§ Lord Henry Howardrose to present a petition from the inhabitants of Arundel, against the system observed by the Board of Excise respecting the prosecutions they instituted on the oaths of informers. The petitioners warmly complained of the manner in which those prosecutions were instituted and conducted; they stated, that so glaring had the conduct of informers been, that the board of excise was itself obliged to turn round upon those informers, and punish them. He trusted the House would see the necessity of reforming a system so pregnant with abuse.
§ Mr. Walter Burrellstrongly recommended the petition to the attention of the House. The greatest grievances were apparent in Sussex, from the system pursued by the excise board. Four of these informers were convicted last year of per- 554 jury. He was as anxious as any man to prevent smuggling, but he thought that in the mode of punishing the offence some attention ought to be paid to the morals of the people. The hon. member then quoted the case of Mr. Henty, a gentleman residing within four miles of Worthing; who was charged on the oaths of some ruffians of having smuggled spirits into his premises at a time when he offered the clearest evidence of his being absent from home at the time the crime was alleged to have been committed. Yet the evidence of those ruffians was taken, though eventually Mr. Henty succeeded in convicting them of gross and wilful perjury.
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, that whatever grounds of complaint had arisen in Mr. Henty's case had been removed, so far as the board of excise could remove them, on the discovery of the imposition which had been practised upon them. But he could not see how this petition could be acted upon by the House. It was true that the petition contained a general complaint, but it stated no fact in its support, no name, no dates, nothing in the way of specific complaint that was tangible, or could be made matter of inquiry by the board.
§ Mr. Bennetsaid, that so far from their being nothing in this petition to justify inquiry, he thought there was every thing, for the petition referred to a transaction which had occurred in a court of justice, where the perjury and profligacy of the excise informers was openly exposed and punished. The question was, whether those acts complained of had been done or not? Information had been given by two persons of smuggling to the customs; on inquiry, their information was found to be false, and the persons, instead of being discharged, were taken into the employ of the board of excise. Information had been laid against Mr. Oliver, a respectable gentleman of Sussex, that he was engaged in smuggling on a particular day in a certain vessel. On inquiry, it appeared that the vessel was in dock at the time. The informers then changed their ground, and named another day; when, upon fresh inquiry, it appeared that on this second day so named, the vessel was lying under seizure at the custom house. The miscreants who had so perjured themselves, instead of being punished, were released by the excise. In Mr. Henty's case, the board preferred the evidence of similar wretches to the unquestionable 555 testimony adduced in contradiction to it by the gentleman himself. One of the informers against Mr. Henty was at the time in Horsemonger-lane on a charge of murder, and another for theft. The perjury of others was at length clearly proved in a court of law, but they would have escaped on small bail were it not that charges of felony were brought against them—they were of course detained, and afterwards transported. The judge repeatedly admonished the witness, Todd, at Mr. Henty's trial, in consequence of the evidently perjured manner in which he was giving his testimony. The ruffian swore he had at the time taken a note of the particulars of the alleged transaction—and on pencil being put into his hand for the purpose of proving he did not know how to write, the miscreant was incapable of tracing a single letter in the alphabet. It was upon such testimony as this that the solicitor of the excise acted—upon testimony to which no police magistrate would for one moment listen. It was for the board of excise, it would appear, to set the example of acting upon the evidence of perjurers, vagrants, and every sort of miscreants. This was the first time that a minister of the Crown had objected to a petition being received, the main facts of which he knew to be true. In one of the cases, where the board were obliged to repay the injury they had done the party prosecuted, and pay all the costs, the country had to pay 1,500l. because, forsooth, the solicitor of the excise thought proper to lend his ear to the falsehoods of these informers. Since the time of the court of Star Chamber such a jurisdiction as this had never existed. Would the House believe that in Mr. Henty's case, the form of the charge was so vague, that it was impossible to know what day, between the months of January and April, it was alleged to have been committed! It was a positive fact, that the terrors of these prosecutions at the instigation of such perjured informers was so great, that thirteen men who were now known to be innocent of the crime of which they stood charged, pleaded guilty, rather than be brought to a distance from their homes, and then tried where they knew they had no chance of escape. He trusted the time would speedily arrive, when the whole System of excise prosecutions, and the practice of the courts respecting them, would be inquired into, with a view to their effectual alteration.
§ Mr. Lushingtondefended the conduct of the board of Excise, who had in Mr. Henty's case paid the whole costs that gentleman had been put to, when they found they had been imposed upon. He really thought that a petition complaining specifically of no oppression, which was open to explanation or inquiry on the facts of the case, ought not to form the ground of any proceeding before parliament. If any specific case of grievance could be satisfactorily pointed out, it should be instantly remedied, or if any specific remedy were devised, which without screening the guilty would shield the innocent, it should be immediately attended to by the board of excise.
§ Mr. D. W. Harveysuggested the propriety of withdrawing the petition, in the event of there being no objection to lay before parliament copies of the whole of the proceedings in the case of Mr. Henty.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerrepeated, that his only objection to the petition was, that when it called for inquiry, it set forth no specific facts upon which that inquiry could be grounded.
§ Lord H. Howardreplied, that the petitioners had contented themselves with broadly stating the existence of a grievance which it was thought no man could be found to dispute. If particular facts were necessary to support inquiry many could be found to bear out the abhorrence which the petitioners had to the present practice.
§ The petition was withdrawn.