The Sun.
London, England, 1837-02-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1837.

INTENDED RESIGNATION OF MR.
BUCKINGHAM, M. P.

TO THE ELECTORS OF SHEFFIELD.
London, Feb. 11, 1837.
My Friends and Fellow-Countrymen,—The time has at
length arrived when I feel it due to you to announce my in-
tention of soon resigning the trust with which you have ho-
noured me as your representative in Parliament.
I had hoped that the connection, which has now for five
successive years so happily bound us together, would have
continued for a much longer period ; and I indulged the be-
lief that, if cur wi:;l:es and feelings only were consulted, this
connection would still be perpetuated for many years to come.
flat an imperious and painful necessity denies to me, at least,
the power of gratifying my own inclination in this respect,
either with honour to myself, or with justice to you ; and I
therefore consider it my duty to surrender up the solemn trust
which you placed in my keeping ; and which, as I have never
yet neglected or betrayed, I desire to return to you without
stain and without reproach.
When the borough of Sheffield was first enfranchised by the
Reform Bill, you were induced—by some sympathy for my
sufferings in the great cause of liberty in the East--by some
respect for my character and experience—but, above all, by a
generous confidence in the integrity of my principles—to invite
me to become a candidate to represent your opinions and your
wishes in the Reformed House of Commons.
At that period I had not the slightest claim on your consi-
deration from any connection by birth or property, either with
your town, or with the county in which it is placed. I was
personally unknown to all, save one single indi,.idual, out of
the hundred thousand of its inhabitants, when I first visited it
in 1831. It was then that my appeal to its merchants and
manufacturers to join themselves to the thousands whom I had
previously aroused in other parts of the kingdom, to demand
the abolition of the Indian monopoly, and the opening of the
vast and teeming regions of the East to the enterprise and ca-
pital of the British trader, first won for me that approbation
and esteem which laid the foundation of our future connection,
and induced you to complete the honour you at first conferred,
by returning me, free of expense, and through the struggle of
a formidable cofitest, as your freely-chosen Representative.
At that period, as you are aware, I had the strongest reason
for believing that if the Administration by which the Reform
Bill was carried should remain in office, I should have that
justice done to me in the reparation of the injuries inflicted
on me in India which so many of the members of that Ad-
ministration and their friends had publicly declared to be my
due, and which they had blamed their predecessors for so long
withholding.
Relying on the sincerity of their professions—believing in the
integrity of their intentions—confiding in the honour of their
plighted word, as statesmen and gentlemen—l was justified in
believing that the lapse of a few years, at the utmost, would see
me reinstated in the independent fortune, which I had honestly
acquired by my labours in the East, and which was there arbi-
trarily destroyed for no other reason, real or pretended, than
that I had dared to defend the rights of my fellow-countrymen
in India, to freedom of settlement, freedom of opinion, and
freedom of trade ; by advocating the supremacy of the law, in
the verdict of a King's Court and British jury, over the mere
dictum of an arbitrary power.
If that property had been restored to me, or that compen-
sation granted, to which the leading members of the King's
Government, through the solemn decision of a Parliamentary
report (drawn up by two principal members of the present
Cabinet—the then President of the India Board and the pre-
sent Home Secretary, Lord Glenclg and Lord John Russell),
declared me to be justly entitled, I should have been placed
in a situation of sufficient pecuniary independence, to admit
of my discharging my public duties to my constituents, with-
out trenching on those private obligations which I owe to my
family—for whom I had acquired the means of making ample
provision—but from whom this provision was torn by the hands
of my oppressors.
You know too well the utter disappointment of all those
hopes, which the members of that Administration by whom
the report on my claims was drawn up, encouraged me to in-
dulge ; and you have witnessed, with as much surprise and pain
as myself, how, when the hour of trial came, they abandoned
me to the tender mercies of that very East India Company,
whose cruelties they had before denounced,—in total disregard
of their former opinions, and in violation of all honour, con-
sistency, and good faith.
In this state of timings, I have not the shadow of a hope that
the Government, as at present constituted, will ever afford me
the least redress. It is quite true that those very principles,
for the advocacy of which I was exiled and ruined, without
trial or defence, have been adopted by them as the basis of
their new charter for the government of India.—lt is true that
they continually assume praise to themselves for completing,
with regard to that country, those very reforms which I was
banished and ruined for merely recommending to be began.—
It is quite true that the present leader of the House of Com-
mons (Lord John Russell) publicly declared, after hearing all
the evidence on my case, that—" so far was my conduct from
being blameable in the slightest particular, that he thought it,
on the contrary, honourable in the highest degree, and equally
worthy of the imitation of my countrymen, and of the thanks
and reward of a wise and benevolent government." All this is
undeniable and undenied.---yet, in,the face of all this, the very
persons who were the first to lift the- cup of - hope to my lips,
have been the first to dash it`to the ground; and to make me
drain the cup of disappointment to the very dregs.
You, the electors of Sheffield, seeing all this, and feeling,
at the sight, an indignation which almost surpassed my own,
promptly came forward, and appealed on my behalf to that
British public whose battle I had fought in the East, and in
