§ Mr. Shaw, in moving for the papers of which he had given notice, said, that it was most painful to him, on the first occasion that he had to address the House, to do so upon matter more personal to himself than of public and general interest; but he looked to the justice of the House for that hearing to which he thought the defence of himself and the other official persons connected with the Court over which he presided, was entitled. The document which gave occasion to his present motion was rather a mockery of the rights of petitioning, than anything like a serious design to effect any public or useful object. The petition purported to be a petition from the Prisoners confined in the Gaol of Newgate, in Dublin, when, substantially, the petitioners were no others than a single individual, named Joseph Andrew Macdonnell. Now, at the time referred to in the petition, there was no such person in the prison, nor for a month previously, as he was enabled to show from the certificate of the Governor. In that petition it was alleged, that several persons were confined in the gaol of Newgate, and, though ready for trial, were kept in prison, and could not be tried in consequence of his (the Recorder's) absence from Dublin. What was the fact? At the time when that assertion was made, there was not a prisoner remaining in the gaol except two, and they were not prepared. He was 385 not one hour absent from Dublin during the confinement of any one of the petitioners, or rather, of the persons who signed a petition that virtually came from Macdonnell, who, though he was a Catholic, and never professed any other religious forms of Church discipline, nevertheless made it a matter of complaint, that there had been some delay in the coming of a Protestant Clergyman, for whom he had sent. In strictness, Mr. Blacker was not bound to come, for he was not the Chaplain of the prison—he was merely the City Chaplain; yet, when he did come, Macdonnell laughed, and said he would petition. The next charge was made against the medical officers of the establishment. The petitioner stated, that the said officers refused to come to his assistance, though it had been represented to them as a case of life and death—that, in fact, there was some danger that he might die within the hour; though, in truth and in fact, he was, during the entire term of his imprisonment, in perfect health. He had also been informed, that the brother of this Macdonnell had offered bail to the Magistrate by whom he was committed, and the offence admitting of bail, the Magistrate agreed to accept the security offered, but Macdonnell refused, and expressed his desire to be sent to prison, saying, that he had his reasons for wishing to be sent, for that he wanted to bring-over the Recorder from London to try him, and that he would make the medical men and the Chaplain attend, or else have them dismissed, through the instrumentality of the hon. member for Clare. Macdonnell was, when first sent to prison, placed at the debtors' side, but was there so unmanageable, that it was not possible to permit him to remain. He knocked down every one who came in his way; barred out the turnkey; set fire to the furniture, and, in short, he so conducted himself, that it became absolutely necessary to remove him to the felons' side, which was the object he had in view, intending then to prevail upon the prisoners there to sign a petition praying for a Repeal of the Union. When he was brought into Court, he endeavoured to raise a mutiny in the dock, and exerted himself to prevail upon his fellow-prisoners to give three cheers for a Repeal of the Union. His appearance on that occasion was certainly most extraordinary, and possibly, that very extraordinary appearance might have excited the 386 sympathy of the honourable Member;— the prisoner wore a loose coat, a coloured shirt, no neckcloth, his face was distinguished by a superabundance of hair, and his poison otherwise decorated with the insignia of liberty. He must be permitted to observe, that hon. Members ought not to take representations of this nature without something like investigation. The petition was, on the face of it, destitute of probability. The hon. and learned Gentleman then went on to observe, that both the hon. Members (for Clare and for Middlesex) were misinformed with respect to the sittings of the Quarter Sessions in Dublin—they sat quarterly, and might adjourn for six weeks at a time, as they saw lit; the Recorder had no power to alter the times of sitting. Sir Jonas Greene had been in the habit of adjourning irregularly, and not sitting on consecutive days; but it had been his intention, if ever he succeeded in overcoming the arrear of business, to adjourn