The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-10 00:00:00

MR. MORETON DYER.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Sits,—lt was not my intention to have trespassed upon you
relative to the late unfortunate event which has deprived me of
my place in the Commission of the Peace for Middlesex and
Westminster, convinced as I am that my friends, and those
who know me well, have not believed the unjust accusa-
tions which have been heaped upon me. Reports, how-
ever, continue to be circulated of such a nature as to prove
highly detrimental to my character if not contradicted,
and it therefore becomes necessary for me thus publicly
to state that they are almost wholly untrue. The facts
are, that the representations of the prisoner Bledhurst,
and of those to whom he had communicated them, were
taken privately (not upon oath) by the Visiting Magistrates,
and sent by them to Lord Normanby, without my having had
the slightest opportunity of denying or explaining them. -Upon
receiving a copy of them, I immediately sent an explanatory
statement to his Lordship. After a delay of two months, during
which time I understand a strict inquiry was instituted into
the matter, Lord Normanby forwarded my statement to the
Lord Chancellor, which, together with all the subsequent cor-
respondence, I now lay before the public, leaving it to judge
whether my punishment has not been more severe than my
alleged indiscre!ion merited.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your faithful and obedient servant,
H. C AIORETON DYER.
Devonshire-place House, July 9, 1841.

(Copy)
Devonshire-place House, March 12, 1841.
My Lord,—Having received, by the directions of the Visit-
ing Justices of the House of Correction, a copy of statements
made to them, in reference to the prisoner 111edhurst, and
which have been forward to your Lordship, I take this early
occasion of submitting to your Lordship the several facts of the
ca;c, and claiming the favour of your Lordship's earnest atten-
tion to them.

Within the last five months I was appointed a Visiting
Magistrate of the new prison, Clerkenwell, and in that
character it has, since such appointment, been my habit of
attending at the prison once, at least, every week. On one
occasion, and after the business of the meeting, accompanied
by a brother Magistrate, and on my road home, I went to the
workshop of Fillary, at the House of Correction, to give him
directions respecting works he had undertaken for me as an
engineer, and whom I had employed occasionally for some
years past. I then, for the first time, saw the prisoner
Medhurst, with whose case I was previously, through the
public prints, acquainted. Understanding from Fillary that
Medhurst devoted much of his time to turning (an
amusement in which I have for many years past been
myself much engaged), I entered into conversation with
him upon the subject of turning ; on this occasion he
expressed himself so well, and appeared so much depressed
by the position in which his guilt had placed him, that I
confess I felt interested in no common degree in his favour,
and I left the workroom with a feeling of desire to be of
service to him, if I could with propriety do so. In the
week following I again called upon Fillary, whom I found
with Medhurst, occupied in turning. After some few mo-
ments' conversation on the subject of the work in progress,

I mentioned to Medhurst that a club of amateur turners was
about being formed, and told him, if he wished, I would
speak to some of the intended members in his favour ; and
with a view of his joining such club, I did so, and in conse-
quence two of the proposed members called upon him. A few
minutes' conversation on the subject led to his expressing, in
very strong terms, his grief and wretchedness at his continued
imprisonment, as well as his conviction that its prolongation
would affect his mind and put an end to his existence. He after-
wards asked me whether I thought it possible that a remission
of his sentence could be obtained, and entreated me to point
out to him or his family the mode of obtaining such an object.
He entreated me most earnestly to look into all the circum-
stances of his case, his early life and habits, and to give
him the benefit of any suggestions that might occur to me.
I answered him I would do so ; and during the then following
week did look up all the evidence and circumstances connected
with his case, and upon which I grounded a very strung opi-
nion. I contrasted his case with that of Bull, about the
same time convicted of a like offence, and sentenced to three

