The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-19 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, JUNE 10, Mk

treason and felony, and considered that the present
measure was the emanation of the Government through
feelings of hurrenity towards those convicts.
Mr. FOX said that he considered the language of the
Hon. Member tor Sie ffield (Mr. R iebuck) to be worthy
of a paid advocate of the Canadian rebels, but not of
a free and honest Member of the House of Com-
mons in supp of his fellow-subject, no matter whether
English or
Mr. ROEBUCK said that what the Hon. Gentleman
had said respecting him as a paid advocate for the Ca-
nadian rebels wee utterly false.
The SPEAKER called him to order by stating that
his last expression was not Parliamentary.
Mr. ROEBUCK then withdrew the expression in
respect 0f the House and the Speakea but for no other
reason—because to the H n. Member for Meath (Mr.
Grattan) he did not think that he owed any apology.
Mr. GRATTAN said that he had no respect for the
Hon. Member's (Mr. Roebuck's) courage or intelligence,
because when he provokes any Hon. Member unjustly,
he is not willing to answer the case as it should be
answered. He should say that the principles of justice
should not be hunted down by a screech-owl, and in ad-
dition, he believed that the late revolution was got up
by the Government to cover the desolation and misery
they had caused in that unfortunate country.
Mr. O'FLALIERTY said he regretted that the law-
yers who had spoken on this matter had totally forgotten
the principles of the Constitution in that debate. Ile
considered that there should be some mitigation of the
punishment, though he did not mean to say what it
should be; and he felt assured that if Englishmen were
equally implicated, they would not be treated as were
those Irishmen who were the subject of this debate.
The House then divided on the amendment, when
theism appeared—
For the amendment
Against it
Majority —l47
Mr. C. ANSTEY said that he believed that there was
a desire as much as possible to extinguish this debate,
for the only opportunity afforded the two Hon. Members
who opposed this Bill was when the House was almost
within counting, in consequence of the majority of the
House having retired to dinner. Not one-sixth part of
the Members now in that House were present an hour
ago, and they had voted without hearing the arguments
against the Bill. And it was too much that they should
now be called upon to affirm the principle of the Bill,
and therefore he should move the adjournment of the
debate. They were, by an ex post facto law, seeking to
pass a Bill of pains and penalties against a private man.
Against such a course he entered his most solemn pro-
test. The Bill before the House violated the preroga-
tive, as it violated tho liberty of the subject, and he should
give it his most strenuous opposition. The Hon. Member
was, in the course of a series of discursive remarks,
loudly interrupted. He concluded by moving the ad-
journment of the debate.
Mr. O'CONNOR said he had purposely abstained
from offering any remarks upon the subject lest he should
unnecessarily commit himself, but he hoped that no
attempt would be made to take the Bill out of the bands
of the Hon. Member who had so ably conducted it
hitherto.
Mr. NAPIER said that he would be willing, after the
full expression of the opinion of the House, to withdraw
all further opposition to the Bill.
Mr. KEOGH and Mr. BOUM requested the Honour..
able Member for Youghal to withdraw his motion.
After a few words from Mr. J. O'CONNELL,
Mr. ANSTEY said he would divide the House.
Strangers were then ordered to withdraw, and the
House divided, when there appeared:—
For the adjournment ... ... 9
199
Against it
Majority against it ... —lB6
Mr. ANSTEY then expressed his intention to take
the sense of the House upon the question of the second
reading.
Mr. REYNOLDS observed that he was muecchsehe
disin-
clined to add another word to this debate, because
stood in fear of the Hon. Member for Sheffield, who sat
just below him.—(Hear.) That Hon. Member as good
as challenged every Member in the House to quote
law with him. In fact the Hon. Member said :—" Here
I am, the Member for Sheffield. I hold in my hand an
Act of Parliament, and let any Member of this House,
and any lawyer in it especially, if he dare, quote law
against me."—(Great laughter.) He might have
added, " For I am the law and the prophets."—(Re-
newed laughter.) But he had listened to his speech, not
with sorrow, but with horror, for the Hon. and Learned
Gentleman had scorned the misfortunes of Mr. Smith
O'Brien and his unfortunate associates, had raked up
past events, and had done his best to have them tran-
sported. He had read in the newspapers that the
Noble Lord at the head of the Government had
likened the voice of the Hon. Member for Sheffield to
the fabulous trumpet, which, having been frozen for some
time, at length thawed, and emitted sweet sounds. Now,
although he thought the Noble Lord was a great and
successful statesman, he certainly thought him a bad
judge of music.—(Laughter, and cries of" Divide.") He
thought that the prerogative of mercy which belonged to
the Crown would be well exercised at the instance
of her Majesty's Government, and he trusted that
the Hon. and Learned Member for Sheffield might never
be amongst the number of her Majesty's advisers when-
ever the prerogative of mercy was to be called into
action. In conclusion, he would remind the Right Hon.
Gentleman the Home Secretary, that he had not an-
swered the question which he put to him early in the
evening, whether or not he was aware, that on Saturday,
the 9'.h instant, a warrant was sent from the Castle of
Dublin to the_ governor of the gaol in which the pri-
soners were confined, which authorised the governor to
go to their cells, and say that the police were in waiting
to take them away with their luggage?
