§ Mr. Tighepresented a Petition from the freeholders of the county of Wexford, setting forth, "That at the last election for the county of Wexford, Abel Ram, esq., and William Congreve Alcock, esq., were returned by the sheriff to represent the said county in the present parliament, and afterwards took their seats in the House; and that the said W. C. Alcock, in some time after such election and return, became afflicted with a mental malady, which, notwithstanding the skill and care of his physicians, has ever since continued, and increased to such a degree as to induce the necessity, on part of his family and friends, to sue out a writ of lunacy, for the purpose of vesting his property, and the management thereof, in trustees, the said W. C. Alcock being, from the continuance and increase of such mental disease, totally unfit and incapable of attending to or managing the same, nor is there the slightest hope that he ever will recover; and that the jury impannelled under and by virtue of said writ or commission, have found the said W. C. Alcock to be a lunatic, as by the finding of said jury, and the proceedings under said writ, all returned and remaining of record in the clerk of the Hanaper's-office in Ireland, and to which the petitioners refer, may appear; and that, in consequence of this event, the petitioners beg leave, on behalf of themselves and the other freeholders, to state and submit to the House, that the said county of Wexford ceases to be duly represented in the present parliament, because, by the laws and constitution of the said United Kingdom, it is established, that there should be two knights to represent said county, of which valuable privilege it is in fact deprived by the confirmed insanity of said W.C. Alcock; and praying the House will order a new election to be had to fill the seat of said W. C. Alcock, and for that purpose, that a new writ be issued directed to the sheriff of said county of Wexford, commanding him to return a knight to represent the petitioners and said county in parliament in the place of said W. C. Alcock, or to grant such other and further relief as may be agreeable to justice."
§ Mr. Tigheobserved, that the feelings of 683 the gentlemen of the county had induced them to postpone this step as long as possible, in the hope of Mr. Alcock's recovery. It however now appeared, that having been first affected on or about the 7th of November 1809, Mr. Alcock was still in such a state as to render unwarrantable any further delay in the application to parliament. There was no precedent on the journals of such a case, except that of Christopher Purle in 1506, in the reign of queen Elizabeth, which was exactly in point, and in which a new writ had been issued for Grampound, the Borough represented by Mr. Purle. There were several cases, however, and particularly two; one in 1605, the other in 1607, in which long continued sickness had been deemed a sufficient cause for vacating a seat in parliament. He moved to refer the Petition to the Committee of Privileges; and trusted the House would take those steps which might appear most expedient on the reception of the Report.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer,in assenting to the reference of the Petition to the Committee of Privileges, guarded himself from being supposed pledged to support any motion that might be made on the report of that Committee. With respect to the early precedents of sickness incapacitating members, adduced by the hon. gent., he had only to observe, that all later experience of the practice of the House was of an opposite nature.
§ The motion was then agreed to.