"At a general court-martial recently held, an officer was arraigned upon the following charges,--First. Having misbehaved before the enemy, in shamefully abandoning a party of the regiment under his command when attacked by the enemy, and in riding off at speed from his men. Second. Conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline in having at the time and place mentioned in the first charge, neglected to take proper precautions for the safety of a party of the regiment under his command when attacked. The Court recorded a verdict of 'Not Guilty' on both charges. The main facts of the case were not in dispute. The officer rode away from his men to a station distant four and a half miles, at a moment of extreme danger, when to all appearance the small party under his command were being surrounded and overwhelmed by the enemy. The charge alleged misbehaviour--that is, cowardice in so doing; the defence averred that it was to procure reinforcements, and either by their actual arrival, or by the imminence of their arrival, to ward off destruction. In acquitting the prisoner, they have found that he was not guilty of cowardice. The proceedings of the Court were submitted to the General commanding, who recorded the following minute:--'Disapproved and not confirmed. Lieutenant ... to be released from arrest, and to return to his duty.' The confirming officer has further recorded his reasons for withholding his approval and confirmation in the following terms:--'Had I released this officer without making any remarks upon the verdict in question, it would have been a tacit acknowledgment that I concurred in what appears to me a monstrous theory, viz., that a regimental officer who is the only officer present with a party of soldiers actually and seriously engaged with the enemy can, under any pretext whatever, be justified in deserting them, and by so doing abandoning them to their fate. The more helpless the position in which an officer finds his men, the more it is his bounden duty to stay and share their fortune, whether for good or ill. It is because the British officer has always done so that he occupies the position in which he is held in the estimation of the world, that he possesses the influence he does in the ranks of our army. The soldier has learnt to feel that, come what may, he can, in the direst moment of danger, look with implicit faith to his officer, knowing that he will never desert him under any possible circumstances. It is to this faith of the British soldier in his officers that we owe most of the gallant deeds recorded in our military annals; and it is because the verdict of this court-martial strikes at the root of this faith that I feel it necessary to mark officially my emphatic dissent from the theory upon which the verdict has been founded.' In communicating to the army the result of this court-martial, the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief desires to signify