The Sun.
London, England, 1828-06-02 00:00:00

EXPLANATIONS.

Mr. TENNYSON moved the Order of the Day for
going into a Committee on the East Retford'Disfranahise-
ment Bill, and expressed a hope thnt some explanation
would be given relative to the changes in the Ministry.
• The Order of the Day having been read,
Mr. HUSKISSON spoke to the following effect
the circumstances under which 1 offer myself to your no-
tice are such as will, I trust; bespeak for me that of which
I stand in much. need—the patient indulgence of the
House. (Hear, hear.) Without making any further
appeals to its liberality and good feeling', Sir, notwithstand=
ing the examples which have been set in modern times--nut-
withstanding the, precedent set by my Right Hon. Friend
the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he
retired front office, and notwithstanding the appeal which
has been made to me by the Hon. Member who has moved
the order of the day. I am not prepared to subscribe to
the doctrine thut a Minister of the Crown is necesgarily
obliged to explain the grounds which led to his ceasing
to hold his situation.—( Hear, hear.)—For any thing which
I may have done whilst I had the honour to hold a respon-
sible situation—for any thing which I may have omitted
to do whilst I held the office of a Minister of the Crown--
I am ready to answer any questions ; I am ready to render
as full and as explicit an account of my conduct as has ever
been requirad from icy predecessors in respect of such pub-
lic. employment. •' Sir, whilst I deny the abstract obliga-
tions of giving an account of the motives, of the reasons,
which led to my ceasing to be in office. lam ready to
admit that there are, therefore • several peculiar cir-
(.lllll4am:es in the present case, which call upon tile,
1 think in justice to the public, and, if I may be allowed
to say so, in justice to •my own character, to ask the pa-
tient indulgence of the House whilst I enter into such ex-
planation.:—( Hear, and cheers.)-Sir, when my' Right
Hon. Friend, the Secretary of• State fur the Home Depart-
ment, retired from office, he explained the motives
which induced him voluntarily, though reluctantly, to
resign an office, during his continuance in which lie
had done so many services to the country. Sir, my duty
is.of a-different description, I have to state, nut the mo-
tives, but the circumstances which led. to my removal ;
for, of the motives which induced others to remove me
from office,' it belongs to them `to speak—(Cheers)—and
of those motives I shall say nothing but this, that I am
perfectly satisfied, be those motives what they may, they
were such •as appeared to them necessary to the discharge
of their public duty.—(Hear, hear, hear.)—The ,event
is one of a public nature, and if it be represented in any

