§ On the Motion that the Orders of the Day be read,
§ LORD G. BENTINCKsaid: I beg leave to ask the indulgence of the House whilst I make an explanation to the House which is very painful to myself. It will be in the recollection, Sir, of the House, that in the course of the observations which I made yesterday, I was guilty of insinuating that in the job of which I was treating, in addition to all that had been done as regards the appointment to the office of Chief Justice of Bombay, a barter of patronage had taken place between Lord Lyndhurst and my Lord Ripon, Sir, I 876 made that statement on an authority on which I thought, and think now, I was entitled to place confidence. I made that statement on the authority of a gentleman high in his profession, who volunteered, on seeing the notice that I had publicly given, to write a statement which he requested might be laid before me; and who, from his close relationship with the living of Nocton, I thought could not by possibility be mistaken in the facts—the circumstantial facts—which he stated in that letter to me. Sir, acting in the perfect confidence of the truth of that statement, so circumstantial in respect to the living of Nocton, and so correct as I knew it to be in every detail as regarded all the other appointments, I ventured yesterday to state that such a report existed out of doors. I stated it as a report, though, on my conscience, I believed there was no doubt about the fact. In order that any such barter as that could have taken place, of course it was necessary that the presentation of the living of Nocton should be in the gift of the late Lord High Chancellor of England. My correspondent stated as a fact that the living was in the gift of the Lord High Chancellor of England; but having an opportunity of looking last night into a book called the Clergy List, I discovered to my amazement—and I will say, considering the charge I made, to my perfect horror—that the living of Nocton was not in the gift of the Lord High Chancellor at all; and therefore, that it was utterly impossible there could be any foundation for the charge I had made of a barter of patronage between Lord Ripon and Lord Lyndhurst. I thought it my duty to come here to the House; and in the face of the House and of the country, as publicly as I made the charge to retract it. I could not rest a moment under the feeling that I had been guilty of aggravating a charge against any persons. I have come here, therefore, in the fullest and the amplest manner to make the best amends in my power, and to offer an apology to both those noble individuals for having been made the means—the innocent means—of propagating a charge so discreditable to them. And, Sir, if I have hurt their feelings for the space of four-and-twenty hours, I can assure them that they will have ample compensation in the feelings of deep humiliation which I entertain for having brought forward such a charge against them.