The Express.
London, England, 1846-11-25 00:00:00

Now the instructions to Mr. Mott to make his report were
dated in February, 1842. Mr. Ferrand did not enter on his
duties as chairman of the union until the end of Marchselect
or
the beginning of April, 1842, and the report of the
committee showed that neither Mr. Ferrand nor eleven other
guardians who went into office with him, were guardians
when that letter was written. Was there anything to affect
Mr. Lewis in that letter ? He had intelligence that there
was something wrong in the union ; the remedy, could only
be effected by en order of the Poor-law Commissioners ;to
make the order there must be previous information ; and
erefore a letter was written, desiring Mr. Mott
there
to visit the union without giving the guardians t*
a special in-
understand that he came to make
vestigation. Ir had been objected that this letter had not
been recorded; but it was a private letter of Mr. Lew* and
the direction to record letters applied only to letters to and
from the comn.istioners collectively. Mr. Mott's report was
made on the 13th of April, 1842 ; sad, undoubtedly,
speak of orders for distributing the business of settlements
among the attorneys within the union •. but it gave the
dates, the Gth of May, 1840, and the 30th of October, 1841,
and showed, therefore, that Mr. Fernand was not in any way
implicated thereby. Did not this show that the slightest
exertion of his common sense would have shown to Mr.
Ferrand that there never could have existed an intention to
fabricate a report to his prejudice? On the 30th of April,
1842, the Poor-law Comutiesioners issued an order for esta-
blishing a labour test for out-door relief, and. even then Mr.
Ferrand was not on the scene ; but, on the 26th oft ice o May,
when the order had become known to him, h• gave not
a motion for an address to the Queen, ptsymg her to com-
mand the Poor-law Commissioners to rescind the order. Sir
James Graham then made some inquiries respecting the
Keighley union, and, on the report of Mr. Mott being com-
municated to him, he did that which was altogether incest
sistent with an intention to conspire with Mr. Lewis
to get a false report from Mr. Mott
John —he sug-
m
gested the propriety of sending down Sir Waltha
to ascertain the truth of Mr. Mott's report. Sir John Walsh-
am's report was made on the 9th of June. On the 17th of
June there was a debate in the House of Commons on the
second reading of the Poor-law Amendment Bill ; and in
that debate, according to Mr. Ferrand, some strong observa-
tions, extending even to an accusation of jobbing, were made
by Sir James Graham on the conduct of Mr. Ferrand.
ver-
It
was to be lamented that Mr. Ferrand had given his own
sion of what Sir James Graham had said, instead of the
words he had used. Was Sir John Walshaea's report before
the House of Commons on that occasion ? Whether it was
or not was immaterial; for Mr. Ferrand's complaint in his let-
ters wu, that Mr. Mott'', report was false, within the know
the-
ledge of Mr. Lewis; and that, to back it up, be had used
false report of Sir John Waisham. If the report of Sir John
Waltham was false, why complain that it was suppressed?
If it was true, then there was the report of a select com-
mittee of the House of Commons appointed to examine these
two reports, which affirmed the truth of both, as the latter
did that of the former; and expressly declared that Mr.
Mott's report was notimpesched in its most important allega-
tions, and that though some of the expressions therein were ge-
neral, it was accurate, with some unimportant exceptions, even
in its details. A fair and close examination of these reportswould
have convinced any even half-reasoning man that there was
no such conspiracy as that Mr. Ferrand
rts had charged, nor
such a contradiction between the repo as that on which
he relied. Mr. Ferrand might have examined, as to these
points, the witnesses before the committee of 1842, and he
was not the man to allow any clear right to be taken from
him. In the year 1844 he charged Sir James Graham, in a
speech made at Leeds, with having caused a malicious re-
port to be fabricated agaiut him, and with having broken
the tool he had used. Ile was called to account in the House
of Commons for that speech, and the House voted his state-
ment " calumnious and unfounded." That ought to have
opened his eyes to the truth. Instead of that., he brooded
over his resentment until 1846, and then availed himself of
the Andover inquiry, as an excuse for smiting his first letter.
