The Sun.
London, England, 1848-07-12 00:00:00

IMMINIMON
deli the natives of India with evidence that the
nourable Member could succeed in what he undertook.
and he could have as many constituents as he pleased.
Re had remarked in the Honourable Member a dispo
sition to act in that way. Within a few days the List].
Member had put a notice on the book of a motion for a
return of all jagheers, and of all lands held on Enarn of
Shotrium tenure, which' had been resumed by the British
Government in the Madras and Bombay Presidencies,
from the year 1820 to the year 1840 inclusive, showing
the annual revenue of the possessions so resumed, and
the causes of their resumption. That would open a fine
field for the Hon. Member and his friends, and if he suc
needed in obtaining the Committee for which be now
Moved five hundred similar cases would be brought
under the notice of the House. He believed that jus-
tice was administered with as much purity in India as it
Wan in this country ; but dissatisfied persons would ap-
peal to the House of Commons, not because they had
llijuries to be redressed, but because they wished to ob-
tain that which they were not entitled to.
Mr. HUME then rose and said, that his acquaintance
with India did not warrant him in giving such a cha-
racter of the native pow, r in India as that given by
the Hon. Member for Roxburghshire, or of such a ge
tleral discontent as he had represented would lead to the
_e'
employment of European agents by the natives.
(Mr. Hume) believed that accusations of injustice might
now and then occur, but he would not calumniate the
Government of India by any such statement as hat
which had been made by the Hon. Member whohad
t
last addressed the House. His (Mr. Hume' s) desire
was to bring the. House back to to the question from
which its attention had been removed by the Hon.
Member. The motion was to inquire into the conduct
of Lieutenant-Colonel Ovens (of the Bombay Army),
while British Political Resident at the Court of Sattara;
and into the proceedings of the Bombay Government,
and the Court of Directors of the East India Company,
in relation to certain charges preferred against that
officer. Now, the Hon. Gentleman had taken up an
rAd worn-out . debate respecting the Raja of Sat-
tars. For a hang time he had directed the
attention of the House in endeavouring to sa-
tisfy it that the Raja was guilty, and that the
documents on which that guilt was established were be-
yond suspicion accredited. Now he (Mr. Hume) consi-
dered
that,- -to use a common phrase, a kind of drag,
which sportsmen -sometimes use ; when they find the
scent is strong upon the fox, they get a red herring and
draw off the scent, and turn it to some other track. So
the-ilon. Gentleman had endeavoured to draw off the
attention.of the. House from that old fox, if he (Mr.
Hume) might be allowed so to call the officer named in
the motion, and had turned its attention to the Sattara
inquiry. In the first few sentences which fell from the
Hon:; Member for Roxburghshire, where he spoke of Col.
Ovens as a man of high character,' he (Mr. Hume) was
nordisposed to differ with him. He had 'heard the
same statements from'persons well acquainted with that
officer. He (Mr. Hume) was bound to say that those
who knew Colonel ()vans in- India spoke highly of his
character before he beCiene connected with Sattara,
and so long as he remained merely a military officer,
there was no reason to believe that he was not
taken by. the -.commanding officer as the best
man that could have been selected for Commis-
sioner at- Sattara. The Hon. Member for Roxburgh.
shire had deprecated the charges made against that
officer, and stated the difficulty there would be in making
good the proof. Why the Hon. Member seemed to have
forgotten the first few sentences of the statement of the
Hon. Member who introduced the subject. Instead of
the inquiry asked for by the motion being, as the Hon.
Member whoihad last spoken, said interminable—instead
of five or six years being required for its prosecution—
the Hon. Member- for the Tower Hamlets had under-
taken to prove the whole of the charges from the papers
then upon the table of the House, and by the testimony
of parties living in England at the present moment, and
from the -testimony of Colonel Ovens himself, from his
own statements as' the principal means of proof. He
(Mr. Mute) eould not, therefore, understand upon what
ground the Hon. Member (Mr. Elliot) bad discarded
altogether the charges which had been brought forward
seriatim, forgetting, or at any rate not noticing, the
documents read in support of those charges, leaving all
at once Colonel Ovans, the object of the inquiry, and
proceeding to state a variety of circumstances con-
nected with the history of the Raja of Sattara.
