HC Deb 29 June 1807 vol 9 cc675-81
Sir Henry Mildmay

rose, to give an explanation of some circumstances, which had caused much unmerited obloquy to be cast upon him. He did not wish to conceal the state of anxiety in which he was. But that anxiety arose from a fear, lest his abilities should not be sufficiently, adequate to the task; and lest the feelings of one, little accustomed to calumny, should render him incapable of giving a full explanation. That transaction was the only one he had ever had with government, or ever would have if he could help it. The fourth report of the Commissioners of Military Inquiry had been perverted for the purpose of casting aspersions on him; and it had been said, that he had received undue favours from govern- ment, and had taken an undue advantage of the public. That charge was most false and unfounded; but he did not think himself called upon to answer anonymous aspersions, and had therefore waited with patience till the meeting of parliament gave him an opportunity of justifying himself. He felt that this explanation was due to the house, to himself, and to his constituents, but particularly to the administration of Mr. Addington (lord Sidmouth), during which the transaction had commenced; and more particularly still to one of the present lords of the Treasury (Mr. S. Bourne), who at one period of the affair had been secretary of the Treasury, which had exposed him, as well as himself, to a great deal of unjust calumny. In 1795, he had come into the possession of a large estate in Essex, on which he was obliged to reside three months in the year. The works began to be erected in 1803. During the time he resided there about 1500 people were engaged on them, which certainly did not render the residence the most desirable. All his tangible property on the outside of the house was in danger, and his family not very comfortable; but he still resided there till, nine nights out of ten, footpad robberies were committed in the fields near his house. He then thought that he had some claim to relief by law from the residence, and applied to Mr. Addington's administration for that purpose. He then was directed to apply to Mr. Vansittart, and obtained what he wanted. But the bill went only to relieve him for four years, and he was actually obliged to return to the place with all its inconveniences on the 24th of June next. If this was a job, it was singular that the administration should have jobbed against themselves, for he never gave them a vote in his life. He made the proposal of the house as a residence for the general of the district, to colonel Gordon, who told him that he could do nothing without a report from the barrack board. Their report was favourable, and he had a meeting with Mr. William Dundas, the Secretary at War, who said that it would be necessary to send a surveyor to examine the premises. Mr. Johnstone, the surveyor to the board, was then sent. He was totally unconnected with Mr. Johnstone, whom he had never seen in his life, and who had his own way in the whole affair. He made a report that £400 was a fair rent for the house and 20 acres about it. The house was furnished, as he had not removed one article. The house had cost £70,000. He had received at £200 for repairs and £400 a year for rent. On the 24th of June, 1804, the bargain was made, but the lease was not signed as general Delancey left the board. The rent was, however, due from that period. As to the letters from one department to another, he had nothing to do with them, and never saw them till they appeared in the report. By the general's residing in it, the government would save money. For their repairs he was not obliged to them, as he wished to have the house pulled down. But he had received no atom of compensation for being turned out of doors. On the 18th of August a jury was impannelled—one would think from the report that it was in 1803; but it was in 1804, which made a very material difference. On that occasion he employed the agent that generally acted for the gentlemen in that Part of the country. The agent employed counsel; but he had given him no instructions to do so, and knew nothing of it. The jury was one of the most respectable that ever sat, and did not give a rash or hasty verdict, for they were locked up three hours before they agreed upon it. They gave a verdict of £1300 for thirty acres one rood, &c. on which the military works stood. But he would ask, if there was a single word in the verdict that prevented him from living in the house or pulling it down, if he thought proper: and a surveyor had valued the materials of the house at £10,000, which would produce £500 a year. Was there any thing that prevented him from letting the house to the Speaker of the house of Commons, to government, or to any one else? The thirty acres for the military works, had nothing whatever to do With the Barrack Office agreement as to the house and 20 acres. The furniture for such a house was worth a good round sum. This estate was worth above £11,000, and had a suitable house. For this £400 a year was no adequate compensation. He wished that the value of the furniture of the house could be ascertained, or to what sum the fair annual valuation would have amounted; and he also wished to know, what gentleman who heard him, having such a house, so furnished, would have considered £400 a year an equivalent. He appealed to those who had known him for many years, whether, in his conduct, he had evinced any thing which could induce them to believe him capable of a transaction, such as this had been described to be. His estate in Essex had been granted to his ancestors by Henry VIII. He repeated the question, was £400 a year a compensation? He had been told that the Grand Junction Canal had to go through lord Essex's Park, and he would be contented with one-fourth of the compensation from government that lord Essex received from private individuals. The noble lord over the way (lord Howick) had hinted, that he was unfit to sit on the Committee of Finance, on account of the facts that were stated in the Report. This was certainly premature decision. The Military Commissioners themselves had said that no imputation rested on him. They only said that the Barrack Board had made a negligent bargain for the public; at all events, he would not be a moment longer in possession of this lease, and he in treated of his majesty's ministers to have a fresh jury impannelled. He wished to justify himself, and would answer any questions that should be put to him, either at the Bar of the House, in his place, or in a Court of Justice. As he had spoken from memory, some subordinate points might not be accurately stated, but the substance was correct. He concluded by moving for the production of a Memorial which he had that day given in to the Commissioners of Military Inquiry.