years' imprisonment, and who, at the end of eighteen months,
obtained a remission of his sentence. 1 felt that the impri-
sonment as a punishment to a young man brought up and
educated as a gentleman, must be infinitely more severe than
to a person of a lower rank of lire, altogether without educa-
tion, and who might not have been wholly a stranger to the
diet and the discipline, as well as the duties enforced
in a prison. I was induced by this train of reasoning to
suppose that the prisoner Medhurst might, by a voluntary
offering of a large sum of money to a national charity, in
addition to the imprisonment from which it appeared he
had already so severely suffered, expiate in some measure
the offence of which he had been found guilty towards
society ; and actuated with these sentiments, I presumed,
in my subsequent interview with 111edhurst, to detail
them, and added that I thought, if such opinions ivere
entitled to aiy weight, that the payment of a large sum
of two or three thousand pounds to a national charity might
lessen the adverse feeling of the public towards him, and
might be deemed a propitiation in his favour, as well as
a circumstance calculated to induce an extension of mercy

towards him after such an offering had been sponta-
neously made by the prisoner and his family. lam now
sensible of the error into which I have been led, and I
sincerely deplore that even a feeling of commiseration
should have induced ►ue to interfere with respect to the
punishment of the prisoner. But, my Lord, I beg to avail
myself of this opportunity of declaring most solemnly
that I never did so from any interested motives, or from
the hope or expectation that I should, directly or indirectly,
derive the slightest profit, benefit, or advantage from such in-
terference. Let me, also, my Lord, add my declaration, that
neither the name of your Lordship or of any other person
was wed or referred to once by me as a means by which the
desired end was hoped to be obtained, beyond your Lordship's
being the official personage to whom any petition for a
prisoner's pardon could be addressed. To this extent, alone,
repelt, was your Lordship's name ever mentioned; and I
crave your Lordship's credence to this any statement.
I have the honour to be, my Lord, your Lordship's most
obedient humble servant,

H. C. ➢t. D,

( Signed)
To the Marquiss of Normanby, Whitehall.
LETTER FROM MR. HAYNES TO H. C. M. DYER, ESQ.
Sir,—l am directed by the Lord Chancellor to inform you
that. 11;s Lordship's attention having been drawn by the Secre-
tary of State for the Home Department to the transactions
which have taken place between you and Mr. Medhurst, his
Lordship is of opinion that your own statement of these trans-
actions in your letter of the 11th of March last, show your pro-
ceedings to have been so improper, that his Lordship has
thought it to be his duty to give directions for the removal of
your name from the Commission of the Peace for the county of
Middlesex and the city of Westminster.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your most obedient humble servant,

