§ Mr. James Fitzgerald,in consequence of the determination of the Court of King's Bench in Ireland, on the construction of the act passed in the last session, for the more easy trial of offenders escaping from one part of the United Kingdom to another, in which determination the construction had been established by the opinion of two judges against that of one; in consequence also of the great agitation that had arisen in Ireland, on this determination, and assured of the concurrence of the gentlemen of the Irish bar, who, if they did not concur with him, would have abandoned all that independence of judgment, and all those sound principles of law and reason of which they had ever been so honourably tenacious, felt it his duty to call the attention of the house to the provisions of the act in question, which so flagrantly called for amendment in the point he alluded to. He should have felt it his duty to give notice of a particular motion on this head, if he did not think the amendment would come better from the quarter in which the act had originated. He trusted the hon. and learned author of the act would offer such amendment as would be best calcu- 310 lated to preserve the spirit of the act, and at the same time to remove every thing that could give rise to such unjust construction.
The Attorney Generalhad no difficulty in allowing that the act required amendment in some points. At the same time he doubted, whether the amendments he thought it required were the same that were wished for by the learned gent. for he knew of no amendments that were rendered necessary by the proceedings in that court, nor did he think it right, in the present state of those proceedings, to prejudice the discussion of the case now before the courts, by a parliamentary declaration of the sense of the house upon the construction of the act.
§ Mr. Fitzgeraldsaid, that according to his view of the justice of the case, the person taken up should be at liberty to give bail where the arrest took place, for his appearance where the offence was committed. It could never have been the intention of the framer of the act, that a person arrested in Ireland, for a bailable offence committed in England, should be brought to the place where the offence was committed without being allowed to give bail; or, that a person arrested in England for an offence committed in Ireland, should be conveyed to that country without availing himself of the legal mode of liberation till the time of trial.
The Attorney General,in explanation, agreed perfectly, that the evil complained of by the learned gent. had never been in his contemplation. The provisions of the act of last session had been copied from the act of 13th Geo. III. between England and Scotland, in which the defect had not been noticed until the occurrence now alluded to bad discovered it in both.
§ Mr. Fitzgeraldthen proposed to move for an account of all persons imprisoned in Ireland for treasonable charges, together with the causes of their arrests, their means of subsistence while in prison, and how and when such of them as had been liberated were discharged. In answer to Sir E. Nepean, who expressed a difficulty of stating particularly the grounds of commitment, lest it should lead to a discovery of the channels through which govt. had its information, Mr. Fitzgerald said, he wished merely to know generally the ground stated in the commitment, for the purpose of ascertaining how the govt. of Ireland had executed the act, the re- 311 newal of which was to be this night moved; whether it deserved the character of moderation that was claimed for it by some, or the imputation of severity that was cast on it by others; an elucidation which the right hon. baronet ought to wish for as much as he.—The motion being cleared of some superfluous words, so as to comprehend only persons committed for state offences under the act for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus, the general cause of their commitment, together with the time of their discharge, Mr. Fitzgerald gave notice that he would put the question on it on Monday.