The next day the Court-Martial met. When Lord George Sackville appeared before it, seeing General Balfour on the bench, he said, he thought that officer had not been to sit on him, he having made his exceptions, and been told Balfour should not be of the Court. Balfour said, he came not to be a judge, nor desired to be, but to know the exception, which he thought touched his honour--a strong proof how dissonant Courts-Martial are from the spirit of the English constitution, which does not understand that persons accused are to be awed by points of romantic honour from excepting against their jury, if suspected of enmity or partiality. Lord George pleaded opposition that Balfour had exercised against him in the Ordnance. The Court-Martial voted that reason insufficient, but told Balfour they would excuse his attendance if he desired it; which he did. They had no such power either of voting the exception invalid, or of excusing him. The King had appointed him, and had allowed the exception. The next step was more respectful to the laws, and came from a quarter which was not suspected of much tenderness to the prisoner. Lord Albemarle[99] asked him if he was in the Army; the judge-advocate for the prisoner answered, “No.” The Court then was cleared, and adjourned to the following Thursday (it was then Friday), desiring to have the opinion of the Judges, _whether a man no longer in the Army was subject to martial law_. The Attorney and Solicitor Generals had determined in the affirmative, grounding their sentiment on those words of the Mutiny Bill, “_All persons being officers on the 25th of March, and committing such and such faults within the course of the year_,” &c. These words being in force as long as the Bill, they thought comprehended such persons for the same period. Lord Albemarle had gone further: he had asked if the Court was empowered to inflict any punishment under capital on the delinquent. This provision of tenderness was not expected from the favourite of the Duke of Cumberland, or from one who had expressed himself warmly enough against Lord George. Private reasons were sought for this conduct by those who would not suppose that in _that_ trial any motives but those of passion or interest would be hearkened to. They who canvassed Lord Albemarle’s behaviour under such prejudice accounted for it by the Duke’s envy of Prince Ferdinand, and desire of rescuing even that hated criminal from his vengeance--yet were those but surmises, not corroborated by any appearance of acrimony in the complexion or conduct of the judges. So ill, however, was Lord Albemarle’s obstruction of the proceedings accepted by the King, who now pushed on the trial angrily and indecently, that his mother, Lady Albemarle,[100] was omitted in the private nightly parties at Court, and not spoken to in the morning Drawing-Room.