§ A Petition of John Joyce, Pat. M. Lynch, John Lynch, Alex. Nicholas Browne, James Finn, and John French Madden, was read; setting forth,
§ "That, at the late general election for the town and county of the town of Galway, Valentine Blake of Menlo, in the county of said town, was a candidate to represent the said town and county of the town of Galway in parliament; and on that occasion, the hon. Frederick Ponsonby was also a candidate for the like purpose; and that, by virtue of divers charters, there exists in the town of Galway, which is and was a great town in the reign of Henry the 7th, a corporation known by the name of the mayor, sheriffs, free burgesses, and commonalty of the town and county of the town of Galway; and that the right of election is vested in the freeholders thereof, and also in the freemen of the said corporation of said town when lawfully admitted and duly qualified to vote on such elections, the said freemen being a component part of the commonalty of the said corporation; and that the said election, which commenced on the 16th, continued from day to day until the 31st of October last, during which period certain voters, to the number of 159 freemen and freeholders, duly qualified, voted for the said V. Blake, and certain persons, to the number of 311, were permitted by the 221 sheriffs to poll and vote for said F. Ponsonby; and the petitioners further shew that of the above number of 311 persons who were so permitted by said sheriffs to vote for said F. Ponsonby, divers persons were permitted to vote as freemen of the corporation of the town of Galway, although such persons never were legally admitted freemen of the said corporation, nor did there appear to be any sufficient evidence of their having ever acted as freemen or done any corporate act, inasmuch as the only evidence of their admission as freemen was one of the corporation books, by which it did not appear that any person legally qualified vouched or certified their admission, nor any evidence of their having qualified as freemen, or taken the oaths prescribed by the charter of the said corporation; nor did there appear to be any stamp or any document of their alleged admission as freemen into said corporation as prescribed by act of parliament; and the petitioners further shew, that the above number of persons were not residents in Galway at the time of their alleged admission to the freedom of the said corporation, nor did they ever reside therein; that the said number of persons were composed of the principal part of the tenant peasantry of the right hon. Dennis Bowes Daly, of Dalystown, in the county of Galway, the uncle-in-law of the said F. Ponsonby, and his alleged representative on the hustings at said election; that they were, for the most part, totally illiterate, and incapable of speaking the English language, and admitted to their freedom, if at all, by several hundreds at a time; that the petitioners shew that they were occasional voters, made for the purposes of election, contrary to the law of parliament; that a considerable part, if not the whole number of said persons, declared at the hustings, that they did not recollect ever having exercised any corporate act as freemen, or had ever taken the oath prescribed to freemen, but had,! on the morning of the day of their voting, or the day before, and after said election had been commenced, been sworn by the right hon. D. B. Daly in an adjoining room which had been kept locked, and no person admitted to enter, save the said person about to be sworn, and one or two of the dependants of the said D. B. Daly; that they declared, when about to vote, that they had been sworn in the aforesaid manner before the said D. B. Daly as freemen, said D. B. Daly being at that time 222 and still mayor of the said town of Galway, although it was objected, that even if in every other respect they were freemen, that such qualification as freemen was not valid within the act of parliament, they not having qualified within six months anterior to the teste of the writ of election; they further declared, that they were so sworn by said D. B. Daly for the purpose of voting for said F. Ponsonby on said election; and the most considerable part of the above number declared, at the time they were voting for said F. Ponsonby, that they were ignorant of the name of the other candidate, although the said V. Blake now resides, and has since his birth resided, within the county of the town of Galway; and the petitioners further shew, as further evidence of their being occasional voters, that 158 of the above number admitted, at such their time of voting, that they had all, on one and the same day, been entered upon the corporation books, as they alleged, and at a time when many of them were minors, for the purpose, as they alleged, of being brought forward at some future day of voting for the said D. B. Daly, or his nominees; that the petitioners further shew, that divers persons who voted for the said hon. F. Ponsonby declared themselves Roman Catholics, yet did not produce any legal document or certificate of their having duly qualified themselves to vote as such Roman Catholics; and the petitioners further submit, that said oaths so administered were irregular, as not having been made before one of the judges of his Majesty's four courts in Dublin, or at the quarter sessions of the peace in the county where said Roman Catholics resided, none of them having ever resided within Galway; and further, inasmuch as no request was made by said F. Ponsonby, the other candidate, to said sheriffs, to appoint magistrates to administer to Roman Catholics said oaths of qualification, nor did, in fact, said sheriffs ever make such appointment; and the petitioners further shew, that the persons entitled to their freedoms in said corporation, under the Irish act of 4 Geo. 1, c. 15, and under the charters of said corporation, when duly qualified by taking the oaths thereby prescribed, were rejected by said sheriffs as persons not qualified under the above statutes and charters, although they had, long anterior to the teste of the said writ, applied for their freedom, and offered to qualify for same, but were repeatedly refused the opportunity 223 of so qualifying by the right hon. D. B. Daly and those under his influence; and the petitioners shew, that they are particularly aggrieved in this instance, because the several persons in this respect, to the number of nearly 30, declared at the hustings, that if they were admitted to vote, they would have voted for V. Blake; and the petitioners further shew, that said sheriffs, at said election, permitted to poll at said election for said F. Ponsonby, four freeholders not duly qualified to vote, one of said freeholders having agreed to sell and assign the whole of his freehold, and to give possession there of in March next, without any reservation, two whereof having no freehold whatever, and one who had not duly registered his alleged freehold; and the petitioners further shew, that, in order that the fullest evidence of the petitioners' objections might appear on record, the petitioners, and those concerned for them, required that the objections of the petitioners to the voters who were unduly admitted, and the answers and admissions of said voters for said F. Ponsonby, might be entered and taken down by the sheriffs on the poll book, which they uniformly refused to do; that the petitioners humbly shew, that, by the several means aforesaid, the said F. Ponsonby obtained a colourable majority over the said Valentine Blake; but that the said V. Blake had a very large legal majority of votes in his favour on said poll over said F. Ponsonby; and that said sheriffs should and ought therefore to have declared the majority on said poll in favour of the said V. Blake, and to have him declared duly elected, and to have made their return accordingly; whereas the petitioners shew that they made their return that said F. Ponsonby was duly elected; and praying the House to take the petitioners' case into consideration, and to appoint a committee to try the merits and validity of said election, according to law, and grant the petitioners such relief in the premises as the House shall deem proper."
§ Ordered to be taken into consideration on the 11th of February next, at the same time that the Petition of Valentine Blake, esq. is ordered to be taken into consideration.