The National Register.
London, England, 1812-03-08 00:00:00

MARCH 8.

o.:esee. a- -
Walsh. The record consists of an indictment, containing seven counts,
and of a general verdict, findiniihe pi-WO-fief penal—a-Mt charges; It,
was there further stated, that because the Court were • not satisfied of
the legal guilt, time was given to the prosecutor and the defendant till
the next sessions. It appeared, therefore, that no judgment followed
the verdict,—judgment was strayed; and such being the case, he was
astonished that it should have occurred to any Member to move vindic-
tive proceedings on such a business. All that appeared was, that Mr.
Walsh was found guilty ot what the Judges conceived did not amount
ta felony. If the case could immediately, and in the first instance, have
been argued before the Judges, he must have been acquitted. Mr.
Walsh had received a pardon, at least what amounted to it,—a warrant
of discharge, directed to the Sheriff. If a special verdict had been found,
they would have been furnished with materials for their judgment; but
now the record supplied none. Granting, that Mr. Walsh had commit-
ted a breach of a private trust reposed in him what had the House to do
wi:h it? The notoriety of the transaction could form no ground of in-
quiry. He trusted, therefore, that the House would not, from a desire
to expel a Member whose character might be bad, establish a precedent
which twenty or thirty years hence, when Mr. Walsh and his history
would be utterly forgotten, might be of mischievous tendency to poste-
rity. He then went into he case of the Christian Corporation—a case
elich was decisively.of a public nature, and bore not the slightest re-
semblance to th present. It was an institution established under the
charter of Queen Anne. Many allegations of a description entirely
false, were made to procure the Royal licence to extend tke subscrip-
tions—a large sum bad in consequence been raised, and in 1732, when
an immense debt was due from the Corporation, petitions were pre-
sented from the creditors and others, complaining of the flagrant rills-
condi: eof the managers. The House then immediately proceeded to
the investigation of elle case, as being one like the South Sea Scheme, of
high public delinquency. They were employed the whole Session in
Commieees on the subject; and aftev examinations and resolutions,
and reports, and additional reports, and repeated hearings, three Mem-
bers, Button, Grant, and Robinson, were expelled. So far was it from
beiug of a private nature, that seven Acts of Parliament were framed
relating to it; and a resolution was moved for an address to the King,
tor his Attorney and Solicitor-General (Sir Philip Yorke and Mr. Tal-
bot) to prosecute the delinquents. The Honourable Member then pro-
ceeded to state, that an abuse of private confidence could be no just
ground ot Parliamentary inquiry: that the House ought not to exercise
an inquisitorial power over private crimes. If it did, there were other
cases which, in his view, were equally flagrant with that of Mr. "Walsh.
Had not Members, he did not say of this Parliament, been found guilty
ot adultery, a crime still punishable in the Civil Courts, though not yet
is the temporal ; but had such criminality been urge4against such fl/411em-
hes for the purprese of expulsion ? If they were to proceed on this new
system, broached far the first time this night,—the system of purifying
the House,—why was not such a crime rendered cognizable math dr ju-
risdiction ? It happened frequently in Chancery, that persons on oath,
confessed in their answers, that they had committed the grossest friiiels,
and had robbed their wards and relations; and such persons were then
compelled by the Chancellor to give relief. If the present system of pu-
rification were adopted,—thesystem of examining into privateaffairs,—
must not such persons also be made subject to the authority of the
House?- The propoSed precedent, if established, would go to prove,
theta man might, for a private matter, be prosecuted, and tried, and
pardoned; and yet, after all, the House of Commons might be resorted
to for farther consideration of the ease. The Honourable and Learned
Member then concluded, by-stating, that it was from a sincere convice
tien that he could not concur in the present motion.
Mr. 13eritu its r supeorted the motion.
Mr. Firetz opposed the motion, on the grounds that it was not only
unprecedented, but was uncalled for, from the fact of its not being a
transaction connected with public measures.
_Sir Ines:cis BuitneTT did not know of any power claimed by that
House that was less open to abuse than that of expelling Members from
among their own body, especially if the 'House of Commons wept con-
stituted as it ought to be. On the expulsion of a Member, it it were
thought that the House had abused their power, he had only to present
!dins& to his constituents to be re-elected. If elections were fair, then
he could not conceive that any evil possibly could arise from the exercise
of such a bower, because the people would always have the ability to
correct in t':eir own hands. While, however, there were private bo-
roughs, and those boroughs made the control of a few, dangers from the
txercisa of such a power well might be apprehended ; but, nevertheless,
he wo
eirerntu____dm,aintain that the House ought to get rid cf a disgraceful
er 0! one who hdd contaminated himself so much that it would
be to their disgrace to continue him amongst them. By such a feeling,
PUblic bodies were or ought to be actuated; indeed, by such a feel-
,uigaact the Stock Exchange been guided. In 1809 Mr. Walsh was ex-
pelled the Stock Exchang
e, for having been guilty nf such nefarious
Practices, as to unfit him foe h Member of that body. Why should that
.House be actuated by different motives ? But Mr. Walsh, it appeared,
had bought his seat had ;kid for it five eioutand pounds. This fact
Was ascertained in
sio the course of his examination before the Commis-
sioners of Bankrupts, the five thousand pounds having been set down
r'''ong the as •
naturally sets of the bankrupt's effects. The (...ommissioners were
very
:rya, rninhov:t_i_otirrfo.grti, Itterised at such a discovery, and put off their further
purpose of obtaining information. The bankrupt-
cv , had been superseded, so that the examinatien had come