§ Lord Cochranerose and said: Sir, I would have given a shorter notice of the present motion, had I not expected to have been called out of town on business of private importance. However, it is not too late to gratify those who wish well to their country by making them to participate in the feelings of one who has acted disinterestedly for the public good. I allude to his royal highness the duke of Cambridge, Who with truly patriotic magnanimity, has relinquished a lucrative command which, in the opinion of his Royal Highness, had dwindled into an office nearly resembling a sinecure.—This, Sir, is a practical instance of reform, proceeding from the source whence alone it can arise without endangering, at first, the further derangement of our constitution.—Besides the noble precedent thus established by his Royal Highness, which will be followed by those who regard the happiness of their native land, the relief actually afforded is equal to all the; taxes levied on 1,000 of his Majesty's subjects; for if I am rightly informed, the emoluments were 4,200l. a year, and the maintenance of twenty horses.—I am desirous to abstain from remarks which may lead to a discussion on Sinecures, or give those who may have an interest in concealing the example of his Royal Highness the slightest pretext to pervert my meaning; which I beg the House clearly to understand, is to place a Resolution on the Journals expressive of its opinion of this disinterested and truly noble act of his Royal Highness, and this I consider to, be the more proper, as the motives and even the relinquishment of the office, withheld from the Gazette, have not appeared in any official form. I shall therefore move, "That there be; laid before this 295 House a copy of the Letter of his royal highness the duke of Cambridge, tendering his resignation of the Home District, and of the reply by order of his Royal Highness the Commander in Chief to the same."
§ Lord Palmerstonsubmitted to the House whether the noble lord had made out any ground for his motion. He had no hesitation in stating, that if the Letters alluded to were produced, they would be found to contain nothing but a simple resignation on the part of the duke of Cambridge, and a formal acceptance on the part of the Commander in Chief. Conceiving, as he did, that no ground was made out, he should certainly resist the motion.
§ Lord Cochranesaid he did not more for the papers from an idea that they contained any thing of importance, but merely for the purpose of grounding a Resolution upon them.
§ The motion was then rejected without a division.