The Sun.
London, England, 1833-06-27 00:00:00

131 PERU LPA IILIAMENT

THIS DAY, THURSDAY, JUNE 27.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

At a quarter past twelve, when the Gantry was opened
we found about thirty Members in the House.
POLICE SPIES.

Mr. COBBETT said he bad a petition to present
which, if it contained the truth, must convince the House
and the people of the country that they might now say
with the Psalmist, " In the midst of life we are in death."
The petition alleged that the police were employed sys-
tematically as spies, and he (Mr. Cobbett) would declare
that he was in a condition to prove it. It was from the
undersigned members of the Political Union of Camber-
well and Walworth, and stated that William Popay had
been a member for many months of their Political
Union, and that at their meetings he had frequently
urged them to use stronger language, and on many occa-
sions had altered with his own pen the resolutions pro-
posed at the meetings, so as to make them more violent.
On these occasions he railed against the Government, and
used such expressions as " Damn the Ministry." He
proposed to some of the petitioners to open a shooting
gallery, and to teach the use of the broad sword, of which
be boasted to have a perfect knowledge. He was always
the first to promote anything that tended to military dis-
play, and subscribed to purchase a flag, and to pay for a
band to attend a meeting of the people on Kennington
Cernmon, to which meeting he walked in precession, arm hi
arm with one of the petitioners. In the month of August last
be formed one of a party to make an excursion to visit a
class of the Political Union at Richmond, when he paid
all the expenses incurred by the party who accompanied
him, by whom he was repaid at the conclusion of the day.
At this moment an How. MEMBER moved that the
House be counted, and strangers were ordered to with-
draw. On our return we found
Mr. COBBETT again on his legs, going on with the
reading of the petition. At the funeral of Jeremy Ben-
tham, Popay was seen taking notes. On all occasions
this man had represented himself to be in very poor cir-
cumstances, originating from an act of oppression towards
him, and the petitioners in consequence had frequently
relieved Popay's wife and children. Popay generally
carried a bag or portfolio, and represented himself as
dealing in light articles of stationary and fancy goods.
He did not enrol himself at the Union by his own name,
but in fictitious names, the last of which was Pearce ;
and he stated his reason to be that he was afraid of
offending some gentlemen who were his friends, among
whom he mentioned Mr. Alderman Wilson. All this time
it was quite unknown to the petitioners that Popay be-
longed to the police ; but he was stationed at Brixton, and
after these proceedings with the Political Unions of Cam-
berwell and Walworth,which he carried on in plain clothes,
he was promoted to the situation of clerk of the police, and
subsequently to that of deputy inspector, and is now sta-
tioned at Park-place, Walworth. In February last he
was charged, in the presence of some of the petition-
ers, with being a policeman in disguise, which he most
solemnly denied. It was George Fursey who first pre-
ferred the charge against him of belonging to the police ;
the very George Fursey who was now imprisoned in Netts'.
gate on a charge of having wounded the policeman at the
Calthorpe-street meeting. It was thus, then, said the
Hon. Member, that spies were sent about among the
people, under the pretence of their being employed as po-
lice, for the preservation of the. peace. It was thus that
spies were sent out to entrap the thoughtless, and to plunge
families into misery. The petitioners said that they had
frequently seen other policemen at different places, and
particularly at public meetings, sometimes dressed as gen-
tlemen, at other times as artisans, or in sailors' jackets or
farmers' frocks ; so that the petitioners might be truly
said to be living among spies and betrayers. The peti-
tioners respectfully prayed that the Hon. House would
cause an immediate inquiry to be made into the matter,
and enable them to give evidence of the truth of their
statements, which they were fully prepared to do; so that
themselves and their families might be protected from
such wrongs and perils, for the future.—(Hear, hear.)
If, said the Honourable Member, the people of this
country were to be compelled to live among spies
and traitors, the sooner they were all out of the world the
better. He was convinced, from the moat undoubted
evidence, that it was impossible for any man to go into a
coffee-house, or an eating-house, or for the more humble
classes of society to go even into a beer shop, without
taking his chance of having every action watched by a
villanous spy. There they were to be met with in all
sorts of dresses, to suit their iniquitous purposes. Accord-
ing to the rule that had been very recently laid down,
when another Hon. Member was presenting a petition,
he (Mr. Cobbett) could not be called upon to prove all
the allegations of any petition he presented, or indeed
to be answerable at all for the facts. But, in presenting
this petition, he would boldly say that he would be bound
to prove that all the facts therein stated were true. He
would pledge himself to their truth in the same way as any
attorney or advocate in a cause could be expected to pledge
himself, for he had taken some pains in the matter, he had
seen and examined the witnesses himself, and all the alle-
gations in the petition were true. Since the petition had
been put into his hands, two persons had waited upon
him with written proofs—not oral, but written, proofs—
that this William Popay bad subscribed towards the
establishing of a depot of arms.. He bad put his name
down to time list, and be had induced that unfortunate
man, Fursey, who was in Newgate, to put down his
name, but Fursey, as soon as he discovered that this
man was a spy, struck his own name out of the list.
He (Mr. Cobbett) had always charged the Government
with getting up the police for these purposes ; they were
a spy police, and he had always called them so. Now
Government might, or might not, know all about the
transactions which the petition narrated, but whether Mi-
nisters knew anything about them or not, somebody under
the Govet nment must know all about it ; for the man was
employed by the police ; he had his situation to keep ;
be must have received his pay regularly, and yet be was
walking about in plain clothes, denying that he was a
policeman. Somebody must have known that he was a spy.
The petitioners offered to give proof that Popsy was at the
Calthorpe-street meeting, dressed in private clothes; and
who could say how many other policemen were there in
the same state, and how much they had contributed to get-
ting up the meeting? He would say that it was a second
Cato-street plot, see how much it agreed with the pro