Mr. Sturges Bourne

seconded the motion. He rose,. he said, in consequence of the calumnies that had been circulated against, him, which he regarded less on his own account than on account of his hon. friend. Indeed, they would have been unworthy of notice if they had not been echoed by the noble lord over the way (lord Howick).He seemed to have looked at the newspaper report rather than at the Report of the commissioners. His name had not occurred in the Report, except where it was found at the bottom of one letter on this subject. He had been told that the age of insinuation was past, but if it was so, he was very unfortunate, for no one had met with more insinuations. He hoped the practice of making insinuations on account of private friendships, would be done away. He had no concern with the origin of the business, and yet he was accused of giving 630l. for repairs instead of the estimated 250l. and that because he had not chosen to deny a charge in the newspaper, but had waited for the meeting of that house. The business came to his notice officially in 1805, and the reason was, that by a late regulation no issue could be made for the Barrack-Board above 500l. without a communication to the Treasury; and the application was not mis- understood, nor passed over with out attention, as had been said. The object at that time was not the policy of the agreement, for that had been determined and acted on, and the repairs had been done. The Treasury, therefore, gave its authority, though sensible of the disadvantage of the terms. In every instance of this sort a jury gave a large compensation, and so it ought to do, where the one party had no choice. It fell to his lot as secretary to the treasury, to communicate the determination to the Barrack-Board; but the object was not to execute the lease, for that had been done already. Some of the gentlemen on the other side must know the course of the Treasury. He was answerable for any mistake in the letter, but when he had to sign so many, it was not surprising that a mistake should have occurred in one, which it was not thought required any very minute attention. The letter ought not to have alluded to repairs at all, and the gentlemen must have known that the letter admitted of a different construction from what they had put upon it, Having stated this, he left it to the house to judge of the fairness of their proceedings. He would ask the noble lord (H. Petty), whether he had found that he had ever been apt to make use of his official situation to serve his friends particularly? The charge against him was false, foul, and scandalous, and he had only to say that he had much rather be the object of it than the author.

