by open and legitimate means. [Sidenote: AGAINST CONFIDENTIAL REPORTS.] To remove an officer from the Service upon a confidential report is both unjust and impolitic, and answers no good end. It is but natural to suppose that when a senior officer accuses a junior by means of clandestine reports, with the hope of having him removed from the Service without trial, that this dark mode of procedure arises from inadequacy of matter to bear him out, or for reasons still darker than the foul means adopted. But supposing even that it should be made evident to His Majesty that the officer so reported is unworthy of continuing in the Service, is it politic to remove him from it without assigning a cause or making his delinquency public? When a robber or even murderer is executed, it is not from a vindictive motive, it takes place as a dreadful warning to deter others from committing a similar crime; therefore due punishment cannot be made too public, or its imperative necessity too strongly impressed on the minds of the people. The injustice of these secret proceedings was clearly shown at Malta in 1821, at which time I was quartered there. A commanding officer in the garrison so blackened the characters of a large portion of his officers through confidential reports that it was determined to have the greater number of them removed from the Service. This was discovered by means of a lady of the regiment, who carelessly said to another that she would soon see the junior captain become the senior; this being repeated soon became known throughout the corps, when the officers fortunately arrived at the true cause of the threatened removal. Consequently, and very naturally, they spoke openly. To avert the evil they asserted that tyranny, oppression and falsehood had been used towards them. This coming to the knowledge of the commanding general, Sir Thomas Maitland, he ordered a court of inquiry. He clearly stated that from the reports which he had received from the commanding officer he had intended to recommend that many officers of the regiment should be removed from the Service; but in consequence of its coming to his knowledge that the commanding officer was far from immaculate, and that oppression or unfounded reports might have been resorted to, he thus gave the officers an opportunity not only to exonerate themselves from the charges alleged against them, but also to declare their grievances. What was the consequence? One subaltern was brought to court-martial by the commanding officer and was acquitted; but the commanding officer was brought to trial upon two-and-twenty grave charges, on one-and-twenty of which he was found guilty, and as a matter of course publicly dismissed the Service.