ceedings on that occasion.—(Hear, hear.) After the
meeting in Calthorpe-street, the Jury was called to
say how the man Cully had met with his death,
and during the inquest the Jury had quite encugh
to do to combat with the Coroner, and after all
their trouble, qnci they had brought in their verdict,
which they had signed, the coroner got them to sign also
a blank inquisition, which he filed up with an inquest
that was entirely inconsistent with the verdict. Instead of
doing his duty, which was to make the inquest comport with
the verdict, the Solicitor. General, and the Hon. Member
for Kidderminster, according to what they had said in that
House, were not aware of the practice of signing blank

inquisitions. What occurred after the verdict ? Why, the
Government immediately offered a reward for the appre-
hension of the murderer. Then came the concluding
link, in the shape of a paragraph, in a Government paper,
for so he must take that paper to be—it was the Morn-
ing Chronicle. The paragraph stated in substance

that a few days before, Fursey had been clearly identified by
a disinterested witness as the murderer of Cully. Now he

asked the House to put these facts together, and remember
that Fursey was the man who detected the spy policeman,
at Walworth—(Cries of " Hear, hear")—and poor
Fursey was the man where blood was to be spilt to expi-
.

ate the crime of detecting a Government spy--for dtot ct-
ing a man who, although he was going about in private
clothes, had been twice promoted. Who could say
say then that we did not live under an abominable spy sys-
tem ? He had said, on a previous occasion, that the police
were as bad as the mouchards or gcns d'armeries
of France ; but a Member of the Government had told him

they were not like either, but he would say that they
were now proved to be like both. In what did thy
not resemble them—how were spies treated in titn of
war ? Why, they were not even asked what they
were looking after.—(Hear, hear.) No matter what
their motives were, they were found as spies, and wh,n
caught, there was nothing to do but to hang them. But
this, the House should remember, was among enemies; hut
what should they do with those who were spies
among friends, with those who went about in civil society

endeavouring to bring innocent men to au ignomini :us
end ? What could they think of the man who did this
among those who had assisted to support himself, his
wife, and his family? Could anything be more ignominious?

