The Sun.
London, England, 1845-07-14 00:00:00

able House will institute an inquiry into the circumstances of
the case, and into the bona fides and expediency of the said
arrangements between the said London, Chatham, and North
Kent Railway and her Majesty's Board of Ordnan:•e on behalf
of the public service.
And your petitior.,:s iIl aver pray. &c.

The letter set forth in the petition i 3 the mo • iemorkable
among those laid before the Committee ; but they consider the
following letters worthy of especial notice, as d. playing, in a
striking manner, the general character of the correspondence
which Air. Hignett allowed himself to carry on with successive
secretaries of the South-Eastern Railway Company :

COPY ADDRESSED TO MR. WHITEHEAD.

(" Private.)—
" March 3, 1845.
My dear Sir—l thank you for your note. I think the Com-
pany have played their cards badly. Mr. Fearon is very
talented and zealous, but he cannot know so well as 1 do the
feeling which prevails at Greenwich and Woolwich. I think I
could have prevented the petition from Greenwich against you,
and which will be so powerful; it is now too late I fear. I
gave you a hint, but as it did not appear to meet with accept-
ance, I could not press a matter of that delicacy and importance
further. I could, however, satisfy you that I could have saved
you all trouble at Greenwich, your starting point. If you like
to let Captain O'Brien know this, and it be not too late, you
may do so privately. I saw that gentleman on Friday; he ap-
peared to be aware of my friendly views, but he cannot know
what I can state and do, unless I have an invitation and assur-
ance of confidence. I have great personal interest at Green-
wich and Woolwich, and also at Rochester and Gravesend, and
with the well known great personal desire I have always felt
and shown to serve the South-Eastern line, it is inconceivable
why I was not looked to for assistance. There is no delicacy
as far as my friend, Mr. Fearon, is concerned, because I should
' not, and, indeed, cannot act professionally in this or any case.
M'y help would have been entirely from influence at my own
control. --Yours very faithfully,
" J. HIGNETT."
COPY ADDRESSED TO CAPTAIN O'BRIEN.
(" Private.) " March 3, 1845.
"Dear Sir,—l was about to forward the inclosed note to
Mr. Whitehead, but, on reflection, it occurs to me that he
may possibly have left you on unfriendly terms, therefore I
deem it most prudent to submit it to you, and perhaps you had
better use it promptly. At all events, I will let you know what
I think I can do, and you can then judge for yourself. This,
however, I am quite convinced of, that if I had been consulted
early and in confidence, I could have rendered assistance of
valuable importance. I could have stopped the Greenwich op-
position, and that would have removed from the Crown an ex-
cuse for refusing compliance with your wish to pass through
or under the Greenwich Park. Pray understand that I submit
this to you entirely in confidence.—Yours faithfu
HlGlyl,
.‘ J. NETT."

ADDRESSED TO CAPTAIN O'BRIEN.
" Office of Ordnance, March 1, 1845.
"Dear Sir,—l have just been informed that Sir. Goldsmid
stated yesterday to an influential friend of mine, that if the
Committee on Private Bills should express any opinion in
favour of your line he will withdraw from the contest, and give
you no further trouble. I can vouch for the accuracy of this
statement, and I thought you would like to know.—ln haste,
yours faithfully, " J. HIGNETT.
"P. S.—l am concerned to find that }ou are thwarted by
this Board at Chatham."
COPY OF CAPTAIN O'BRIEN'S ANSWER.
" (Private.) "March 7.
"My Dear Sir,— I am sorry that an unusual amount of
business has prevented me from sooner answering your note of
the 3d. I immediately gave to Mr. Whitehead your letter,
and I am glad to be able to assure you that he leaves the Com-
pany on very amicable and friendly terms. I begged him to
explain to you, if he happened to see you, that the Directors
are aware of your friendly disposition towards the South-Eastern
Railway, and that they feel much obliged to you for such sup-
port as you could give to these schemes of great public utility.
Any information which you see no objection to give to me I
shall be most happy to communicate to the Board; and I need
hardly assure you that %e are glad of any help in this great un-
dertaking. Believe me, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
"W. O'BRIEN."
And the following, subsequently addressed to Captain
O'Brien

" (Private.) " Office of Ordnance, April 18, 1845.
"Dear Sir,—lt has been hinted to me this morning that now
is the time for a compromise between your Company and the
North Kent party. I have heard that the Committee on
Standing Orders will decide for the latter, but the Chairman
waits to give you time for an arrangement. I have no doubt
about the accuracy of my information, and have only forborne
to write to or see you on the subject, that I might not be trou-
blesome. As I have said before, if I can be of any use, I shall
be most happy in affording any assistance in my power.
" Yours faithfully, "J. HIGNETT.
" Addressed to Captain O'Brien," &c.
" Office_of Ordnance, April 28, 1845.

