The Sun.
London, England, 1856-07-12 00:00:00

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verarnent ...
in the presidencies of Bengal and Madras, or
to lower the rates of duty on salt ?
Mr. V. SNIITH said that the Commissioner had not
yet concluded his investig-ations, and had not made any
report with reference to a large section of the Presidency
of Bengal. As soon as it was completed a scheme would
be devised for altering the present system.
BELIZE.
Mr. M. GIBSON moved an address for oo7y of letter
addressed by the Secretary of State for the , 'olonier, in
Nov., 1836, to S. Core, Esq., defining the boundaries
of the British settlement of Belize.
Mr. LA.BOUCEIERE said that he found a letter was
addressed by Sir G. Gray, when Secretary for the Colo-
nies in 1836, in answer to a question from the Company,
in which he stated what were the views of the Govern-
meat with regard to the boundaries of this settlement.
There would be no objection to produce the letter re-
ferred to.
On the motion of Mr. M. GIBSON, the production
of the letter was ordered.
THE INDIAN BUDGET.

In answer to a question from Mr. J. G. PRILLIMORE,
Mr. V. SMITH said he would bring on the Indian
budget on Thursday next.
ROYAL ENGINEERS IN THE CRI\IEA.
Captain L. VERNON called the attention of the
house to the serviced rendered by the Corps of Royal
En4ineers in the Crimea. This corps had displayed
great skill and ingenuity in the late bomber Iment of
Sbastopol, to whose exertions the surrender of the
place was mainly due, and the gallant member com-
plained that these valuable services had been inade-
quately rewarded.
N,► reply was made by any member of the Government
to the statement of the gallant officer, and the subject
dropped.

THE SADLEIR FRAUDS.
Mr. NAPIER rose to put a question to the Attor-
ney-General for Ireland a-, to the obligations imposed
upon a Privy Councillor in Ireland by force of the oath
administered on his appointment, which he was induced
to do in consequence of the remark, made on a previous
occasion by the learned Attorney-General for Ireland,
in imputing to the Master of the Rolls in Ireland that
he had acted contrary to his oath as a Pr vy Coun-
cillor in Ireland, in permitting the escape of
James Sadleir. The hon. and learned gentleman then
entered, at great length, into what had been done in
Ireland with reference to the gigantic frauds of the
Sadleirs, and the great ability that bad been displayed
by the Master of the Rolls in unravelling their frauds,
and proceeded to defend the learned judge from the un-
just imputations he said that had been cast upon him
by the learned Attorney-G-neral, and which were with-
out the slightest foundation. He called upon that
learned gentleman to say what part of the oath the
learned ju ;ge bad violated with reference to the escape
of James Sadleir. The subject required investigation
—the country demanded it, and he was determined
it should take place. (Hear. hear.)
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL for IRELAND com-
plained of the conduct of the hon. member in bringing on
this question by piecemeal, and of his calling on him to
answer for acts committed before he (the Attorney-Ge-
neral) came into office. He had within half an hour
received a telegraphic communication from Ireland
stating that the court of justice had bees desecrated by
the proceedings adopted there. He could not act on
that, but he had instituted inquiries, and from what he
could learn from the message the proceedings were so
extraordinary that it would be the duty of the
Government to call for an explanation in the
usual and proper manner. He denied that he
had made any charges against the Master of the
Rolls in his judicial character, or that of a Privy
Councillor. All he had said was, that if James Sadleir
had escaped it was in consequence of the alarm excited
by the statements of the Master of the Rolls, whose
conduct was irregular. He (the Attorney-General for

