who was deputed to convey the above message to me. I asked Major Dun, if he knew on what subject the conversation between Dr. Woodburn and myself hinged? Major Dun replied, "The Pope! and the arbitrary way in which HE exercised HIS power." I asked Major Dun, if he could take his oath that we alluded to Captain Dalrymple? (Captain Jones said, "I'll be dd if I could.") Major Dun replied, " No, certainly. I could not take my oath. It must be a mere matter of opinion." tainly," said Captain Jones, " it can be nothing else." "Cer As this memorandum of the conference with Captain Dalrymple's friends was committed to paper immediately after it took place, and was read over to the parties, and afterwards published in Calcutta, while they were present, with their tacit confirmation and acquiescence, it amounts to a complete refutation of Captain Dalrymple's assertion, that, in the general opinion, or even in the opinion of 'some' and 'several,' our strictures on the Pope were a personal attack on the Captain. It was evidently a mere matter of fancy; and, however striking a similarity there might be between the arrogance of the one and the absurd pretensions to infallibility of the other, we had a perfect right to discuss the conduct of the ecclesiastical rulers, without regard to the applications that might be suggested by the troubled conscience, or lively imagination, of the would-be naval ruler and priest, or his friends. 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' is the motto of our Sovereign, and the principle of Englishmen. The Captain of the Vansittart, as the Officer of a Protestant Government, could have no right to take the character of the Pope under his protection, or, by identifying himself with him on such Jesuitical, self-contradictory pretences as the above, deprive his passengers of the privileges which they had paid for, and were entitled to by contract, and subject two gentlemen to an exclusion equally unmerited and derogatory to their feelings. When your Honourable Court reflects, that we were to be subject to this for many months, without any means of escaping from it until the end of the voyage; that it was inflicted on us in the most loose and arbitrary way, without any form of trial or proof being gone into, by the mere fiat of the Captain, as if he had been only depriving a sailor of his grog, and that it was grounded on our refusal to answer a false (as above shown) and impertinent message, to be interrogated in a manner deemed unjustifiable and uncalled for, your Honourable Court must see that this proceeding was not founded on the principles of English justice, which will not suffer the accused to be tortured with interrogatòries, and holds him innocent till something is proved against him, but rather on the principles of the Holy Office of Spain or Portugal, where the innocent victim of Popish cruelty is forced to confess, or punished for refusing. In this manner were we punished by the self-constituted Pope of the Vansittart and his Inquisition. If so arbitrary, unjust, and unwarrantable an abuse of power were not, now that it is made known, visited with the severest reprobation by your Honourable Court, we might soon expect to hear of some of your Commanders dealing with the lives and liberties of your passengers and crews in a manner similar to the mad Captain (Stewart) of the Mary Russell, who has been, a few days since, convicted of putting seven of his passengers and ship's company to death, who had been weak enough to yield submission to his absurd caprices, when intoxicated, like Captain Dalrymple, with the possession of arbitrary power, he became both priest and executioner, and immolated these helpless .victims, under the insane fancy that they meant to shake off his authority, and mutiny. On reaching Calcutta, Dr. Woodburn and myself called Captain Dalrymple to account for his insult to us as gentlemen. With the former, he had a personal meeting; at which, after exchanging shots, they were interrupted by the police, and Captain Dalrymple (one ball having already passed very close to his ear) then declined again meeting his opponent to finish the affair in that way. In my case he also preferred a safer kind of personal encounter, on the public course of Calcutta, after which he bound me over to keep the peace towards him, to ensure himself against further danger. Here the matter would have rested, as the transitory life of nautical men does not well admit of the tedious process of legal redress for the adjustment of their differences; but Captain Dalrymple now found an ally to his tyranny and ungentlemanly conduct in The John Bull' newspaper of Calcutta, well known to be the property, and under the control, of the Rev. Dr. Bryce. Although this reverend gentleman knew that I had been bound over to keep the peace, and that laws had been enacted for the press by the Honourable John Adam in 1823, approved and confirmed by the Honourable Court of Directors, the East India Board, and his Majesty's Privy Council, expressly with a view to preserve the peace, harmony, and good order of society,' as therein stated, yet Dr. Bryce's John Bull circulated the most virulent personal reflections on my character, evidently intended to make me commit a breach of the peace and a violation of the laws. The head of the Scottish Kirk in Calcutta might perhaps regard himself as the Presbyterian Pope of Bengal, and suppose that it was thence his duty to espouse the cause of his brother, the self-constituted Pope of the Vansittart; but the only apparent reason for his hostility to me was the circumstance that, when my encounter with Captain Dalrymple happened, I had been accompanied by Mr. James Sutherland, editor of The Bengal Hurkaru,' a gentleman whose political principles are diametrically opposed to those of the reverend Divine; and he therefore thought to wound him through his friend, or probably provoke him to write something in reply, which would furnish the Government with perhaps a reasonable plea for suppressing his paper. I would not hazard this conjecture, unless it were fully justified by the reverend Divine's conduct, as a manager of the press, during many years past, of which I deem it necessary to adduce a few examples: 1st-In 1822, the same newspaper with which he is now known to be connected, drew the editor of The Calcutta Journal' into a violent personal controversy, which the latter retaliated by a satire on Dr. Bryce's appointment as Clerk of the Stationary Committee, for which confessedly well-merited satire Mr. Buckingham and his family were expelled from India. 