" Dear Sir —I forgot to tell you in my letter of this morn •
ing, that we have received an overture from Mr. Moneypenny,
on behalf of the Hvstings, Rye, and Tenterden Railway Corn..
pany, for the purchase of the Royal Military Canal from Hithe
to Cliff, in Sussex. We shall let them have it.—Yours,
faithfully,
"J. HIGNETT.
" Addressed to Captain O'Brien," &c.

" June 26, 1845.

" Dear Sir,—Mr. Fearon has just written to tell me that ise
means this morning to produce a letter of mine to Mr. White-
head, dated 3d of February last, before the Committee. I
have no copies of any letters I wrote to Mr. Whitehead ; but
in the strictest confidence I certainly wrote both to him and
yourself. I protest against this most unfair and unwarrantable
breach of confidence, which I am quite sure you will not
sanction, nor would any of the Directors.—" Yours, faithfully,
" J. HIGNETT.

" Addressed Captain O'Brien, &c.—lmmediate."
In reference to the payment of 3001. for Mr. Bonham's ser-
vices in passing the South-Eastern Railway Company's Bill,
through Parliament, already alluded to, his statement is as
follows --
" In the early part of the session of 1836, Mr. Wray, to
whom I was under particular obligations (it is not necessary
to state them with any explicitness), came to me and said, I
am very much interested in the success of the
South-Eastern Railway, and I wish you would give us a lift ;
and I want your advice upon some points.' I said, My dear
Wray, I owe very great obligations to you, and will do any-
thing in my power to serve you.' He said, I should be very
much obliged to you if you would.' And, upon that, I have
not the least hesitation in stating that I did all I could indi-
vidually to assist Mr. Wray in the object he had in view ; that
is, in plain terms, I did what I could to assist him in passing
that Bill, both in and out of Parliament. Mr. Wray never
held out to me one word, nor did any conversation ever take
place, as to any advantage of any kind or sort that I was to de-
rive from it. I considered it a great personal advantage. I
mean personal, with reference to the debt of gratitude that I
owed him. I considered it a great pleasure to myself to do what
I could for him. There were some questions upon the French
lines where I gave them some advice, I w 11 not say assistance,
because they were able to assist themselves. I never had any
communication in any way with any of the members of the
South-Eastern Railway Committee. 1 never had from them,
directly or indirectly, any offer of any personal advantage to
myself to be derived from it. After that bill was passed, Mr.
Wray came to me and stated that the South-Eastern Railway
Company felt that I had been of use to them, great use to
them, I think he said, and that they had kept a quantity of
reserved shares, which had not been disposed of, and that they
had determined to appropriate one hundred shares for my
benefit. Mr. Wray said, I know it will not be convenient for
you to hold these shares,' meaning, of course, what I do not
deny, that lam not a rich man. I will hold them for you,
and I think I can derive some advantage from them •' and Mr.
Wray, I think, about three weeks afterwards (he will be able to
tell you better,) came to me and said, I have been able to
make 300/. of those shares, which I will give you.' From be-
ginning to end, so far as I know of the transaction, I have no
hesitation in stating that this is the whole of the transaction.
It is nine years ago, and I had very much forgotten it ; my
impression was, the other day, that I had not received the 300/.
but that, in point of fact, as I owed Mr. Wray
money, Mr. Wray had received the 3001. for my
benefit, liquidating the debt. That was my impression ;
but the day before yesterday, when I stated this to Mr. Wray,
he said, You are wrong, depend upon it; I gave you the
money, either in a cheque or money.' And I said, " If you
did, 1 have not the least recollection ; but as I never meant to
suppose for a moment that I had not had the benefit of it in
some way, you are much more likely to know than I am, and,
therefore, I take it for granted, under the circumstances, that I
received the money.' I have not the least recollection of re-
ceiving it, but I take it for granted that so it is. I cannot have
the slightest doubt about it, and I must take it for granted that
he did give me the cheque. I can only state again, that as to the
transaction itself, there was never, at the time I assisted him,