H. HAYNES,
Secretary of Commissions of the Peace.
Bruton-street, May 12, 1841.
H. C. MORETON DYER, ESQ., TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR.
Devonshire-place House, May 17, 1841.
My Lord—l have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of
your Lordship's communication, through Mr. Haynes, of the
12th inst.:lt is impossible for me to describe to your Lordship
the deep pain and mortification with which I learn that the
facts which I have communicated in my statement to Lord
Normanby are deemed by your Lordship to be of such a na-
ture as to induce your Lordship to exercise the extreme course
of depriving me of that place in the commission of the peace
for Middlesex and Westminster, which 1 have now held for 14
years ; and, as I humbly hope, with honour and credit. I have
deeply to deplore that I have had no opportunity of making any
explanation to your Lordship on this subject, for in that case I
cannot but flatter myself I might have given your Lordship a
different impression of the matter. As it is, however, I have
now only to entreat your Lordship to consider that as
my honour, as well as my discretion, has been called in
question by the charges made against me to Lord Normanby,
it is of the deepest importance to me, as a gentleman and a
member of your Lordship's own profession, to have it fully un-
derstood that, in removing me from the Commission of the
Peace, your Lordship has done so entirely upon the ground of
indiscretion, and not because your Lordship believes me to be
guilty of the base and dishonest intention of deriving any pecu-
niary or other personal advantage from the transaction. My
Lord, my honour (as honour ought to be to every man) is dearer
to me than my life, and with this strong feeling, I throw my-
self upon your Lordship's indulgence in thus craving your
Lordship to place me in such a situation in my profession and
among my friends as will admit of none of that doubt which,
under the circumstances, may naturally arise as to the cause of
my removal.—l have the honour, &c.
H. C. MORETON DYER.
The Right Honourable the Lord Chancellor.
FROM THE LORD CHANCELLOR TO H. C. 'MORETON DYER,
ESQ.
The Lord Chancellor presents his compliments to Mr. Dyer,
and begs to inform him that, finding in Mr. Dyer's letter to
Lord Normanby sufficient in the Lord Chancellor's opinion to
make it his duty to direct the removal of Mr. Dyer's name
from the commissions of the peace under which be had acted,
it did not appear to the Lord Chancellor to -be necessary to call
upon Mr. Dyer for any further statement; but as Mr. Dyer
has now expressed a wish that an opportunity may be affot fed
of making some further statement, the Lord Chancellor as-
sures Mr. Dyer that every attention will be bestowed upon any
statement in writing which Mr. Dyer may make to him.
House of Lords, 18th May, 1841.
H. C. MORTON DYER, ESQ., TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR.
Devonshire-place House, May 24, 1841.
inrerals father,cy;
My Lord—Although the severe affliction and misery under
which I am now labeuring, from my late heavy bereave-
ments, the loss of a child and aytitobilinmo.
cannotdy ioffiu
rc uLI difficult
Lordships
hwmi
pes
myself tok i bn
kind
to
no gc
obmme
my
uamni
indedaa
most grateful for it. The fact is, it has been stated in the
public prints and elsewhere :hat I have been
the commission of the peace because I havenberemoved from
base been guilty of the dishonest intention of been believed to
pe-
cuniary benefit from the release of Mr. Medlin deriving
I
rst. ~ ow
need not assure your Lordship that such a belief in
the public mind would not only be detrimental to every future
prospect in life, but must deprive meofall
chance of happiness
or peace of mind. Your Lordship has informed
my name to be withdrawn from the Magvageetc.iirßtset me that it
has been with reference to my statment tl t you have desired
threerefore as
I have admitted ' •
nothing in my statement that can possibly' be
construed into anything but indiscretion, I hope Imay safely
assure myself that indiscretion,
unconnected with dishonour, is
the ground of my dismissal. Believing myself right in this
conjecture, all that I ask and solemnly implore of your Lord-
ship is, a direct assurance from your Lordship that
vou have removed me solely
upon the grounds of in.
i a iscretion, n meddling at all in the matter ; and now, my Lord,
let me take this opportunity, surrounded as I am by all that
is solemn and awful, once more to declare my perfect innocence
of any invention of deriving the remotest personal benefit from
Mr. Nledhurst's release. Let me also state that I never con-
templated that that release should be obtained otherwise than
by the most legal means ; and further, let me beg your Lord-
ship to ask yourself how, without the slightest personal know-
ledge of Lord Melbourne or Lord Normanby, or any of their
families, I could possibly have contemplated the achievement of
such release in any other way than by legal means : even the
crude plan which I suggested (and that only as a possible one)
had nothing illegal in it. With regard to the statements sent
to Lord Normanby by the Magistrates, there are many minor
points which I can at once, and I am sure satisfactorily,aetxi
plain. Of these I would mention to your. Lordship that
but on days
never once went to the House of Correcthtioon
t , that o
when it was actually my duty to pa
go there I nevergaes saw Mrn.
many of the days. when I
do did
and that long before the
Medhurst, or desired to
the sa,vsittng
Magistrates, of which
in-
quiry into the facts by
ti the had sent i examine-
I was perfectly ignorant un
l 1 ' venthe
Lord Normanby ha d t' yen ire ygi u r all idea
tions top
in Me dhurst's case, inquee of
of interfering Mr •
risen stating to me hisconse opinionnc that
the surgeon of the p
ld not be permanently idured by fur-
the prisoner's health wou .
f f which in oint ofjfact, was the
ther confinement, the belie o , i?
Inpathy and unlucky interference. I fear I
groundwork of my sy
has e already trespassed much
too long on your Lordship's
time, but I cannot conclude without once more entreating your
• f
is so esi :cmial thto myat distinct
characte repl
ry whliant,ch ymyour
Lord, Bw,
Lordship must see
Lordshp ur
.
H. C MORETON 'DYER.
31Em.— On the evening of tho 12th June, 1 received a
letter from the Sec.r.lary of the London and Westminster
Insurance Society, of which I am a Director, stating in
effect, that as the public reports regarding my removal