for fixed periods, and to sit on consecutive days; but that intention he, unfortunately, did not live to carry into effect. When he (Mr. Shaw) succeeded to the office, he applied himself almost unceasingly to remove that arrear, and it took him two years to get it under. When that object was once accomplished, he went upon the system which his predecessor had intended to adopt—namely, that of having regular adjournments and consecutive days of sitting. There were in Dublin eighteen gaol-deliveries in the year, being more than in any town in Ireland, or, he believed, in England; at the present moment there was no arrear of business, and that was more than could be said of the Court for the last thirty years. As this business was arranged, he had four-fifths of the year at his disposal. When pressed by his constituents to devote that time to the care of their interests in that House, he felt bound in candour to tell them, that the duties he might have to perform as their Representative must be at all times subordinate to his judicial duties and he challenged any man to show that he had ever neglected the duties of Recorder of Dublin. He fairly apprised his constituents of the terms upon which he accepted the trust they were about to repose in him, and frankly suggested to them, that they would be better served by a man who could devote to them the whole of his time. He was, however, chosen by the electors of 387 Dublin; and, upon the ground of his being able to attend in that House only for the times he had stated, he trusted the House would not think proper to interfere with the choice of as free, as enlightened, and as numerous a constituency as any that sent Members to that House. It had been charged against him, that when he was elected to the office of Recorder, he pledged himself to sit for three days in every week; to that he begged to give the most unequivocal contradiction— what he did say was in reference to the Act which, prohibited the Recorder from practising as a Barrister within his jurisdiction as a Judge, permitted him to practise on circuit and in his chambers. He said, that he would not avail himself of the permission which that Act afforded him; he thought it would better consist with the dignity of the judicial office, not to practise as a barrister either on circuit or in chambers—to say nothing of abstinence from private practice enabling him to devote more time to his official duties. The hon. member for Clare, and the hon. member for Middlesex had charged the late Government with something like an offence, in permitting him to sit in that House while he held the office of Recorder. He had no hesitation in admitting that the opinions of the late Government were against his becoming a Member of that House, but on reflection, he came himself to a different conclusion. It was, however, of little importance whether he was or was not a Member of that House, but it was of great importance that a judicial situation, however subordinate, should be wholly independent of the Crown. Connected with this topic, it was important for him to advert to what had been said on the subject of the late Government, which, it was alleged, he was brought in for the purpose of supporting. He denied that he ever came into the House for any such purpose. He meant, on the contrary, to support the present Government so long as it proved itself worthy of the confidence of independent Members; but no Government should have any support from him beyond the moment when that support could be given with independence and consistency. The whole of what had been said with respect to his salary he set at perfect defiance. He received and held his situation in complete independence of the Crown: it was a judicial office, and one 388 which he should be sorry to see degraded by its holder becoming a quarterly mendicant at the Castle for his salary, or applying for it annually in that House. If the Recorder of Dublin was to be excluded from that House, let the proceeding be adopted on principle, but let not him be made the object of a personal enactment. He concluded by moving for a return of all prisoners in custody and tried during the Recordership of Sir Jonas Greene and the present Recorder of Dublin, and those during the same period remaining for trial, with the number of adjournments and sittings respectively, with the number of traversers and prisoners held to bail at each general Quarter Sessions, showing those cases during that period which had been untried in consequence of the absence of the Recorder; also, copies of warrants issued for the augmentation of the salary of Recorder of Dublin, under the forty-eighth of George 3, c. 140, and the fifth of George 4, cap. 150.
