The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-20 00:00:00

Mr. ROEBUCK said he was at ales. what to make of the
sr eech of the Noble Lord who had just sat down. According
to the statement of the Noble Lord, he stood by Mr.
Canning till the time when he saw hint hunted to
death—( Hear, heat ) —ant he watched the han.t that
struck the blow which penetrated that noble heart ; yet
h.t man who had directed the blow the Noble Lord had
afterwards called his Right lion. Friend.—( Hear, hear.) As
a plain man, he ( Mr. Roebuck) would say, had he possessed
such a frien had he grown up with Mr. Canning—had he
s.-en the blow struck that laid him in the dust, and knew
the hand that dealt the blow, he at least would never
have gulled that man his Right Hon. Friend. flow came
it that not till nineteen years after the death of Mr. Can-
ning did the Noble Lord think proper to make the declara-
tion he had made? Why did he not make the declaration
before, instead of reserving it to such a Isle perii d, and then,
in a moment of irritation and party quarrel, to make the
charge of his friend being hunted to death ? Again, when
did the Hon. Gentleman the Aleipb .r for Shrewsbury make
ti,e same discovery ? Was it in 1602, 1825, 1628, or 1,32 ?
He got into Partiainent in 1832 _

Mr. DISRAELI—I diil not get in then.
Mr. Id OEBUCK—The Hon. Gentleman tried to get in, at
all events.—( Laughter.) He got in, however, in 1835, and
then he set about with fulsome speeches to praise the Right
Hon. Baronet—prepared speeches, got up for the occasion—
and finding that he did not succeed, he changed about—a
change he (Mr. Roebuck) boldly attributed to disappointed
ambition. He failed of success in his flattery, and, in the bit-
terness of disanpointment, he became the uncompromising op-
ponent of the Right Hon. Baronet.—( Hear. ) They had been
told that his Radical opinions were the produce of his generous
youth, but that his Toryism was the result of his mature man-
hood. But he did not succeed, with all his chopping and
changing, to get into place and power—the great object he had
in view. The Right Hon. Baronet, it could not be denied,
had also charged his opinions, but the change was the result of
a new conviction, and did not proceed from any expectation of
place and pension—( Hear, hear) —and his country would yet
do full justice to his conduct. The English people were a
prudent people, and they would weigh in the balance the petty
passions of the Hon. Member fur Shrewsbury and the sacri-
fices which the Right Hon. Baronet, in his present conduct,
had made to ensure a great public good.—( Cheers.) The
Right Hon Baronet had yielded to new convictions, while the
charges of the Hon. Member for Shrewsbury proceeded from
motives of place and power, and from a feeling of disappointed
ambition. lie was sure the people of England would nit
much longer hear with such proceedings of the Noble Lord, the
Member for Lynn, and the Hon. Member for Shrewsbury,
and when a general election came he had no fear for the result.
He at least was not afraid of meeting his constituents for the
support he had given to the Right Hon. Baronet in forwarding
his present measure. lie hoped, and sincerely too, that the
aholitioe of the corn-laws would not be the last act of the
Right Hon. Barooet's political life, but that he wr uld become
a ceadjutor with others in promoting and carrying out measures
and views which should be equally wise, and of equal import-
ance to the vital interests of the country as the one he had
just alluded to.—( Hear, hear. ) He felt that he should not
have been doirg justice to his feelings and to his country if he
had not taken the earliest opportunity to rise in his place, and
express his gratitude to the Right Hon. Baronet for what he
had done; and at the same to assure him that he had per-
fectly vindicated his character, in the reply he had made to the
change of the Noble Lord the Member for Lynn.—( !leer. )
Lord J. RUSSELL had hoped that his Noble Friend,
the Member for Lynn, would have relieved him from the nee
cessity of saying anything upon the present occasion. —( Hear.)
He had trusted that his Noble Friend would have taken a
course which would have at once put an end to any discussion
upon this subject. He was not one of these who
was disposed to think that upon general questions, I;ke these
they ha I lately had under discussion, Hon. Members ought
not to refer to matters which occurred twenty years ago, and
stilt less to express hemselves in strong terms upon such sub-
jects. He was not prepared either to say that the great diffe-
rence of opinion which had existed in that House upon a sub-
ject of great and vital interest to the country was not sufficient
to restrain Hon. Memb .rs from indulging in strong late
guace against the Minister who propesiel it.—(Hear, hear.)