the defence of whose rights and interests I was trodden to the
earth and trampled under foot. You confidingly thought that,
though a Government had proved faithless, there would yet
be found a sufficient sense of justice among the people at large,
to make them ready to repair a deep and grievous injury sus-
tained in the advocacy of their cause. You imagined that the
inhabitants of Great Britain, who are now reaping so largely
the advantages of that newly-opened trade to India and China,
which Ills already saved the nation more than two millions
a-year in the import cost of its teas,—and the merchants and
manufacturers who are deriving the benefit of an increased
exportation of another million, at least, of' their wares, would
have promptly responded to your appeal, seeing that it was
made in behalf of an advocate, to whom no one has yet denied
the merit of having been an early, a zealous, a disinterested,
and a successful labourer for their advantage.
But though you so generously set the example in your own
deeds, of what you asked others to do, and though that ex-
ample has not been without its influence in some quarters, yet
you have seen that the united reparation tendered by the
whole nation, to whom your appeal was made, amounts to
less than a tenth pelt of the loss sustained by me in the con-
test for its rights ; and that as a substitute for the compensa-
tion which the Parliamentary Committee awarded, but which
the East India Company refused to grant, it is n holly insuffi-
cient to place me in that situation of pecuniary independence,
which their award would have effected, and without which it
is impossible that I should continue to hold the situation of
your representative, so as to combine a due attention to its
laborious occupation, with the fulfilment of those paramount
obligations which I owe to my family and myself.
Under these circumstances, the only course that is now left
open to my adoption, is to retire, for a period at least, from
public life, and devote the few years that may be necessary for
this purpose, to the acquisition of that competency,—without
the hope of which I should never have accepted the honour of
being your representative, and without the possession of which
I could never discharge my duty so effectually as I should
desire, or as you really deserve.
It is somewhat late in my life for me to begin the world
again ; but though I have seen nay fiftieth year pass by, I may
Cave many summers yet permitted the by Providence to en-
joy ; and as, .through your genereus efforts (followed by the
few whose sense of justice and sympathy for unmerited suffer-
ing induced theth to conic forward from Among the millions of
my fellow-countrymen, to add their names and contributions
to yours) a foundation has been laid, on which the moderate
provision that I alone desire, may, by my labours in another
sphere, be hereafter raised, I am not without a hope that,
after a few years absence from you, I may be permitted, by
the Divine blessing, to return in safety to the land of my
birth, if not again to be honoured with your suffrages, at least
to enjoy your respect and esteem.
I have never yet asked charity or alms from any living Icing.
I have led a life of as severe industry as any man that can be
named, and have never yet eaten, or ever desire to eat, the
bread of idleness for a single day. I have asked, first from
those who plundered me, and next from those who offered me
their protection, only the restitution of my own honestly and
l.ardly-earned property, of which I was so unjustly and cruelly
despoiled. But this reasonable and just demand Laving been
refused by the one, and resisted by the other, I have since
consented to receive, through your hands, the free-will offer-
ing which the few, who responded to your appeal, voluntarily
came forward to present to me, as some testimony, of their
sympathy for my wrongs, and their desire to assist in repairing
them : and I feel justified in accepting this tribute, from a re-
collection of the services which I have actually rendered—the
labour I have really performed—and the undoubted benefits
and advantages to the nation at large, which these services and
labours were instrumental in obtaining.
My actual loss of' property in India was 40,0001. in the com-
plete destluction of an establishment which yielded me a net
income of 8,000/. sterling per annum. For this loss, effected
by the arbitrary fiat of the Indian Government, without any
process of law,. I have appealed to the constituted authorities
of the King's government, by whom I was first encouraged to
make the appeal, and by them I have been refused all redress.
From the hands of a few public-spirited and generous indivi-
duals, you have obtained for me a sum which, when invested
in the public securities, will confer on me a pension for life of
something less than 2001. a year ; and if it be thought that all
my labours and sacrifices are amply compensated by, such a
grant as this, coming from a whole nation, in the full enjoy-
ment of millions of annual profit from the opening of ot;r
Eaitern trade—it is not for me to say more than this ; that to
you, the electors of Sheffield, who first originated, and to the
noble and high-minded governor-general of India, Lord Wil-
liam lientinck, and those Members of Parliament who sup-
ported him in following up, at the public meeting in London,
the object of your wishes, as well as to all those Peers and
commoners, merchants, and others, who, in different towns
of England, Scotland, and Ireland, have enrolled their names
in the list of contributors to the pension or annuity proposed,
I shall ever feel grateful ; and they themselves will always
have the satisfaction of remembering, that if a debt were due
to me for labours done and losses sustained, they have, at
least, discharged far more than their respective shares of it,
as the whole sum, if paid out of the public funds of the East
India Company, or the Exchequer, would have been imper-
ceptible in the amount that could be assigned to each indivi-
dual contributor.
To the public provision, or pension, thus conferred on me
as the voluntary offering of the few whose sense of justice rose
superior to their veneration for power, and whose generosity
was not exhausted in mere expressions of sympathy and regret, i

