The Sun.
London, England, 1841-09-24 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24. IS4I

HOUSE OF LORDS, Sept. 23.

Their Lordships met to-day at Half-past Three o'Clock
The Earl of CARLISLE took the oaths and his seat.

Lord COTTENHAM gave two judgments in Scotch
appeals ; after which their Lordships adjourned during
pleasure.
The LORD CHANCELLOR took his seat on the Wool
sack at Five o'Clock.
On the motion of Lord WHARNCLIFFE. certain
correspondence of Lord John Russell and the Marquis
of Normanby was ordered to be laid on the table.
Lord BROUGHAM presented a petition froth the
Rev. Sir Harcourt Lees, of Black House, in the county
of Dublin, praying their Lordships to expel the Jesuits
from the Kingdom. The Noble Lord stated that he
could not support the prayer of the petition; indeed he
felt bound to object to it.
THE RAJA OF SATTARA.

Lord BROUGHAM also presented a petition ema-
nating from a public meeting held in Dublin a few days
ago, and signed by the Chairman, praying their Lord-
ships to take into consideration the case of the Raja of
Sattara, for the purpose of using their influence in re-
storing to him his possessions.

Earl RADNOR presented a petition from mer-
chants, bankers, and other inhabitants of Montreal,
praying that a tax might be levied on the produce of the
United States coming into Canada, for the benefit of the
revenue of the United Kingdom, and that such produce
should then be imported duty free into this country.
ASSIGNEES IN BANKRUPTCY.

The Earl of DEVON presented a petition from Mr.
Adam Murray, the land agent, of Parliament-street,
complaining of the loss he had incurred by the failure
of Mr. Abbott, the official assignee to Messrs. Stephen-
son and Co. He believed if the creditors had exercised
a due degree of vigilance, so large an amount would not
have been suffered to remain in the hands of the official
assignee. The subject, however, was worthy the imme-
diate and earnest consideration of their Lordships.
Lord BROUGHAM entirely concurred in the observa-
tions of the Noble Earl, and he thought the statements
he had made would be worthy of consideration in the
event of any contemplated alteration in the law.
His Noble Friend was quite correct as to the manner in
which the official assignees were appointed ; but he be-
lieved the selection was made, in the first instance, by a
Board composed of the Governor and Deputy Governor
of the Bank of England, the Governor and Deputy
Governor of the East India. Company, some of
the principal merchants of the City, and two or
three Judges of the Bankruptcy Court. When the ap-
pointments were making, there were not less than
1,500 candidates for the different situations, and
therefore so far as the field of choice was concerned
it was ample enough. It only showed how futile, after
all, the most strict and searching investigation into cha-
racter was, for, at the time of the appointment of Mr.
Abbott, no one could receive a higher character
for integrity and business habits. Notwithstand-
ing the objections of the petitioners, he would venture,
however, to say, that there was no power under the New
Bankruptcy Act which had given more satisfaction than
the appointment of official assignees. It appeared
to him that the allowing so large a balance to
remain in the hands of the official assignee
was extremely injudicious, and argued a great neglect of
the interests of the creditors.

Lord COTTENHAM had, previous to resigning the
Seals, directed an inquiry to be made into the matter,
with a view of preventing its recurrence, but had not
yet received the report.
The Earl of DUCIE presented petitions from the
Dissenters of Ebenezer Chapel, London, Wootton-under-
Edge, and other places, praying for a repeal of the Corn-
laws. The Noble Earl also presented a petition from the
Ministers' Meeting at the Conference of Ministers held in
Manchester, on the subject of the Corn-laws. He begged
to call the attention of their Lordships to the petition,
as he looked upon it as well worthy of their consi-
deration, not only on account of the number of
signatures attached to it, upwards of six hundred, but that
it also represented the feeling of upwards of 700 more
ministers. This large body of Dissenters considered the
Corn-laws religiously wrong, because they were opposed
to the spirit of the Bible. The present petition was the first
of a series of movements on the part of the country, which
would either be for goodikor for evil, according to the
mode in which they were met by the Executive Govern-
ment. The Noble Lord having read several extracts from
the petition, observed that he could not but express the
regret he felt at the postponing all inquiry into the dis-
tressed state of the country till the next year. It was an
undoubted fact that hundreds and hundreds during the last
year had fallen into an untimely grave in consequence
of these laws, and he felt convinced that before they met
again thousands would have been added to those hun-
dreds. He thought such a postponement a great re-
sponsibility for any Government to undertake, and
one which he must confess he thought would
not have been undertaken by a Conservative
Government. He thought a fraud had been practised
on the people by the Noble Earl who-had proposed the
Amendment to the Address. If there was no fraud, he
thought the Noble Duke had no confidence in the troops
he led, and that mutual confidence was an open question
iu the Cabinet.—(Hear, hear.)
Lord COTTENHAM moved for certain returns rela-
tive to the sittings in the Court of Chancery.—Agreed to.
Lord BROUGHAM gave notice that he should, on
Monday next, submit a proposition to their Lordships,
with a view to obtain their concurrence in an Adrress
to the Crown, to call upon the Home Department,
at the beginning of each Session, to lay before Parlia-
ment a statement of anything that might have been
done during the interval between that and the previous
Session upon the Report of Pri4bn Inspectors.
CATHOLICS IN INDIA.
_ _ _

