The Sun.
London, England, 1834-07-24 00:00:00

not think it would be possible altogether to acquit the Govern-
ment of all particifiation in the charge brought against them
in the person of the Right Hon. Secretary of War. The
House was told they would be establishing a bad precedent
in acceding to the motion. In his humble opinion they would
be adopting a much worse precedent in refusing it. In more
points than one they would be adopting a bad precedent in re-
fusing the Committee for which they sought. It. was said
that if an Hon. 'Member on being accused of improper conduct
was able to make a defence resting altogether on mere verbal
allegation, the House could not grant a Committee of Inquiry
into the matter without treating the party so accused as a liar,
and one altogether unworthy of belief. Surely a worse pre-
cedent than that ceuld not be establilled.—( Hear.) It was at
all events a precedent which he implored the House, as they
valued their character in the country, not to sanction. In his
opinion nothing was more calculated to render the present case
one of frightful enormity, than the opposition which the Go-
vernment had off2.red to his motion for an investigation. An
Honourable Member (Mr. C. Buller), had committed an
outrage on those splendidly imaginative faculties with
which bountiful nature endowed him, in attempting to prove
an identity of• conduct between the Right Hon. Gentleman
the Secretary at War and Scipio Africanus ; but he put it to
the House to say if the speech of that Hon. Member, or the
speeches of those who took a similar view of the subject with
his, were at all calculated to satisfy the public mind that the
public money had not been showered forth in God alone knew
how many places by the Treasury, for the purpose of securing
the return of their immediate partisans.—( Hear.) What had
been the conduct of an unreformed Parliament upon an occa-
sion in every respect similar to the present ? An accusation
was brought against Mr. Windham Quin, an individual whose
character at the time tile accusation was preferred stood in the
public estimation at all events as high as that of the Right Hon.
Gentleman the Secretary at War, and although he offered a
defence which in the opinion of a great portion of the House
was deemed satisfactory, a Committee of Inquiry havirg been
moved for was granted, and in the result evidence was ad-
duced which brought home the charge to-that person, and in the
end was the means of putting a stop to his political career.
And even the Reform Parliament, that Parliament so much
vaunted as the palladium of the people's liberties—that Par-
liament to which the people were told to look for redress and
support—was the Reformed Parliament, he asked, prepared to
resist an inquiry into a matter so deeply affecting the constitu-
tional rights of the people, that even a boroughmongering Par-
liament could not, had it been proposed to them, refuse it ?
The affair was called " a butterfly."—( A laugh.)
It's but a butterly

Born in a --
a committee-room he supposed, and was melodiously warbled
forth with every possible variation by the Hon. Member the
iiventor of the Scipio Africanus imagery and his friends; but
was this, he asked, the way a question of such magnitude
and importance ought to be treated ?—( Hear, hear, and
laughter.) Ought such a question, he submitted to the
House, be treated with a degree almost, if not altogether,
amounting to indecorum ?—( Hear, hear.) The Government
sought to smother the subject by the exercise of the influence
they possessed in that House ; but he could assure them the
time was passed when they could expect to carry every thing
by influence, unless indeed it was the influence of public opi-
nion. Let the Government not outrage that opinion. It had
been with them for some time past ; let them take care how
they hazarded it. The public attention was narrowly directed
to their conduct, and one false step, a step of the character
they were about to take, might sink them irrevocably in the
abyss of unpopularity. It had been asked in the course of the
then discussion, " If it be enough to be accused, who will be
innocent ?" But might not he (Mr. O'Connell) with much
more reason ask, " If it be enough to deny, who will be
guilty ?"—( Hear.) Let the Reform Parliament, he again
said, take care how they refused the inquiry. The reformed
people expected it ; let not their representatives disappoint
that expectation. Great indeed was his surprise, and great
indeed, he doubted not, would be the surprise of the country,
when it was ascertained that the foremost in opposition to his
motion for inquiry was the great patriot of Reform, the Noble
Lord the Member for Devonshire (Lord J. Russell.) The
Hon. Member near him ( Mr. C. Buller), the Hon. Member
whom he would henceforth dub with the title of " Scipio Afri-
canus"—( A laugh)—had spoken of an appeal to the gods,
and he (Mr. O'Connell) was bound to say the appeal had
been promptly responded to.—( A laugh.) No sooner was
it made than up started the Noble Lord the God of Reform
Idolatry, who, parmulci NON relictd, threw over his Right
Hon. Friend the broad shield with which his former valiant
deeds in the cause of the people armed him.—(Laughter.)
He besought the Government to recollect they were opposed
by two parties in that House—firstly, by that which was
accused of going too far) and, secondly, by that which was
said not to go far enough. Let it not, under such circum-
stances, go forth to the public that the motion was supported by
those who were deemed inimical to public liberty, and opposed
by that party to whom they looked up as their friends.—
( Hear. )—Satisfied at all events he was it would be said that
the sole motive which could actuate the Government in re-
sisting the motion was a fear that the result might prove un-
fortunate; and if there was no reason for entertaining such a
fear, and he would go so far as to say he believed there was
not, he earnestly and solemnly implored the Noble Lord and
his colleagues to accede to his motion, and grant the investi-
gation prayed for.—(, Hear, hear.)
The House then divided, when there appeared—
For the amendment. ll4
Against it 34
Majority -80
The original question was then put and negatived.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
On our readmission to the Gallery we found

Mr. BARING putting a question to Lord Althorp on (as
we understood) the course the Noble Lord proposed adopting
respecting the business of the House ; but, owing to the con-
fusion occasioned by the return of strangers to the Gallery,
neither question nor answer reached us. When order was in
some degree restored we understood
Mr. C. WYNN to suggest to the Noble Lord the propriety
of looking over the Order Book, and expunging therefrom such
of the Government Orders as he saw no prospect of proceeding
with during the present Session.
Lord ALTHORP, in the course of some observations very
indistinctly heard in the Gallery, was understood to say that
the only measures 'which the Government considered it was of
essential importance should be passed during the present
Session were the Irish Coercion Bill and the Irish Tithe Bill.
The Bill of the Hon. Member for Lancashire for the admis-
sion of Dissenters to Universities he both wished and hoped
might be passed during the Session ; but, as it was of by no
means such pressing emergency as to time as the measures to
which he alluded, he trusted the Hon. Member would not
bring it forward until they were disposed of.
An HON. MEMBER asked if it was intended to proceed with
the Church Rates Bill during the present Session ?
Lord .ALTHORP saw no chance of the Government beino-
alie to pass that measure until next Session: Neither did he
think it would be possible to proceed with the Registration
Bills for the present. It would, however, be the duty of
Government to take care that those measures were brought
LeFore Parliament in the early part of the ensuing Session.
Au HON. Mumcza wished to know whether the Imprison-
ment for Debt Bill was to be abandoned for the present sessior.
Tit?. ATTORNEY-GENERAL was unable to give any
positive answer to the question. It was truly observed that—
" Love gives hope where reason will despair."
Ills attachment to the measure induced him still to hope it
might be possible to carry it in the present session, although,
when he looked to the state of public business and the advanced
period of the session, he had every reason to fear his expecta-
tions must be disappointed.