SUPPLEMENTARY DESPATCHES. CAMPAIGN OF 1815. The Duke of York to Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. MY LORD DUKE, Horse Guards, 28th March, 1815. The Prince Regent having been graciously pleased, in the name and on the behalf of His Majesty, to appoint your Grace to the command of His Majesty's forces serving on the continent of Europe, I am to request that you will take the earliest opportunity of assuming the command of the said forces, and carry into effect such instructions as you may receive from His Majesty's Ministers. The force and staff upon the Continent and under orders to proceed there consist as follows, viz. : 2 BRITISH FORCE AND STAFF UPON, AND MARCH, 1815. General H. R. H. the Hereditary Prince of Orange, G.C.B. Lieut.-General Lord Hill, G.C.B. Lieut.-General Sir Henry Clinton, G.C.B. Lieut.-General Charles Baron Alten, K.C.B. Major-General Sir Edward Barnes, K.C.B., Adj.-Gen. Brevet-Major Evatt, 55th Foot, Assistant Adj.-Gen. Brevet-Major Breymann, 2nd Light Bat., K.G.L., Assist. Adj.-Gen. Major-General Sir Hudson Lowe, Knight, Q. M. G. Lieut.-Colonel Torrens, 1st West India regiment, Deputy Q. M. G. Lieut.-Colonel Goodman, 48th Regiment, Deputy Judge Advocate. On all subjects relating to your Grace's command, you will be pleased to correspond with me or with my Military Secretary for my information, and your Grace will regularly communicate to me all military transactions in which you may be engaged, reporting to me all vacancies that may occur 4 INSTRUCTIONS TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. in the troops under your command; and as the power of appointing to commissions is not vested in you, you will be pleased to recommend to me such officers as may appear to you most deserving of promotion, stating the special reasons where such recommendations are not in the usual channel of seniority. Should your Grace have occasion to recommend any gentleman for an Ensigncy, you will at the same time make known his address, in order that, if His Majesty should be pleased to confirm the recommendation, he may be directed to join the corps immediately on his appointment. Your Grace will transmit monthly returns of the troops under your command to the Secretary at War, and to the Adjutant-General, for my information; and you will strictly adhere to His Majesty's regulations in regard to the pay, clothing, and appointments of the troops; and your special attention must necessarily be directed to their discipline and to the interior economy of the different corps, which is so essential not only to the comfort of the soldier, but to the preservation of his health under every change of climate to which he may be exposed. Your Grace will be vested with the usual powers of convening general courts martial, upon which subject I have to observe, that as great inconvenience has arisen to the service from officers commanding on several foreign stations having permitted prisoners to return to England prior to the proceedings and opinion of the court martial having been submitted to the King, I have to request that in all cases where any person whatever may be tried by a general court martial, and where your powers are not sufficient to enable you to decide finally upon the proceedings, opinion, and sentence of the court, that you do not permit the prisoner to return to England until His Majesty's commands shall have been duly communicated to you through the proper channel for that purpose. I have likewise to acquaint your Grace that as many General officers, from the best motives, have taken upon themselves to commute sentences of capital punishment to transportation for a term of years, or for life, when it is found that no such power is delegated by His Majesty, and consequently that the whole of the proceedings may be thereby rendered nugatory, it will be necessary that your Grace's particular attention should be given to the powers granted to you by His Majesty's warrant on this subject, in order to prevent you from inadvertently falling into a similar irregularity. Several instances occur wherein General officers commanding abroad are induced to send officers home for misconduct, with a view to exchange and as a relief to the local service to which such individuals may be attached; and as the impossibility of bringing them to punishment, from the absence of evidence, is the cause of considerable embarrassment to me, and leads to the necessity of the delinquent's return to his station without the ends of justice being answered or the discipline of the service preserved, I have to request that your Grace will be pleased in all such cases to cause previous investigation to be made into the misconduct of an individual before he shall be permitted to quit the army, and that you will transmit the report to me, for my information and guidance, if the subject of investigation shall have been by a court of inquiry; and in the usual channel of transmission, if by a general court martial. It is particularly desirable that the officer at the head of the Quarter |
