the President.

"By no means, sir! I never was in more solemn earnest than at present!
Your honor, the President and gentlemen judges of the court, as I am
not counsel for the prisoner, nor civil officer, nor lawyer, of whose
interference courts-martial are proverbially jealous, I beg you will
permit me to say a few words in support, or at least, I will say, in
explanation of the vote which you have characterized as an opinion in
opposition to fact and law, and unprecedented in the whole history of
courts-martial."

"Yes, it is! it is!" said General W., shifting uneasily in his seat.

"You heard the defense of the prisoner," continued Herbert; "you heard
the narrative of his wrongs and sufferings, to the truth of which his
every aspect bore testimony. I will not here express a judgment as to
the motives that prompted his superior officers, I will merely advert
to the facts themselves, in order to prove that the prisoner, under the
circumstances, could not, with his human power, have done otherwise
than he did."

"Sir, if the prisoner considered himself wronged by his captain, which
is very doubtful, he could have appealed to the Colonel of his
Regiment!"

"Sir, the Articles of War accord him that privilege. But is it ever
taken advantage of? Is there a case on record where a private soldier
ventures to make a dangerous enemy of his immediate superior by
complaining of his Captain to his Colonel? Nor in this case would it
have been of the least use, inasmuch as this soldier had well-founded
reasons for believing the Colonel of his regiment his personal enemy,
and the Captain as the instrument of this enmity."

"And you, Major Greyson, do you coincide in the opinion of the
prisoner? Do you think that there could have been anything in common
between the Colonel of the regiment and the poor private in the ranks,
to explain such an equalizing sentiment as enmity?" inquired Captain
O'Donnelly.

"I answer distinctly, yes, sir! In the first place, this poor private
is a young gentleman of birth and education, the heir of one of the
most important estates in Virginia, and the betrothed of one of the
most lovely girls in the world. In both these capacities he has stood
in the way of Colonel Le Noir, standing between him and the estate on
the one hand, and between him and the young lady on the other. He has
disappointed Le Noir both in love and ambition. And he has thereby made
an enemy of the man who has, besides, the ne