The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-13 00:00:00

euch a height that no other resource was left. If the ordinary
e; was paralysed, some extraordinary me asere of this kind
'oust, be brought into operation. What was the case with the
;lee counties which had been so often referred .to in the course
of these discnssions as illustrating the amecnt of crime
last year, as compared with the five first months of
the present year. He would compare the ecetal offences
columned fn theT in 1845, with the offences of five months
ending in May iii the present year, as a reply to the argument
which had been employed, that the state society had been
much improved, and that the measure was not required. The
results in the two periods were to the following effect—he re-
ferred to offences of an insurrectionary character. In Tippe-
rary. in 1845 the teal number was 842; in the five months of
1846, 368. In Limerick the number in 1845 was 282; in the
five months of the present year it was 248. In the county of
Clare, last year, the number was WI ; in the five months of
the present year it was 181. In Roscommon, last year, the
number was 659; in the five months e the present year, 471..
With regard to Leitrim, he rejoiced to say that there had been
a great improvement, but he must observe that it had
been occupied by an overwhelming military force, and
great exertion had been made by the magistrates and
local gentry. In this country the number of offences in 1845
was 814 ; and in the five months of the present year ,only 164.
—( Hear, hear.) This was the total for the first five months
of the present year, and supposing that the same increase of
crime should go on for the remainder of the year that had
taken place in the five months, in that es.e in the five coonties
the number in 1846 would be 3,013,Us compared with 2.026, the
number of 1845.—( Loud cries of Hear, hear.") In Leitri'm ,
the reduction had been most material. for while the number in I
1845 was 814, at the rate of the fir-t five months of the present
year, the number in 1E46 would be only 414.—( Hear, hear.) I
Leaving offences of an insurrectionary character, he would pro-
ceed to those of an aggravated nature, such as homicides, firing
at the person, aggravated assaults, assault and threatenme life,
and firing into dwellings; and he would compare the offences
of 1845 with the same crimes i t the first five months of the
present year. In the first five months of 1845, the homicides
were 20; in the five months of the present year, 28. Cases
of firing at the person in the first five months in 1845,
40; in 1846, 41. Aggravated assaults in the first five months
of 1845, 85 ; in the present year, 121 ; assaulting and threat-
ening life, in the five months of last year 41 ; in the present
year, 53 ; firing in dwellings last year, 46 ; in the present
year, 68. Could any one, with these facts before them, say
that there had been a diminution of crime such as to justify
the Government abandoning the measure? Taking the aggre-
gate of offerices he found, from the printed returns from the
Ist of January to the end of May, that the total of offences in
all Ireland was '2,093, while of these 1,183 were in the five
counties of Tipperary, Limerick, Clare, Roscommon, and Lei-
trim. Thus of the offences committed in all Ireland one-
half of them were committed in these five counties containing
but one-sixth of the population.—(Hear.) They could not
a-sign any such cause as the relation of landlord and
tenant as being the cause of this state of things.
The whole state of society was diseased, and because
it could not be met by ordinary means he asked for a topical
remedy. Of the 1,1.8 offences, Tipperary had 286, Clare
171, Roscommon 3e3, Limerick 210, and Leitrim 133. Out
of the whole of these 1,188 offences there had been but 54
convictions.—( Hear, hear.) Let them conceive the melan-
choly spectacle it presentee, and say whether some extraerdi-
nary measure of this kind was not required. According to
the returns of homicides or murders, he found in the five
counties, that in February, 1846, the number of homicides or
murders was 18, and 'A attempts at murder. In March there
were 23 murders or homicides, and 14 attempts at murder.
Was it poseible they shoull not deal with such a state of things?
No alteration in the law of landlord and tenant would come
in operation to meet this state of things. Let them
consider the class of parties that were the victims ; they
would find that they were persons in the humblest walks of
life. (The Right Hon. Baronet here read an extract from the
document in his hand, to the effect that persons in the poorest
walks of life had been attacked.) This (he continued) was the
class of persons that lost their lives in Ireland, and they might
conceive what must be the amount of apprehension, anxiety,
and fear, that prevailed, where murders were committed night
after night. Adtnittirg that the remedial measures proposed
by Hon. Members on the other side of the House were cor-
rect, when there was no evidence of their being immediately
brought into beneficial operation could they dispense
with some temporary measure to meet the present state of
things. It would n e interfere with the operation of any
remedial measure they might propose, while it would prevent
the growth of crime. During the five years that a similar
law was in operation, it was found that the fear of it was
sufficient on the minds of the people without bringing it into
actual operation. From the consideration of these tacts, he
felt it his duty to press forward the second reading of the Bill.
