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Untitled Article
no peculiar facts to communicate ; our purpose is to comment upon what is already generally known . That this unfortunate man fell by his own hand there can be no doubt . As little can it be doubted that the motives which prompted the act had their origin in sources external to , and independent on , himself . Most military men who had found themselves involved in a similar entanglement would have been
likely to resort to the same fatal means of extrication . He was the victim of circumstances ; and of circumstances which only acted upon the common notions and temperament of persons of his profession . We do not mean in his , or in any case , to apologize for the act of suicide ; a man under the influence of religious principle can only commit it when reason is driven from her seat ; but neither sanity nor religion could exempt from feeling the temptations to which he succumbed ; and a very brief withdrawment of the counteraction would ensure their triumph .
He who , knowingly , presents to the mind of another a motive to the commission of murder , is himself a murderer . It avails not , for exculpation , that another hand pulled the trigger , or wielded the sabre ; the question is , whose will put the mechanism in motion for that purpose ? The arm has no more moral responsibility than the pistol or the bullet ; we must come to the mind ; and if that mind was influenced from without , we must come
to the external agency and the agent . And when the motive has not been presented for the immediate purpose of exciting to that particular murder , still if it be the result of a system which has been set up for selfish ends , careless of the incidental production of crime and suffering , we cannot hold them guiltless by whom that system was established , is continued , or might be altered . In this view , there are numbers who ought to feel that they are by
no means free from culpability . Some stain will attach , however much the quantum of guilt may be supposed to be reduced , by participation . But we think not of persons , —we refer to systems : we select-three of these , —the aristocratic , the corporate , and the military , —and we charge them with the death of Colonel Brereton . They murdered him . Would to heaven that he had beeu their only victim , or that he might be their last !
True , these are intangible agents ; they cannot be brought bodily to the bar of justice ; but there is a court in which they are amenable , and into that court it is that we summon them . They are the creatures of human society ; they are answerable to public opinion ; and when judgment goes forth against them , they may be disgraced , they may be fettered , they may be destroyed .
The aristocratic spirit caught Colonel Brereton in the toils of popular tumult 5 the corporate , instead of aiding his liberation , drew the snare tighter around him till he was helpless ; and the military spirit gave the victim his death-blow . Such is the nature and order of the causes which conspired for
Untitled Article
Who killed Colonel Btereton ? 131
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1832, page 131, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1806/page/59/
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