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quarter that I lightly or inconsiderately, and upon what I
must look upon as a • trivial occasion in itself, have re-
tired from office, I own that I should be much
to blama :public_ opinion if I have ken so far
forgetful of my- duty to my Sovereign if. •I have
been so far forgetful of- what I owed to. an -im-
portant and' arduous pUblic truSt=if I had overlooked the
difficulties and 'arrangements which must, occur froth. such
a circumstance taking place in the midst of a sessionif I
had overlooked the interruption which it must necessarily
create to all business in this House and the public depart-
ments, if I had overlooked not only the inconvenience of
suspending the ordinary march of public business, but the
stiff greater incovenieece which it must produce at a cal--
tical - conjuncture of Foreign' Affairs, in occasioning
some suspension to that intercourse which that country
must keep up with its allies, and to those measures
which it became this country to take for the true main-
tenance tof peace the and harmony of Europe. If, under
those circumstances I have resigned, as it is said I have,
or that I have been removed, as I contend I have,
without sonic circumstances to comae such removal, is
I admit, a proper subject for enquiry, and is that which
• should be unravelled. It is my duty to take care ,
that the fearful consequences—the unavoidable delays
to public business which must be the result of such a cir-
cumstance, ought, if not justly, not to be laid at my.door.
—I am afraid I must trespass upon the patience of the
-House.—(Hear.)—The House will recollect that at an
-early period of the Session two Bills were submitted to
their consideration in consequence of two Boroughs haying
I been reported to be guilty of bribery and corruption in re-
turning Members to Parliament. One of those Bills
affected the elective franchise of the borough of Penryn, and
it was proposed to transfer the franchise of that borough to
Manchester ; and it was also proposed by the Ho-
nourable Member for Blessington • to transfer the
elective franchise of East Retford, the Other,delinquent,
Borough to Birmingham. On the 21st of March, a long
discussion took place in this House upon thelat ter proposal,
and my Right Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for the
Horne Department, said according to his view of the case,
inasmuch as there were two Bills under the con-
sideration of the House, it would be desirable to transfer.
the elective franchise of one borough. to some great com-
mercial town, and of the other to the adjoining Hundred.
My Right Hon. Friend urged at great length, and with
his usual ability, the expediency of such a course ; and
a long debate ensued,- in the course of which many
gentle men on the other side of the House usged the
propriety of transferring the elective franchiSe to
two great towns. I came down to the. House
on that day without any, the slightest intention of taking
any part in the diseuiaion, but as no other person but my
Right Hon. Friend had addressed the house from the Bench
on which he. now sits, I, at a late period of the
evening, rose to state the reasons which induced me
to support the proposition of my Right Bon. Friend,'
and it would appear that in the course of my observations
I made use of the following expressions—at least I find
tits I ant reported to have Used. them ;—" If the pre-
sent case stood alone, I
,should certainly rsoommend and
Support the measure of transferring the elective franchise
to some great commercial town."—l do assure • the
Houser-4 do : assure my Right Honourable Friend
that in making that statement, and in putting forth
that declaration, that I was not outstepping the fair spirit
of the line of -argument adopted by my Right honourable
Friend.—(Loud cheers.)-1 which to state that now, and
in the situation in which I stand, I would not be in-
clined to do any thing' improper, but I must say, that
it so happens, that in making that observation I am not
the only individual-who thought I was concurring in the
view taken by my Right Hon. Friend. (Hear.) But I
am also bound to say, and I speak it in sincerity, that after
the explanation given by my Right Hon. Friend 1 did on
that occasion outstep the fair and necessary inference which
ought to be drawn from his etatenieut, and I was committing
myself to an extent beyond that which my Right Hon.
Friend committed himself: Sir, on April Ist, about ten
days after the discussion to which Z have alluded ; a Bill for
disfranchising Penryn,and transferring the franchise to Man-
chester, passed this 'Muse, and was sent to the other House
from that day until the 19th May, no further proceeding
had taken place with respect to the East Retford.Bill, and
I understood, but I 'do not know how correctly, that
it was suggested by my Right Friend, to make that
Bill a waiting Bill, depending upon the fate of the
other Bill in the other House of Parliament, and to have
the future proceedings upon this Bill dependent upon the
fate of the Bill in the other House. On the 19th of May
it was proposed to take further proceedings on this
Bill, and on that flay it was perfectly well known
to every Member of • this House, that the Penryu
Bill was in that state in- the other "House of
Parliament in which it was probable, indeed it Was cer-
tain,- either that the elective franchise would be transferred
to the 'adjoining hundred, • -arid_ not 'to Manchester, or
that the . Bill would. be r• reje:cted altogether. Flee!,
,•Sir, all the 4itlichities'..in. which I am placed inimak-
-I:ing this pakt of my statement,-, as 1 cannot allude
to what pass ~.al in another place where I have ceased to. he
a member ; hut I may say this without.imprupriety that
lily Right Hen. Friend.was well aware, when be came down
to the House on the 19th May, to what extent and in what
degree, 'and in what words I committed - myself by my
declarations on a former occasion. I may also say that
it
was then well known-..-to' all those-whom I had then • the
happiness to call-my colleagues that the dismission upon
hat Bill WWI one of this nature—that every Member of the
•Governinent felt at liberty to take such a course, as to him