the smallest expectation on my mind of deriving any advantage
from it; and, of course, when I state this, the Committee will
most naturally and properly take care to ascertain that fact
from other quarters. I think I can undertake to say, not
knowing who the Directors of the South-Eastern Company
were at that time so much as this, that all those gentlemen will
tell you the same. I should hope so, for, upon my honour, Ido
not know their names, not all of them ; but I challenge them all,
from beginning to end, to say that I had ever the slightest expec-
tation of any kind or sort, and Mr. Wray also; and the proposal
as to these shares was never made to me till after the Bill had
passed, and the shares I never received, inasmuch as it would
not have been convenient ; but the shares' worth, afterwards, I
did receive from Mr. Wray ; that is the transaction."
It appears further, from the testimony of Mr. Bonham him-
self, that he held and still holds shares in the North Kent Com-
pany. The following is a portion of his evidence upon this
paint :
Chairman : Will you state the number of shares you had in
the North Kent Railway ?—I had 100. You purchased 100?
—Yes. You still hold them ?—Yes ' • that is to say. I had
125 ; those 125., it seems, were sold upon a profit of some-
where about 2s. 64. or perhaps ss. a share. Lord Worsley :
You mean the whole 125 ?—Yes. Chairman : Then you pur-
chased again y—Yes, I purchased again very recently 100, and
those I have. Did you buy them in the market ?—I bought
them, at least my friend who managed the transaction for me,
bought them in the market at a high premium. They wore
not bought in your name ?—They were not bought in my
name. Your name does not appear ?—No, it does not ; I
suppose not. Then they are, in fact, held by him at this mo.
ment ?—They are, in fact, at this moment held by him. Are
they held by him in trust for you ?—Yes. You having paid
the deposit and the premium ?—He must have paid the de-
posit and the premium ; they are held by him in his hands
for me. In point of fact, up to this time, you have paid no-
thing ?—I have paid nothing upon these; they were bought
only a few days ago. Was that friend any person connected
with the Board of Ordnance ?—Not in the remotest degree.
Was it any person connected with the promoters of the North
Kent Railway ?—Not in the remotest degree.
Captain Boldero's evidence was next taken. Captain Bol-
dero had only received the evidence taken on the first day of
the sitting of the Committee when he Aas examined. He de-
nied that Mr. Hignett had any authority to use his name in
the letter of the 3d of February. The facts elicited in the
examination of Captain Boldero are briefly stated in the fol-
, lowing extracts from his evidence :
Chairman—Are you a holder of shares in the North
Kent Railway ?—I am not now ; I was. Did you buy them
yourself in the market?-1 did not buy them myself in the
market. Will you state the particulars of that transaction to
the Committee? Decidedly. The date when you became a
shareholler in the North Kent Railway, and the date when
you got rid of those shares ?—Until the beginning of this year I
never held a rail .vay share of any description. My first trans-
action in speculating a little in railways commenced thus :—A
kind of mine asked me if I would laity some shares in the
Chester and Holyhead. I said, " Yes ; provided they are
moderate in price." It was final;y agreed between him and me
that I should buy twenty shares of him. and he would deliver
them in the course of four er five days if I would give him a
cheque for 140/. I sent for the newspaper, and I f tund the shares
quoted in the market at 6%. He said, " Well, if you give
me a cheque for 14' 1. that will include brokerage and every-
thing," and I bought the shares. On the loth of 31arch
asked Mr. Hignett to buy me 90 shares more in the Chester
and Holyhead. I knew no broker : I was never on the
Stock Exchange, and I therefore asked him to buy them for
me. Mr. Pakington :—And you got those shares ?---Yes ;
he bought them for me at my desire. On the 7th of March
Mr. Hignett was at my room, and we spoke about the North
Kent Railway. He said he thought it was a good speculation ;
the premium was very low, and I requested him to buy Mt:
100 shares. He bought 100 shares, and of course paid the
premiu n, and paid the brokerage, and I paid him for them.
I kept them for a short time, and sold them. Mr. Pakingtan :
The whole huskes; was trapaaW4 by Hirett?-4 ws.* •