I shall endeavour, by my private labours, to make such addi-
tion, as the few years yet before me, will enable me to accom-
plish : and as my wrongs have excited as extensive an interest in.
America as in England, and led to the.very pressing invitations
from distinguished citizens of the United States, off 'ring me
a cordial and hospitable reception on their shores, it is my in-
tention, as soon as I can complete the necessary arrangements
for that purpose, to accept those invitations, and bend my
course across the Atlantic, towards a country in which, happily
for its inhabitants, such oppressions as I have suffered from
the despotic rulers of the East, would never have been en-
dured by its legislature or its people, to fall on the head of a
single citizen, without their demanding, and obtaining for him,
instant and ample redress.
The time that I may pass there, however long it may he, will
not be sufficient to diminish the interest I shall always feel in
the prosperity and happiness of the land of my fathers—though
now, for a time at least, no longer the land of my home. Nor
is it probable, should I ever be permitted to return from thence
when my labours may be closed, that I shall then be less at-
tached than now to those great principles of freedom which
there flourish in full vigour—which I have loved and cherished
in early life with an ardour that no length of time has yet
diminished, and no extent of suffering has yet been able to
destroy.
In looking back over the years that I have been honoured
with your confidence, I am happy to find that in all the great
questions of humanity, and of moral and social improvement,
which have been brought before Parliament, I have taken my
full share of the labours they required ; arid that while I have
ever been ready to give my voice and vote in favour of every
measure for the advancement of civil and religious liberty, it
has been to questions of a less political character, that my per-
sonal attention has been most pal ticularly directed.
In the opening of our commerce with the rich and populous
East—in the extinction of slavery in the West—in the abolition
of impressment in our navy, and of flogging in both branches
of the public service—in the diminution of intemperance, and
the abatement of the crime and misery of which this is the
principal source—in the promotion of education—in the re-
moval of civil and political disabilities imposed on persons of
different religious distinctions—in the relief of literature and
knowledge from heavy taxes and imposts—in the promotion of
free and unfettered commerce, as the best security for abund-
ance and peace—in the establishment of places of healthy and
cheerful recreation, and of useful and entertaining instruction
for the labouring population onshore—and in the advancement
of measures for the preservasion of life and property at sea—
in all these I have taken a part, of which, I hope that you, my
constituents, will not be ashamed ; and which I only regret my
inability still to follow up, for want of those means of which I
have been deprived ; but the continued pursuit of which, in
whatever position of life my future lot may be cast, will be to me
a pleasure of the highest kind.
As a dissolution appears to be thought so near at hand, I
shall best consult your interests, perhaps, by not immediately
resigning my seat, but retaining its possession until such disso-
lution may arrive, so as to spare you the expense and excite-
ment of a contest before it comes, and to afford you ample
time to select, in the interval, an individual worthy of your
choice. That many of nobler birth, of ampler fortune, of
greater talents, of more varied attainments, and of higher me-
rit than myself, will be found, I do not for a moment doubt.
But one more zealous to do you service—one more faithful to
your interests—or one more grateful to you for friendships,
honours, and kindnesses bestowed, you will not easily discover.
Whoever may be my fortunate successor, I can wish him no
prouder distinction than that he may be really worthy the con-
fidence and approbation of a constituency as intelligent, as
upright, and as independent as any that ever yet were en-
trusted with the exercise of the electoral franchise.

