1787-11-13 (static/transcriptions/1787/11/285.jpg)

military code, [ILL] is entirely criminal, & it is a maxim of our Law that penal Stats are to be construed strictly.
It makes men liable for offences not nicely defined – Immoralities, Misbehaviour, or neglect of duty, to any degree of corporal punishment not extending to Life or Limb.
A Court martial is the only Tribunal
A Court martial is the only Tribunal within the British Doms by which a man can be tried for a capital offence and punished with death, without being allow’d Judicium parium suorum a Trial by his peers.
All these rigour may be, and I believe are, necessary to the maintenance of discipline in an army, but all these