The very people they were seeking to betray were those

. .
whose goods were sometimes sold to contribute towards
their maintenance. When was there a country in such a

state of degradation as this ?--(Hear, hear, hear. )

Never. It would be some consolation to them to heir
hat there ever hod. There were other circumstance,. at.

tending the police—these men were in the habit of recek-
ing presents, suspicious presents, under some want of
excuse, such as looking after property, but they were
obliged to render an account of these suspicious presents
to their superiors, with whom they had to divide the
spoil ; and what would be the consequence by and
by ?—(Hear, hear.) Why this custom would become
a demand, and then woe be to the man who should refuse
to make a present to the policemen. He was the more
determined in his opposition to this Government plan of
villanous police, because the Government wanted to ex-
tend its ignominous application into every little town and
village in the country.
As he had been told by a Worthy Alderman that there
was at the present moment a committee sitting on police
affairs, he would not apply for the appointment of any
committee, but move that the petition should be referred
to the sitting committee upon the subject.
Mr. SINCLAIR concurred with the Hon. Member for
Oldham that the case was one requiring investigation, but,
at the same time, he felt it his duty to take the opportunity
of stating his conviction that the police of the metropolis
were an eminently useful body of men, and were distin-
guished by their civility and attention.—(Hear.) The
Hon. Member for Oldham had compared the late proceed-
ings in Coldbath.fields to the Cato street conspiracy; in
that however he could not agree with hire, considering that
conspiracy one of the most dangerous attempts to subvert
the Government that had ever taken place in this
country. He regretted that the Hon. Member had in-
dulged in such remarksas he bad, thinking that they would
have a tendency to encourage such proceedings.
Mr. COBBETT begged to say that he had not made a
single observation to encourage such proceedings. He
had only likened the proceedings in Coldbath-fields
to the Cato-street conspiracy, on the ground that
it had originated with spies.
Col. EVANS, although he admitted that in many in-
stances the conduct of the police was most com-
mendable, yet he could not help recollecting, whenever
the subject was brought forward, the printed instructions
put forth by the Home Department when the police
service first commenced, which stated that they were
to be armed, and to inquire into the conduct of the in-
habitants of their different districts.—( Hear.) Nothing
in his opinion was more like the establishment of a gena
d'armerie. It was true that those instructions, so far as
it respected the police being armed and the inquiry into
the conduct of the inhabitants, were withdrawn, yet
it still showed the animus that actuated the Home
Department.—(Hear.) The only two countries in which
forces similar to these were established were Paris
and Ireland. Undoubtedly the police of France, the
yens d'armerie, preserved life and property most success-
fully ; but the question with him was, whether the attempt
to correct one abuse might not introduce a much worse one.
We were not in the state that France and Ireland were,
to justify the establishment of such a system of police,
and it had been found so intolerable in Paris, that it had
since the revolution of 1830 been put down in that city.
The expense was more than double that of the old
watchmen, a serious consideration in the distressed state
of the middling classes.
Mr. HAWES—Not double.
Colonel EVANS understood that it was, and at any
rate 7,0001. more than was necessary bad been raised
during the last year. In the parish of St. George, the
Commissioners, by rating the empty houses, had raised
the amount on the inhabited houses above Bd. in the
pound, which was all the Act allowed. He hoped
the Honourable Member for Oldham would move
tor a Committee to inquire into the allegations of
the petition.—(Hear, hear.) As the conduct of the
Coroner in the Calthorpe-street affair had been alluded to,
he would state, that in his opinion it was not the result
of inadvertence, but of design, and if no other Member
took steps to have him punished, he should himself.
An Hose. MEMBER defended the police, and was sure
the allegations of the petition could not be proved.
Mr. RONAYNE begged to assure the Hon. Member
for Oldham that this case was not unprecedented. In
Ireland it was common, and on a late occasion, when be
cross-examined a policeman, he found that he also had
acted as a pedlar, his basket being furnished at the expense
of the Government, the objcct being to discover some felon
who was concealed.
Mr. GODSON, in explanation of what he was reported
to have said on a former occasion, stated that he had not
denied the power of the Court of King's Bench to quash
the Coroner's inquisition. What he had said was, that it
was on account of a flaw in it, occasioned by the Coroner's
ignorance, which did not impeach the correctness of the
verdict. He regretted the Government had the inquisition
quashed, for if a verdict under a Coroner's inquest could
be put forward, as it bad been recently in the Court of
King's Bench as the best defence of an illustrious person
against a libel upon his character, why should not a poor
man have the same advantages?
Mr. WILKS said he considered the present petition to
be the most important one which had been presented to the
House during the three Parliaments he had sat in the
House, and it deserved the most serious considera-
tion. The system of permitting the police to receive pre-
sents would lead to the greatest neglect of the public interest
and to the most extensive bribery, and it became the House
to express its greatest indignation at the permitting a po-
liceman to act as a spy, as was charged in the petition, in
order that the utility of such an establishment should not
be wholly destroyed. It should be recollected, that by the
introduction of spies into Scotland a few years ago, the
only outrages he had heard of, and which led to the most
dreadful results. were produced ; yet those very spies had
since published an account of their proceedings, and took
great credit to themselves for what they did. He hoped that
all the allegations of the petition would be properly
investigated, either by a Select Committee, or (which
he would prefer if the Right Hon. the Speaker would
say that it was consistent with the forms tithe House) that
it should be referred to the Metropolitan Police Committee,
now sitting, for them to report specially upon.
The SPEAKER thought it was not likely that a
matter of such importance would be overlooktd by the
Committee.