The Hon. Member-concluded his speech by an allusion
to Major Carpenter, whose evidence was against the
Raja. Now he (Mr. Hume) hoped the House would not
be led away by the drag which had just been used, by
occupying the time of the House merely upon the ques-
tion of the guilt or innocence of the Raja. He hoped
the Hon, Member for Roxburghshire was not leaving
the House ; because he (Mr. Hume) was desirous of
showing, before that Hon. Member went, how it was
possible to read documents with a view of convincing
the House that Major Carpenter's letter was against the
Raja. by reading merely a part, and forgetting to read
the following sentence. The Hon. Gentleman had read
from that document a variety of documents, all tending
to criminate the Raja of Sattara. Now, let the House
look at the facts. Lieutenant-Colonel Ovens was for
eight years in charge of the Raja of Sattara. He ('lfr. Hume) would not say more upon that document than
that it had been for three years secreted and concealed
from the knowledge of that House and the Court of Di
rectors, and was ultimately brought forward in a very
extraordinary manner. When that document, purporting
to be a copy of one received here,wasisent out to India,
Major Carpenter sent back his answer to England. That
answer was received in 1847. Major Carpenter says,
" When the Raja was confided to my care early in 1840,
I considered it necessary, for the efficient discharge of
my duties, to make myself fully acquainted with the
causes of his dethronement, his general reputation for
intrigue, and other circumstances connected with his
character and conduct, to enable me to form a just esti-
mate of the man with whom I had to deal, and to guard
against the consequences which might arise from any
laxity of surveillance on my part. To this end I care-
fully studied the whole of the voluminous documents
connected with his case, and the result was a belief in
his innocence; and this belief has been confirmed
beyond a doubt by subsequent disclosures, and
by his pledging himself to prove it, if permitted
to do so, in his letter to Sir Henry Hardinge, of
the 12th 'December, 1844, forwarded through me, d
which pledge I am fully persuaded he is ablen
to redeem.'4 NoW he (Mr. Hume) asked whe-
ther more could be said in answer to that
voluminous paper ? The Honourable Member read
everything that tended to discredit the statement, and
to show that the statements made by the Hon. Gentle-
man were incorrect, whereas the document turned out
to have been admitted by Major Carpenter to have been
substantially true and correct ; and that officer confirms
the statement • with a strong expression, declaring that
after eight years knowledge of the Raja of Sattara, and
after having read ever paper produced before that House,
his deliberate opinion, as an officer and a man, was that
the Raja.was altogether guiltless of the charges alleged
against him.—(Cheers,) But what had the Hon. Member
for Roxburghshire brought before the House, in lieu of
that important statement of Major Carpenter's? Why, a
statement from a Major Angelo. lie (Mr. Hume) hoped
that statement would be produced and laid upon the
table of the House, because he would venture to
state that it was utterly false. Several statements made
in it he knew, from his own knowledge, to be utterly
groundless. It was only an attempt to take off the
House from facts upon which it had clear evidence
before it; and eo to delude the House, and prevent the
truth being arrived at. There was another ground.
!Ton which he had reason to complain of the Honourable
Member's statement. Instead of grappling with the
facts alleged, as charges against Colonel Ovens, and de-
fending him
_from the accusations. which had been pre-
ferred against him by the Hon. Member who introduced
the motion, he accused that Hon. Member with being a
}aired agent. Why, what were the Hon. Gentlemen, who
took -office end received their stipends • for their duties,
but • • hired..agents;. as a-servant• of the public he was
Paid.. Is any marewho has not been brought up to the
bar, but has business to do, to be called a hired agent?
Are his exertions to be reckoned of no value, and an
attempt made to place his character and statements in
an unworthy position?—(Cheers.) If the Hon. Mem-
ber for Roxburghshire had attempted, as he ought to
have done,. to grapple with the facts, and answer the
arguments and documents, he would have been entitled to
some credit. - But it was always the case with those who
Madan lactate adduce and no arguments to bring forward,
that they attempted to blacken the character of the indi-
viduals opposed to them, and insinuate that they had
brought forward their statements merely because they
were paid for them. The Hon. Member read a long state-
ment purporting to be an account of Mr. G. Thompson's
proceedings at Delhi. .Sir,' that was false. I have my-
sell seen the correspondence which passed between Sir
hemas Metcalfe and the Honourable Member 'for the
Tower Hamlets respecting his mission to Delhi, and he
ventured to say that, from an examination of that cor-
respondence, that Honourable Gentleman would come
Flyer out of any such charge as that preferred against
him that night, and with great honour to himself. No-
thing was done upon that occasion without the know-
ledge of Sir Thomas Metcalfe. who was then at Delhi,
and it was with his sanction that every step was taken
by the Honourable Member. Here, therefore, were in-
_
mutations of Major Angelo brought forward, who seems
to have known nothing of the case, used by the Honour-
able Member for Roxburghshire for the purpose of black-
ening the character, and destroying the weight of the
his lio
evidence brought forward bydmneou,rbe
rharabtle Friend
the Member for the -Tower
Hamlets.
jthe first time that the Honourablewwha so
he tiedt
ust sat down had done the same
thing
; for, during
a debate upon the incomesfax
member... for —yin,bury_ 41,
"pandering
the Honour-
also tried to blacken the character of he
had
ttl:,od
or
regv
oo
able
lution and violence, instead of advancing merit. The. Hon. Member for - Roxburghshire
theat the
pandering to
itated, if he (Mr. Hume) recollected rightly,gthen
Hon. Member for Finsbury was
of the lowest order of his constituents, and now he
(Tiers
flume) supposed that that lion. Gentleman was again •
insinuating that the Hon. Member for the Tower gam_letsavas pandering to the vices of the native chiefs in
India. There were other transactions in which the
non... Member was, as far as he (Mr. Hume) knew, en-
gaged. He went out to India with a man then much
respected, but since dead, undoubetedly as a philanthro-
pist, with other objects in view than, those in which he
Was subsequently engaged. While there, he was re-
quested to go up to Delhi, in order to assist by his ad.
vice and services in' obtaining justice for the King of
Delhi against the oppression to which he considered he
Was subjected by the East India Company. He (Mr.
flume) would not enter into the circumstances of that
', because he believed the matter was settled; he
only referred to it to show the unjust aspersions to which
Mallon. Gentleman had been subjected. It was nothing
but reasonable for him to introduce to the House a
11,,_ Weet of that kind, and he had a right to do so without
_ ar
subjected to accusation in respect to another subject.
17liste.) Now what was really the question before the
'll/115e? Colonel Ovans, being one of the residents at