The Sun.
London, England, 1830-04-08 00:00:00

CHANCERY COMMISSION.

The Earl of ELDON said he had a document to lay
before their Lordships relative to bankruptcy commissions,
but should defer doing so till a day or two after the holy-
days. He would take advantage of that occasion to repeat
what he had before stated, and what had also been stated
by the Lord Chancellor, that the Chancery Commissioners
had discharged their duties as Commissioners gratuitously,
and many of them, too, at a personal sacrifice of profes-
sional emolument. He was the more anxious to repeat
this fact, as it had been confidently asserted in a recent
pamphlet, that the Chancery commission was a most costly
one, though its members, as he again repeated, had Ae-
ceived no pecuniary reward for their labours whatever.
MESSAGE FROM THE COMMONS.

Sir A. GRANT, Sir G. CLERK, Mr. CALCRA Fr, and
other Members brought up the Grand Jury Extension
Bill (Ireland), the Smugglers' Families' Alaintenance Bill,
the Elknhorough Divorce Bill, and several private Bills,
to which the House of Commons had agreed.
On the motion of Lord MELVILLE the private Bills
were forwarded a stage.—Adjourned to to-morrow, (this
thy.)

HOUSE OF COMMONS—(LAST NIGHT).
On the motion of Mr. HUME, returns were ordered of
the number of debtors who bad taken the rules of the
King's Bench and Fleet prisons for the last five years,
specifying their respective amounts of debt (classified in
hundreds), the fees they paid, and how these fees were
sanctioned by law, and applied. He stated his object to
be, to show how far these rules operated in prevention of
the settlement of honest debts, before the Insolvent
Debtors' Act next came under the consideration of the
house.

Mr. HUME also presented a petition from 500 or 600
operative stonemasons, who had lately met at the Me-
chanics' Institution to prepare a complaint of their dis-
tress. They prayed for a greater reduction of taxes; sn
abolition of sinecure offices ; a reduction of the enormous
salaries of the Archbishops and Bishops ; and a reform of
Parliament. He agreed in opinion with the petitioners,
and said, that were the reform once accomplished, the
other improvements would speedily follow.

LORD ELLENBOROUGH'S DIVORCE BILL. •
Mr. HUME, while concluding the presentation of the
Stonemasons' Petition, spoke as follows, in allusion to last
night's debate :—" Sir, it is not often that I trouble the
House with any matter which is merely personal to
myself, and I am of opinion that the greatest benefit re-
sults to the community from the utmost freedom of debate
in this House. lam likewise a man who does not care
much for the expression of opinion upon general questions,
thinking it just as well to leave that to be reflected upon,
and always confiding in my own intentions. I wish also
to state that no person can be more favourable than lam
to the full publicity of the reports of our proceedings ; the
utility of this House iu fact mainly depends upon the dili-
gent, constant, proper, and faithful reports of these pro-
ceedings—(Hear, hear)—and upon this point I Would just
say, that I hope my Hon. Friend near me (Colonel Sib-
thorp) will bring forward the motion of which he has given
notice, and in which he shall have my best support, to
obtain leave to suspend the standing order, and to Lave
the reporters regularly introduced and sanctioned, as well
as placed in a more favourable situation for the performance
of their duty ; where there will be less liability to mistakes,
and better means used for avoiding errors, than we can
well expect under the present arrangements. But what I
rose for is, to call your attention to a misrepresentation of
what took place here last night. I hold in my hand a
newspaper, which is, I believe, as correct a paper as any
in conveying to the public what passes in this House,
but which attributes last night an expression to the
Honourable and Gallant Officer opposite that certainly
was never beard by me. I had, I thought, paid the
fullest attention to what was passing here at the
time, and I do not believe any such expression was
used, for it would have been that extreme violation of
w the decorum of the House, which you, Sir, would not
have permitted from the chair, and which I certainly could
not have allowed to pass without observation. The ex-
pression attributed in this paper to the Hon. and Gallant
Officer is as follows he lie, therefore, that he (Lord
Ellenborough) had connived at his own disgrace, was so
monstrous, that he (Sir 11. Hardinge) threw it back
with scorn on its contemptille author.' I was the only
person who had previously spoken in the debate, and
therefore such a phrase, if used, could only have applied
to me. I can only say I never heard it, and it was only
this morning, when a gentleman brought me the paper,
and pointed out the passage, that I saw it. I said to him
then, as I now repeat, that no such expression was used ;
yet, as it conveys a personal reflection, and involves in
some degree the character of the House, by exhibiting a
violation of the courtesy which one Hon. Member is bound
to pay another in debate, I have no other course open
than to take this notice of it. Ido not mean to say that
the error in the paper is intentional, but as no other person
had spoken at the time than myself, no other could have
been addressed in such language, bad it been used. 1
hope, therefore, the Hon. and Gallant Member will say
how far this statement is consistent, or not, with his
recollection of what fell from him in his speech."
Sir HENRY HARDINGE.—If, immediately after I
spoke at the moment, the Hon. Member had no recollec-
tion of my using such a phrase, although he says he was
attentively listening to me, he will easily believe it is very
Probable I could not have used it. No such expression
was, in point of fact, used by me, as directed against him.
Certainly, I never could have so far departed from the
courtesy which one gentleman is bound to observe towards
another in this House, as to charge him with uttering a
notorious and unnatural lie. What I said was, as well as
I recollect, that the accusation against Lord Ellenborough
of having connived at his own disgrace was a foul calumny,
and I• threw back the unnatural lie upon the authors of it.
I use. the plural number, intending the imputation for the
authors of those calumnies out of doors, of which Lord
Ellenborough had to complain. What 1 did say last night
I rind reported with singular, ind:Led wonderful, accuracy
in the Times newspaper of this morning ; and there I
find the word " authors," which of course could not mean
the Hon. Member for Montrose. But at the same time
I do intend to accuse him of perverting the bearing of the
evidence in his remarks upon it. There is one error in the
concluding paragraph of my speech, in which I am stated
to have said, when speaking of Lord Ellenborough, " that
if it could be shown he had done any thing wrong, be
would be the first man to come forward and atone for it."
I said nothing of this kind as applicable to Lord Ellen-
borough, but with reference to myself. I knew Lord El-
lenborough could not come here to give explanations, al-
though I could. lam satisfied that as the lion. Member
for Montrose always bears every thing which passes here
with good humour, he will, 1 hope, as constantly find me
doing the same, and I should be sorry if he retained an
impression that I could have used towards him any ex-
pression so gross as that which he has mentioned here.
Mr. RAMSDEN presented a petition from Dalton,
praying that the Yorkshire Assizes should be held at
Wakefield.