intemperate defence of a prisoner whom they acquit. Such remarks are acted on at headquarters. As a general rule the sovereign s confirmation i3 required to the decision of a general court. Officers commanding abroad (except in India) have a limited power of confirmation depending on the nature of the sentence. The commander-in-chief in India may confirm all sentences ; and this absolute power was also given to Lord Raglan in the Crimea. Even in India, however, a capital sentence by court-martial for a civil offence requires the approval of the governor-general. When a decision, not of acquittal, comes up for approval, it is indispensable that the judge -advocate-general .should Lave a personal audience with the queen. Her Majesty may not only disapprove, but may also order revision of the proceedings ; and where the conviction is sustained, the sentence may be remitted or mitigated, but the profes sional penalties which martial law attaches to conviction cannot be remitted. The members of courts-martial and those who carry out their sentences are of course liable for illegal sentences or irregularities. Thus in 1861, owing to a defect in the Acts regulating the transfer of colonial prisoners, Lieutenant Allen recovered 200 from H.R.H.
the duke of Cambridge for false imprisonment.In conclusion, it may be stated that treason and other non- military offences, which, if committed in England, would be punishable in the ordinary criminal courts, are tried by a general court-martial, if committed on service at Gibraltar, or in India, 120 miles distant from any cf the three presidencies ; or elsewhere in the queen s dominions, whcra there is no competent civil court, or out of the queen rf dominions.
Naval Courts Martial.—The administration of the barbarous naval law of England was long entrusted to the discretion of commanders acting under instructions from the lord high admiral, who was supreme over both the royal and merchant navy. It was the leaders of the Long Parliament who first secured something like a regular tribunal by passing in 1645 an Ordinance and Articles concerning Martial Law for the Government of the Navy. Under this ordinance Blake, Monk, and Penn issued instructions for the holding general and ship courts-martial with written records, the one for captains and commanders, the other for subordinate officers and men. Of the latter the mate, gunner, and boatswain were members, but the admirals reserved a control over the more serious sentences. Under the Act 13 Car. II. c. 9, the high admiral again received power to issue commissions for holding courts martial a power which continues to be exercised by the Board of Admiralty. During the 18th century, under the auspices of Anson, the jurisdiction was greatly extended, and the Consolidation Act of 1749 was passed in which the penalty of death occurs as frequently as the curses in the commination service. The Naval Articles of War have always been statutory, and the whole system may now be said to rest on the Naval Discipline Acts of I860 and 18G6. The navy has its courts of inquiry for the confidential investigation of charges " derogatory to the character of an officer and a gentleman." Under the Act of 1866 a court martial must consist of from five to nine officers of a certain rank, and must be held publicly on board of one of H.M. ships of war, and where three such ships are together. The rank of the president depends on that of the prisoner. A judge-advocate attends, and the procedure resembles that in military courts, except that the prisoner is not asked to plead, and the sentence, if not one of death, does not require the confirmation of the commander-in-chief abroad or of the Admiralty at home. The court has a large and useful power of finding the prisoner guilty of a less serious offence than that charged, which might well be imitated in the ordinary criminal , courts. The death sentence is always carried out by hanging at the yard-arm ; Admiral Byng, however, was shot in 1757. The Board of Admiralty have, under the Naval Discipline Acts, a general power of suspending, annulling, and modifying sentences which are not capital. The jurisdiction extends to all persons belonging to the navy, to land forces and other passengers on board, ship wrecked crews, spies, persons borne on the books of H.M. ships in commission, and civilians on board who endeavour to seduce others from allegiance. The definition of the jurisdiction by locality includes harbours, havens, or creeks, lakes or rivers, in or out of the United Kingdom ; all places within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty ; all places on fchore out of the United Kingdom ; the dockyards, barracks, hospitals, &c., of the service wherever situated ; all places on shore in or out of the United Kingdom for all offences punishable under the Articles of War except those specified in section 38 of the Naval Discipline Act, 1860. Under the Marine Mutiny Acts the royal marine forces are, while on board, or borne on the books of H.M. ships, subject to naval courts martial. In other circumstances the Articles of War made by the Lori High Admiral for the government of the royal marines are carried out by general courts- martial, district or garrison courts-martial, divisional and detachment courts-martial, courts-martial on the line of march or in transport ships, all held under the authority, mediate or immediate, of the lord high admiral. The regulations of these different courts in the Marine Mutiny Act are very much the same as in the case of courts martial for the land forces. Officers of both services often sit together.
See Simmons On the Constitution and Practice of Courts-Martial, 7th ed. 1875; Clode, Military and Martial Law, 1872; and Taring s Treatise on the Criminal Law of the Navy, 1861. The earlier writers on courts-martial are Adye (1796), M* Arthur (1813), Maltby (1813, Boston), James (1820), D Aguilar(1843), and Hough, Precedents in Military Law (1855). See also the annual Mutiny Acts and the Articles of War, and the articles Military Law and Navy.
born at the village of Villeneuve-de-Berg, in the province of the Vivarais, in 1696. His parents were poor, belonging to the peasant class, and were unable to give him what was considered a good education. But they were pious folk, adherents of the Reformed Church, against which the mosb ruthlessly cruel persecution was so long directed by the French Government. Brought up in the fear of God, and early acquainted with the Holy Scriptures, he began to show in his boyhood the signs of a high calling. He was eight years old when the Camisard revolt was finally suppressed, and nineteen when the infamous decree of Louis XIV. was published, declaring that all who professed the Reformed faith should be punished as relapsed heretics. Antoine, taken to the secret meetings of the persecuted Calvinists, held " in dens and caves of the earth," often in darkness, no pastor nor " prophet " present to teach or console, began, when only seventeen, to speak and exhort in these congregations of " the desert." The desire naturally arose in him to deliver the people, and to build up on solid foundations the church which was threatened with extinction. For this purpose he proposed four things as essential : regular religious meetings for teaching and worship ; sup pression of the fanaticism of the "inspired," and of the disorders to which it gave rise ; restoration of discipline by the establishment of consistories, conferences, and synods ; and the careful training of a body of pastors. To the execution of this vast undertaking he devoted his life. The scene of his labours for fifteen years was Languedoc, the Vivarais, and Dauphiny. His beginnings were very small
prayer-meetings in " the desert," attended by some half-
