Star. — London, England, 1821-02-24 00:00:00

bear the motive of . resentment ascribed by that Hotion ra bl e Member to the Learned Judge—( Cries f to so grave a charge was preferred e• o ns t Learned--EMr. CRZEVEY: " I never made tr h charge:"J—lf the Honourable Member was 4:11* s j r t , retract that charge, it was open to him to do so s of No. no! and laughter.)--[Mr. C R EEVEY: M I retract nothing: I said no such ihing.l—" 1 am dthat the Honourable Member does retract Cries of No, no! and la ughter.) -1 do Terlihgalarg-e bsc o o that the charge was made-4 Cries of No; no.).— I do a , sett that th e Honourable Member did sa y "— MaSMYTH remarked that unless the words were tak en down it the moment, it was not competent for „ I Honourable Member to assert that they had been etchal, when they had been denied by the Member k o w hom they hid been attributed. The SOLICITOR-G ENERA L—" If the Honour? able Gentleman disavows the words"— ib M. A. TAYLOR rose to order, and declared, .b a r, having been present during his Hon. Friend's . qe ech, he could affirm, on his honour and conscience, that ne such word as resentment was uttered by him. H e %Omitted, therefore, whether it was competent f er t:oe Solicitor-General to assume that it had been 'spOke!)—( Cries of Order !) The SPEAKER -aid, that as the Solicitor• General • b a d used the word " disavove," he was not out of or der. By the word disavowed, it was meant, that the Honourable Gentleman had disavowed uttering the words in question, not that he retracted them. The SOLICITOR-GENERAL proceeded. The Honourable Member for Appleby had. taken an op portunity to charge intemperate conduct on the Learned Judge who was mentioned in the Petition, and bad referted to the proceedings of that learned person on the trial of a Member of the House. • Ile (the Solicitor-General) would ask what there was in the conduct of the Learned Judge on that occasion, which called for such a reprehension? As to the Merits of the publication which was the subject of that trial, there could be no doubt that it was of a m ost . malicious and malignant nature. All the Judges of the Court of King's Bench, even Mr. Jus tice Bayley, who differed from his Brothers on the pas.: of form, agreed that it was a malicious and tual 4 nant libel. But even on the point of form, the majority of the Judges concurred with Mr. Justice Best. Yet the Honourable Member for Appleby ac cused Mr. Justice Best of intemperance. When they talked of intemperance, what was the character of the Honourable Member who made such a serious c harge opal such slight grounds ?—(Hear, hcar.) As to the Petition of Davison, it contained an incorrect statea ent of the proceedings on his trial. When that person began to make an attack on the Gentlemen of the Bar, the Judge said, " I allow you the greatest latitude in your defence, but you must not make it the opportunity of uttering libels upon others." With that teproof the matter terminated. The Petitioner stated that he was then fined, which was not true; for it was in reply to this admonition, that extending his hand to the Judge, the defendant said, 4. If your Lordship has the dungeon ready, I will present you with the key." For that he was fined £2O. It was manifest that the object of the defendant was to be imprisoned for contempt, so that the trial might have been interrupted. To impose a fine was, therefore, the only course that remained to the Judge in order to preserve decorum. The defendant then proceeded to libel the first ranks of the country, and particu larly the Bench of Bishops, as disbelievers. For this he was again fined, and subsequently a third time. The defendant complained that he was embarrassed; bet the Learned Judge desired him to take his own time, and to pursue any legitimate course of defence in his own manner. This was a correct history of the proceedings at the time; and if the affair had stopped here, would the House have had a right to interfere ? But this was not all. The defendant ap plied to the Court of King's Bench, and the case was argued with respect to the law, the merits, and the hardships of it, with all the advantages that learning, ability, and zeal could give. The cases mentioned by the Honourable Member for Westminster, some of which applied to the question, and others of which were entirely irrelevant, were then quoted. The de cision of the Judges was unanimous; and unless the House of Commons made itself a Court of Appeal, both in law and fact, the Petition could not be suf fered to lie on the table—Weer) —particularly after the manner in which it had been defended—(Hear, from the Opposition). The prayer of the Petition might, indeed, be maintained by those who were of the opinion of the Honourable Member for West ininster, that every Judge, since the Revolution, had been guilty of a capital offence. Mr. LOCKHART expressed himself fully satisfied with the explanation of the Learned Judge's conduct given by the Attorney-General. He agreed that the Learned Judge had the right to fine ; indeed, he could not see how any man could doubt that an offence which was committed in facie: curia was punishable by fine and imprisonment. Mr. SCARLETT began by expressing his regret that he was not present when the Pitition was read, as he was, therefore, unable to pronounce any opi nion as to its merits. But if it disputed the power