The Sun.
London, England, 1831-02-11 00:00:00

THE RECORDERSHIP OF DUBLIN.

Mr. SHAW, in moving for the papers of which be had
given notice, said that the document which gave occasion
to his present motion was rather a mockery of the rights
of petitioning, than any thing like a serious design to ef-
fect any public or useful object. The petition purported
to be a petition from the prisoners confined is the gaol of
Newgate in Dublin, when substantially the petitioner was
no other than a single individual named Joseph Andrew
Macdonnell. Now, at the time referred to in the petition
there was no such person in the prison, nor for a month
previously, as he was enabled to chew from the certificate
of the Governor. Iu that petition it was alleged that se-
veral persons were confined in the gaol of Newgate, and
were kept there, though ready for trial—were kept in
prison, and could not be tried in consequence of his (the
Recorder's) absence from Dublin. What was the fact ? At
the time when that assertion was made, there was not a
prisoner remaining in the gaol except two, and they were
not prepared. He was not one hour absent from Dublin
during the confinement of any one of the petitioners, or
rather of the persons who signed a petition that virtually
came from Macdsnnell, who, though he was a Catholic,
and never professed any other religious forms of church
discipline, nevertheless made it a matter of complaint that
there had been some delay in the coming of a Protestant
Clergyman, for whom he had sent. In strictness, Mr
Blacker was not bound to come, for he was not the chap-
lain of the prison—he was merely the City Chaplaim ; yet,
when he did come, Macdonell laughed, and said he would
petition. The next charge was made against the medical
officers of the establishment. The petitioner stated, that
the said officers refused to come to his assistance, though it
had been represented to them as a case of life and death—
that, in fact, there was danger that he might die within
the hour ; though in truth and in fact, he was, during
the entire term of his imprisonment, in perfect health.
He had also been informed that the brother of this Mac-
lt
tletadd, oaffnedretti!ebail
etnoctehaedAmlai
tgtiisntgraot ef by whom
il, the
Ahleagwisa-s
celooitninmeli
trate agreed to accept the security offered, but Macdonnell
refused, and expressed his desire to be sent to prison, saying
that he had his reasons for wishing to be sent, for that he
wanted to bring over the Recorder from London to try
him, and that he would make the medical men and the
Chaplain attend, or else have them dismissed through the
instrumentality of the Hon. Member for Clare. Mac-
donnell was, when first sent to prison, placed at the
debtors' side, but was there so unmanageable that there
was no permitting hint to remain. He was knocking
down every one who came in his way; barring out the
turnkey ; setting fire to the furniture, and, in short, so
conducting himself, that it became absolutely necessary to
remove him to the felons' side, which was the object
he had in view, intending then to prevail upon the
prisoners there to sign a petition praying for a repeal
of the Union.—(A laugh. )_When be was brought
into Court, he endeavoured to raise a mutiny in the dock,
and exerted himself to prevail upon lain fellow-prisoners to

