Gentleman said the other night; he did | own speech for Hansard, you cannot alter not say anything, according to this re- the answer to it. There may be two verport, which he did not say in 1827 in the sions of a speech-the speech for the House, presence of Mr. Canning; but that certainly and the speech for posterity. An hon. contradicts all that many gentlemen who Gentleman, who was then the head of a were connected with Mr. Canning, and party that had also been betrayed, the who were Members of this House at the head of the Protestant party in this House, time I believe. That speech, remember, and who had since been a Member of Her was made in 1829. Now, Sir, I make no Majesty's Government, in answer to the charge against the right hon. Gentleman; speech of the right hon. Gentleman, as it apbut I say that the speech I have read from peared in the Mirror of Parliament, though is a garbled, a mutilated, or, to adopt the not in Hansard, used this language :— language of this House, a corrected report of the right hon. Gentleman's speech; and that it omits, and entirely omits, that important statement which is the great ques-justice to his Friends, in justice to the country, in tion to-night. That I will proceed to prove. It so happens that in those days there were two reports of what was said in this House; for there was then not merely Hansard, the speeches in which are generally corrected by hon. Gentlemen themselves, but there was also the Mirror of Parliament, the speeches in which were taken in shorthand, verbatim by the most able shorthand writers, most of them being men of education and intelligence, and at that time the speeches were published every three days. Now, Sir, I call the attention of the House to what it appears from the Mirror of Parliament, the right hon. Gentleman really said in that famous speech of 1829 : "If at that period the policy of conceding the Catholic question were clear to the right hon. Gentleman, I say that in justice to himself, in been the able, powerful, and consistent advocate justice to Mr. Canning himself, who has always of the Catholics, he ought not to have concealed it. If, as he now says, he had discovered in 1825 the necessity of passing this question, I ask why he did not say so in 1827, and give his support to Mr. Canning then, when the supposed difference between him and Mr. Canning obtained for him the support of many hon. Gentlemen who differed with him only on that, which I confess was the case with me?" Sir, that was a memorable speech. It was the speech in which Sir E. Knatchbull used the phrase nusquam tuta fides. It appealed to the feelings of the House, who were carried away by the expressions of the speaker. The right hon. Gentleman was obliged to get up and notice it; but he did not notice that passage; "So far as I am personally concerned, I beg to he never denied that he had proposed say, my own course is the same as that which sug- to Lord Liverpool, in 1825, that somegested itself to my mind in 1825, when I was His thing should be done respecting the CaMajesty's Principal Minister for the Home Depart-tholics, though Sir Edward Knatchbull ment, and found myself in a minority upon the Catholic question in this House. I felt that, looking at the numbers arrayed against me, my position as a Minister was untenable. The moment that I found that I was in a minority on that question, I felt that it was no longer advisable that I should continue to be charged with the responsibility of Irish affairs. I stated to the Earl of Liverpool, who was then at the head of the Administration, that in consequence of the decision against me by the voices of the representatives of that country, the time was come when something respecting the Catholics ought, in my opinion, to be done, or that I should be relieved from the duties of the office I held, as it was my anxious wish to be." The words left out in the report of Hansard are these : "I stated to the Earl of Liverpool, that in consequence of the decision against me by the voices of the representatives of Ireland, something respecting the Catholics, ought, in my opinion, to be done." But this, Sir, is only the commencement of my proof. Hon. Gentlemen may understand that though you may alter your had repeated that statement. No, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman admitted his guilt, if guilt it were; and it is only in 1846 that he vindicates himself by referring to a different speech, and quotes a report which I have proved is not a correct one. Now, Sir, I have a right to speak of that report of the speech I have read from in Hansard, as being corrected by authority, for I find a note-and every one knows how seldom one finds notes in Hansard-on the 5th of March, 1829, appended to the beginning of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, in these words, "Inserted with the permission and approbation of Mr. Secretary Peel." Now, I have been informed that the report I have quoted from the Mirror of Parliament was made by Mr. Barrow, one of the finest shorthand writers in the country, and a man of education and intelligence. But after all, it is Sir E. Knatchbull's speech that proves the truth of the matter, and would prevent any imputation being substantiated against Mr. | to be granted, and proposing that he should retire Barrow's accuracy, if there was any made. from office in the mean time." But not satisfied even with this, I thought it discreet to refer to the report of the most eminent newspaper of the time-The Times of the 6th of March 1829, and there the right hon. Gentleman was reported thus: “He stated to Lord Liverpool, then at the head of His Majesty's Government that in his opinion the time had come when something respecting the Catholics ought to be done, and that he must be relieved from the duties of his office." It is true that is an anonymous publi- Therefore, Sir, it appears also by this report that, in 1825, in