of 'tempt, he certainly ter; for there could ich power. He was co by the Petitioner, decided opinion upon t the Judge would •eventing a defendant, nal violating the rules listration of justice, or ion of the Law and did not possess such to any excess of it 'ht place himself in is would be grossly retence that he could ition; and surely in , e power to controul ye the power of pre not that also of pro indecency of contro _w and the Gospel ? observed as to the de an more strongly felt that feeling should the conduct of any c that conduct ap le sliouid, howcve., ,uch high authority with great diffidence; but that dif f idence could not . restrain him from making a few remarks upon a re cent case, where a fine was imposed upon a weekly Newspaper, for publishing certain State Trials, con trary to the order of the Judge. This wjss, in his opinion, carrying the doctrine of contempt much too far. The publication, with fidelity, of a trial in any British Court, was cettainly no offence; and there fore could not legally be construed into contempt: Tet in the case to which he alluded, the Journalist was fined for publishing a trial, without a charge of any want of fidelity in the report. Now, if it were allowable to punish a man for publishing a trial, he could not see why others might not be punished for reading it when published; nay, that any one who happened to speak of. whatever occurred in a Court, after the interdict of the Judges against publication, should not also become the subject of punishment. The principle upon which this fine was levied, was indeed such, that according to it there could be no end to the doctrine of contempt. But there was in fact no precedent whatever to sustain this principle. In any of the higher Courts of Westminster Hall, an attachment could be Lsued to bring any party be! fore it, who was conceived guilty of contempt ; but no such power belonged to any Court of Quarter . Sessions, or Special Commission. The authority , o f such Courts did not extend beyond its own limits as to contempt. The Special Commission alluded to had nut, in his judgment, any right to call a party before it for contempt of its order out of Court ; and having no right to call any party, it had no power to hear that party in his defence, and consequently no right to inflict the penalty to which he referred. Lord CASTLEREAGH rose to order, and sub mitted to the Learned Gentleman whether he was not, by going into extraneous matter, withdrawing the attention of the House from the question before it ? The other question which the Learned Gentle man was discussing might be brought within the re gion of argument in that House, but certainly this was not the proper occasion for entering into it. The House was aware that the Court of King's Bench had already decided against the Learned Gentleman's view of the question ; and, understanding that it was again to be brought into discussion in another Court, he thought it would not become that House to take it up at present. Mr. SCARLETT admitted, that if the case were sul judice elsewhere, he would have been wrong in adverting to it in that House. The ATTORNEY-GENERAL said, that it might be brought into discussion in another Court. ' Mr. SCARLETT thought not; and expressed a wish to know from his Learned Friend, in what shape it could he subiritted to the consideration of any other Court ? Still he would at pre.ent abstain from saying anything farther upon this question. Sir F. BLAKE objected to the Petition as too in flammatory, and therefore calculated to contribute to the alarming discontents of the country ; but yet begged it to be understood that he was a decided ad vocate for the right of petitioning upon proper sub jects, and in adequately strong language, and what language could be stranger than nolumus loges Anglia mutare ?—(Laughter). From his solicitude for the right of petitioning he voted last night, and he glo ried in the vote he had given, for referring the Peti tion respecting the misconduct of the Sheriff at Kil mainham to a Committee of Supply !— (Loud laugh ter).—He meant to a Select Committee, which ought to have been appointed, to inquire into and report upon the scandalous outrage complained of by the Petitioners; for if such outrages were overlooked, he should not he surprised to find another Cromwell taking military possession of that House. Mr. W. COURTENAY rose to remark upon his Learned Friend's opinion with regard to the fine im posed at the late Special Commission—(A cry of "he was called to order").—The Leat ned Gentleman ad mitted that his Learned Friend was called to order upon that occasion, in consequence of the irrelevancy of his observations to the question before the House; yet he thought that such observations should not be allowed to go forth unanswered; but he would bow to the judgment of the House. Lord CASTLEREAGH observed, that as no doubt appeared to be entertained by the highest legal au thorities in that House upon the legality of the Judge's conduct to which the Petition referred; and as the Court of King's Bench had solemnly adjudged that conduct to be quite correct, he saw no reason why the Petition should be received, or that that House should at all enter into the subject. If a defendant availed himself of the indulgence afforded him to make his own defence, to commit fresh crimes, was his attempt to be tolerated of committing still farther crimes, in the shape of a Petition to that House?