.111. v e three c'h 2tsforki repeal of the Union. His appear-
ance on that occasion was certainly most extraordinary,
and possibly that very extraordinary appearance might
have excited the sympathy of the Hon. Member ;—the
prisoner wore a loose coat, a coloured shirt, no neckcloth,
his face distinguished by a superabundance of hair, and his
person otherwise decorated with the insignia of liberty.__
(A laugh.) He must be permitted to observe that Hon.
Members ought not to take representations of this nature
without something like investigation—the petition was, on
the face of it, without probability. The Hon. and
Learned Gentleman then went on to observe, that ht t
the Hon. Members (for Clare and for Middlesex) were
misinformed with respect to the sittings of the Quarter
Sessions in Dublin--they sat quarterly, and might adjourn
for six weeks at a time, as they saw fit ; the Recorder had
no power to alter those. It had been charged against
him, that when, elected to the office of Recorder, he
pledged himself to sit for three days in every week ; to
as
permitted a bar-
rister
that he begged to give the most unequivocal contradic-
tion—what he did say was in reference to the Act which,
him
moh within
ibtiotinpgratel:
practise on his jurisdiction
Recorder
circuitfrom
judge,practising
and in his chambers.-_
He said that he would not avail himself of the per..
mission which that Act afforded him ; he thought
it would better consist with the dignity of the judicial
office not to practise as a barrister either on circuit
or in chambers—to say nothing of that abstinence
from private practice enabling him to devote more time to
his official duties.—(Hear, hear. )—There was another
topic to which he thought it important to advert, namely,
what had been said on the subject of his support of the
late Government. He denied that he ever came into the
House for any such purpose. He certainly would support
the present Government so long as it proved itself worthy
of the confidence of independent Members; but no longer
should any Government have support of his beyond the
moment when that support could not be given with inde-
pendence and consistency. The whole of what had been
said with respect to his salary he set at perfect defiance.
He received and held his situation in perfect indepen_
dence of the Crown : it was a judicial office, and one
which he should be sorry to see degraded, by its holder be-
coming a quarterly mendicant at the Castle for his salary,
or applying for it annually in that House. If the Re-
corder of Dublin was to be excluded from that House,
let the proceeding be adopted on principle, but let not him
be made the object of a personal enactment. He con.
eluded by moving for a return of all prisoners in custody
and tried during the Recordership of Sir Jonas Greene,
and the present Recorder, and those during the same pe-
riod remaining for trial, with the number of adjournments
and sittings respectively, with the number of traversers and
prisoners held to bail at each General Quarter Sessions,
showing those during that period which had been untried
in consequence of the absence of the Recorder ; also, co-
pies of warrants issued for the augmentation of the salary
of Recorder of Dublin, under the 48th of George 111., c.
140, and the sth of George IV., cap. 150.
O'GORMAN MAHON seconded the motion. The
petition was, as the Hon. Gentleman had said, that of
John Andrew M‘Donnell ; but it bore the signature of
fifty other persons. Of M'Donnell himself he knew no-
thing. But he knew that person to belong to one of the

first families in Ireland. Having received from him a let-
ter, stating that he was in a gaql in Dublin, suffering
confinement for a crime of which he knew himself to be

innocent, demanding a trial, and unable to obtain one—
and stating that others were similarly circumstauced—
he (O'G. M.) felt himself bound to lay the case before
the House. The Recorder, indeed, had now informed
him of one fact, of which, until then, he bad not heard,

