The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-23 00:00:00

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been taken about Mr. Hendrick. The Noble Lord the I
Secretary for the Colonies, who appears to know a great
deal more about this part of the case than the Irish
A ttorney-G eneral, told us that Mr. Hendrick
was consi 'ered to be a Protestant and Con-
servative. Who told him so ? Did Mr. Kemmis ?
No; Mr. Kemmis believed him to be a Roman Catholic.
—(Hear, hear.) Well. now, are we really to try a
matter of this signal importance—namely, the exclusion
of Roman Catholics, upon the specific grounds of Mr. I
K-mmis's affidavit, or by looking at the letters which
passed upon the subject? Is that the way to satisfy the
public upon a question of such deep and vital interest ?
You see the secret of this case in a moment. You make
an affidavit—men are generally bound by an affidavit
—and you say that the whole ten are either members of
the Repeal Association or have subscribed to its funds.
Mr. Hendrick is not a member of the Association—Mr.
Hendrick never subscribed to the repeal rent—Mr.
Hendrick is a Roman Catholic. It is stated
that he was a Roman Catholic. I requested my Hon,
Friend the Member for the county of Wexford, when
this matter was in agitation, to go to the house of Mr.
Hendrick, with whom he was acquainted, and inquire
whether Mr. Hendrick was a Roman Catholic, or had
subscribed to the Repeal Association? The answer
was, that Mr. Hendrick was a Roman Catholic, but
that he had never subscribed to the Repeal Association
—never subscribed to its funds. You prove to be mis-
taken, and your mistake is of a very important kind.-
-(Hear, hear.) Let me now come to the case of Mr.
Dunn. Now, Mr. Dunn is not a member of
the Association, and never subscribed to the funds of the
Association. It is said that he is a Repealer, and the
Noble Lord observed that I was a quibbler when I drew
a distinction. He said, " There are quibbles which may
sometimes be employed in a court of justice, but they
ought not to be resorted to in. Parliament." But is there
no distinction, I ask, between being a member of the
Repeal Association and a subscriber to its funds, and
being an advocate of the repeal of the union ?—(Hear,
hear from the Opposition.) Suppose that Mr. Cobden,
and Mr. Bright, and my Hon Friend behind memer• in-
dicted, together, of course, with the Globe, the Chronicle,
The Sun, and all the newspapers favourable to the re-
peal of the corn-laws, suppose that all these were
indicted for a conspiracy. Why, it would be
very easy to say we will set aside all who are subscribers
to the Anti-Corn-law League, and all who are sub-
scribers to The Sun and the other papers ; but would
you set aside a man because he was an advocate of free
trade, or because he had subscribed his name to a requi-
sition calling a meeting in favour of a repeal of the corn-
laws ?—(Hear, hear, and cheers, from the Opposition.)
Or let me put another case. Suppose the Tories had
come in in the year 1831, and suppose that certain con-
spirators, or certain persons alleged to have conspired,
had been indicted for endeavouring to subvert the Con-
stitution by means of intimidatkn.—(Great laughter.)
Suppose my Noble Friend on my right, and my Hon.
Friend the-Secretary of State for the Home Department
—(Laughter)—and the Noble Lord 'opposite, had been
indicted for a conspiracy, we will say to swamp the
House of Lords, would there not, in that case, have been
a distinction drawn between a juror who was personally
an advocate of Parliamentary Reform and the members
of Brookes's Club, where might be heard, perhaps, in-
cendiary and seditious speeches, delivered at a table
I amidst rapturous applause ?—(Laughter.) The Noble
Lord said I was a quibbler because I ventured to say
there was a great difference between a Repealer and a
member of the Repeal Association, the one being charge-
able with conspiracy, and the other not. Quibbles are
bad things, but Ministerial sophistications are much
worse.—(Cheers and laughter from the Opposition.) I
think the Noble Lord must now see that I was not
quibbling when I drew the distinction in question. At
all events he must see that there is a most marked differ-
ence between the affidavit of Mr. Kemmis and the
statement made by the Noble Lord, who tells us
that there were four Dunns, but that it is not
pretended that Michael Dunn was a member
of the Repeal Association.—(Hear.) I think we have
clearly made out that two of these men were unobjec-
tionable, and that you were not justified, therefore, in
striking off their names..---(Cheers) Now, what ought
to have been done under the circumstances ? The panel
was bad ; the panel was vitiated ; it was so represented
by a judge ; you yourselves admit that a number of
names have been struck off. Every Roman Catholic,
you say, was to be struck off. Would it not have been
a wise course to consent that a new panel should be ap-
pointed ? If the parties had consented to a new panel
that panel would have been binding. I believe no
lawyer in this House will deny that if the parties had
afterwards made an objection they would have been
stopped. Ido not know what may be the opinion of the
Attorney-General, but the opinion of eminent lawyers
in this House supports the view which I have taken.
But suppose there had been no consent, was there not
another expedient ? Would not the rule for a special
jury have been discharged ?—(Hear.) The Sheriff of
Dublin (Mr. Latouche) is a gentleman of the very
highest respectability. When the Irish Municipal Bill
passed you retained the appointment of sheriff for Dublin,
though you had not taken it from the Corporation of
London. The appointment was vested in the Crown,
because you said that if the Corporation were to appoint
the sheriff, the new sheriffs would be just as bad as
the old ones ; they would as certainly be Repealers, as
their predecessors were Anti-Repealers.—(Laughter.)