— (Hear t on the Ministerial Benches.)—•lt would be quite inconsistent with the sound exercise of the right of petitioning to allow any conduct of this nature. The right of petitioning was a privilege which could never be brought into question except by its own abuse ; and, therefore, lie felt that he best consulted the preservation of that privilege, by opposing the mo tion for bringing up this Petition. He. had not heard the Petition read himself, but from what he had learned of its object and contents, he must consider it of a most exceptionable character; and as it re ferred wholly to a judicial question, which ought to be left to the consideration of other tribunals, he thought it not becoming in that House to interfere. It was to be lamented, indeed, that a practice had grown up of late years of bringing everything into the House of Commons, in consequence of the facility with which any man might find some Member to present a Petition from him. Thus the time of the House was unduly., occupied, and its functions di verted from their proper purpose. So much, indeed, was this the case, that upon a review of the month, during which the House had been sitting, no less than halt its time had been engaged in discussing Petitions.. The present then was a proper occasion, on which he thought it necessary, on the part of the House, to admonish the People that there was a lin& to the righ; of Petitioning—(hear, hear, hear) —and that the abuse of that right would not be tolerated. Mr. J. P. GRANT must protest against the doc-' trine of the Noble Lord, and was proceeding t.../ reply to what he concr:ived to have been said by the Noble Lord, when Lord CASTLEREAGII saw, that he had never objected to the right of Petitioning. 6,RANT tesuared, and thought the Petition should be accrivoth Lord CASTLERE.kOH timught that the Unice' should mark its sense of the Petition; by not having it brought up. Mr. BRIGHT was astonished that the question should be treated as a Mere question of law. Many Judges had done wrong, and he denied that Mr. Justice Best, though he might justify bithself by argument, could do so by precedent. This was the first time that a Judge had imposed three fines, and then annulled them. The doctrine of contempt, it thus acted upon, would lead to the most terrible oppression. There should be a Court of Appeal to correct the hasty conduct of Judges. The grievance had lately grown up, and was increasing. , He called on the Heise to have the Petition read and printed, and to have a Committee appointed to consider it. Mr. C. HUTCHINSON was disposed to believe that he had misunderstood the Noble Lord, who, he believed, had not read the Petition himself, and re lied on the opinions of others. Was it to be endured, that the Minister of the Crown should say it wa , enough to have the opinions of his Learned Friends, and not hear himself a Petition from one of the Peo ple ? The plain language was, that after the mea sures of the Noble Lord had goaded the People to madness, he would not listen to their complaints. He would be happy to find that he had misconceived the Noble Lord, Lord CASTLEREAGII said he had been miscon ceived in a most extraordinary manner. Upon the maxim of the Honourable Member, all Petitions whatsoever were to be received, and the House would have no discretion. Lord ALTHORP would have that confidence in a Member of Parliament, that he would not present an improper Petition. He hoped the Noble Lord would not object to the Petition being brought up. Mr. WYNNE said, that a 'Petition had been put into his hands by a Gentleman, complaining of a judgment of the King:s Bench, and he had refused to present it, as there was a constitutional remedy, by appeal to the I louse of Lords. In cases like the present, it was difficult to draw a tine; but if the Judge had done wrong, the proper mode was by im peachment, or address to the Crown. Mr. BERNAL thought the matter should not he rested on the mere question of right. He would not encourage disrespectful language ; but he thought the Petition should be read. Mr. HUSKISSON stated the usual practice to be, for the Member himself to state the subject of the Petition. The Petition stated, that after the Judge had obtained his end, to prevent the Petitioner from being heard, he had remitted the fines. Such a statement he conceived to be highly libellous. An injury would be done to the right of petitioning by receiving such a Petition. Sir It. FERGUSSON said, the plain and simple que,tion before the House was, whether this Petition should be rejected by that House, unheard, and un read?