Sir James Graham never had represented that Mr. Mott's
visit to the Keighley Union had been voluntary, neither had
any one else; and here, too, it was again to be regretted that
Mr. Fernand had not given the very words of Sir James
Graham. Mr. Ferrand said, now, that he had written the
letters because Mr. Mott's report was false, but that
be bore no to Mr. Lewis ; yet he could not
have used stronger expressions had his malice been ever
so great, for he charged Mr. Lewis with conduct that
would render him unfit, not only for the office of poor-law
commiseioner, but for the society of gentlemen. Mr. Lewis
now swore that he had not prepared himself by an inspec-
tion of documents for any examination as to the Keighley
Union. The whole ground of the charge against him was
the mistake as to the time when Mr. Alott and Sir John
Waltham were respectively sent to the Keighley Union to
report on its condition ; he never denied that Mr. Mott had
been so sent thither; and he never asserted that Mr. Molt's
visit had been voluntary. On these grounds it was that Mr.
Fernand had taken upon himself, without any malice or ill-
will be it recollected, to say that Mr. Lewis had been guilty
of most deliberate falsehood, and that if a witness at the Old
Bailey had been guilty of similar falsehoods, he would have
been packed off in the prison-van, and indicted for perjury.
Now Mr. Ferrand's affidavit must be taken to have been
deliberately sworn, and his letters to have been deliberately,
written. In the former he swore that he was not aware of
the existence of Mr. Jlett'a report, until it was produced by
Sir James Graham on the 17th of June, 1842. What
said the latter? That Mr. Ferrand's notice of the 26th of
May 1842. was founded on Mr. Mott's false report of the 13th
of April, in that year. Surely, then, Mr. Fernand, who
himself stood so much in need of charity, ought to have a
little charity with others. Was there a doubt then of the
right of Mr. Lewis to the interposition of the court ? Why
should the rule be discharged ? Mr. Fernand had not exhi-
bited any sign of repentance, nor any disposition to make
atonement. If the court did not make the rule absolute, if
it even paused, it would stamp Mr. Lewis with infamy, for it
would be believed that there was some ground for calumnies
which were founded only, in Mr. Ferrand's own credulity.
Mr. Lewis might feel, as had been suggested, that if this
rule were not to be made absolute, if this charge of the foulest
kind, • charge of a conspiracy to crush a member of the
House of Commons by a false report, were to have that
authority given to it which would arise from delay in making
this rule absolute, his usefulness as a public man would be
gone; but, and this was the answer to the credit claimed
for the publicity with which this libellous attack had been
made, he felt, that us a private man also, the charge that he
was " a foul and infamous conspirator," "a perjurer," and
a " suborner of perjury," must be his ruin, should it not be
met by the iuterposstion of the court.—Mr. Peacock, on the
same side, was not heard.
Lord Denman said that the court was called en to allow
& criminal information to be filed against a gentleman who
had, in published letters, made the strongest charges, con-
veved in the grossest language, against the applicant for this
rule. In excuse, certain circumstances had been set forth,
the object of which was not to justify these lettere, but to
show that they had been published when the writer was in
a state of mind that would induce the court to extend rea-
sonable indulgence to him. The complication of facts was
such that the court had been desirous of hearing a statement
of all the particulars of the case, and of looking into the
affidavits before it arrived at the conclusion that the defend-
ant was not in some degree entitled to its indulgence. But
after the fullest discussion of the matter the court was con-
vinced that not only was there not any foundation for the
charge of conspiracy against Mr. Lewis, but nothing in what
had occurred since that offered any reason for supposing that
the imputations complained of were justifiable. Notwith-
standing some degree of neglect on the part of Mr. Lewis,
and the misfortune that his letter to Mr. Mott had not been
properly recorded, Mr. Fernand stood without excuse for
publishing such libels as those which were now brought
to the notice of the court. It was not necessary then
to say more than that there was nothing to furnish a
reason for supposing that Mr. Lewis employed Mr. Mott in
say way for the purpose of injuring Mr. Ferrand, or that
Mr. Mott made any charge against Mr. Fernand which
would warrant the statements that had been made; or that
Mr. Mott, Mr. Lewis, or Sir James Graham, or any of
them, did take any improper Proceedings against Mr. Fer-
rand. Under these circumstances Mr. Ferrand stood
com-
pletely without justification for what he had done, and the
rule prayed for against him must be made absolute.—Rule
absolute.