Lord CLIFFORD (of Chudleigh) moved for copies of
any official communications made towards the end of the
year 1834, or the beginning of the year 1835, to the
British Government.. at home by the Governor-General
of Hindostan, relative to a correspondence between
the Governor-General and the Governor of Goa,
respecting the residence and the exercise of the
spiritual functions of any Roman Catholic missionaries
in Hindostan; also a copy of any communications that
may haVe_ been made in 1839 by the Governor of
Madras to the British Government at home relative
to two decrees, dated, the one December the 18th
and the other a few days after. It was pos-
sible that objection might be made to the production
of these papers, and that it might be termed
merely a petty squabble between some Jesuits and Por:
tuguese priests, who the more they quarrelled
the better, as it might end in their being
converted to the Protestant faith. He trusted, however,
their Lordships would not take such a view of the mat-
ter, but would grant the papers he had moved for. The
petition presented by his Noble and Learned Friend that
night from a clergyman of the Established Church,
called upon their Lordships to address her Majesty to
drive the Jesuits from her kingdom; but the Rev. Gen-
tleman, when he used that phrase, evidently did not
know its real meaning, for Dr. Johnson, when
asked what a Jesuit was, replied, " a Jesuit is
a man rather more clever than the person who calls
him so."—(Cheers and a laugh.) In that sense his Rev.
Friend, Dr. Kenny, was a Jesuit, and the Rev. Harcourt
Lees certainly was not. Again, when the Jesuits were
persecutedin France, and the French Ambassador recom-
mended the English Minister to pursue a similar course,
and confiscate the property they held in the English
funds, what was the reply of Lord North? " The Jesuits
may be very bad men, but your Excellency must know,
that if the Devil himself had money in the English
funds St. Michael the Archangel would never take it from
them so long as I am Minister of England."—(Hear.)
The Noble Lord then read several portions of evi-
dence relative to the meaning of the term Jesuit,
and observed that, having a knowledge of the peace-
able conduct of these men, he was not in the least
surprised at finding, on his return to England, in
a Calcutta Gazette of the 2d of Jan., 1833, that a
meeting had taken place at Calcutta, at which re
solutions had bsen passed to, the effect that the
interests of the Catholic religion required that they
should have secular Priests or Jesuits educated
at Irish Colleges, and that means should
be adopted to obtain so desirable an end.
This was at a time when many Irish regiments were sta-
tioned in India, and when it was necessary that there
should be priests there to teach them the way to salvation.
An application had been made to the British Government
here to allow English Missionaries to be substituted
for the ignorant Portuguese priests resident at
the time at Goa. The Governor of Goa, however, re-
fused to allow the charge to be made, and the first part
of the correspondence he moved for related to that subject.
It might be said that their Lordships had no means of
knowing whether these persons were priests or not,
further than that they called themselves so, but that, he
contended, was no ground for believing them to be the
persons they represented themselves. In some of the
sects which dissented from the Church of England, there
were persons calling themselves Catholic priests, but he
would put it to their Lordships to say whether they
would assume them to be such on that declaration. The
cases were precisely similar, so far as he could see. In
December, 1834, a Magistrate of the province of Me-
duah took from the recognised Catholic clergymen—re-
cognised as such by the Vicar-Apostolic of Madras—their
chapels, and imprisoned them because they refused to
deliver up the keys of those churches which they had ,
been for six years in quiet and peaceable possession of:
Nay more, if his information were correct, they were
put to the torture, although the very fact of their having
had possession for a period of six years was a proof that
they were entitled to the possession of these churches.
.
The consequence was, that 800,000 Roman Catholics of
India, and he believed the number was at present little
short.of a million, were deprived of sixty or eighty chapels
where they were in the habit of receiving religious in-
struction. These chapels were put into the hands of Por-
tuguese priests who taught the subjects of Great Britain
that they owed no temporal allegiance to the-Queen of
England, or no spiritual allegiance to the Pope. Was
that justice ? Was it common sense ? Was that the
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asked for. It had been suggested to him that the matter
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had been put to torture—for refusing to give up posses-
sion of their chapels to Portuguese Princes who were
not subjects of her Uajesty.