the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman the time had come when something respecting the Catholics ought to be done. After this, I think it is unnecessary to offer any more evidence; I have accomplished the vindication of my noble Friend, who had not the power of speaking again in this debate. My noble Friend told me that there were no means by which he could have the power of speaking again; though I had hoped means might have been found; and therefore I felt it my duty to undertake his defence. I have not rested this case on the autho-men-I will not inquire what great house rity of anonymous publications, though they are anonymous publications, as the Quarterly Review, or the Edinburgh Review, which I hold in my hand, which are no mean authorities; for the articles in them are frequently written by men high in the Legislature, and cognizant of all that is done and all that is said by public men. I believe there is many a Cabinet Minister on both sides of the House at this moment that has written articles in those reviews; and there have been several contributors to them who have been Prime Ministers, as, for instance, Mr. Canning himself. Now, in the Edinburgh Review, of April, 1829, in an article on the state of parties, written, I believe, by a man who was not to be misled with respect to transactions in which he had himself taken a great part, this is the language used. In the former part of the article he gave a character of the right hon. Gentleman, which I omit, as it is not very favourable to the right hon. Gentleman, and it is therefore unnecessary to bring it forward on the present occasion : "Sir R. Peel at that time told Mr. Canning, in the House of Commons, that his unlooked-for opposition to Mr. Canning was grounded on a difference of opinion on the Catholic question; yet at that very time he had in his writing-desk a letter in which two years before he had told Lord Liverpool that, in his opinion, the Catholic claims ought they were dining at, though I have been told- -came down to this House, the right hon. Gentleman among them; the debate was the shipping interest; a late Colleague of the right hon. Gentleman rose and delivered himself of a speech which, if that Gentleman were a Parliamentary authority at all, I should quote as exceeding in virulence anything which might be to the taste even of Mr. Fox. And the third day after the right hon. Gentleman received his character for candour and sincerity, the right hon. Gentleman rose and delivered one of the most violent opposition speeches ever heard in Parliament. What did Mr. Canning say then?— "I rejoice," said Mr. Canning, "I rejoice, Sir, however, that the standard of opposition is at length unfurled in this House. Such an act is, to me, worth a thousand professions of qualified neutrality. In whatever mind the feeling of opposition lurks, let it come boldly forth, and boldly will I meet it. I never have shrunk-I never will shrink-from explanation or defence, whether the charge preferred against me be conveyed in the avowed hostility of the open and manly foe, or in the not less dangerous insinuation of the disavowed opponent." "Now," said the right hon. Gentleman, “I did not hunt him to death." I am not going to enter any details for the purpose of determining whether the right hon. Gentleman did hunt Mr. Canning to death. That is a poetical phrase; that is metaphorical language; and it only expresses the feeling entertained by the friends and relatives of Mr. Canning. If I were to enter on such matter, I must go into secret councilsinto private correspondence. I must speak of newspapers set up to hunt the noble victim-newspapers supported by men who were members of Mr. Canning's Government. I must go into details on which I will not enter. What I have met to-night is the challenge of the right hon. Gentleman to meet his reply addressed to the new generation of Members, not on the spur of the moment, with an imperfect hold of details which occurred nineteen years ago; but after he had taken one, two, three, even four days, to get up his case. He came with these extracts, which I have proved to be garbled. He came with a suppressio veri unprecedented in the debates of this House. I have brought you a version to the letter. I have brought you evidenceunintentional evidence which confirms that version. I have placed before the House in its true light that great passage, in its history that memorable avowal. It is nineteen years ago since it occurred, and posterity has decided it. upon But, said the right hon. Gentleman to the noble Lord, "if such has been my conduct, how can you justify your conduct in calling me your right hon. Friend?" Is it necessary to notice such a charge. I recollect when the right hon. Gentleman was at the head of that great Pharisaical confederacy called the "Conservative Opposition," the right hon. Gentleman had more than 300 hon. Friends, many of whom he did not know by name, and many whose appearance if he had to identify them he could not recollect. But," says the right hon. Gentleman, 'why elect me for your leader?" It has sometimes been my lot to notice in this House the extraordinary tone of the right hon. Gentleman, who speaks as if he were entitled to be sole Minister of England. He comes to this House and says, "I am about to make an exposition of my policy.' But I must tell the right hon. Gentleman, that when a party is formed, it is not a single individual who gives it shape. I was but a very humble Member of that party; but when I joined the Conservative Opposition, I followed an eminent personage to whom I was warmly and personally attached. My noble Friend was attached both in public and in private life to Lord Stanley? Far from acknowledging the right hon. Gentleman as his leader, my noble Friend's name will be found in 66 the list of those who voted against him, and turned him out of the Government. When Lord Stanley felt it his duty to cross the House, my noble Friend