There were many circumstances connected with these addresses, which confirm the truth of those sentiments I before expressed regarding the feelings by which General McDowall allowed himself to be governed at this moment: but the state of his mind, and the operation that was likely to have upon the officers of the army, was a subject that merited the serious consideration of Government; which, unless satisfied that there was no danger from the progress of such a spirit of discontent as then existed, should either have adopted _at that moment_ some decided measures to repress that evil, or have carefully avoided every act of aggravation. If both of these Memorials had been merely permitted to go as numbers of the dispatch to England, those by whom they were signed would have thought nothing more of their grievances till an answer was received from the Directors: and that, if contrary to their wishes, would have been deemed final, and the Directors would assuredly not have censured Government for a slight departure from established rules at a period when, from extraordinary events, of a nature never likely to happen again, the army was not only in a state of great agitation, but the civil power had lost the aid of that high military authority on which it would in common times have relied to subdue so dangerous a spirit. Few will contend that there would have been any loss of either dignity or of strength in such a proceeding: and how completely, had it been adopted, would the turbulent and seditious be deprived of one of their chief means of increasing irritation[3]. But this question appears to have been decided, like every other, upon an abstract consideration of its own merits as a single and insulated question; and in that light the decision was _undoubtedly right_: but if it had been viewed, as it certainly should, in its relation to the actual state of the army, _it was as certainly wrong_. It had an evident and malignant action throughout all the troubles that ensued. And this absolute, and, as they deemed it, unnecessary and ungracious refusal to allow their grievances to be even heard by the Court of Directors, combined with the punishment[4] with which it was accompanied, rankled to the last in the minds of the discontented, and indeed appeared to be one of the few subjects, on the hardship and injustice of which the most moderate of those concerned agreed with the most violent.