1809	Lord Gambier at Basque Roads	125

Young, Vice-admirals Sir John Thomas Duckworth, Sir Henry Edwin Stanhope, Billy Douglas, and George Campbell, Rear admiral John Sutton, and Captains John Irwin, Robert Hall, Edward Stirling Dickson, and Richard Dalling Dunn, assembled at Portsmouth, to try Admiral Lord Gambier upon the following charge: " And whereas, by the log-books and minutes of signals of the Caledonia, Imp�rieuse, and other ships employed in that service, it appears to us that the said Admiral Lord Gambier, on the 12th day of the said mouth of April, the enemy's ships being then on shore, and the signal having been made that they could be destroyed, did for a considerable time neglect or delay taking effectual measures for destroying them."

The court sat from the 26th of July to the 4th of August. The minutes of the trial are now before us ; and we cannot refrain from observing, that several of the members, particularly the president (Sir Roger Curtis) and Admiral Young, evinced a strong bias in favour of the accused. On two or three occasions, Admiral Young attempted to browbeat Lord Cochrane ; and the cross-examination of some of the witnesses, whose evidence went in support of the charge, would have done credit to a practitioner of Westminster hall. Nor must we omit to notice the singular circumstance, that Captain Maitland, of the Emerald, who had made no secret of his opinion on the character of the proceedings in Aix road, should happen, when the court-martial was about to take place, to be on the Irish station. It is true that the secretary of the admiralty informed Lord Gambier, that Captain Maitland, if his lordship desired, should be ordered to attend. But Lord Gambier, as may be supposed, did not wish to delay the trial on that account; and out of the 17 captains employed in Basque roads, with the exception of Captain Richardson of the C�sar, Captain Maitland was the only one who was not examined as a witness on the admiral's court-martial.

Upon the whole, therefore, we are not at all surprised at the sentence which that court-martial pronounced upon Admiral Lord Gambier. The sentence was as follows: " Having heard the evidence produced in support of the charge, and by the said Right Honourable Lord Gambier in his defence, and what his lordship had to allege in support thereof; and, having maturely and deliberately weighed and considered the whole, the court is of opinion, that the charge has not been proved against the said Admiral the Right Honourable Lord Gambier ; but that his lordship's conduct on that occasion, as well as his general conduct and proceedings as commander-in-chief of the Channel fleet in Basque roads, between the 17th day of March and the 29th day of April, 1809, was marked by zeal, judgment, ability, and an anxious attention to the welfare of his majesty's service, and doth adjudge him to be most honourably acquitted ; and the said Admiral the Right Honourable Lord Gambier is hereby most honourably acquitted accordingly."

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