The Sun.
London, England, 1838-07-31 00:00:00

BENEFICES PLURALITIES BILL.

On the motion of Lord .1. RUSSELL the consideration of
the Lords' amendments upon this Bill was postpor.ed till to-
MO!' ow.

The Prisons (\Vest Indies) Bill passed through Committee.
On the Order of the Day for the third reading of the Post-
office Bill,
Mr. WALLACE remarked on the inconvenience attend-
ing the selection of Falmouth, as a packet station to the Me-
diterranean.—The Bill then passed.
PENSION LIST.

On the motion of the CHANCELLOR of the EX-
CHEQUER, the House resolved itself into a Committee of
the whole House on the Civil List Act ; Mr. BERNAL in
the chair.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER stated
that he now rose to bring under the consideration of the
House what he hoped would turn out to be a final
settlement of a long disputed question ; and he must
confess that he approached the question with feelings
of deep anxiety. It would be in the recollection
of the House, that in the month of December last
a Committee was appointed upon the subject of the Civil
List Pensions. That Committee sat for thirty-five days ; it
was attended by the great bulk of the members, and he re-
joiced that by the regulation that had been adopted, not only
a full attendance of Members was ensured, but the votes they
had given were placed before the public. He was fully justified
in stating that the report had been unanimously agreed to ; and
when gentlemen read the names of those who served upon the
Committee, they would see the public was fairly represented in
it. The first question which came before the Committee was,
whether, upon the first showing, one particular class of pen-
sions should be placed in class 1, without further evidence than
they themselves afforded? On that question several divisions took
place. After having completed the first branch of the inquiry,
the Committee resumed its operation on that part of the in-
quiry which had been reserved. Indeed he must take the
liberty of saying on behalf of the Committee, that nothing could
have been more sedulous or industrious than the discharge of the
very delicate duty the Committee had to go through. The
Committee then proceeded to classify the pensions, and that
system of classification would appear in the Report, and they
were brought as nearly as they possibly could be un-
der the different heads of service to which they
were applicable. In the appendix the services of
the pensioner or his family, which the Committee had relied
on, were recited ; and he must say, and he said it with great
pride, that the recital of the services contained in the Appendix
did the greatest possible honour to the various branches of
the public service, and would constitute a memorial of those
services, which, if there was no other result derived from
the Committee (and he thought there were important
and useful results), was a matter not unimportant to
the House or the country. Upon the completion of the
enquiry he saw nothing that could induce him in the
slightest degree to regret the step he took in proposing the
appointment of the Committee. On the contrary, he believed
he might appeal to those Members of the Committee, who
might have entered into the examination of the list indisposed
to approve of the pension list, whether many of the objec-
tions they previously might have had, had not been
removed by the examination that had taken place.
The Right Hon. Gentleman proceeded to state that against
no class of pensions had greater prejudice been excited than
against those granted to foreigners, especially to foreign
ladies. Now there were two foreign ladies of distinction upon
the Pension List. They were the daughters of the late
Mareschal Duc de Biron, and the story of their pension
was as follows :—Shortly before the late Admiral Rodney
sailed to the West Indies in command, he was at Paris,
and, falling into embarrassments, was arrested for debt.
The Mareschal heard of the circumstance, and imme-
diately paid the debt; in consequence of which the Ad-
miral assumed the command of the fleet, which sailed to
the West Indies, and achieved so splendid a victory. Many
years after, when the vicissitudes of the revolution had
overturned France, the daughters of the Mareschal were in this
country in poverty. His late Majesty, hearing the story, sent
for them, and granted them pensions, and a more honourable
instance of a Monarch's gratitude for a benefit conferred upon his
country never was keown.—(lfear, hear.) The Right Hon.
Gentleman went en to mention the case of a foreign lady re-
siding abroad, who had herself furnished the information upon
seeing that a Committee was about to be appointed. The
Right Honourable Gentleman then read the letter, in
which the lady stated the destitution in which she was
placed. In his opinion a more noble letter never was
written ; it showed the noble spirit with which the daughter
of a British officer could act, and reflected the highest credit
upon her. But this was not the only letter—he had others
to the same effect. There was only one more letter to
which he would call the attention of the House ; it was
a letter of the same character as the other. It was from
the widow of Sir Home Popham, and was expressed
in a most feeling and truly eloquent style. He could
multiply th( se instances. Every page of the report was
worthy of the attention of the House and the public, for a_
perusal of it would tend to dispel the vast prejudice which
existed upon such a subject. It was not in the naval and
military st rvices alone that devotion had been shown. In the
civil service there had been much devotion shown. The late
Colonel Ste,vart died in the civil service of the country as
much as if lie had died in the field, and the pension which
was given to his datt„,,l:ter was as well earned as those
of a Wellington, a Hill,
a o
gTrhaentreedsufl,t,ropf
rtih,
ae
teex
oa
rm
publicinatieneshrorwi I•ec dr.e. sford, or a Lynedoch.
the
butpe. n
had bhcaedn no t been
proved,
sotni t tultteedfu,l,lictisit
the most tC°rirtiirbeywaaiCuteloo:tn Committee
mnils inttee favour r Enquiry,
pensions
or rycons-
or of any pensioner, to have biione;. 2( hear,rentecl as a service te
the country and the pensioner.
liar, hear.)
Ile (the Chancellor of the Exchequer)
the results of this inquiry. There were would now advert tos
Lcoerrdt nu
cpkelnasni s
which had been resigned—some, such a
Mr. Drummond's, and Lord Elphinstone's, who had given up,
pensions on their receiving official appointments. Now
it had beets said that there was something disen-
gcnuous in the mode of stating this in the Report,
and that the pensions had been surrendered under the pressure
of the inquiry. Nothing could be more mistaken. All these
peiLioas bad been riven up at tilt: times I,viiich were stated in