Letter From Mr. Gourlay T...
The Times, 1824-06-21T00:00:00

?'rsson-Toom, House of Commons, June 20, 124. Sir,-According to your orders, I am visited (laily by one or two Aoctors-the same who reported me of unsound mind. I trust be. fore the end of the session they will recant, and report me quite the reverse. That they may know me the better, I talk to them freelv, and am sorry that there is not a window in my breast for them to see my heart, instead of judging by conversation only. They hlave not yet handled my head, and unless they ask leave, I shall believe them to have more sense than mere phrenologists. As it is an established fact that " great wit to madness is allied," we shall not auarrel because of the first reDort. It was very like the act of a madman to whip a member of 'your honoarable House within the threshold; but so were a huadred deeds of greater men than your prisoner-to say nothing of those of him who should be our example in all things. I was, Sir, from infancy, of a sanguine, speculative, and enthusiastic temperament; and thecon. catenation of events conspired to heighten this. Just now six years ago, after being most cruelly, most unjustlv, most illegally, and most unnecessarily imprisoned for six months, I was still more crt- elly, unjustly, illegally, and unnecessarily sbut up within a room of the prison for six weeks; by the end of which time, weakened and exasperated, my nervous system was seriously injured; and being banished withoutproofof crime-banished from a country where I had property, friends, good intentions, and great hope of accomplishment,l came home to Bngland only to discover greater misfortunes, and to be expced to thegreatest of aU tials, Four years, Sir, have gone by, in which, were mv history detailed, the wonder would be, how X had sqtrength of mind and sufficient good principle to sustain me. I' is only a month ago since real comfort dawned upon me, through a decision of the Lnrrls, which ensured bread to my children, long most unjustly withheld; and itis only within this month thatI have enjoyed any thing like unalloyed hapVpiness for these last four gloomy years-only withinthis month that I have felt assurance that I mnay yet recover from trial, and make advantage of it. This, Sir, is Sunday-a day which I was bred up to hold sacred; and which I shall ever revere, even as a civil institution. This is a day on which you ought to reflect seriously; on whicb, freeing your mind from all the fashions of men, you should think abstractedly of pure goodness. 1 have petitioned Parlianment on great subjects systematically for eight years; and my petitions of the last four years *have been recorded in the parliamentary jour- nals. Say nothing of my private concerns, in? which I can produce documentc to attest my correctness-accounts and corres- pondence regularly filed, through a period of upwards of twenty years; say nothing of mv having been beset for the greater part of ihis time by law persecution, and in every instance having comc off conqtueror; say nothing of my being shut up here, and reported of unsound mind, when the very doctors themselves will, by and by, be brought to a better opinion; sav nothing of all all tlhis, but take mv printed petitions of 1820, 1821, 1822, 182I3, and 1824-talce these petitions, and let me be judged by them. These petitions, Sir, will not only acquit me from charges of being unsonnd in mind, but if You will this day peruse them (and they aTe not unfit for perusal this day)-if vou will on this day, sacred to truth and goodness, seriously neruse these petitions, you will think me worthb of being heard at the bar of Parliament; or, if you wvould rather have it, before a committee in this room, to plead specially, on the prayers of mv petitions,, to answer so in- terrogatories, and to amplifv. The subjects are out of sight the most important for inquiry of any wlhich now concern the welfare of Enrgland-I may say, the welfare of the world: poor- law reform, and cmigration connected with it, the improvement of the British peasantry; and the spread of industrious honest men throughout the earth-the growth of humanity, and the glory of God. I am your obeaient servant To the Right lIon. the Sneaker. ROBERT GOURLAY. LETTER FROM MAR. GOURLAY TO THE SPEAKER.