Sir GEORGE GREY said he had not heard that any
warrant commuting the sentence had yet been issued.
Mr. ROEBUCK said, that after the speech of the
Hon. Member for Dublin, he should beg leave to bring
back the House to the question now before them. The
question was, whether those men, who had been con-
victed by a jury of their countrymen of the highest
offence of which the law took cognizance, should not be
punished for it, in pursuance of their sentence, as the
law directed. If that sentence were not carried into
execution, he was resolved to ask—resolved to demand
as a matter of right—the mitigation of the sentence of
his own poor unfortunate countrymen.—(Hear, hear,
and laughter.) It might raise a laugh to demand
the liberty of Cuffy and his associates, because they
were poor and humble. Still, however, there was the
law ; and he should like, he repeated, to hear from any
lawyer, not from the Honourable Member for Dublin,
that treason was not felony. All that they were called
upon to do was to allow the Crown to forego its terrible
power of death, and to commute it into transportation.
He for one was quite prepared to give that power. Take
the other alternative. It was said that death could not
be inflicted. He said death could be inflicted, and he
wanted to relieve the Government of the einharrassment
arising from this state of things. But for the soul of
him he could not understand this sudden and strange
sympathy for men who, according to their own confes-
sion, were convicted traitors. He asked the House of
Commons to repudiate this spirit, and to give the Crown
the power of inflicting the severe, but still much milder,
punishment of transportation. He did not appeal
to Irish Members, but to his own countrymen he did,
that they would not allow ignorant and poor men to
be transported without remark or sympathy, and,
simply because Mr. Smith O'Brien was a gentleman,
suffer him by a strange, unseemly, and disgraceful inter-
ference with the' exercise of the prerogative, to escape.
—(Hear, hear.) With respect to the Honourable
Member for Dublin, he had simply alluded, in good
humour, to his statement that he wanted a pull at the
each( quer.
Mr. REYNOLDS—I beg to deny having ever used
the %voids imputed to mo by the Hon. Member.
Mr. ROEBUCK—It was in the recollection of 200
men who were in the House when these words were used,
and he would leave it to them to say whether the words
were used or not.
Mr. D. BROWNE—No, no.
Mr. ROEBUCK thought the Hon. Member was
scarcely in a state to give a contradiction to a matter of
fact. In that House, as well as out of doors, he would
do all he could to put a stop to every measure which was
brought forward to take money from the people of this
country, in order that it might be extravagantly squan-
dered in Ireland, He was determined to oppose money
being wrung from the hands of his own countrymen to
support rapacity and idleness.—(Loud cries of " Oh,"
and " Order," in the midst of which Mr. Lawless ex
claimed, " Give him rope enough.") Just mark that!
" Give him rope enough !" He said that was an ungen-
tlemanly expression, and one which was unfairly used to
him.
Mr. LAWLESS—You know the proverb.—(Order.)
Mr. ROEBUCK did know the proverb, but he knew
also that insolence was no answer, ignorance no argu-
ment; and that vulgar abuse should not put him down
in that House.—(" Order," " Oh," and cries of " Hear.")
Mr. BUTLER explained that he felt it to be his duty
to state that in his opinion the language used by the
Hon. Member for Sheffield was not such as could be
listened to in silence by any Irish gentleman, and in that
capacity he had resented it.—(Hear.)
The SPEAKER said that he had not heard any
words used of the character complained of, or he should
have sooner interfered. The Hon. Member for Sheffield
was in order, but at the same time he did not think that
the honour and dignity of that House could be main-
tained if such discussions as that which was then going
on were allowed.—(Cheers.)
Captain BERKELEY wished to say that he had sat
close to the Hon. Gentleman during the whole of his
speech, and he must say that the interruption he had
suffered made it no matter of wonder that the Hon.
Member for Sheffield had spoken in the manner he
did.—(Hear, hear.)
The SPEAKER repeated his entreaty to cease the
discussion, but
Mr. J. O'CONNELL (amid cries of " Oh!") said as
the Gallant Captain had been so ready to give his tes-
timony respecting the interruption to the Honourable
Member for Sheffield, he begged to say that he also
had sat clo;:e to the Hon. Member, and considered that
the interruptions were perfectly justified.—(Order.)
Mr. ROEBUCK resumed, and complained of the of-
fensive and personally
insulting attack upon him by the
Hon. Member for Meath, and also of that of the Hon.
Member for Cionmel, amidst cries of " Qaestion,"
and "Hear." The Hon. Member said be had discussed
an important question fairly and honestly, and he was
not to be put duwn when he was discharging his duty.
—(Hear, hear.) The Hon. Member concluded by re-
peating his deiertnitration to support. the Government.
Mr. REYNOLDS and Mr. D. BItOWNE rose together,
and were met by loud cries of Divide, Oh, and
Browne," in the midst of which
Lord J. RUSSELL rose only for the purpose of put-
tin: it to Hon. Members whether it was desirable that
this discussion heuld be continued. The course taken
by the Hon. Member for the University of Dublin was
one to which there could be no reasonable objection, but
in the curie a Ills 4ebat9 119-thouglit lion, Members hod