—(Hear, hear.) His Honourable and Learned Friend (Mr. J. P. Grant) had acknowledged that he was not present when the Petition was presented ; and he believed the Noble Lord and his friends were in the same situation, and that they had not even heard the portion of it which was read. And yet, said the Honourable Member, the Noble Lord dares err, the Noble Lord dares to come down to this House, and call upon the House, not only to reject the Petition, but to admonish the People against the exercise of the sacred right of laying their grievances before Parliament—. (Hear, hear, hear). If the lan guage of a Petition were decorous and respectful, it was a matter of course that it should be brought up to the table and read; and if afterwards it appeared to be inadmissible, it was still in the discretion of the House to receive or reject it. He trusted that :he Noble Lord would suffer the Petition to be read. Mr. G. BANKES thought the Petition ought not to be read, as his Hon. and Learned Friend (Mr. Denman) had stated that he was not prepared to propose any ulterior measure. There was another ground on which he objected to the reading of this Petition. It appeared from the explanation of his Hon. and Learned Friend, the Attorney-General, that some of the statements in this Petition were false. He objected to its being brought up, partly because it was inexpedient that such a document should lie on their table, unless some ulterior measure were to be founded upon it, and partly because it was false. Though he did not stand in that House as the advo cate of the Leatned Judge, and it would be unbe coming in him to assume that character, yet he could not help regretting that the name of that venerable person had been brought before the !louse in a manner which was so much to be deprecated and deplored. Mr. CURWEN said, that so long as.he had sat in that House, and singular as the arguments\were which were heard within its walls, he had never heard more extraordinary language than that which had fallen from the Noble Lord (Castlereagh) and the Honourable Gentleman who bad just sat down. The Noble Lord thought fit to admonish the People against the exercise of the right of petitioning, and the Honourable Gentleman objected to even hearing the Petition read, unless some ulterior measure were to be founded upon it. This was a most monstrous proposition, and still more monstrous was the doc trine, that the name of the Learned Judge ought not to have been introduced in that House, as if a per fect indemnity were to be granted to Judges to con strue or misconstrue the laws, as they thought fit.— He trusted that, 'whenever a Judge was to be found corrupt enough to pervert the laws, there would never be wanting bold and independent men in that House, who would bring their conduct before Parliament. He declared, that if this Petition, upon being read at the table, should be found to impute a base and cor- , rupt motive to the Learned Judge, he (Mr. Curwen) l i should be one of the first to reject it; but if, on the other hand, the Noble Lord persisted in refusing to hear it read, he should be compelled to vote in favour of the motion. When the Noble Lord (Castlereagh) talked of admonishing the People, and declared that this House was not the place for receiving their Peti tions, he (Mr. Curwen) must admonish the Noble Lord, that if this were the case,- there was a point at which it became the right of Englishmen to make resistance against the Constituted Author ities—(lkar, hear). No man who regarded the happiness and tran quillity of the country, would wish to say where that point was; but every man knew that there-was a point at which it was the right and duty of English men to resist—(Order, order from the ,Speaker) ; and he did say, unit the Monstrous and unconstitutional conduct of the Noble Lord, was calculated, in a most ilarming degree, to accelerate the period when re sistance would be virtue—Vicar, heory.—He still trusted the Noble Lord would not •,er-ist in prevent ing the Petition from being brow ;ht up to the table mid read. Mr. C. LONG said, that the expression which had fallen from . his Noble Friend had been much misre presented. lie certainly had used the expression of admonishing the People; but what he understoodhis Noble Friend to mean, was—that he wat desirous of admonishing the People not to pi e,cnt Petitions upon subjects which could not properly he inquired into in that House. Such was the obvious meaning of his Noble Friend's expression, though Gentlemen oppco• site had found it exceedin , Ply convenient for their own purpose to put a very different construction upon it—. (Hear, hear front the Oppositi9n).— He thought the House was bound to reject a Petition in which so fla grant an offence was imputed to the venerable Judge without the slightest found:l6ot* Sir JOHN NEWPORT said, the bialy onestion now before the House was—whether the ! . etition should be brought up?—and it would be matter of subsequent consideration, whether it ought to lie on the table. The Noble Lord and the fronourable Gen tleman opposite were not present when the Petition was presented ; they were ignorant of its nature, and were actually endeavouring to collect the contents of it in the progress of the discussion. It had been urged, that the administration of justice was not a lit subject for the controul of that House; for what pur pose, then, was the Committee of Justice appointed every Session? 1k trusted, that whatever might be the opinion of' the House as to its admissibility, when they heard it read, no objection at least would be made to its being brought up. The CHANCELLOIt of the nxctiEQUER said, that the only Petitions which were received as a mat te,r of course in that House, wete Election Petitions. All other Petitions were liable to be received or re jected as that House thought fit, and it would be found, upon reference to the Journals, that the House had exercised that discretion in a variety of instances. Indecorous language was a good ground of rejection, and in this case the language was admitted not only to be indecorous, hut lihellous—(No, tto, from the Op position).