O'Gorman Mahonseconded the Motion, and pronounced a warm eulogium upon the talent and good feeling manifested by the hon. and learned Recorder, observing, that he would, if removed from either, be a loss to the Bench or the House. He assured the hon. Member, that, in the observations which he made respecting the petition in which the hon. and learned Gentleman was complained of, he was not influenced by any feeling of hostility. He did not mean to throw any imputation upon the hon. Gentleman. But, under the circumstances, no other course was left him but to comply with the request of those who had called on him to present their petition. He was confident that the hon. the Recorder and the House would acquit him of all unkindly feeling. The petition was, as the hon. Gentleman had said, that of John Andrew Macdonnell; but it bore the signature of fifty other persons. Of Macdonnell himself he knew nothing. But he knew that person to belong to one of the first families in Ire-land. Having received from him a letter, stating that he was in a gaol in Dublin, suffering confinement for a crime of which he knew himself to be innocent, demanding a trial, and unable to obtain one—and stating, that others were similarly circumstanced—he felt himself bound to lay the case before the House. The Recorder, indeed, had now informed him of one fact, of which, until then, he had not heard, 389 that the petition had fourteen fictitious signatures. He was sure that it was unnecessary for him to inform the House that he was unaware of such a deception having been practised. He disclaimed an intention to cast imputations upon the Recorder, or to act towards him with any want of courtesy. On the contrary, when the petitioner complained that he could not obtain a trial in consequence of the hon. Member being absent from his duties in Dublin, to attend to his duties in that House, he had communicated to the Recorder his having that petition to present. On his way to the Mouse, however, he had met with a gentleman, one of the hon. member for Dublin's constituents, who told him, that he had requested the hon. Member to remain in London, as business was to come before the House in which he (the constituent) was interested. But the Recorder was called away from his duties in Parliament to his duties in Dublin, and could not remain here to attend to the parliamentary interests of those whom he represented. On hearing that circumstance, he had felt it his duty to present the petition. He was glad that he had so done his duty. If he had not done so, the House would not have been gratified with the display of talent which the hon. member for Dublin had that night exhibited. That hon. Gentleman had said, that if before presenting the petition he had looked into it, he would never have presented it; but he did not think that the phraseology of the petitions sent to the House was to influence Parliament in forming a judgment upon their merits. He was sure that if petitions wore to be rejected on account of the inelegance or inaccuracy of the language, they who stood in need of protection could never lay their complaints before the House—if their petitions were even written by some Members of Parliament themselves. But the same carefulness of style was not to be expected from men incarcerated in a gaol, as from a gentleman reclining at his case upon a sofa. The petition, however, came from a person not only in prison, but. innocently imprisoned—knowing that his release would be the result of his trial, and not only unable to put himself upon his trial, but even to ascertain when he was to be tried. The gaoler could give him no information. No one could tell him, because the Recorder was absent. Now, what was to be done with 390 unhappy prisoners, conscious of their innocence, and kept back from trial (maniacs though they might be) he did not know, though the hon. Member, the Recorder, might. What, he would ask, was the fate of this man, Macdonnell, whom the hon. and learned Gentleman called a maniac? How was he disposed of? Was he guilty or innocent? The hon. and learned Gentleman had given no information to the House upon those points. He, however, would tell the House, that the prisoner was arraigned; he was put upon his defence, and triumphantly acquitted; and yet the Recorder would ask him why he presented the petition of a maniac? If he was a maniac, he was, at all events, an innocent one. Was it because he was badly dressed, or because he was not dressed precisely according to the hon. Member's own notions of fashion, that the hon. Member called him a maniac—or was it because he had no waistcoat? If he had not, that was the greater reason why he should not be kept unjustly in prison. It might be true that he had neither waistcoat nor cravat; but it did not follow that he was a maniac. All he knew of him was, that he was descended from an illustrious family, and that it was the fashion to call every Irishman who had anything to complain of, a maniac. The hon. and learned Gentleman had talked of the imaginary sufferings of the petitioners; but he would ask, if it was an imaginary suffering to be in a cold prison without a waistcoat or cravat? The hon. and learned Gentleman might think him mad because he complained of this, and might have said to the jury, "Look at him, look at the madman; he is as mad as a March hare; he is charged with an assault. He had the impudence to send over a petition to the House of Commons about my not being here to try the prisoners, which is alone a proof that he is guilty."