§ Lord Fitzgeraldhad to present a petition from the Mayor, Sheriffs, and Aldermen of Drogheda, against the Irish Municipal Corporations Bill, which stood for a second reading this evening. The petitioners complained that the measure, if passed into a law, would be subversive of their rights, and would injuriously interfere with those privileges which the Corporation had long enjoyed. They stated, that they had received charters from James 1st and William 3rd, and that the object of those charters was to protect and extend the Protestant religion in Ireland. They set forth that they had great reason to complain of the Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the state of the Irish Municipal Corporations, who, they alleged, had not fairly taken the evidence relative to the administration of property intrusted to them for corporate purposes. On that point it was not his intention to enter into any argument or explanation; but he was bound to say, with respect to those allegations, so made by the Commissioners, that the petitioners now, as they had done before, challenged investigation, and invited 1115 inquiry. They stated, that they would be able to establish, at the bar of that House, or before a Committee of that House, the fact, that in no instance had the corporate property been improperly used, but that it had constantly been appropriated to those objects for which it was originally given in trust.
§ Petition to lay on the Table.