Mr. Secretary Peelsaid, that it became necessary for him, in the discharge of his duty, to move the first reading of five bills for the Reversal of Attainders, for which bills his majesty had been graciously pleased to signify his assent. The first bill was for reversing the attainder of lord Stafford, and with respect to that bill he wished it to be understood as the reparation for an act of injustice. The restoration of the other titles stood upon a different footing, for they were all acts of grace and favour. In addition to lord Stafford's bill, he had to propose the usual course of reading the bills for reversing the attainder of the earl of Mar, viscounts Kenmure and Strathallan, and baron Nairn.
§ Mr. Abercrombysaid, that, as a native of Scotland, he could not allow this opportunity to pass of testifying his cordial approbation of the course taken by his majesty in reversing these attainders. The restoration of the earl of Mar to the ancient title of his ancestors would be hailed with gratitude by the people of Scotland.
§ Sir J. Mackintoshsaid, that in the case of lord Stafford, his majesty was performing a memorable act of national justice, and in the case of the Scotch peers, one of royal clemency. There was something most affecting in the former, from 1319 the example of retributive justice, which it held forth 144 years after the infliction of murder by the sword of-law, at a moment when passion had poisoned and subverted the moral attributes of justice. With reference to the Scottish attainders, he was one of those who held that every punishment of the descendants of criminals, for acts in which they could be no parties, was cruel and unjust. He hoped, that at some future period, his majesty would be pleased to obliterate the last remaining traces of these attainders, from those families who now innocently suffered from them.
§ Captain Bruceregretted that, with the warmest approbation of the principle of these bills, he could not praise that selection which took the taint from the blood of the lineal descendants of the parties who had first suffered, while the collateral branches of others whose descent was pure in their own line were still thought fit to be excluded from his majesty's grace. Such was his own case: he was descended from a collateral branch of the family of lord Burleigh, and the attainder alone prevented that title from devolving upon him. When his majesty was in Scotland, he had felt it his duty to present a petition for the reversal of his family attainder; and he had never since heard why this partial restoration of honours was selected. He yielded to no man in loyalty to the House of Hanover, and most painfully did he feel the distinction by which he suffered on the present occasion. Though the blood from which he was collaterally descended from lord Burleigh, who died without issue, was pure and untainted, yet still was he, and those who were to succeed him, excluded from the royal grace. Was that exclusion to be perpetuated? [Cries of "hear."] He hoped that on some future occasion, his case, and that of others similarly placed, would be considered by the Crown with grace and favour.
Lord Binningsaid, there was much worthy of consideration in what had fallen from his hon. friend, and he trusted it would meet with the attention it deserved in the proper quarter; particularly as, by the old Scottish law, the claims of a collateral branch were not estreated by forfeiture. Connected as he himself was with the peerage of Scotland, it was a source of unaffected pleasure to see the ancient and illustrious house of Mar restored to its honours.
Mr. Secretary Peelsaid, it was satisfactory to receive from all parts of the House the admission, that the selection was made without the remotest influence of party feelings. There remained but two modes of proceeding; either an indiscriminate reversal of all the attainders, or a Selection. To the first mode, there were found objections, almost insurmountable. Indeed, some of those, lineally descended, did not, on considerations of property, wish for the extension of the bounty to them. In making a choice, government found the necessity of selecting those respecting whom no doubt existed regarding the original patent, as well as those who were desirous of preferring their claims. As the restoration of blood was, in the language of the law, a matter of grace and favour, he should not enter into any further explanation on the Subject, except to observe, that no duty could be more pleasant than that which had thus devolved upon him. As accidentally, the bill for the reversal of the attainder of the earl of Mar was the last brought in, he begged just to remark, that that earldom was one of the most ancient in the kingdom; and, according to lord Hailes, existed before any records of parliament.
§ The bills were read a second time.