Military and Civilian Justice in Eighteenth-Century England: An Assessment

1978 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur N. Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
North America ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Martial Law ◽  
Military Justice ◽  
Military Institutions ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Military

Opinion in the eighteenth century varied widely on whether or not “military justice” was, in fact, justice by the civilian standards of the day. Many leading legal commentators viewed the system with disdain. Blackstone dismissed military justice in these words:Martial law which is built upon no settled principles, but is entirely arbitrary in its decisions is … in truth and reality, no law, but something indulged rather than allowed ….Another writer, arguing along similar lines, wrote: “The moment … a gentleman enters the service, he waives the Rights and Privileges he might be entitled to as an Englishman.” It was generally believed that law in the army was deemed less important than order and discipline. A man who opted for the army or was forced into service left more than his civilian clothes behind: he abandoned the legal rights under which he had been born and bred.Yet defenders of military justice were not lacking, particularly during the last half of the eighteenth century. Stephen Payne Adye, who had served as Judge Advocate in North America, wrote a treatise praising military justice; and at the end of the century, Alexander Tytler, drawing heavily on Adye's work, did the same. Other writers occasionally complimented the army on certain legal practices they viewed as superior to civilian court procedures. Still, then as now, the arguments of the advocates of the military system were largely ignored — a reflection of the deep distrust of all military institutions in Great Britain.

scholarly journals The First American Public Utility

1928 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 9-11
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
North America ◽  
Public Utility ◽  
Great Demand ◽  
Water Power ◽  
Utility Companies ◽  
Dam Building ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

In 1711, Englishmen interested in news from North America were entertained by a representation of the efficiency displayed by Canadian beavers in dam building, engraved in the border of a “New and Exact Map of the Dominions of the King of Great Britain” on this continent. The map is in an atlas of Herman Moll, a prominent British cartographer of the early eighteenth century. The atlas is a recent acquisition of the Society. This particular map is in great demand by public utility companies, as the first historical reference to the production of water power in America, and copies of it, when they can be found, bring from two to three hundred dollars.

The Politics and Poetics of the ‘Scottish Gothic’ from Ossian to Otranto and Beyond

2017 ◽  
pp. 28-41
Author(s):  
Carol Margaret Davison
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Theatrical Production ◽  
Cultural Productions ◽  
The People ◽  
Private Correspondence ◽  
The Military

As Murray Pittock has cogently argued, the eighteenth century was ‘the historic battleground of the formation of Great Britain’ (1997: 1). In terms of Anglo-Scottish relations during this era, a shift occurred that saw the military battlefields of Culloden and Prestonpans give way to more intellectual battlefields and ‘culture wars’ (Moore 2003a: 46) where the question of national superiority rested upon the quality and innovation of cultural productions both ancient and modern, some of which, like James Macpherson’s Ossian, notably chronicled martial struggles. Nationalist statements proliferated about literature, especially at mid-century, such as David Hume’s comment in private correspondence in 1757 in the wake of the theatrical production of John Home’s Douglas (1756), that Scots had become, despite the devastating losses of their ‘Princes, … Parliaments, … Independent Government’, in combination with the fact that they spoke ‘a very corrupt Dialect of the [English] Tongue’, ‘the People most distinguish’d for Literature in Europe’ (1932, vol. 1: 255).

Some Attempts at Imperial Co-Operation During the Reign of Queen Anne

1927 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 171-194
Author(s):  
W. T. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Paper Money ◽  
Fundamental Causes ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
Sea Power ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Military

Recent historical investigations tend to push the fundamental causes of the American Revolution farther and farther back into the eighteenth century. It is, therefore, passing strange that the significance of the Canadian expeditions of the first decade of that century should have been neglected. These projects played an important rôle in bringing about a friendly co-operation between the continental colonies and the mother-country; they were no unimportant part of the military and naval phases of the war of the Spanish Succession; and they raised in a pointed way the whole question of sea power. In addition, the expeditions were used as pawns by the English in the diplomatic game, which eventually culminated in the treaty of Utrecht; they showed in a clear way the entire problem of imperial defence, as well as some of the tendencies in British and French imperialism in the early eighteenth century. Furthermore, such attempts at co-operation between colonists and mother-country revealed the superlative importance attached to colonial commerce by each of them, and helped create that most vexatious question of colonial paper money. Such a joint expedition against the French in North America was not only a contest between Whigs and Tories in England, but it finally became a struggle between the two great Tory rivals of the reign of Queen Anne.