—The jury, however, said, "No. It is true he is not clad so well as you are, Mr. Recorder, nor has a three-tailed wig, nor 500la-year in one place and l,600l a-year in another; but still we do think him not guilty;" and they accordingly acquitted him. He did not think the hon. Member was justified in using such language; nor did he think that the privilege of Parliament extended so far as to entitle a Member to abuse a person who was not in the House. The hon. and learned Gentleman had entered into a 391 vindication of the chaplain and the surgeon of the gaol, but it was not against them that he had complained, but against the Recorder. He did not know that Macdonnell was a Catholic, nor did he think that he ought to have inquired, for a man's religion should be left between himself and his God. He thought that Macdonnell was a Protestant, in which idea he was confirmed by the fact of his wishing to receive the sacrament. If he demanded such comfort, the rev. Clergyman should have attended to him; and if he were a Catholic, he should have attended the more readily, in order to rescue him from the delusion under which he laboured. He had heard, that the hon. and learned Gentleman, when he canvassed for the office of Recorder, had declared, that he would give three days in the week to the performance of the duties of the office; which attention was the more necessary, owing to the arrears of business which had been left by his predecessor, and which, he had himself stated, would take two years to clear off. According to the constitution of the country, he understood that every Member of that House was supposed to be always in his place. How, then, could the hon. Member attend to his duties there and in Dublin also? How many persons were there at that moment walking into the gaol of Newgate, and no one there to try them? The hon. and learned Gentleman ought to be there to try them as rapidly as possible, in order that men might not be punished when they were innocent. How many persons were there situated like. Macdonnell, and how were they to get out when the Recorder was in London? The Corporation, whom the Recorder represented, for he must deny that the hon. and learned Gentleman was the Representative of the people of Dublin—that Corporation paid the hon. Gentleman 400l. a year for attending in that House to watch over their interests and the House yearly voted him 1,600l. more for discharging duties in Dublin inconsistent with his duties in Parliament. He had heard much of Reform in England, and of Reform in Scotland, but instead of anything being done for Reform in Ireland, where one of the grossest abuses that existed in the Representation was complained of, the member for Dublin stood up, and called the grievances of Ireland imaginary, and described the aggrieved as 392 maniacs. The hon. member for Dublin said, that he supported the Government; if that was any merit, he would not deny the hon. Gentleman's claim to it. He was sure the hon. the Recorder would support every Administration as well as he supported the last and the present. No doubt, if there were twenty Governments in the next twenty months to come, as opposed in principle as the last and the present, the hon. the Recorder would keep his place on that side of the House. He (O' Gorman Mahon), however, trusted, that if the hon. Gentleman was so determined a friend to Governments, he would give up his office of Recorder, and not yield to Ministers a support which cost the guiltless prisoners so much of unmerited suffering. The Recorder's assertion of his independence was scarcely reconcileable with the fact, that he received 1,600l. a year dependent upon the vote of the House. Of the inconvenience of the Recorder's being a Member of Parliament, he had himself experienced an instance. Having purchased a freehold in Dublin, he was unable to have it registered, because the Recorder was in London. He was, therefore, deprived of the power (to which his freehold entitled him) of voting for an efficient Representative, should the hon. Member be sent back to his constituents.
§ Mr. Shawsaid, that the simple fact was, that the confinement of which the prisoners complained, was occasioned, not by his absence from Dublin to attend his duties in Parliament, but by the usual adjournment of the Court in which he had the honour to preside. He regretted that the hon. member for Clare had not an opportunity of registering his freehold, but that was not his fault. Had he been then in Dublin, it would not have been in his power to prevent that inconvenience. He could not regulate the discharge of his duties by the wanderings of the hon. member for Clare. With respect to his independence, he had not said that he was independent of his salary, but the salary did not render him dependent on the House, or on the Corporation of Dublin.
Mr. Warburtonsaid, that if the hon. member for Clare would bring in a bill to prevent persons holding judicial offices in Dublin from taking seats in that House, on the principle of the bill which excluded Irish Masters in Chancery from Parliament, he would support it.
§ Motion agreed to.