§ Mr. Richard Martin, complained that the official return made to the order of the house, on his motion for the proceedings and evidence in the case of the attainder passed by the Irish Parliament against the estate of the late Cornelius Grogan, was totally inefficient and evasive, inasmuch as no part of the evidence before the committee who passed that bill, had been produced.
§ Mr. Foster adverted to the custom of the Irish parliament. The committee had been merely on the bill, and the evidence was not preserved. In this case it was clear it could not be produced. The records had been removed since the union, and where the notes were to be found he did not know.
§ Mr. Martin replied, that as the bill attainder was founded upon that evidence, the parliament ought to have preserved a record of that evidence, as its own justification; the omission to do it was, in his mind, a most gross and criminal remissness in the officers of that parliament. Mr. Grogan had, in his mind, fallen an unjust victim to the fury and prejudice of the mo 32 ment. One of his brothers was actually killed in battle, fighting against the rebels; and another brother, his next heir, severely wounded in the same action; and yet this gentleman's right too was included in the attainder. Not knowing how to come at the documents he wished for, and which he knew were in the custody of Mr. Thresham, clerk to the Irish house of commons, he said, he should move to-morrow for a committee to enquire into the state of the records of the Irish parliament.—Adjourned.