‘Highly Irregular Conduct’ and ‘Neglect of Duty’

In early spring 1845, a young Indian Navy officer by the name of Edward Charles Z. was embarked on the Imam of Muscat on account of his deranged state of mind. Lieutenant Z. had been granted a sick certificate that entitled him to three years furlough in England. He had served on several of the Company's vessels in India since April 1830 and was put on the sicklist in July 1844 on return from a naval mission to the Persian Gulf. At that stage of his career the then 28 year-old was keen to see the last of duty in India and yearned to be allowed to proceed to Europe on sick leave. However, he was thwarted in this by Company authorities anxious not to worsen the navy's pressing manpower needs. Z. developed symptoms of ‘mania’ or, as the certifying doctor in Bombay put it, on the refusal of sick-leave ‘his mental symptoms seem to have supervened’.

Further investigation by a medical committee on the authenticity and severity of Z.'s mental symptoms revealed several earlier instances of odd behaviour recollected by fellow-officers. While on duty on one of the Company's receiving ships, for example, ‘his Conduct had attracted the notice of every one on board’. Not only did he walk ‘the deck night, and day successively’, but he also one morning ‘fancied that he was to be hanged at eight o'clock’ and ‘attended punctually for the purpose and behaved in the most extravagant manner, when the hour passed and his anticipation had not been realized’. It emerged that Z.