I am your sincere and faithful friend,
35, St. James's-street. , J. S. BUCKINGHAM.

PARLIAMENTARY DIVISION.

MEMBERS QUALIFICATION.

(From the Votes and Proceedings of the House of Commons.)
TUESDAY, FEB. 14.
Motion made, and Question proposed,—`
to bring in a Bill to abolish the Property Qt
of Parlament :"—The House divided:—
MINORITY—AYES,
Grote, G.
Gully, J.
Hall, B.
Hastic, A.
Hawes, B.
Hawkins, J. H.
Hector, C.
Holland, F.dward
Hume, Joseph
Hutt, William
James, \V.
.Jervis, J.
Lister, E. C.
Lushington, C.
Lynch, A. H.
IPLeoil, R.

That Leave bo given
►lification of Members

Adam Admiral
Attwood, I'.
I3agshaw, John
Baines, E.
Barclay, David
Barnard, K G.
Beauclerk, Major
Bernal, It.
Blackburne, J.
Blake, M. J.
Bodkin, John James
Bowring, Dr.
Brabazon, Sir W. J.
Brady, 1). C.
Bridgman, H.
Brotherton, J.
Buckingham, J. S.
Buller, C.
Bulwer, E. E.
Butler, Hon. P.
Campbell, Sir J.
Chalmer,, P.
Chichester, J. P. B.
Clay, W.
')ivett, E.
lltinconabe, T. S.
Ebrington, Viscount
,Elphinstone, Iltmard
Ewart, W.
Finn, W. F.
Fitzsimon, C.
Fort. John
Gaskell, D.
Dillon, W. 0.
Grattan, H.

Ponsonby, J.
Potter, It.
Poulter, J. S.
Power, J.
Pryme, G.
Roche, W.
Roclie, D.
Roebuck, J. A.
Ruthven, E.
Scholefield, J.
Sharpe, General
Steuart, R.
Stratigways' J.
Strickland, Sir G.
Strut, Edward
Stuart, Lord Dudley
Stuart, W. V.
Talfourd, T. N.
Tancred, H. W.
Thompson, Colonel
Thorneley, Thomas
Tulk, C. A.
Villiers, Charles P.
Wakley, Thomas
Walker, C. A.
Wallace, IL
Warburton, H.
Ward, H. G.
Whalley, Sir S.
White, S.
\Vilks, J.
Williams, W.
TF.T.I.E NS.
Molvsworth, Sir W.
Leader, John Temple

Maher, John
Marjoribanks, S.
Marshall, W.
Marsland, H.
Mullins, F. V.
Murray, J A.
Nagle, Sir It
O'Brien, C.
O'Connell, D.
O'Connell, J.
O'Connell, H. J.
O'Connell, Morgan
Oliphant, L.
Ord, W.
Oswald, J.
Palmer, General
Parrott, J.
Pattison, J.
Philips, M.

