But of necessity the misguided creatures who kindled the fires in Queen’s Square on that fatal Sunday, and swore that they would not leave a gaol standing in England, were not the only men who suffered. Sad as their plight was, there was one whose plight—if pain be measured by the capacity to feel—was sadder. While they were being tried in one part of Bristol, there was proceeding in another part an inquiry charged with deeper tragedy. Not those only who had done the deed, but those who had suffered them to do it, must answer for it. And the fingers of all pointed to one man. The magistrates might escape—the Mayor indeed had done his duty creditably, if to little purpose; for war was not their trade, and the thing at its crisis had become an affair of war. But Colonel Brereton could not shield himself behind that plea: so many had behaved poorly that the need to bring one to book was the greater. He was tried by court-martial, and among the witnesses was Arthur Vaughan. By reason of his position, as well as of the creditable part he had played, the Member for Chippinge was heard by the Court with more than common attention; and he moved all who listened to him by his painful anxiety to set the accused’s conduct in the best light; to show that what was possible by daylight on the Monday morning might not have been possible on the Sunday night, and that the choice from first to last was between two risks. No question of Colonel Brereton’s courage—for he had served abroad with credit, nay, with honour—entered into the inquiry; and it was proved that a soldier’s duty in such a case was not well defined. But afterwards Vaughan much regretted that he had not laid before the Court the opinion he had formed at the time—that during the crisis of the riots Brereton, obsessed by one idea, was not responsible for his actions. For, sad to say, on the fifth day of the inquiry, sinking under a weight of mental agony which a man of his reserved and melancholy temper was unable to support, the unfortunate officer put an end to his life. Few have paid so dearly for an error of judgment and the lack of that coarser fibre which has enabled many an inferior man to do his duty. The page darkens with his fate, too tragical for such a theme as this. And if by chance these words reach the eye of any of his descendants, theirs be the homage due to the memory of a signal misfortune and an honourable but hapless man.