§ Mr. Humepresented a petition from Mr. Barber Beaumont, setting forth, "That the petitioner is suffering a virtual demolition of his property, against which the laws of this country afford no redress, and his case being that of a multitude of other unoffending citizens, he humbly appeals for that protection which loyal subjects may expect from a just government; that the petitioner is ground landlord of upwards of 70 houses at Shepherd's-bush, a village of new houses, chiefly raised through the 118 petitioner's exertions; that at the pressing desire of his tenants, and to supply their reasonable wants, he built a superior public house or inn in the centre of the village, where two cross roads meet, and at a distance of 250 yards on one road, and of three quarters of a mile on the other, from any licensed house; that seven annual applications have been made to the licensing justices at Hammersmith for a licence to open the house, but on different pretences it has been always refused; that the said justices, however, three years since, granted a licence for a mean thatched house, standing almost alone in the fields, some hundred yards distant from the petitioner's buildings, for procuring which licence 350l. was paid by the owner to the vestry clerk, when the land about the house so licensed became covered with houses, and the petitioner's land, being denied the convenience of a public house, became deserted; that, on the last licensing day, the chairman addressed the tenant to the following effect: We cannot grant you a licence, because your certificate is not signed by the minister and churchwardens; the act of parliament requires this, and we should not be justified in granting a licence without their certificate;' and another magistrate declared that that was the only reason of their refusal; but the act of parliament rendered no such signing imperative, nor had the minister of Hammersmith signed a publican's certificate for 30 years; the licensers have since acknowledged, upon oath, that they had determined not to licence the petitioner's house before any thing about the minister's certificate was mentioned, and in fact within half an hour's time of their refusing to deliver a licence for the petitioner's house, on the above ground of the want of the concurrent act of the minister, they granted new licences in favour of a brewer in the neighbourhood, and an other for two low tipling houses, which had been suppressed by former magistrates as disorderly, each being in the same parish, and situated within a few yards of similar houses already licensed, not only without any concurrent act of the minister, but in opposition to his earnest entreaty, contained in a letter read at the meeting, that one of these houses in particular might not be licensed; the petitioner, fully aware that in this country no relief is procurable for the sufferer under the most corrupt refusal of a li- 119 cense, still thought that some furtherance might be given to public justice by bringing the above case before a criminal tribunal, proving therefore the deceit and illegality of the reason assigned by the licensers for their decision, and contrasting the facility of their grants of licences for disorderly houses in clusters, in favour of one interest, with their seven years refusal of a licence of a very superior house, with such strong claims against another interest, he obtained a rule to show cause why a criminal information should not be filed against them in the court of King's-bench, but although the above facts were fully proved in the affidavits of the petitioner and his tenants, and were uncontradicted in the affidavits of the defendants; still it was held, that as there was no legal proof of a corrupt motive, the rule must be abandoned; all which the petitioner is ready to prove by evidence; in this state of prostration of civil rights to arbitrary wills, the petitioner, for himself and for his fellow-subjects, humbly claims such protection in the inoffensive occupation of his and their estates as to the House shall seem meet."
§ Ordered to lie on the table.