Note 17 — HISTORICAL RECORD

A General Order was issued to the army on the 18th January, 1810 (No. 182), by direction of the Commander-in-Chief, containing the substance of the following General Order, issued in North America, on this subject:—

"General Order. Quebec, 4th October, 1809.

"The Commander of the Forces has lately had occasion to see in a Halifax newspaper a copy of an address presented by the serjeants of the 1st battalion Royal Fusiliers to Captain Orr, on that officer relinquishing the Adjutancy in consequence of being promoted to a company. So novel a circumstance could not fail to draw the attention of His Excellency, it being the first of the kind that has come to his knowledge during the forty-six years that he has been in the service; and as the first instance has thus (so far as he is aware, at least) occurred on the part of the army with the charge of which the King has been pleased to intrust him, he feels himself called on by every obligation of duty to His Majesty and the service to bear his testimony against it by a public expression of disapprobation.

"His Excellency does not mean in this instance to ascribe any improper motive to the serjeants. He has no doubt that their sole view was to express their regard and gratitude towards an officer who, in the intimate connexion that had officially subsisted between them, had very commendably conducted himself with kindness to them without departing from that strictness of discipline which was indispensable to the discharge of his duty.

"But while His Excellency thus does justice to the intention of the serjeants of the Royal Fusiliers, he desires at the same time very seriously to observe to them, that in presuming to meet, in order to deliberate on the conduct of their superior officer, they have in fact, however unintentionally, been guilty of an act of great insubordination.

"It matters not that the design of the meeting, or in whatever manner the address was unanimously assented to, was solely to express their respect and esteem; the very circumstance implies discussion, and by that discussion they rendered themselves obnoxious to the imputation alluded to.—Who, indeed, shall say where such a practice, if once introduced, shall end? If the non-commissioned officers of a regiment are permitted to express their approbation of the conduct of the Adjutant, why may they not exercise the same right with respect to their commanding officer? Or what reason can be given why they should not be equally entitled to express their disapprobation? Indeed, should the practice become general, the merely withholding the former would imply the latter.

"General Sir James Craig is more desirous that his sentiments on this subject should be distinctly understood in the Fusiliers, because it appears on the face of the address of the serjeants in question that it has been countenanced by the officer who then commanded the regiment. The Commander of the Forces does no more than justice to the character and services of that officer when he admits that, feeling as he does the dangerous tendency of the practice which he is censuring, he also feels himself the more bound to oppose it, in the first instance, from the strength which it might otherwise derive from the sanction which he appears to have given to it.—Lieutenant-Colonel Pakenham will however believe that, though it was impossible the General should avoid this observation upon his error, yet his doing so can by no means detract from the esteem with which he has been taught to view his character as an officer, or the confidence which he should be disposed to place in his service.

(Signed) "EDWARD BAYNES,

"Adjutant-General to the

"British army serving in North America."