The second branch of surveying is performed by means of the protractor, and plotting scale. The third, by reducing the several divisions, inclosures, &c. into triangles, squares, trapeziums, parallelograms, &c. but especially triangles; and finding the areas or contents or these several figures. See American Mil. Lib.
SURVEYOR of the Ordnance. See [Ordnance].
SUSBANDE, Fr. The iron band or plate which covers the trunnion belonging to a piece of ordnance, or to a mortar, when either is fixed upon its carriage.
SUSPECT, Fr. A term adopted by the modern French to signify any person suspected of being an enemy, or indifferent to the cause of the revolution. Hence—Classe des suspects, Fr. The list of the suspected. Reputé suspect, Fr. Looked upon as a suspected person.
To SUSPEND, (Suspendre, Fr.) In a military sense to delay, to protract. Hence to suspend hostilities. It is likewise used to express the act of depriving an officer of rank and pay, in consequence of some offence. This sometimes happens by the sentence of a general court-martial, or by the summary order of the president through the secretary at war. In both cases it is usual for the commanding officer of the regiment to report him to the general of the district, by whom he is again reported to the commander in chief through the adjutant-general. He is then directed, by letter to the commanding officer of the regiment, to be suspended agreeably to the nature of the transgression. In a trifling case, he is only suspended from pay, and is respited accordingly upon the next muster roll for the government of the regimental agent. But when the offence is aggravated by palpable neglect, or obstinacy in not sending a satisfactory reason for his absence, (which can only be done by vouchers from the medical board, &c.) he is suspended from both rank and pay. So that to be suspended is either partially or generally to be deprived of the advantages of a military appointment.
To Suspend hostilities. To cease attacking one another.
SUSPENSION of Arms. A short truce that contending parties agree on, in order to bury their dead without danger or molestation; to wait for succours; or to receive instructions from a superior authority.
Suspension, as a military punishment, was probably intended to operate as pecuniary fining does in that of the common law; but (to use Mr. Sullivan’s words, in his treatise on martial law) it can neither be considered as deprivation or degradation. It does not divest an officer of his military character, though it puts him under a temporary incapacity to exercise the duties of his station: he still possesses his rank, though he does not reap any immediate advantage from it: It, in fact, may be looked upon and considered as borrowed from the ecclesiastical system of jurisdiction, which admitted suspension as a minor excommunication.
One stubborn difficulty, however, seems to present itself from suspension; and that is the article of pay and allowance. For if an officer shall have been suspended from the exercise of the authority annexed to his rank, and to have the pay of his allowance also suspended, he certainly seems warranted to plead such suspension in bar to the proceedings of a court-martial; there being always an implied contract between a soldier and his employer, that in consideration of certain pay and advantages granted by the one, the other shall submit to military discipline; and the obligation being mutual, when one fails in the performance of his part, he frees the other from the observance of his; therefore, when the pay and other advantages are suspended by the employer, the subjection to military discipline would seem also suspended. But this difficulty is easily removed, from the circumstances of the officer so suspended, still holding his commission; and from his submitting himself to the punishment which hath been inflicted on his transgression. The latitude of this principle hath even been seen to go farther, and under the sanction of such authority, that (since his majesty hath been graciously pleased to direct, in cases of doubt, members of a court-martial shall be guided by their consciences, the best of their understandings, and the custom of war in the like cases) it may be said to establish a precedent, which may with safety be appealed to. We here allude to the trial of lord George Sackville, who, at the time he was put upon the judgment of a general court-martial, had (so dear are the honor and reputation of a soldier) neither military employ nor commission under his majesty; and yet he was deemed entitled to an awful and solemn investigation of his conduct; application, indeed, having been previously made in his name, and he having declared himself willing to abide by the decision of the court. In a word, then, it may, without risking too much, be asserted, that an officer under suspension may be considered as strictly amenable to martial law for any trespass or transgression he shall commit. The same writer observes, in a preceding page, that suspension is a specific punishment, for a specific crime; but it is a punishment which does not free a man from his military obligations. On the contrary, he still is considered as in the service; he holds his commission, and at the expiration of the term of suspension, becomes a perfect man again. If therefore during the continuance of this chastisement, he should attempt to go over to the enemy, to desert, or hold treasonable correspondence, he certainly is, in such cases, to be dealt with according to martial law. Pages 86, 87, and 88, Thoughts on Martial Law.
The late Mr. Tytler, deputy judge advocate of North Britain, who has published an essay on military law, quotes the case of lord George Sackville, when he treats of officers under suspension, and agrees in every point with the author just referred to. Suspension, he observes, though it has the effect of depriving an officer for the time of his rank and pay, and putting a stop to the ordinary discharge of his military duties, does not void his commission, annihilate the military character, or dissolve that connection which exists between him and the sovereign, of whom he is a servant, He retains his commission, and is at all times liable to a call to duty, which would take off the suspension. See Essay on Military Law, pages 131, 132.