A insworth, Peter
Alston, Rowland
Ashley, Lout
A ttwood,
.h.seph
Barclay, Charks
Baring, F. T.
BAring, T.
Beckett, Sir J.
Bentinck, Lord G.
Bethell, R.
Hewes, T.
Blackstone, W. S.
Bonham, F. It.
Borthwick,
&artist/in, 'l'. W.
Brownrigg, J. S.
Bruce, C. L. C.
Byng, G. S.
Canning, J. C.
Canning, Sir S.
Chisholm, A. W.
Clerk, Sir G.
Clive, It. H.
Colborne, Ridley
Cole, lion. A.
Collier, J.
Compton, 11. C.
Conolly, Colonel
Corry, Right Hon. H.
Cowper, \V. F.
Crawley, S. •
D'Albiac, Sir C.
Dunkin, Sir It.
T. 1).
Duncombe, W.
Eastnor. Viscount
Eaton, Richard J.
Egerton, Lord F.
Fancourt, C.. 1
rector, John Millet
Feildeni W.
Fitzslinon, N.
Fleetwood, H. TELLRES.
Follett, Sir W. W. Trevor, Hon. A.
Forster, C. I Maclean, D.
Mr. orseman paired off in favour of Sir W. Molesworth's mo-
tion with Mr. W. Gladston.

,JORITY—NOES,
Freshfield, J. W.
(:asked, J. M.
Gordon, IL
Graham, Sir James
Greene, T.
Grey Sir G.
Griinston, Viscount
Grimitone, E. H.
Halton], H.
Halse. Jame.
Hamilton, Lord C.
Handley, H.
Hardy, J.
Harland, W. C
Heatheota, G. J.
Ilenr,ikcr, Lord
Hinde, J. IL
Hodges, T. L.
Hogg, J. %V.
liotham, Lord
Howard, It.
Howard, P. H.
Howick, Lord
Humphery, J.
irton, S.
Jackson, J. D.
Jephson, C. 1). 0.
Jones, Theobald
Kerrison, Sir E.
Kirk, P
Knight, H. G.
Law. Hon. C.
Lawson, A.
Letevre, C. S.
Lefroy, A.
Lefroy, Dr. T.
Lewis, D.
Longfieki, It.
Lucas, E.
Lygon, Hon. Gen.
Mackinnon, W. A.
Manic, Pox
Miles, W.
M.rdaunt, Sir J.
Nichol!, J.

Norreys, Lord
North, F.
0' r•errall, More
Osiulston, Lord
Parker, J.
Patten, Wilson
Perceval, Colon 1
Phißims, C. M.
Plumptre, J. P.
Pringle, A.
Reid, Sir J.
Richard., J.
Richards, R.
Itickford, W.
Robinson, G. R.
Ross, C.
Ilushbrook, Robert
Russell, Loud John
Sanderson, R.
Sandon, Lord
Scott, Sir E.
cou rfi d , W. H.
Shaw, F.
S' °pliant T.
Shirley, E. J.
Somerset, Lord G.
St,mlev, E. J.
Stewart, J.
Stint, H. C.
Trevor, Hon. G. R.
Trouhridge, Slr T.
Vere, Sir C. B.
Vesey, lion. T.
Vyvyan, Sir It.
Walter, J.
Williams, Robert
Wilson, Henry
Wood, Colonel T.
Wortley, Lord
Wortley, J. S.
Wynn, C. W.
Young, G. F.

In the division of the Stafford Borough, James Bradshaw and
Henry Combs Compton are to be inserted in the Ayes, and Robert
Bitldu!ph to be inserted instead of George Grote in the Noes.

LLOYD'S SHIPPING.--(THIS DAY.)