followed his Friend Lord Stanley-his personal and private Friend, as well as political leader. Under such circumstances, can you be held to have become the personal follower of an individual with whom you have no official connexion, and with whom, during nineteen years, you have had no private intimacy? I may venture to say that my noble Friend has had less personal intimacy than any other Gentleman of the party with the right hon. Gentleman. Yet now the right hon. Gentleman says, "You are barred from taking such a course, because, though you were probably never under my roof, and never accepted a favour from me, you still were pleased in Parliamentary parlance to call me your right hon. Friend. Sir, I think I have answered the elaborate attack of the right hon. Gentleman on the noble Lordhis attack on my noble Friend's consistency, his attack on his Parliamentary language, his attack upon the imputation my noble Friend made upon him as to the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman to Mr. Canning. But I trust I have done more than vindicate my noble Friend. I trust I have put in its true and intelligible light that mysterious passage which has so long perplexed the politicians of Europe, and which the right hon. Gentleman on Friday night so elaborately explained for the benefit of the rising generation. I am not surprised, that, closely connected with Mr. Canning as he was, my noble Friend should have expressed himself as he did. The feeling to which he gave utterance is shared by all who have had intercourse with Mr. Canning. I never saw Mr. Canning but once, when I had no expectation of ever being a Member of this House, but I can recollect it but as yesterday when I listened to almost the last accents-I may say the dying words-of that great man. can recall the lightning flash of that eye, and the tumult of that ethereal brow; still lingers in my ear the melody of that voice. But, Sir, when shall we see another Mr. Canning-a man who ruled this House as a man rules a high-bred steed, as Alexander ruled Bucephalus―[a laugh]— of whom it was said that the horse and the rider were equally proud. I thank that hon. Gentleman for his laugh. I know that times are changed-the pulse of the national heart does not beat as high as I once it did. The tone and temper of this House are not as elevated and brave as in the days of Mr. Canning; nor am I surprised, when the vulture rules where once the eagle reigned. The right hon. Gentleman once said that Ireland was his great difficulty. I ask the right hon. Gentleman, why Ireland was his great difficulty, and whether, if he had acted with frankness to Mr. Canning in reference to his communication with Lord Liverpool in 1825, Ireland would have been his great difficulty? This the right hon. Gentleman must feel at the present moment, when we are about again to divide on an Irish question-a division which may be fatal to the continuance of his power. It is Nemesis that inspires this debate, and dictates this division, and seals with the stigma of Parliamentary reprobation the catastrophe of a sinister career. given my advice to Lord Liverpool to settle the Catholic question, or even with having an opinion in my heart that those claims should be settled. In 1827, I offered opposition still to the Catholic claims; and in 1828, I continued the same opposition. I found in 1828, that my position resembled that in which I was placed in 1825; and I said I could no longer continue responsible for the administration of affairs in Ireland. When the circumstances of 1829 took place, I then said, for the first time, to my noble Friend then at the head of the Government, not only that I must relinquish my position in the House of Commons, which had overruled my views, but that my opinion was, that the time had now come when the question should be decided, and that in a private capacity I should do all I could to facilitate the settlement of the question. As to the Edinburgh Review, why, there has been a lapse of seventeen or eighteen years since that article was published. But here let me say, that all the evidence on the subject which the hon. Gentleman has been quoting from, has been accessible to him ever since 1829. He had just the same opportunity as he has now of making the attack on me; but it is reserved till the period when I have taken the course which I have done on the present question. And it seems to me to be expected that after the lapse of seventecn years I am to reconcile any contradiction that may be discovered, or to answer any charge that may have been brought against me. The main question, however, is, did I in 1825, or did I not, state to Lord Liverpool that my opinion was changed? Why, Lord Liverpool was the friend of Mr. Canning; and do you think SIR R. PEEL: I am aware, Sir, that the forms and usages of the House preclude me from making any reply to the hon. Gentleman; but still, in a matter purely personal, I dare say the House will do that which it has almost uniformly done, wave a rigid adherence to established usage, for the purpose not of enabling me to make a reply, but rather of desiring Gentlemen, in justice, to suspend their judgment till an opportunity for reply comes. The whole of this question turns upon this single fact -did I, or did I not, in 1825, state to Lord Liverpool that my opinion on the Catholic question was changed, and that a settlement should be made? The whole, I repeat, turns upon that fact. Well, then, I publicly assert, that the report of my speech of the 5th of March, 1829, is a correct statement of the truth; that I said to Lord Liverpool, in 1825, that my position as Secretary of State for the Home Depart-it probable that, considering the intercourse ment, the only one of the Government opposing the Catholic claims, yet responsible for the administration of Ireland, and seeing my Colleagues in constant concert with my opponents, made my position, being alone in that House, so