Mr. ESTCOURT, as Chairman of the Metropolitan
Police Committee, said he did not know whether or not
consistently with the forms of the House, the Com-
mittee could specially report upon the individual case of
complaint. He thought, however, that it would be too
much to expect every individual case of abuse by the
police, to be inquired into by a Committee, which was
appointed mere to inquire into the general system of
police. If this were referred to the Committee, other cases
might also be referred to them, and their labours would be
extended to a very long period.
Mr. COBBETT was willing to refer the pe-
tition to any Committee, but from what had fallen

from the Honourable Member (Mr. Estcourt) as to the
inconvenience of referring it to the Committee now sitting,
he thought it best that his Majesty's Ministers should first
see the petition—(Hear)—and then that lie should have
an early opportunity afforded him of bringing the subject
again forward.

The petition was then ordered to lie on the table.
Mr. COBBETT presented a petition from Oldham
against the Bill now in the House for rating tenements.
Sir W. CIIAYTOR presented a petition from the
notaries public of Sunderland against the Notaries Public
Bil I

Colonel EVANS presented a petition from Rye praying
hat the dealers in beer might all be put upon the same

Footing.

Lord GERMYN presented a petition from Bury St.
Edmunds against the Bill for the rating of small tenements.

Mr. SINCLAIR presented a petition from St. Fergus,
against the system of church patronage in Scotland. The
Hon. Alember took that opportunity of stating that it
was his determination to bring forward on the 4th of
July, the motion of which he had given notice on the
subject, by that means affording to his Majesty's Mini-
sters an opportunity of stating their views on the subject,
and Hon. Members the means of recording their opinions.
Mr. D. RONAYNE presented a petition from Clon-
mell, against the Kilkenny and Carlow Road Bill.
Mr. FENTON presented a petition from the medical
practitioners of Huddersfield, against the Apothecaries'
Act Amendment Bill.

Mr. PEASE presented a petition from the merchants,
bankers, and shipowners of Stockton-upon-Tees, stating
their alarm at the alterationsproposed by the Chancellor of
the Exchequer on the renewal of the Bank Charter, and

praying that the old system might be continued.
Colonel L. HAY presented a petition from Elgin against
the Bill for the establishment of central courts of bank-
tuptcy in Scotland.
Mr. SINCLAIR observed that he believed it to be the
uLiversal sentiment of the people of Scotland, that this
Bill should not be pressed forward.
Sir AV. INGILBY presented petitions from different
parishes in Lincolnshire and Gloucestershire agaist slavery,
and for the repeal of the duties on malt.
Lord APSLEY presented a petition from the inhabi-
tants of Circencester, against the proposed arrangement
relative to the Bank Charter.
Mr. PARROT presented a petition from Har-
!aton in the county of Devon, in favour of a
commutation of tithes, on the principle that the
tithe-owner should receive a tenth of the annual
value not of the produce of the land.
Mr. TODD Ind Mr. TYNTE, supported the petition.
The SPEAKER having got through the list, vacated
the chair at a quarter to two o'clock.