He knew not of anything more he had to say in vindication of
the Government, in proposing the present measure for putting
end end to crime and to restore confidence. Here he was
willing to dismiss the question, but he felt it imperative to
notice the speech made the last night of the debate by the
Noble Lord the Member for Lynn (Lard G. Bentinck) He
(Sir R. Peel) deeply regretted, not only for his own sake, but
for the character of the House, that during the present
session for the first time a license of speech had been
used which he felt assured would prove most
injurious to the cause of free discussion. During a
parliamentary life of 35 years he had not witnessed any exam-
ples of such proceedings.—( Hear, hear.) He had sat in Par-
liament in times of great excitement. and he believed it possible
to conduct debates in that House with every latitude conducive
either to free discussion or the interests of the public without
doing anything to lower their characters as public men.—
(Hear, hear.) But if the Noble Lord's proceeding is to be
considered parliamentary, it behoved him (Sir R. Peel) to
say it must not be one-sided.—( Hear, hear, and cheers. )
Their sense of justice would induce them to give all parties
the same freedom of speech that was claimed by
those he had alluded to.—(Hear, hear.) They would not
refuse to give those who were calumniated and maligned the
same justice to defend as they had been attacked. He hoped
they would maintain him in the course he was about to take,
and he should endeavour to do nothing, inconsistent with his
position as a public man ; but should hestep beyond the rule of
strict propriety, he hoped they would not forget the provo-
cation he had received.—(Hear, hear.)—He would endeavour
not to forget, as he had ever remembered the position in which
he was placed, as the Prime Minister of the country, charged
with the proposal and conducting of more important
measures than had ever been submitted to
Parliament by any public man.—(Hear, hear.) But
there were bounds which ought to be respected by every
one in such matters. The Noble Lord had said not merely
that her Majesty's Government despaired at the ultimate suc-
cess of carrying this measure, but he presumed to say that
they were not in earnest in passing this measure.--(Hear,
hear.) The Noble Lord had given them his sepp -irt during
the progress "of the measure, but he (Sir R. Peel) had not
characcerised them as " hired janissaries" tecause they had
avowed their intention of now turning,. round and opposing the
Bill. Gentlemen exercising their free right of judgment upon
public matters had been denounced by the Noble Lord as base
renegades. The Noble Lord had exercised his private right
of varying his vote according to his sense of public duty. He
thought the Noble Lord voted last year against restrictions
upon factory labour, and voted for them this year, and without
being questioned by any one as to the purity of his motives.—
(Hear, hear.) He thought the Noble Lord was prepared to
support by far the most absurd and impracticable
measure, namely, the permission to import foreign grain
into Ireland, but that permission was not to extend to England.
—(
Hear, hear, and laughter.) The Noble Lord, he believed,
voted for the first reading of this Bill, upon the ground that to
man could safely go to church—( Hear, hear)—that old
women—(Laughter)—could not go to church without being
subject to constant danger—that women with children in their
arms were assassinated—that there was no security for life and
property ; and that he and his friends, without respect to party
considerations, were determined that this licence should not be
tolerated upon the pretence of this Bill being
contrary to constitutional liberty. Well, the Noble Lord was
prepared to vote against this Bill.—(Hear, hcar,and laughter.)
The Noble Lord said he would withhold his confidence from
the public, and he thought himself justified to vote against the
measure; but if the Noble Lord claimed for himself the
privilege of varying his vote, let him (Sir Robert
Peel) tell him that he was bound to withhold
from others such expressions as paid janissaries and renegades.
—(
Cheers.) Why, who were the men who were included as
Janissaries ?—( Hear, hear.) He (Sir R. Peel) looked upon
them, and he did not name them because they were more parti-
cularly eminent, or more particularly entitled than others. He
believed that every man who had given him support, bad given
him that support from pure and honourable motives. But was
it t o be tolerated that such Members as his Right Hon. Friend
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Lord Francis Egerton,
or Mr. Wilson Patten—(Cries of " Order, order.")
