These different statements cannot be deemed surprising, when the nature of this meeting is considered. The parties could, indeed, hardly have been personally known to each other: and although no doubt can be entertained of the goodness of Lieutenant-Colonel Innes's motives, and the laudable character of his zeal for the Government he served, it is perhaps to be regretted that his first effort to correct the principles of the officers of his corps should have been made at a convivial scene, where it was to be supposed men would be less under restraint than in any other situation, and therefore less disposed to attend to either the voice of counsel or authority. But Colonel Innes, from his statement, appears sensible of this fact. He observes, after recapitulating the motives that led him to report _privately_ the conduct of the officers of the regiment at the dinner on the 7th of May, to a confidential staff officer, from whom he received what he terms 'his original instructions,' "I at the same time particularly requested, that no _public notice_ might be taken of what I found it expedient to state, unless I should be compelled subsequently to bring the business reluctantly forward officially; having intimated that I expected an apology to be tendered to me by Lieutenants D. Forbes and Maitland for their improper conduct on that evening, when the general orders of the 1st of May last were commented upon at the mess-room of the Madras European regiment." That such was the impression upon Colonel Innes's mind, is confirmed by a note from him to Mr. Nixon, the adjutant of the regiment, in which he asserts, that he made no official report of the occurrence. It appears, however, that, contrary to Lieutenant-Colonel Innes's expressed expectation, you considered it your duty to notice the private communication he had made of the occurrences of the evening of the 7th May; and the letter which the Adjutant-General wrote to Lieutenant-Colonel Innes upon that subject, under date the 17th May, was immediately put into the regimental orderly book of the corps. It would be superfluous for me to dwell upon the irritation which the measures that were adopted upon this occasion, and the mode of carrying them into execution, excited in the minds of the officers of the regiment. The nature and extent of that irritation are sufficiently explained in the accompanying documents. Its grounds were the supposed incorrectness of Lieutenant-Colonel Innes's private communications to head-quarters; the neglect with which the representations of the officers of the regiment upon this subject were treated; the hardship of a respectable staff officer being disgraced by a removal from his station, without knowing of what he was accused, or being permitted to say one word in his defence; and the unusual and extraordinary measure of detaching (as a punishment) an officer of the regiment to the command of a post where there was not one man of his corps, and the