2d-In 1823, Dr. Bryce's Magazine published an attack on Sir Anthony Buller, one of his Majesty's Judges in the Supreme Court there, to which a reply was published in The Calcutta Journal,' for which Mr. Arnot was imprisoned in Fort William, apprehended in Chandernagore, transported to Bencoolen, and ultimately removed to England, with the most unmerited sufferings, as acknowledged by the award of your Honourable Court in his favour. 3d-In August, 1824, Dr. Bryce drew Dr. William Pitt Muston in a similar manner into controversy, and pointed out his opposition to him to the Government, as affording another fit subject for the exercise of its authority,-a recommendation not, in this instance, attended to. 4th-Soon afterwards, the Deputy Judge Advocate of the Bengal army, having become the editor of The Bengal Hurkaru,' was in like manner involved, by Dr. Bryce's Journal, in a series of controversies, which ended in three or four personal encounters; the result of which was, that the Deputy Judge Advocate lost his military appointment, and was completely ruined. 5th-A succeeding editor of that paper, Theodore Dickens, Esq., a Barrister of the Supreme Court, equally distinguished for his high character and legal talents, was exposed to the same kind of attack, the result of which is thus accurately described in Mr. Dickens's own words, addressed to Dr. Bryce : The solemn charge brought against a clergyman of the Scottish Kirk is, that, by your letter of the 17th June, (1825,) you prepared, deliberately prepared, a quarrel between Mr. Micklejohn and me, and, as it were, compelled your own brother-in-law to risk his life in a duel, to the cause of which he was an utter stranger. Nor was this all, Sir after this, you insulted, basely and scurrilously insulted, and threatened me by the hands, and under the name, of Mr. Micklejohn, and taunted me with cowardice for not having fired at my opponent. You came forward in what must have been a most distressing disguise; the robes of the priest encumbered the limbs of the gladiator, and they were quickly thrown aside you left your masquerade of meekness, and changed the tone of exhortation for the cry of wrath and revenge.' I need not trespass farther on the time of your Honourable Court, to develop the character of a man already so notorious as Dr. Bryce. Such was the man who became the ally and advocate of your commander, Captain Dalrymple, in the wanton abuse of arbitrary power; and such is the reverend politician, allowed by the Government of Bengal to insult and trample upon the good feelings of the community. To be a stirrer up of strife, is odious in any man; to be an exciter of bloodshed, is criminal; but how much more revolting when that man is a clergyman! a minister of the Gospel of peace! and protected in his outrages on law and decency by the patronage of a Christian Government! ! You have sanctioned laws professedly enacted to preserve the harmony of society in India: you cannot, therefore, sanction wanton attempts to provoke a breach of the peace. You have suffered others to be banished for occasional and comparatively trivial infringements of the law: you cannot, therefore, suffer one man only to be a continued, standing exception, and to be thereby encouraged to go on from year to year in its habitual violation. The seasonable expression of the just indignation which your Honourable Court cannot but feel against such an outrage on law and public decency, can alone abate the nuisance, and remove all ground for the supposition that it is the intention of the Government of India to employ its authority over the press to protect and encourage a band of mercenary literary gladiators, to trample upon the feelings, and establish a despotism over the minds, of its subjects. This unhappy state of the press prevented justice being done to me in Bengal, as my reverend nautical and clerical opponents would not publish my replies to their attacks; and my friends dared not defend me, as the penalty might have been deportation, or loss of property, as in former cases therefore, I have embraced the first spare moment after my arrival in England, to lay the case before your Honourable Court, as the only power which can grant redress. Your Honourable Court, which must long have regarded the abuses above exposed to view with high displeasure, has now an opportunity of visiting them with just reprehension and condign punishment. Therefore, from a regard to public justice, and to rescue others from similar treatment, as well as to vindicate my own conduct, I have undertaken the ungracious task of bringing this case before you; and I trust you will be of opinion, that the principles of justice will not be fully satisfied, till Captain Dalrymple is forced to pay over to some charitable establishment the sums of money obtained from his ill-used passengers, under a contract which he has not fulfilled. I have the honour to be, with the highest respect, Honourable Sirs, Your most obedient humble servant, THOMAS M'DONNELL. Brighton, 16th August, 1828. THE BUTTERFLY RECLAIMED. A GIDDY, gay, young Butterfly, And long'd to revel in its feast. And sported in the morning sun, |