Mr. H. Martin

considered the bargain as highly advantageous to the hon. baronet, and ruinous to the public, and therefore contended that the matter should be inquired into. It appeared to him also objectionable, that the hon. baronet, in justifying himself, seemed to impute blame to the Military Commissioners. He did not mean to say that the hon. baronet intended to do so; but the consequence that would follow from his statement was, that the commissioners did not understand the transaction. The compensation of 1300l. awarded by the jury for the first year for thirty acres, amounted to the fee simple of the land. The hon. and learned gent. made some further observations on the terms of the bargain, and contended that the matter should be enquired into. It was desirable, particularly at this moment, to show that the reports of these commissioners were deserving of credit, When they had made so small a progress in the subjects they had to investigate. He knew the commissioners to be men of as much honesty, integrity, and principle, as any gentle- men in that house, and was sure they had no intention to make any unfavourable report against the hon. baronet. When the matter should again be brought before the house, he hoped the hon. baronet would be prepared to explain, why no person, had attended on the part of the crown, to take care of the interests of the public, He was much misinformed, or it was the duty of the person who was counsel to the Board of Ordnance, to attend under the defence act, upon such occasions, if directed. This explanation would relieve his mind from a suspicion, not of the hon. baronet, but of the negligence of the public boards.

Mr. Secretary Canning

approved in warm terms of the candid statement made by his hon. friend. He did think it an ingenusous statement, and he hoped that the gentlemen who were so ready to charge would prove equally ingenuous in their own defence when called upon under any circumstances that might hereafter arise to vindicate themselves. He censured the manner in which the calumnies of the daily publications had been sanctioned by the authority of the noble lord (Howick), and contended that such calumnies would have sunk into their merited oblivion, had they not received a sort of stamp and currency from what had recently passed within that house.

Lord Howick

said, that in the very few words he should feel it necessary to say upon the present subject, he should cautiously abstain from following the example of the right hon. secretary, by trying to divert the attention of the house from a serious charge affecting one of its members, by a vague recrimination, equally inapplicable and groundless. He did not blame, he rather approved of the hon. baronet's refusing to answer the newspaper attacks that bad been made upon him; and though the right hon. secretary had accused him (lord Howick) of sanctioning newspaper calumnies, he had been so much more the object than the promoter of such attacks, that he did not think such insinuation in any respect just towards him. He would not retort the charge upon the right hon. secretary, though, at the same time, he could not forget the keen and poignant wit that in other times had distinguished the papers of the Anti-jacobin. As to the other hon. gent. (Mr. S. Bourne) he had never imputed to him any timing more than negligence, which might naturally be the consequence of a great multiplicity of business; but he had satisfaction in saying, that so far as that gentleman was concerned, he was totally exculpated. He felt it a painful duty to state, that he was not satisfied with the explanation given by the hon. baronet. He censured any blustering attempt upon the part of his majesty's ministers, to influence that house in its decision on the present case; if the cause of the hon. baronet was a bad one, the injudiciousness of the defence might tend to aggravate the crime, and if it was a good one, it was certainly most impolitic to attempt to controul, when it could so easily convince. This was not a time to resist inquiry by menacing challenges; the country expected inquiry, and recrimination would prove but a bad method to evade it. If there was calumny in this attack upon the hon. baronet, that calumny was to be found in the Fourth Report of the Commissioners of Military Inquiry, and surely no member in that house was to be censured for not at once discrediting and denouncing that Report, though not one title had been yet offered by the hon. baronet or his friends in denial of its statements. As to what had fallen from him (lord Howick) upon a former night, with respect to the reappointment of the hon. baronet on the Finance Committee, he was willing to repeat, that till this transaction was fully explained to the satisfaction of parliament, and the public, he did think it most inadviseable to allow that gentleman's name to appear on the list of a committee appointed for looking with a jealous caution to the expenditure of the public money. He had said that the hon. baronet's explanation had not satisfied him; and why? because that explanation did not in any way go to disprove what had been stated, that the public had paid twice for the same thing. This had not been cleared up, and until it was, he could not, consistently with his duty to that house and the public, totally acquit the hon. baronet.

Lord H. Petty

justified the hon. gent. (Mr. S. Bourne) from the imputation against him. So far as he had an opportunity of judging, there appeared no ground to suspect that hon. gent. of any corrupt practice while Secretary of the Treasury.—After a few words from general Hope, Mr. P. Carew, Mr. Montague, the chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. Ashley, and lord H. Petty, the motion was agreed to.