intolerable, that I asked to resign my situation in the Ministry. In the course of the night I stated that, retaining my opinions, I was anxious to tender my resignation, but was prevented by Lord Liverpool, who induced me to remain. In 1825, I opposed the Roman Catholic claims. In 1825, Lord Liverpool made the strongest speech he had perhaps made on that subject; and I beg also to refer to what I said on the same subject, as utterly inconsistent with my having which existed between them, had such an opinion been expressed by me, Lord Liverpool would not have communicated the important fact to Mr. Canning? As to the speech to which the hon. Gentleman referred, I certainly did do what many others have done-I corrected that speech; and what object, I ask, could I have in doing so? But I spoke on the 5th of March; and on the 6th of March, the day after, I find in the Mirror of Parliament a report of that speech with which I had no concern, and in which you find the answer I made to the question put to me on the 5th. Then as to the Edinburgh Review. What public man will say that it was necessary for me to answer that statement, pone the Report on the Amendments on these Bills. The DUKE of RICHMOND asked for what purpose the postponement of the Report was proposed? made by an anonymous writer, or that the statement, if not contradicted, must be held as true? Is it necessary to contradict every malignant paragraph, and, because it is not contradicted, is its truth to be assumed? But this I say, that as EARL GREY replied that the Amendthe writer in the Review asserts there is ment which the noble Duke referred to a letter from me in existence, in which I had been carried at a time when a great gave my opinion to Lord Liverpool that majority of their Lordships were absent, the Catholic claims should be settled, I not having the least notion that the subchallenge the production of that letter.ject would come under discussion. He What authority has he. that that letter thought the decision at which the House exists? If he states that fact, I chal- had arrived, under such circumstances, lenge the production of the letter. should not be considered conclusive; and he hoped and trusted the Government would give their Lordships an opportunity of reconsidering it. If they did so, he for one would support them with his vote. But I will go further, and pledge my honour, that if the letter was written, and I have a copy of it, that copy I will, in extenso, give to the House. If it exists, it will show what were the grounds for the expression The DUKE of RICHMOND wished to used in the speech of the 5th of March, ask distinctly if it was the intention of that I had waited on Lord Liverpool and Government to reverse the decision to stated to him what were my intentions. I which their Lordships had already come have my belief that the communication with respect to this case. He had made between Lord Liverpool and myself was a the inquiry of the noble Earl (the Earl of verbal one; but if a letter exists, it shall be Ripon) on the last occasion, and he underproduced. I repeat, however, that I never, stood from him that it certainly was not in 1825-and that is the main fact-inti- the intention of Her Majesty's Government mated to Lord Liverpool a personal change to make any such attempt. He now saw in my opinion on the subject of the Catho-cause to know they had changed their opinlic claims. I had no right to say one word on this subject, and I have refrained from entering into a full reply; but allow me to express my grateful thanks to the House for having given me the opportunity of saying thus much. Debate again adjourned to Thursday. House adjourned at a quarter to Two o'clock. www HOUSE OF LORDS, ions. He was not surprised at any change of opinion on their part, nor at any combination into which they might enter, but thought it necessary that they should state what that change was, and give plenty of notice to their Lordships. As to the remarks which had fallen from the noble Earl (Earl Grey) respecting the absence of a great number of their Lordships when the Amendment was carried, he could only say that if the votes of those noble Lords who attended on Committes in that House from twelve o'clock in the day, and sat again until the House rose at night, were to be rescinded, and their decisions to be reversed, because other noble Lords were at home at the time, he hoped the House would, as many of their Lordships wished, adjourn at seven o'clock every evening. System of Gauge may not be adopted.-From Framland, There was no use in noble Lords staying in and Llanbadarn Trefeglwys, against the proposed Union the House after that hour, if such a docof St. Asaph and Bangor, but in favour of the Appoint-trine as that were to be laid down. ment of a Bishop to the See of Manchester.-From Leicester, and several other places, in favour of the Customs Duties Bill and Corn Importation Bill.-From Ilkeston, against parts of the Proposed Measure relating to the Law Tuesday, June 16, 1846. PETITIONS PRESENTED. By the Earl of Selkirk, from Mi nisters and Elders of the Church of Scotland met in General Assembly, for the Better Observance of, and for the Prevention of the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors on, the Sabbath.-From Worcester, praying that the Recommend ation of the Gauge Commissioners respecting a Uniform of Settlement.-From Samuel Cook, against Corn Importation and Customs Duties Bills, unless accompanied by the Repeal of the New Poor Law Act. The EARL of RIPON would remind the noble Duke, that he had received no notice whatever of any amendment, nor was he aware that any opposition was likely to be made on the occasion to which he referred. He certainly, in the conversation he had with the noble Duke, never had intended to convey any intimation, on the part of The EARL of RIPON proposed to post- Her Majesty's Government, that they con ANNUITIES TO VISCOUNT HARDINGE AND LORD GOUGH. |