Bet the question which the Right Him. Baronet, the First Lord
of the Treasury had brought before the House to-nieht was
not a question of general accusation, or of indiscriminate
attack, but it was an accusation against him upon specific
points. The Right Hon. Baronet had been charged, in the
first place, with having stated to Lord Liverpool, in 1825, that
he thought the Roman Catholic question ought to be settled,
and that his opinions had chanced upon the subject. In the
next place, whether he stated that to Lord Liverpool or no in
1829, he made a statement to that effect in that House, and
thereby laying himself open to the renroach that while he
thought the question ought to be settled he oeposed Mr. Can-
ning in endeavouring to effect the object in 1827. But the
last and greatest charge of all was that with respect to a speech
he m tcle in 1829. He had been a party to sending forth to the
would a quibbled and mutilated report ofthat speech, for the pur-
pose of suppressing the truth upon the subject to which
it related. Now these were specific charges; whether they
were worth bringing before the House was another question.
The Hon. and Learned Gentleman who had just sat down
seem to thin; that it was not, but he for one was of opinion
that the Right Hon. Baronet would have suffered in character
if he had not done so—and being so brought before them, he
must say, in justice to the Right lion. Baronet, that the answer
he had made had quite relieved his mind from all doubt on the
subject of those charges. He believed, in the first place that
the Right Hon. Baronet in 1825 stated to Lord Liverpool, that
being in a minority in that douse upon Irish questions, it was
net fit and suitable for him to hold a Government situation,
but that he made no declaration or statement to Lord Liver-
pool as to what would be his subsequent course. lie believed
in the next place that in 1829, instead of stating what he did
in 1825, he stated exactly the course he adopted in 1828. He
admitted with the Noble -Lord that in conning over the debates
of that period there were some passages, such as those relating
to Lord Uxbridge and others on which it would be
gathered that the course the Right Hon. Baronet
adopted in 1828 was similar to that he adopted
in 1325 ; but if they looked to other passages which took place
two or three days afterwards, they would see clearly that the
Right Hon. Baronet did explain exactly what had taken place
in the manner he had done that evening. He admitted that
the Right Hon. Baronet—and he did not wonder at it—being a
Minister of the Crown, arid subjected to repeated accusations,
did not always get up to reply to them. But there was no
doubt that the Right Hon. Baronet did take an opportunity to
explain all the circumstances connected with the mater.
With respect to the Right Hon. Baronet having brought the
matter formally before the House on the present occasion. he
for one thought it was highly important that the Right Hon.
Baronet had done so. He had himself a very imperfect recol-
lection of these debates, hut he certainly did not recollect any-
thing of the kind as stated by the Hon. and Learned Member
for Lynn. A short time ago, however, a " Mirror of Par-
liament" was put into his hand, and the impression it left upon
his mind was that he must have been mistaken in that which had
occurred. He readily thought that the " Mirror of Parliament"
was more likely to be correct. than his own recollection, and he
was therefore glad that the Right Hon. Baronet had taken the
opportunity of making this statement, because it was only
natural that persons should be misled by the reports of the
Si Mirror of Parliament." This impression, however, could now
be left on no man's mind, because the Right lion. Baronet had
clearly shown that the report in " Hansard," agreeing with:five
newspapers of the day, was likely to he more conformable to the
statements of the Right lion. Baronet than the report of the
st Mirror of Parliament." The statement of the Right Hon.
Baronet had, therefore, in his opinion fully vindicated his
character from the imputations which had been cast upon it by
the Hon. and Learned Member for Lynn. He thought there
was no necessity for taking the opinion of the House with
respect to the opposition which the Right Hon. Baronet made
to Mr. Canning in 1827. But he agreed with the lion. and
Learned Member for Bah, that the Right Hon. Bart., in taking
the part he had done upon this and other political question-,
had rendered a great service to the country, but he certainly
slid not agree with the Hun. and Learned Member that this
aught to protect the lion. Member from censure, because it
must he remembered that in the course of his political career
the Hon. arid Learned Member had altered his opinions twice.
When the Protestant Church and the Protestant institution
was to he defended from the assaults of the Roman Catholic:
the Right Hon. Ba.ronist undertook to lead that defence ; and
again, when the corn-laws were attacked, and powerfully
attacked, both in and out of that House, the Right lion.