Now, I do not say whether you were right or wrong in
taking this course ; but the Crown having taken the
appointment into its own hands, and appointed such
men as Mr. Latouche, I maintain that you would have
acted most wisely, if you had left the appointment to
that officer.— (Hear, hear.) You use the words " com-
mon jury," but the words " common jury" generally
mean a jury selected from a particular class. The
jury who tried this case were persons compa-
ratively of an inferior class. I do not mean to say
that the middle classes are not a proper depository
of political power. Ido not mean to say that it is not
wise that your special juries should be composed of
Protestant tanners, Protestant piano-forte tuners, and
Protestant grocers.—(Great laughter.) I cast no reflec-
tion on any one, but Igo back to the question, why did
you not permit the Sheriff to return a common
jury the Sheriff appointed by yourselves ? Mr.
Latouche would have returned men of the highest con-
sideration—Protestants and Catholics. He would not
have returned Repealers, but he would have returned
men of great influence; he would have returned bank
directors, merchants, and men whose station and con-
duct placed them above suspicion. You had the
means of doing that, but you did not do it.
It was a singular boast of the Right Hon. Gentleman,
the Secretary of State for the Home Department, that
he had recourse to a special jury in this case, when, in-
stead of having recourse in the formation of the jury to
men upon whom the high character and moral habits
of Mr. Latouche himself might have been impressed,
he selected the men I mentioned. What reason had
the Right Hon. Baronet for not having a common jury ?
Was it a case in which the Crown might not have availed
itself of its prerogative of challenging the jury? My
Hon. and Learned Friend the Member for Worcester
(Sir T. Wilde) said they would not have dared to exercise
their prerogative. 'The Attorney-General for Ireland
said he would have dared—(Hear, hear)--certainly no
man can deny his intrepidity.—(Hear, and a laugh.)
But my Hon. and Learned Friend says that the Crown
is controlled by public opinion—the Crown, if not in Ire-
land, at least in this country, meting under the coercion
of British sentiment, would not have ventured upon an
act at once so culpable and so imprudent as to strike off
the names of persons of high respectability because they
were Roman Catholics.;—(Cheers.) If you were sincere
in the manifestation of your desire to have Roman Ca-
tholics upon the jury, you had a very obvious mode of
carrying your purpose into effect and realising that
desire when you found your mistake.. From the panel
from which the Roman Catholics had been excluded
you might have got a common jury whose verdict would
have been unimpeacheil, and the whole controversy
which has taken place, and all the agitation connected
with it, might have been fortunately sverted.—(Cheers.)
NoNk under these circumstances, I ask is it wonderful
that in Ireland great excitement should have taken
place? Is it astonishing that the Roman Catholics of
Ireland should have felt indignant upon the subject?—
(Cheers.) Is it wonderful a great public meeting should
have taken place in every district of the country on the
matter? Were these meetings called by factious men?
At the head of one requisition calling in Dublin a meet-
ing was the name of Lord Kemnare, one of the most
unqualified advocates of the union, a man of great pos-
sessions and ancient birth, and closely allied to this
country.—(Hear, hear.) That nobleman felt the insult
you had offered to him, and he signed the requisition,
not for the purpose of gratifying any factious feeling,
but from a sense of the insult that had been offered to
him as a Roman Catholic. There was a circumstance
that gave additional poignancy to the feelings of the
Roman Catholics of Ireland. That circumstance was
this :—The Right Hon. Gentleman, the Attorney-
General for Ireland, thought fit to advert
to conduct I pursued fifteen years ago, in a
trial at Clonmel. He will excuse me if I venture to
advert in this House to an expression of political opinion
by which he made Himself most conspicuons in Ireland.
An opinion of which I believe the Right Hon. Baronet,
at the head of her Majesty'e Government, is not aware
—(Hear, hear.) Ido not mention this for the purpose
of malevolence—(lronical cheers from the Ministerial
benches)—l bear no ill-will to the Right Hon. Gentle-
man.—Hear, hear, from the Opposition.) I have no
motive for ill-will towards him, he never did me wrong.
That Right Hon. Gentleman imagines that a conspiracy
was entered into at the bar for the purpose of exaspe-
rating him and wounding his feelings, that was unfor-
tunately a mistake on his part ; but I do take upon my
honour to assure him, that there was no such intention
ever entertained.—(Hear, hear.) But he is a public man,
and in speaking of public men opposed to him, he does
not exhibit, any particular delicacy, and he must expect
when political antagonists come to scrutinise his con-
duct and examine his motives, they will ask "what
manner of man he is," and what course he has pursued.
He, last night, adverted to a speech I made at a trial.
He said he was sorry fur what he bad stated,
and, as he says he is sorry for it, he is to be forgiven.—
(Hear, hear.) It was impossible that Roman Catholics,
when they came to compare his conduct at the trial with
opinions he had expressed, should not have suspicions
that unrair dealing was intended in their regard. The
fact I allude to is this—a great public assembly took
place in Dublin in the year 1837, where the principal
Conservatives of that city met together; that great public
assembly moved a resolution, and he took a most active
Lytton,
i nothing
Io
nypart in the proceedings, some of which related to the
question of education.—(Hear, hear, from the Opposi-
nt.t ) 0
n, T
to h
That mention
lv tihoan,h ienemamapdeaeertae meeting
; with it I have
gmwasasteratitnencdheadnbeeyrlfy—r.
by Mr. Lefroy whom you have made a:judge—b7 Mr.
Jackson whom you have also made a judge
and by the Right Honourable Gentleman whom
you have made Attorney-Genera I. The resolutiOns passed
at that meeting were of a most violent character. They
declared that the Protestants of Ireland were at that
time in as perilous a condition as in the year 1641; that