In an age when in England theft to the value of over forty shillings was still punishable in theory with death, (though the penalty was more often evaded than not), it is not surprising to find that some of the cases of hanging in Wellington’s army were for mere stealing. But it was always for stealing on a large scale, or under aggravated circumstances. Mere petty larceny led to the lash only. The most notable achievement in this line was that of two foreigners who succeeded in breaking open the commissary-general’s chest and stole no less than £2000 from it; others were those of a soldier-servant who absconded with his master’s mule, baggage, and purse; of a sentry over the tent of a brigadier, who took the opportunity of making off with the general’s silver camp-equipage and plate; and of a man who being on treasure-escort, succeeded in opening a barrel and stealing some hundreds of dollars from it. In two or three instances large sums of £40 or £60, burglariously stolen from the house or tent of an officer, a commissary, or a sutler, brought men to the gallows. Finally, there was one case of hanging for the crime of sodomy—which was still a capital offence in English law for more than thirty years after the Peninsular War ended.
There are one or two instances on record of rather surprising leniency in the sentences inflicted by court-martial for crimes which in most other cases entailed the death-penalty—e.g. plundering and wounding a peasant was on two occasions in 1814 punished with 900 and 1000 lashes only, and three artillerymen, who stole the watch, purse, and papers of the Spanish General Giron, got off with transportation to New South Wales, instead of suffering the hanging that was usual for such a serious offence. A dragoon convicted of rape in 1814 was lucky also in receiving no more than a heavy flogging. No doubt there was in such light sentences some consideration of previous good conduct and steady service on the part of the offenders.
We have already spoken of the penalties which came next after death in the list—the terrible 1200 and 1000 lash awards, and of the crimes which usually earned them. Much more frequent were the 700, 500, and 300 lash sentences, which are to be numbered by the hundred, and were awarded, as a rule, for casual theft without violence, making away with necessaries (e.g. selling blankets or ball-cartridge to peasants), or “embargoing” carts and oxen, i.e. pressing transport from the countryside without leave, to carry baggage or knapsacks when a small party, without an officer in charge, was on the move. Purloining shoes or food from a convoy was another frequent offence, worth about 500 lashes to the detected culprit. The bee-hive stealers of the retreat from Talavera got 700 lashes each—a heavy sentence for such a crime. The tale concerning them is too good to be omitted.
After the general order against plundering from the peasantry was issued at Jaraicejo to the half-starved army, Sir Arthur Wellesley, in a cross-country ride, saw a man of the Connaught Rangers posting along as fast as his legs could carry him, with his great coat wrapped around his head, and a bee-hive balanced upon it, with a swarm of furious bees buzzing around. Furious at such a flagrant breach of orders issued only on the previous day, the Commander-in-Chief called out to him, “Hullo, sir, where did you get that bee-hive?” Pat could not see his interlocutor, having completely shrouded his face to keep off stings: he did not pay sufficient heed to the tone of the question, which should have warned him, and answered in a fine Milesian brogue, “Just over the hill there, and, by Jasus, if ye don’t make haste they’ll be all gone.”[256] The blind good-nature of the reply stayed the General’s anger; he let Pat pass, and told the story at dinner with a laugh. But the order was no joke to the men of the 53rd caught at the same game a few days after.[257] They got the nickname of the “honeysuckers” along with their flogging.
Charles Reilly’s Excuse
There is another tale of “embargoing” belonging to the regimental history of the Connaught Rangers, which may serve as a pendant to that about the bee-hives.
Early in 1812 a commissary had pressed country carts to go to the Douro, to bring back pipes of wine for the troops. On such occasions, with a hilly country and very tedious work, the men would often contrive, in spite of the vigilance of the subaltern in charge of the convoy, to let the driver escape with his bullocks for a pecuniary consideration. Other carts were then illegally pressed as substitutes. On one of these occasions a detachment of the 88th regiment was sent to St. João da Pesqueira for some wine. On their return, the commissary observed that the two fine white bullocks, which he had sent with one cart, had been exchanged for two very inferior blacks. He made his regular complaint, and the two men in charge, a corporal and private, were brought to a court-martial. On the trial everything was proved, save the act of receiving money from the driver to allow the white bullocks to escape; and the president, on summing up the evidence of the commissary, said to the prisoners, “It is quite useless denying the fact; it is conclusive. You started from hence with a pair of fine white bullocks, and you brought back a pair of lean blacks. What can you have to say to that?” Private Charles Reilly, noways abashed at this, which every one thought a poser, and ready with any excuse to save himself from punishment, immediately exclaimed, “Och! plaise your honour, and wasn’t the white beasts lazy, and didn’t we bate them until they were black?” The court was not quite satisfied of the truth of this wonderful metamorphosis, and they were condemned to be punished (see General Order, Freneda, January 22, 1812)—the corporal to be broke and get 700 lashes, Reilly to get 500. But in consideration of the great gallantry displayed by the 88th at the storm of Ciudad Rodrigo a few days before, the culprits were in the end pardoned.
All these cases quoted are from records of general court-martials. But of course the huge majority of floggings were inflicted by regimental courts, which had jurisdiction over all minor offences, such as drunkenness, disobedience, and petty breaches of discipline inside the regiment, but could not give the heavier sentences such as death or transportation, or the 1000 lashes.
A glance through the records of court-martials shows that some battalions gave much more than their proper percentage of criminals, some much less. Two main causes governed the divergence: the first was that some corps got more than their share of bad recruits—wild Irish or town scum; but I fancy that the character of the commanding officer was even more important than the precise proportion of undesirables drafted into the ranks. A colonel who could make himself loved as well as feared could reclaim even very unpromising recruits: a tyrant or an incapable could turn even well-disposed men into bad soldiers. It is clear that an excessively easy-going and slack commanding officer, who winked at irregularities, and discouraged zeal among his officers, ruined a battalion as surely as the most inhuman martinet. Among the court-martials of the Peninsular Army there are very few on colonels—not half a dozen. But one chances to be on a tyrant, and the other on a fainéant, and the evidence seems to show that the latter got his corps into quite as wretched condition as the former. Though he received over the regiment, as every one allowed, in excellent order, in a few months of slack administration and relaxed discipline, it became not only drunken and slovenly, but so slow on the march, and at the rendezvous, that the other units in the brigade had always to be waiting for it, and the brigadier complained that he could not trust it at the outposts. The officers, gradually coming to despise their colonel, treated him with contempt, and finally sent in a round-robin to the Horse Guards, accusing him not only of incapacity but of cowardice, which last, in the court-martial which followed, was held to be an unfounded charge.[258] The colonel, as a result of the investigation, was reprimanded, and put on half-pay; his subordinates, for grave breach of discipline, were all drafted into other regiments, and a new body of picked officers was brought together, to reorganize a corps which was evidently in a thoroughly demoralized condition; the new-comers got the nickname of the “Elegant Extracts.”
A Tyrannical Colonel