The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-06-21 00:00:00

MR. GOURLAY.

The following letter from Mr. Goutlay to the pecker
of the house of Commons, was 'delivered to the Right
Hon. Gentleman yesterday :
—•

Prison-room, (louse of Commons. Jour 20, 1821.
Sit—According to your orders I an't visited daily by one or two
Doctors—the game who reported me of unsound mind. 1 trust
before the end of the Session they will &cant, and report me quite
the revers:. That they may know me the better, I talk to them
freely, and am sorry that there is not a window in my breast foe
them to see my heart, instead of judging by conversation only.,
They have not yet handled my head; and unless they ask leave,
I shall believe them to have more sense than mere phreneologista.
As it is an established fact, that " great wit to madness is allied,"
we shall not quarrel because of the first report. It was vc-y like
the act of a madman, to whip a Me . ber of your Honourable
(louse within the threshold; but so were a hundred deeds of
greater men than your prisoner, to say nothing of those of him
who should be an example in all things. I was, Sir, from in.
fancy, of a sanguine, speculative, and enthusiastic temperament;
and the concatenation of events conspired to heighten this. Just
now, six years ago, after being most cruelly, 1,1104 t unjustly, most
illegally, and nowt unnecessarily imprisoned for six months, I
was still more cruelly, unjustly. illegally, and unnecessarily, shut
up within the room of the prison for six weeks, by the cod of which
time, weakened and camp:rated, my nervous system was seriously
I injured; and being banished without proof of crime--banished
from a country where I had property, friends, good intentions, and
great hope of accomplishment ; 1 cime home to Engl..nd only to
discover greater misfortune, and to be exposed to the greatest of all
trials.—Four years, Sir, have gone by. in which, were my history
detailed, the wonder would be, how I had strength of mind, end
sufficient good principle to sustain me. It is only a month ago
since real comfort gowned upon use through a decision of the
Lords, which insured bread to my children, long most us.
justly withheld; and it is only within this month that I
have enjoyed any thing like unalloyed happiness, for these
mast four gloomy years ; only within this moadi that I have
felt assured that I may yet recover from trial, and make
• 'advantage of it. This, Sir, is Sunday—a day which I was
l'bred up. to bold sacred, and which 1 shall ever revere, even
as a civil institution. This is a day on which you ought
ito reflect seriously ; on which, treeing your mind from all
the fashions of men, you should think abstractedly of pure good.
nevi. 1 hove petitioned Parliament Oh great subjects, systentati-
I eally, for eight years ; and my petitions of the last four years have
been recorded in the Parliamentary Journals ; say nothing of my
private ionterns, in which I can produce documents to attest my
cor.zetness—accounts and correspondence regularly filed through
a period of upwards of twenty years ; say nothing of my having
been beset, for the greater part of this period, by law persecution.
and in every instance having come al conqueror ; say nothing of
any being shut up here, and reported of unsound mind, when the
very Doctors themselves will, by-and-by, be brought to a better
opinion -, say nothing of all thin—but take my printed petitions of
1020, 11321, 11122, 1022, and 1824 ; take these petitions, and let
me be judged by them. These petitions, Sir, will not only acquit
me from charges of being unsound in mind, but if you will this day
peruse them (and they arc not unfit for perusal this del)—if you
will on this day, stirred to truth and goodness, seriously peruse
these petitions, you will think me worthy of being heard at the bar
of Parliament : or if you would rather have it before a Committee
in this room, to plead speCially on the prayers of my petitions, to
answer to interrogatories, and to amplify. The subjects are out of
sight, the most important I'm inquiry of any which now concern the
welfare of England—l may say, the welfare of the world; poor law
reform, and emigration connected with it ; the improvement of the
British peasantry
earths;nd the spread of industrious, honest men I
throughout the
God.

I am your obedient grrvant,
ROBERT GOLTRLAY.
The Right Hon. the Speaker.