Some Controversial Aspects Regarding Indoctrination

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 272-277
Author(s):  
Ştefania Bumbuc
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Educational Practice ◽  
Military Education ◽  
Pedagogical Action ◽  
Military Institutions ◽  
The Military ◽  
Cultural Openness

AbstractThe paper presents and analyses two facets of a controversial educational reality, emphasising the presence of this duality also in the military education. A lot of scholars argue that indoctrination is a reprehensible psycho-pedagogical action, because an indoctrinated person is no longer able to think independently. This is the exact opposite of education and ideals of education, which aim to endow people with rationality, autonomy and cultural openness. Other scholars, even some of those mentioned, admit that education necessarily involves a certain dose of indoctrination of young people, in order to ensure the preservation of the values of communities and organizations. In order to be able to function as a unit and fulfill its missions, the military institutions turn to indoctrination to some extent, proposing and imposing values and desirable ways of behaving on its people. This controversial educational practice must be made aware and kept under control in order to prevent major deviations.

What are those without faith doing in liturgical enactments?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Wolterstorff
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Way

Often there are, among those who participate in some liturgical enactment by saying the prescribed words and performing the prescribed bodily actions, some who are lacking in faith: they do not have faith that the doctrines presupposed by the prescribed acts of worship are true. Why do they nonetheless participate in the way described? And what are they doing when they participate? Are they just going through the motions? Is that possible? Or are they, for example, thanking God even though they lack faith that God exists and is worthy of being thanked? Is that possible? These are the main questions addressed in this chapter. The chapter closes with a discussion and appraisal of the sincerity movement in eighteenth-century England, whose members insisted that worshippers should only say what they feel at the moment; to act otherwise would be insincere. And insincerity is a vice.

scholarly journals A Cornish revival? The nascent iconization of a post-obsolescent language

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Dunmore
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Social Constructions ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Group Boundaries ◽  
South West

AbstractThis article considers the case of Cornish, a Celtic language that was in decline in the south-west of Great Britain from the early medieval era until the end of the eighteenth century, when its last recorded native speakers died out. At the point when a language under pressure eventually succumbs to forces of language shift, its role in representations of a distinct sociocultural identity might be expected to die with the medium itself. Yet a sense of cohesion at the group level has been observed to endure long after a shift to another language has occurred, with the obsolescent variety retaining a role in the maintenance of group boundaries. In situations of language shift, the meanings of such social constructions can change considerably, and the obsolescent variety may retain ideological associations with the group as an iconized symbol of identity. The analysis presented in this paper is based on an examination of the historical record as well as a synthesis of recent sociological research on Cornish. Attention will be drawn specifically to the manner in which the language has functioned as an icon of identity since the nadir of its decline as a spoken vernacular, through the ‘Cornish Revival’ of the twentieth century to the present day.

scholarly journals I.—History of the Names Cambrian and Silurian in Geology

1873 ◽  
Vol 10 (111) ◽  
pp. 385-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Sterry Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
North America ◽  
Upper Cambrian ◽  
History Of ◽  
Lower Palaeozoic ◽  
The Subject

It is proposed in the following pages to give a concise account of the progress of investigation of the lower Palæozoic rocks during the last forty years. The subject may naturally be divided into three parts: 1. The history of Silurian and Upper Cambrian in Great Britain from 1831 to 1854; 2. That of the still more ancient Palæozoic rocks in Scandinavia, Bohemia, and Great Britain up to the present time, including the recognition by Barrande of the so-called primordial Palæozoic; fauna; 3. The history of the lower Palæozoic rocks of North America.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document