Ireland) was prepared to state in his character as lawyer
that if there was any sustainable charge against the par-
ties it could only be based upon that remarkable letter of
John Sadleir's, which did not come to light until the 13th
of June. Well then, Master Murphy—of whom it might
be said, without any disparagement to the Master of the
Rolls, that he was an able and distinguished lawyer—de-
cided that there had been no fraud ; and on the case be-
ing carried before the Master of the Rolls, that learned
gentleman observed, not that the Government, but the
Parties before him, would involve themselves in the re-
sponsibility of conniving at a conspiracy, if they shrunk
from the duty of bringing the case under the notice of the
law officers of the Crown, with a view to a Crown prose-
cution if it was thought necessary. Observe, it was not
the Government but the parties before him whom the
Master of the Rolls said would be guilty of a dereliction
of duty. He was explaining the law, and he told them the
situation in which they were placed, but be that as it might,
if the Government bad been guilty of a dereliction of duty,
or had connived at the escape of a criminal, he, as the
really responsible party, should be the last man to shrink
from meeting the charge. On the 6th of June he acci-
dentally saw the judgment of the Master of the Rolls in
the Freeman's Journal, which had been sent to him in
connection with another matter, in which the corpora.
tion of Dublin was concerned ; and a question was
shortly afterwards put to him on the subject by the hon.
member for Dundalk. Some time afterwards the hon.
and learned member for Enniskillen interpellated him
upon it, and then the hon. member for Mayo, which eli-
cited that observation from him that had led to all this
discussion. By this latter question it was intended to im-
pute to the Government a connivance in the escape of
Mr. James Sadleir, but he met the imputation by stating
that the Government had done all in their power to put
the law in force, and if the supposed criminal had left the
country to evade justice, he must have done so in conse-
quence of the remarks which had fallen from the Master
of the Rolls. He further stated that he thought the
observations of the learned judge were irregular, and
that the proper course for him to have pursued
would either have been to make an order directing
that the evidence should be laid before the law officers
of the Crown, or, in his capacity of a privy councillor,
to have informed the Lord-Lieutenant that a crime had
been committed, and pointed out the necessity for fur-
ther investigation. (Hear.) Speaking from the bench,
the learned judge had made use of observations so much
tinged with a political hue that they were calculated to
attract the attention, not only of the individual charged
with the fraud, but of the public at large ; and if James
Sadleir had not left the country before, could anything
be conceived more calculated to frighten him ftway ?
(Hear, hear.) He (Mr. Fitzgerald) stated what he had
said on the previous occasion as a vague inference,
but he had now private information, received within
the last two hours, which he believed would establish
beyond all controversy, that within a short time after
the remarkable language held by the Master of the
Rells Mr. Sadleir left the country, and had not since
returned. What, therefore, he (Mr. Fitzgerald) had
stated was the truth ; and if the right hon. gentleman
opposite would bring forward the matter in any tangible
shape he would undertake to prove it. (Cheers.) The
hon. and gallant member (Col. French) had on a pre-
vious night expressed an opinion that the language he
(Mr. Fitzgerald) used was disrespectful to the Master of
the Rolls ; and he (Mr. Fitzgerald) thought it right to
' express his full concurrence in the eulogiurn which the
gallant gentleman pasted upon the learned judge. But
a couple of days afterwards the Master of the Rolls
made the following observations, which he read from a
written paper in his court. "He had observed from
the public journals that the Attorney-General for Ire-
land had thought fit to renew the attacks which he had
previously made upon him. The Attorney-General was
much mistaken if he supposed that he (the Master of the
Rolls) was about to rest quietly under such imputations.
He would not do any such thing, but, on the contrary,
would send forward by this night's post documents
which would tend to impeach the course that had been
a lopted by the Attorney-General in this case." He
(Mr. Fitzgerald) presumed that that was the document
the right hon. gentleman he:d in his hand. The Master
of the Rolle proceeded to say, '" He would also be pre-
pared on Friday to bring forward a charge against that
officer which was of a most serious nature, and strongly
calculated to affect his character and his office as Attor-
ney-General—a charge which he (the Master of the
Rolls) was prepared to substantiate before a committee
of the House of Commons or any other cranial—a
charge the effects of which neither the sophistry nor the
mystification of the Attorney-General would avail him
in escaping from." (Loud cheers.) Would the right
hon. gentleman (Mr. Napier) after that venture to say
that the Master of the Rolls had not turned his court
into a political arena ? (Loud Ministerial cheers.) But
the matter did not rest there. He (Mr. Fitzgerald) had
just received a telegraphic message, on which he could
not of course act, and which indeed was in part scarcely
intelligible to him ; but if the statements contained in it
were well founded—if it truly represented what had taken
place in the Rolls Court that morning—then a grosser
outrage upon justice had seldom been enacted, as the
house would admit when he stated that the political
observations of the' Master were responded to by loud
cheering from a crowded court. In consequence of that
message, he (Mr. Fitzgerald) communicated with the
Home Secretary ; and he entirely concurred with his
right hon. friend both in deprecating any premature dis-
cussion, aed ih teinking that the matter ought to have
been brought forward as .6 substantive motion. The
right hon. gentleman might surely have treated him in
that high and honourable spirit which ought to cha-
racterise a person in dealing with a political opponent,
and might, after the appeal which had been made to
him, have stayed his' hand. rile right hon. gentleman
knew whether the paper in his possession was not a tran-
script of the personal charges which the Master of the
Rolls had made against him that morning. When he (Mr.
Fitzgerald) spoke of personal charges he did net of course
mean charges affecting his moral conduct—he hoped he
stood above that—but the right hon. gentleman knew
whether the telegraphic message was correct, in stating
that the Master of the Rolls had charged him, as a
public r:fficer, with a gross dereliction of duty, arid with
having connived at the escape of a criminal. He (Mr.
Fitzgerald) challenged the right hon .gentleman to rise
in his place and to make any charge personal, political,
or otherwise, against him. (Cheers.) Let the right hen.
gentleman only put his charge in a shape which could be
met, or on which the house could torus a judgment, and
let him bring it on that moment, or on Monday, or on
any day he pleased, and he should be quite prepared to
meet it. (Cheers.) The right hon. gentleman said that
all the evidence in the Rolls Court was available for
the prosecution of James Rolls
; but of what did
that evidence consist ? It comprised 150 affidavits,
which were upon the files of the court. Taey had been
made use of, but they did not become available till the
23ele of June, a hen the Master delivered judgment.
It was the greatest mistake possible to suppose that the
frauds which had been perpetrated by James Sad-
leir could possibly be made the subject of a prosecution.
It was very lamentable, but such was the state of
the law, that a director might with impunity publish
a report, and misrepresent the balance. In the present
case, however, the remarkable letter which had been
discovered would enable them to proceed against James