Chapter LV: Section 5: Pero Negro, October 28, 1810

The cattle, and other articles of supply, which the government have been informed have been removed from the island of Lizirias, are still on the island, and most probably the secretary of state, Don M. Forjas, who was at Alhandra yesterday, will have seen them. I shall be glad to hear whether the government propose to take any and what steps to punish the magistrates who have disobeyed their orders and have deceived them by false reports. The officers and soldiers of the militia, absent from their corps, are liable to penalties and punishments, some of a civil, others of a military nature: first, they are liable to a forfeiture of all their personal property, upon information that they are absent from their corps without leave; secondly, they are liable to be transferred to serve as soldiers in the regiments of the line, upon the same information; and, lastly, they are liable to the penalties of desertion inflicted by the military tribunals. The two first are penalties which depend upon the civil magistrate, and I should be very glad to have heard of one instance in which the magistrates of Lisbon, or in which the government had called upon the magistrates at Lisbon to carry into execution the law in either of these respects. I entreat them to call for the names of the officers and soldiers absent without leave from any one of the Lisbon regiments of militia, to disgrace any one or more of the principal officers, in a public manner, for their shameful desertion of their posts in the hour of danger, and to seize and dispose of the whole property of the militia soldiers absent without leave, and to send these men to serve with any of the regiments of the line. I entreat them to adopt these measures without favour or distinction of any individuals in respect to any one regiment, and to execute the laws _bonâ fide_ upon the subject; and I shall be satisfied of their good intentions, and shall believe that they are sincerely desirous of saving the country; but, if we are to go on as we have hitherto, if Great Britain is to give large subsidies and to expend large sums in support of a cause in which those most interested sit by and take no part, and those at the head of the government, with laws and powers to force the people to exertion in the critical circumstances in which the country is placed, are aware of the evil but neglect their duty and omit to put the laws in execution, I must believe their professions to be false, that they look to little dirty popularity instead of to save their country; that they are unfaithful servants to their master, and persons in whom his allies can place no confidence. In respect to the military law, it may be depended upon that it will be carried into execution, and that the day will yet come on which those military persons who have deserted their duty in these critical times will be punished as they deserve. The governors of the kingdom forget the innumerable remonstrances which have been forwarded to them on the defects in the proceedings of courts martial, which, in times of active war, render them and their sentences entirely nugatory. As an additional instance of these defects, I mention that officers of the Olivera regiment of militia, who behaved ill in the action with the enemy at Villa Nova de Fosboa, in the beginning of August last, and a court martial was immediately assembled for this trial, are still, in the end of October, under trial, and the trial will, probably, not be concluded till Christmas. In like manner, the military trial of those deserters of the militia, after assembling officers and soldiers at great inconvenience, for the purpose cannot possibly be concluded till the period will have gone by in which any benefit might be secured from the example of the punishment of any one or number of them. The defect in the administration of the military law has been repeatedly pointed out to the government, and a remedy for the evil has been proposed to them, and has been approved of by the Prince Regent. But they will not adopt it; and it would be much better if there was no law for the government of the army than that the existing laws should continue without being executed.

WELLINGTON.