DRAT, FED. 14.—Wind moderate.—Arrived the Catherine
Elizabeth, ----, from Demerara ; Druid, Treadwell, from
London ; Edwin, Robinson, from Pernambuco ; Sarah, Phil-
lips, from Hastings, and Milmiod, White, from ditto.
PORTSMOUTH, Fan. Lt.—Wind W. S. W., fine.— Arrived
the Mary, Brown, from Cork. Sailed the Speedy, Willis,
from St. Michael's.

FALMOUTH, FEB. 13. —Wind W. S. W., strong breezes and
squally, with rain. Arrived the George Canning, Winn,
from Bombay, sailed Oct. 10th ; Ascension, 4th ult.
MARGATE, FEB. 14.—Arrived the Elizabeth, Thomson, from
Berbice.

ISLE OF WIGHT, FED. 14.—Arrived off the City of Edin-
burgh, Frazer, from Madras, sailed 26th Oct. ; Cape, 16th
Dec., and St. Helena, 28th Dec.
LtvElooot, Fan. 13.—Wind W. S.W.—Arrived the James
Winter, —, from Buenos Ayes ; Madonna, Smith, from
Bahia ; Royal Mint, Kennedy, from Jamaica; Hopkinson,
Taggart, from Demerara; Isabella, —, from ditto; Ma-
rengo, Dickenson, from New Orleans; Benjamin, Morgan,
from ditto ; Citizen, Thorp, from ditto ; Michigan, Badger,
from ditto ; New London, —, from ditto ; Frankland,—,
from ditto ; Henry Kuelland, —, from Savannah ; Minerva,
Hannah, from Odessa, and Mensagero, —, from Corunna.
CORUNNA.—Arrived the Defiance, Hiscock, from Leghorn,
towed in dismasted.

On the night of Monday, the 30th ult., about
six o'clock, as the ferry-boat was leaving the pier of Cromarty
for the opposite side, Mr. M. Ross, who had accompanied one
of the passengers to the quay, missed his footing in the dark-
ness, and fell over. The ferrymen had hoisted sail, and the
boat was scudding away from the land ; but on hearing the
plunge, John Ross, better known as John Minister, a boatman
from Nairn, who was fortunately among the passengers at the
time, leaped overboard, and, guided to Mr. Ross, in the
extreme darkness by a low gurgling sound, he succeeded in
laying hold of him. The evening was stormy, and the sea ran
high, but though much impeded by his clothes, and no very
skilful swimmer, the brave fellow retained his hold of Mr.
Ross, who had been stunned by the fall, until they were both
picked up by the ferrymen. Ere this, however, more than
ten minutes had been suffered to elapse in the confusion of the
accident, and Mr. Ross, who was in a state of much exhaus-
tion, was carried to a neighbouring house, where he recovered
in the course of the evening. His deliverer, accustomed to a
life of hardship, and who seemed to regard his exertions on the
occasion as mere matters of course, seemed nothing the worse
for his immersion.—lmverness Courier.

Rice Evans, Arwddalan, Breconshire, a tenant of
H. P. Evans, Esq., has absconded, and is suspected to have
previously forged cheques and bills, on the Builth and Pres-
teigu Banks, to the amount of 1301.—Hereford Times.

STRADILLA.—It is related of this extraordinary
singer that by the display of his vocal powers, he produced
such an impression upon two bravoes sent to despatch him
that they threw themselves at his knees, confessed their foul
intent, and demanded his forgiveness. This incident has been
dramatised at the Theatre du Palais Royal, in Paris, with
considerable success. Achard is the vocalist who represents
the great Italian tenor,

13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH-STREET.
THE SUBSCRIBERS TO BURKE'S

HISTORY OF THE LANDED GENTRY,
are respectfully informed that the 13th Part is now on sale,
and that the THREE CONCLUDING PARTS will appear in
quick succession. Orders for the completion of sets should, there-
fore, be sent early to the Booksellers.
Henry Colburn, Publisher, 13, Great Marlborough-street.