santamount to the purport of my private and hastily penned autograph
note to Viscount Palmerston -
The enquiry closed late on the evening of the 27th and yesterday being Sunday, while this morning is the time for the mail's departure, it has been impossible for the Executive Council to decide upon the evidence. On turning to Your Lordship's instructions of January 28th, to which I am referred in your private " and Confidential " despatch of August 2/et, I find myself enjoined immediately to suspend the Chief Justice from his office, "even through the habit (of drunkenness) should not be " proved, if adequate proof should be "given that on any occasion the Judge - has disgraced
his person and office
by publicly exhibiting himself in a
Dis
188
" state of evident intoxication?"
The whole of the evidence before
the Council is forwarded by the
Southampton present mail. Your Lordship (with
reference to the first charge) will
perceive that, by the testimony of several witnesses, the public attention
was attracted, on a most public
occasion to the condition
1
of
the Judge,
and that condition I consider was
drunkenness, whether it be further defined by the terms "intoxication", or
" very much excited by wine :
It has been proved that not
Only were
•persons present desired by other persons present to "look at the Judge and not to excite the Sudge
A
more," but that the matter formed
Seneral
subject of remark in conversation afterwards; and,
moreover, that a
drawing exhibited