He begged pardon for mentioning names, but
was it to be said that because they exercised
that public right which every public man might
exercise, that such men were to be branded with the names of
paid Janissaries and renegades?—( Ht ar, hear.) He did be-
lieve that such language was not only calculated to impede free
diseussiiiit, but he believed that if such language was perm.tted
it would create unmitigated disgust.—(Loud cheers.) Let him
now proceed to notice the personal attack which the Noble
Lord had made upon him. ,He was glad he di .I not act upon
the impulse of the moment, and immediately reply to the
attack made upon him. The Noble Lord referred
to circumstances which had now passed, he believed,
about 19 years, and he (Sir Robert Peel) being then
in imperfect recollection of the exact state of the affair, re-
joiced that he did not give an answer to those personal allega-
tions till he had an opportunity of ascertaining how far they
were well founded. That attack was made in the presence of
many members who were entering Parliament now for the
first time, and who, perhaps, had an imperfect recollection to
what the Noble Lord alluded, and he was particularly anxious
that however hostile they might be to his policy, they should
not remain under the impression that the Noble Lord's
allegations were calculated to create. (Hear, hear.)
That particular attack to which he was referring,
was couched in these words—" fhe Noble Lord said that
he was old enough to remember, and remember with heart-
felt sorrow, that he (Sir R. Peel) chased and hunted an illus-
trious relative of his (Lord Bentinck) to death—(Hear, hear)
—on the ground that though he had changed his opinion on
the question of Catholic emancipation, in 1827, he yet professed
to hold the same opinion in 1829, and that he had communi-
cated his change of opinion to the Earl of Liverpool ;
but that did not prevent him, in 1827, getting up in
the same assembly and stating that he could not support a
Government, of which the chief Minister was favourable to a
measure, which, in two years afterwards, he (Sir R. Peel)
intended to carry. That was the statement of the Noble Lord.
The Noble Lord said that he very well recollected the time.
No doubt he did, because he was at that time a Member of the
House of Commons, and the Noble Lord heard all that
passed. It was now nineteen years since that transaction oc-
curred, and seventeen years since the speech was made in
1829. Well, now, he (Sir R. Peel) must say that he did re-
spect the feelings of the man who felt uneasy at the conduct
that had chased his relative to death. The Noble Lord
abhorred those who tried to hunt and chase a public man who
was acting in the performance of his public duty_.( Hear,
hear.) But if that man was chased and hunted to death as
his relative, his feelings were to be respected in the highest
degree. But bow came it that, entertaining those feelings, the
first time he (Sir Robert Peel) ever heard of them should be
in this present session.—( Hear, hear, and laughter.) The
Noble Lord had been a Member of Parliament since 1826.
(Lord George Bentinck expressed dissent.) He might be in
error, but since the year 1835 he thought he
had been honoured with the Noble Lord'scordial,
arid, he must say, most pure and disinterested support.
Since the year 1835 the Noble Lord had called him his Right
Hon. Friend.—( Hear, hear, and laughter.) And he was at
the same time cognizant of all those transactions. He per-
mitted him to be the leader of the party to ighich he belonged
—(
Hear, hear)—and never until the month of June, 1846,
did he harbour such language with respect to the man who
had hunted and ebased his relative to death. Now, he (Sir
Robert Peel) would say that the entertainments of such feel-
ings by the Noble Lord was highly honourable. " They
were a part of his honourable political principles. The
lapse of time, and the change of political circumstances,
might compel combinations of politics unforeseen by those
parties who were their opponents. But the Noble Lord, be-
lieving that he had hunted and chased his relative to
death—he did not understand how the Noble Lord, without
making any public or private intimation to him of those
feelings, consented to accept him as a leader, and call him
his Right Hon. Friend.—( Hear, hear.) Now, he (Sir Robert
Peel) was going on the assumption, that this charge against
hint was founded on fact. He was proceeding on the
assumption that he really did inform Lord Liverpool in
1824 that his opinion bad changed upon the Catholic question.