• that the petition had fourteen fictitious signatures. He
was sure that it was unnecessary for him to inform
the House that he was unaware of such a deception
having been practised. Ile disclaimed an intention to cast
imputations upon the Recorder, or to act towards him with
any want of courtesy. On the contrary, when the peti-
tioner complained that he could not obtain a trial in con-
sequence of the Hon. Member being absent froth his
duties in Dublin to attend to his duties in that House, he
(O'Gorman Mahon) had communicated to the Recorder
his having that petition to present. On his way to the
House, however, be had met with a gentleman, one of the
' Hon. Member for Dublin's constituents, who told him
that he had requested the Hon. Member to remain in
Loudon, as business was to come before the House in
which the gentleman was interested. But the Recorder
was called away from his duties in Parliament to his duties
in Dublin, and could not remain here to attend to the Par-
liamentary interests of those whom he represented., On
hearing that circumstance, he (O'G. M.) felt it his duty to
present the petition.—(Hear. )—lie was glad that he had so
done his duty. If he had not done so, the House would
not have been gratified with the display of talent which the
lion. Member for Dublin had that night exhibited. That
Hon. Gentleman had said that if he (O'G. M.) had looked
into the petition, he would never have presented it. But he
did not think that the phraseology of the petitions sent to
the House was to influence Parliament in forming a judg-
ment upon their merits--(Hear.)—He was sure that if
petitions were to be rejected on account of the inelegance
or inaccuracy of the langusge, they who stood in need of
protection could never lay their complaints before the
House—if their petitions were even written by some Mem-
bers of Parliament themselves.—(Hear, and laughter.)
But the same carefulness of style was not to be expected
from men incarcerated in a gaol, as from a gentleman
reclining at his ease upon a sofa. The petition came from
a person not only in prison, but innocently imprisoned—
kno tying that his release would be the result of his trial,
and not only unable to put himself upon his trial, but
even to ascertain when he was to be tried. The gaoler
could give him no information. No one could tell him,
because the Recorder was absent. The punishment which
would be awarded to him, if guilty, was inflicted on him
by anticipation ; because the Recorder of Dublin was
in the House of Commons in London. Anti now the
lion. and Learned Recorder taunted him (O'Gorman Ma-
hon) with undertaking the defence of a maniac. If the
man were, as the Recorder said, a maniac, it was at least
proved that he was an innocent one. Ile could not see
that the wrong, or the pain of the man's imprisonment
was diminished, by his having no waistcoat or cravat.—
(Hear, and laughter.) It was well the poor fellow had
even a shirt.—(Hear, and laughter.) Here was a
young gentleman of good family, and, as the result of his
trial proved, an innocent gentleman, shut up in a cold
miserable dungeon, on account of the Recorder king
a Member of Parliament ; and now the Recorder '
called the poor gentleman a madman, because he had
no waistcoat—(Hear, and laughter)--and said, that his
complaint was only one respecting these imaginary griev-
ances of which people in Ireland were accustomed to com-
plain. Certainly it was quite an imaginary grievance, for
a poor man without a waistcoat or cravat to be shut up in
prison for six weeks, having committed no offence. If a
man were as mad as a March hare_(Laughter)—that
seemed a very indifferent reason for shutting him up in a
dungeon.—(Hear.)—That was bad enough—hut it was
too much to tell him that he ought not to complain of the
injustice because he bad no waistcoat. The Corporation,
whom the Recorder represented ; for he (O'Gorman Ma-
hon) denied that the Hon. Gentleman was the represen-
tative of the people of Dublin—that Corporation, con-
sisting of bankrupts and insolvents, paid the Hon. Gen-
tleman 400/. a-year for attending in that House to watch
over their interests—(No)--and the House yearly voted
him 1,6001. more for discharging duties in Dublin incon-
sistent with his ditties in Parliament. He bad heard much
of Reform in England, and of Reform in Scotland ;
but instead of anything being done for Reform in Ire-
land, where one of the grossest abuses that existed
in the representation was complained of, the Mem-
ber for Dublin stood up, and called the grievances
of Ireland imaginary, and described the aggrieved as
maniacs. The Hon. Member for Dublin said, that he
supported the Government ; if that was any merit, he
would not deny the Hon. Gentleman's claim to it. Ile
was sure the Hon. the Recorder would support every
Administration as well as he supported the last and the
present. No doubt, if there were twenty Governments
in the next twenty months to come, as opposed in prin.
said,
that
as the last and the present, the Hon. the Recorder
would keep his pl ice on that side of the House.
Mr. SHAW said that the simple fact was, that the
prisoner complained, was oc-
casioned not by his (Mr. Shaw's) absence in Parliament,
confinementhub y
‘tAl.le
usual
whichadjournmentßT
o
the
had the honour to preside.
ch
Mr.
for Clare would bring in a Bill to prevent apttrieviefent the Courtn
persons.oinnvll Memberle
he
judicial
the principle
rin officescil in Dublin from)leoftheßillwitcakihnexgesl.tutt excluded
in thatdiril i.Alliatu
sttesres,
in Chancery from Parliament, lie would support it.
The motion was agreed to.
Sir W. FOULKES presented a petition from Petworth
(as we understood), praying for a general fast—(A loud
laugh)—also another from --- to the same effect ;
also a petition from Bantam, praying for an alteration in
the Tithe Laws.
Mr. VILLIERS STUART presented a petition from
freemen and freeholders of Carrickfergus, complaining of
the forgery of several names to a petition against the return
of Lord George Hill.
Lord ALTHORP (as we understood him) gave notice, '
that as he did not entirely approve of some provisions of i
the Bill brought in respecting the Game Laws by the Noble
Lord, the Member for the county of Bucks, he would hint-

self submit to the House a Bill for the antentlineetitb:
Ith ma
Sir R. BATESON moved the second teadig ' hporte
Settlement of the Poor Bill. ce i ,6f 100,1
~k_clittlx.:::alt.,
A desultory conversation on this Bill took Os ' , ' eLttit a ,
was entirely inaudible in the gallery.
The SPEAKER suggested that it svolii°l"" . • 'tit to
have the Bill re-committed. , Ae
itte
,I col
The House accordingly went into a C°l6l2' ~hce Poli
several verbal amendments were agreed to. ht t Euro]
On the House resuming, Mr. WESTERN brouged
Report, which was ordered to be received tills„,ed ter ~ Tour,
The Postmaster-General Bill was read a thu .4°lved
Ithieh
p tssed. :istii -. co tl
Mr. HODGES presented a petition from oio h 'leen i
ling, for a yemission of the Malt Tax ; also aPe i ave Ir,
Brenchicy, for an alteration in the Tithe 101' title to
1
petiti:in from 'Warden, for Reform. t(4147
Adjourned at a Quarter to Twelve.
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