Baronet undertook to lead a party organised for the express
purpose of maintaining them, The Right Hon. Gentleman,
he thought, had upon both occasions ultimately arrived at a
wiser conclusion, which had resulted in his proposing mea-
sures more beneficial to the country. But it must be re-
membered that many of the Right Hon. Gentleman's sup-
porters, rcliing upon his political wisdon, and upon his elo-
quence in debate, had enrolled themselves as his supporters
while he pursued a particular policy, and it was only natural
that they should offer some resentment when they found
the Right Hon. Baronet forsaking the cause he had so often
and so strongly adhered to. He had said these few words
because he really believed that whatever political difference
might exist between himself and the Right Hon. Gentleman
opposite, the Right Hm. Gentleman in his capacity of First
Minister of the Crown, had d 'ne great service to the country,
'while it was only justice fir him to add, that his statement
that evening had triumphantly vindicated his character from
the slurs which had been cast upon him.
Mr. B. DISR ELI said, he had already spoken at such
great length on this debate that he was not over anxious of the
privilege afforded him on this occasion, and he should therefore
confine himself to the general case which the Right Hon.
Baronet had brought before the House. Ile should conFrie
himself to a simple statement of facts, and to an examination
of the allegations which had been made in answer to the charge
of his Noble Friend the Member for Lynn. Arguments he
thought would be out of place and recrimination quite unne-
cessary. He need hardly notice what had fallen from the
Hon. and Learned Member for Bath, because they all knew
that his speeches were not prepared, and according to the Hon.
and Learned Member's own statement speeches which were not
carefully prepared before delivery in that House were not
worthy of much attention.—( Hear, hear, and laughter. )
With regard to what the Hon. and Learned Member had ad-
dressed " to presumptuous and ignorant youths," he should
leave it to be ,nswered by those " presumptuous and ignorant
youths," whom he had no doubt would be found equally as
strong as the Hon. and Learned Member, whether in an intellec-
tual, moral, or physical point of view. He now approached
the matter before them, and he would, with the permission of
the House, address himself seriously and anxiously to what
had fallen from the Right Hon. Baronet. In the first place he
might be permitted to observe that throughout the Right Hon.
Baronet's statement there ran a constant and remarkable
fallacy. The Right Hon. Gentleman had assumed through-
out his statement that they had been hunting for evidence,
culled from journals and newspapers of the House, in order to
prove a charge against him. Now, it would be remembered
that on a charge being made against the Right lion. Baronet,
upon an authority to which he would in a few minutes refer,
the Right t 'on. Baronet rose and declared that the charge was
totally unfounded, was utterly groundless, and in fact was quite
destitute of all foundation. He defied them to produce any au-
thority to support it, and excepting that challenge, they had
produced reports and documents as collateral illustrations of the
charge they had made. Now before he adverted to the publi-
cation of Mr. Hansard, in the "Mirror of Parliament," which
had been so much referred to, he must remark that the " Edin-
l!‘ujeringhbeßrev()ifewo,e' whilioculisszaswshuoppobsaecil to
eharerbeesent duringwritttsn the
yae
whole of the debate, and conversant with the whole matter, was
produced by them not as a proof, but as an illustration of the
charge which they ha 1 made against the Right Hon. Baronet.
He now came to Mr. Barrow. He never meant to say
that gentleman reported a speech which occupied
five - that
or six
hours in the delivery ; while he could assure the
oef p ocrotue
course
House that in the early parts of 182f3, he knew of
his own knowledge, that the " Mirror of Par-
liatriva
nentlilpru had,,g
up asin the independentshapeof
,th,
nrcorpssd
," and r
of
He knew that this work did not receive an extensive patronage.
A
the publication of Mr. Barrow was eventually lim:t d e to a very
seen!). circulation. His authority for saying
test was Mr.
Barre .v himself. He could not produce Mr. Barrow hisaself,
but that gentleman told him on a subsequent occasion, about
three or four years afterwards, which was in the first Parlia-
ment
of the reign of William the Fourth, that he found it was
quite impossible to carry on the publication, as there was not
a sufficient circulation. Now it was not impossible to press
upon such a matter, but merely to set the Right Hon. Baronet
right upon this matter of Mr. Barrow. He believed he nes
etricny correct. The reporters made up this culled report of
the Right Hful. Gentleman's speech. Now, he must at the
saute time remark upon the very circumstarce of the reporters
upon the principal journals going together in council upon this
nosy speech, and he telieved that the report which was given