Now I stated at that time, and I state now, that that was
an entirely new anomaly in the history,of the dealing of this,
House With its Hon. Members. My Hon- Friend Ldon't
believe was prepared, nor do I conceive be is so now, to.
'slioW how his own machinery would work. How many .
people there are iu this town rated at 20/. a-year, and
how was this Mayor or returning officer to be elected by
the Aldermen—how were they to be sure that was rated
at 400/.. a year ? The whole thing presented such
an anomaly, as to be one of the most extraordinary
eircumstrucee that was ever presented to Parliament 1
as the mode of creating a new little county in the
hondred of Nottingham, and erecting in that county
aright such as existed in nu other town, annihilating all
existing franchise in that town. The Hoe. Gentleman
,Went on to say that, as moo as this proposal had
'been made hy his Right Honourable Friend, his Right
Hoc.., Friend observed, upon the differences that appeared,
but his Right Hon. Friend had shown successfully that he
himself on a former day had taken a line calculated to put
into execution the course adopted by his Hon. Friend ; the
arguments, however, of his Right Hon. Friend, adopted
in order to establish his own consistency, actually destroyed
all possibility of his (Mr. IL's) voting upon the same
ground he had occupied. Every circumstance by which
the Right Honourable Member was thus surrounded,
after the admission that the Penryn :Bill was lost in the
House of Lords left, his (Mr. Huskisson's) position un-
tenable. A Noble Friend, certainly without any personal
or political hostility, said, " I claim the vote of the Secretary
of State for the Colonial Department, and I claim it upon
the very ground of his own consistency." Thus called upon
to redeem a pledge, and the demand having .been mode by ,
the Honourable Member in that House; what alternative
had he but to rise up in his place and acknowledge the
pledge--(Hear, hear). He acknowledged the pledge, and
having stated that he had made use of the words which
his Noble Friend had adopted be attempted to show
that the measure proposed by the Hon. Member for Hert-
fordshire was entirely novel in its character, and deserved
more mature consideration. He wished therefore the House
to give time, if it should be the sense of the House to consider
whether it was possible to carry into execution the machinery
proposed by the Hon. Member. His Right Hon. Friend
in rising to make this short address, said—" Be sure you
mark the difference between what I have said on a former
occasion and the declaration now" The Honourable
Gent. did not ivant' this specific declaration made; he
then and still felt that the course adopted by his Hui.
Friend had been straight-forward and consistent; bid
every Hon. Gentleman would see that in proportion
as lie upheld that consistency by any he could say,
he necessarily adopted the course of voting in the
line adopted by his Right Hon.. Friend. Therefore
it was to avid the difficulty and pain of the situation in
which he was placed,
More than in consequence of any
importance attacehed to his conduct that he proposed not to
proceed to any vote Upon the Bill. And he hoped lie
might he allowed to say, that if the course so natural for
him to have adopted, and to him so obvious for the
House to have adopted under such circumstances,
had been adopted, whenever the House carne to a further
discussion on this measure, no possible difference of opinion,
as far as his character iu the Executive Government was
concerned, could have arisen, whatever line he kad taken.
He pressed his Honourable Friend to give his countenance
to delay, but be said it was impossible, and he could not
withhold his suppirt to the Bill. In consequence the
Douse proceeded to a division, and regarding his consistency
'he could not do otherwise than give the vote he gave:—
He knew it had been said by per Sons whcise judgment and
discretion, if he might of his own personal character been
concerned, have paid the greatest deference to; that he
might have sheltered his consistency under the plea that he
knew not the fate Of the Peuryn Bill.—(Hear.)—But after
all he had heard that would have been a subterfuge unworthy
of himself.—(Cheers. )--Almost every Hon. Gent. had
stated without any contradiction from any quarter—

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contradiction being impossible that the WU virtually
lost:.lldhad beatid it from all—he h>rid fieira'it from his
Right Hon, Friend, that he considered the Bill as no longer
in existence. . The division took place, and the House ad-
journed. He retired, but not without Observing the' looks of
some, or without hearing in the ordinary whispers expres-.
sioes respecting the course he had taken. He may, under
the impression of exaggerated feelings, looking probably
through a magnifying glass, arid 'did that which, perhaps,
otherwise he would not have donei in the same manner.
After having being engaged froin.ls to 16 hours in tIO
discharge of public duty in Downing-street and in that
House, be went -home and did that which he was new
' bound to say, if.he had thought more upon, it would have
been better, in all probability, to have postponed. Respect-
ing the correspondence that had taken place, he felt a deli-
cacy in some respects in attempting to read it, lest he should
lay himself open to suspicions—(Cries of " read")—then lie
(Left speaking.)

TATTERSALL s THIS DAY`

The attendance was but scanty, and the business dull to-
day. Very little-has yet been done in the " back settle-
ments." The only betting WWI on a Gold Cup at Ascot,
which will be run for. en Thursday next. Some heavy
bets were made at the following odds:—

ASCQT GOLD CU
1 to 8 agst. Mr. Stonehewer's Souvenir
to 1 agst Lord G. H. Cavendish's Rapid Rhone
5 to 1 agat Mr. Wyndham's Chateau Margaux
8 to 1 agst Sir R. K. Dick's Bobadilla
,0 to 1 agat Lord Verulam's Brocard
[OO to 12 agst Mr. D. Radcliffe's Mortgage
[OO to 12 agat Defiance.