—lt certainly contained an imputation upon a Learned Judge, which was known or believed to be false by the Hon.. and Learned Gentleman who presented it, and upon that ground he thought it ought not to be received. Mr. DENMAN said, in explanation, that he had merely stated that the charges, if false, were libel lous. He did not say they were false; bit he la mented, from his knowledge of the Learned Judge, that a charge of this nature should be brought against him. He had, in his statement, suggested to the House, that this Petition might be referred to the Grand Committee of Justice, or to a Select Com mittee; or, lastly, that some legislative measure might be introduced, curtailing the power of Judges to punish for contempt. As to the legality of fining a defendant for contempt, he felt no doubt whatever; but the question here was, whether or not a Judge, in the particular case, having no precedent to go by, had outstripped his povveis, and was right in the exercise of his discretion ? After a few words from Mr. MARTIN, the House divided, and the numbers were— For the Motion 37 Agaitlst it ....Majority against the Notion —c.7 lONIAN ISLANDS. Mr. HUME said, that it seemed to be the princi ple of the Government at home to pay all the de mands made by the Government of the lonian Islands. By the Treaty of Paris, these Islands were to form an independent State, under the protection of the King of Great Britain. The Honourable Gentleman then entered into a detail of what had taken place since the Treaty of Paris, and stated that the whole of the expense of the Military Establishment had been defrayed by the British Government.. The Ho.; I nourable Gentleman then proceeded to mention the names of several Officers who held a number of situa tions under the Government of the lonian Islands.— There was one Officer, whom, perhaps, he ought not to name, but in this instance he must, that was the Honourable Colonel Stewart, who had not been out of England for eighteen months. These things were perfectly in contradiction to the Treaty which placed these Islands under our protection. We had been told that these Islands would he no expense to us ; but so expensive were the Stair of the Army and Militia, that they ought to be reduced. The Chief of the Senate had a salary of four thousand dol lars; now he believed, he got eight thousand dollars. Ile complained of their expending, as he understood, 80,000 dollars in building a useless Palace for the Lord High Commissioner, when there was a Palace before, and when they could not pay the expense of their Military Establishment. He also complained that the Order of the lonian Islands had been be stowed by the Lord High Commissioner, not on the first citizens of those islands, brit on- those who. had been subservient to the Lord High Commissioner. The expenses of the jewels of this Order, he was in cormed, would be 40,000 dollars. He understood that the immense income of the Colony was swal lowed up by salaries gilien to Magistrates, who then became creatures of the Lord High Commissioner, while formerly these offices used to be held by the most respectable of the inhabitants, wit s t any ex pense but what they were at themsWes.. These things, he was informed, were of suchlikature t h at the people were quite disgusted with -Our Govern ment. They ougLt to have an account Of all thdse extravagant services; they ought not to vote oile single shilling for the support of the nlitary Esta blishment of these Islands. He should be most happy to retract all he had said, if the accounts to be laid before the House slwald be found to prove them, to be erroneous. Ile then moved fa- an Abstract of the Revenue of the lonian Islands for 1: 17, 1 . 818, and 1819 ; and for similar Accounts of the Expen diture for the same period. _ Mr. GOL/LBURN lamented that the good old course had not-been pursued in this instance; which was to move fur-Papers, and then, when to comment on them ; but the Cetitieniat had made sonte commests tat Papeis which might fal s ify his own observations, • when produced, and whidi were not to he rectised to'bitn.:'The Hon. Gentienian had disclaimed nu& ktentii ! ifi c imputing artythi c tig 1 - )rsbitill to Sir r.WatitatUl4 but nothing entsid,,be mere personal than to charge an OACer with con.. ?. a Court of Law to punish for cont could not concur with the Pet itions 3 be no doubt. of the existence of sue tot present at the trial referred to o and therefore he could give no dec it, but could have no doubt that exercise a sound discretion in preve or any other person in Court, from established for the better administi from controverting every positier a the Gospel. If, indeed, the Judge t power, a defendant might resort regularity; for instance, he migF r , such a position towards the Jury a: intfelicate and indecent, under pret t Only defend himself in such a posii such a case the Judg e should have • him. It, t h en, the Ju dge should has c • venting personal indecency, why n Ifileting the moral and religious in venin g every position of the La‘ With iegat d to what had been ohs firelic e due to the Judges, no man ic ti 34 detei eaze than himself; but 1 mot real:till him from questioning r. 9ile or mole of the Judges, wheil Eh to be errone. , us. Eh iorAys express Lis &skin from bu