burgess view of all cases disputed between civilian and soldier.
But that was when the peril was over.

Admirers of Lord Ormont enjoyed a perusal of a letter addressed by him to
the burgess's journal; and so did his detractors. The printing of it was
an act of editorial ruthlessness. The noble soldier had no mould in his
intellectual or educational foundry for the casting of sentences; and the
editor's leading type to the letter, without further notice of the
writer--who was given a prominent place or scaffolding for the execution
of himself publicly, if it pleased him to do that thing--tickled the
critical mind. Lord Ormont wrote intemperately.

His Titanic hurling of blocks against critics did no harm to an enemy
skilled in the use of trimmer weapons, notably the fine one of letting
big missiles rebound. He wrote from India, with Indian heat--"curry and
capsicums," it was remarked. He dared to claim the countenance of the
Commander-in-chief of the Army of India for an act disapproved by the
India House. Other letters might be on their way, curryer than the
preceding, his friends feared; and might also be malevolently printed,
similarly commissioning the reverberation of them to belabour his name
before the public. Admirers were still prepared to admire; but aldermen
not at the feast, squire-archs not in the saddle or at the bottle, some
few of the juvenile and female fervent, were becoming susceptible to a
frosty critical tone in the public pronunciation of Lord Ormont's name
since the printing of his letter and the letters it called forth. None
of them doubted that his case was good. The doubt concerned the effect
on it of his manner of pleading it. And if he damaged his case, he
compromised his admirers. Why, the case of a man who has cleverly won a
bold stroke for his country must be good, as long as he holds his tongue.
A grateful country will right him in the end: he has only to wait, and