We do not intend that our account of this case should be a substitute for the perusal of Mr Warren’s pamphlet; we desire rather to prompt to such a perusal. It is far, therefore, from our design to enter upon all the topics it discusses. But the case is one to which, on public grounds, we would cheerfully assist in calling public attention. In doing so we shall endeavour, in the first place, to state, with perfect impartiality, the real and sole offence, or fault, or error, of which it seems to us Captain Douglas can be justly accused; and, in the second place, to show with what _illegal severity_ this offence has been visited. On the first of these topics, we shall, perhaps, be in some slight degree at variance with our author; on the second, we shall fully accord with him in his main and leading argument: for we think there cannot be a doubt that the judgment of this court-martial is vitiated—not by any merely technical error, but by an error affecting the very justice of the sentence—by no less an error than the finding a man guilty of an offence of a certain degree of guilt, and condemning him to a punishment expressly and solely awarded to an offence of a far greater degree of criminality—finding him, in short, guilty of the crime A, and inflicting the penalty decreed only to the crime B. The life of military men in time of peace presents, as we catch a glimpse of it here, no very attractive picture. Captain Douglas in barracks at Longy, in the island of Alderney, with one subaltern, Ensign Parker, is commanding his detachment. Lieutenant-Colonel Le Mesurier is commanding at Alderney, under the title of Town Major. Between these rival potentates disputes arise as to their respective jurisdictions. Instead of companionship, assistance, co-operation, there is only mutual repulsion, mutual hostility. In this cheerless position of affairs, Captain Douglas “went one day—on Friday the 5th January—about twelve o’clock, for a little amusement, to practise pistol-firing, at a spot near the Frying-Pan Battery, as it is called, which was at a distance of two or three hundred yards from the barracks where he resided. This happened to be the first and only time of his using firearms during his stay in the island. No one but himself, indeed, knew even the fact of his possessing firearms. He ordered his servant Riley to procure some potatoes, and to follow him with them, and the pistol-case, (which, however, Riley did not know to be such, nor for what purpose the potatoes were required,) to the Frying-Pan Battery.”