§ The Speakersaid, he had to call the attention of the House to a subject of some importance, inasmuch as it involved deeply the privileges of the House. He had just had put into his hands three letters, addressed by a person signing himself "H. C. Jennings," to the right hon. the Secretary of State for the Home Department; in the first of which, he commented on part of a speech which he presumed to have been made two or three nights ago, by that right hon. member, and in no very courteous terms contradicted its assertions. The second letter was still more violent; and in the third, written this day, he declared his intention of making an answer to the right hon. member from the gallery of the House. Under these circumstances, the House would feel that as soon as the matter came to his (the Speaker's) knowledge, he had but one course to pursue, to acquaint the House with it, 283 and with their permission, the letters should now be read by the clerk.
The Letters were then read by Mr. Lee, to the following effect:—
"Norfolk Street, Strand, Tuesday Morning."Sir; I was in the gallery of the House of Commons last night, and heard you say I had written to you to state, that some of the jurors on the coroner's inquest, held on lieutenant Devenish, who died in the Fleet prison, were drunk while on the jury. I beg to say that this statement is totally false; and I defy you to produce, under my hand, any such words, for I never wrote such a statement to you. I heard you say, that Mr. Hume was deceived in me; allow me to say, you are deceived in me, and not Mr. Hume. My intention and motives are pure. May the Almighty Governor of the Universe reward or punish me, according to the truth of my statement to you regarding abuses in the Fleet prison. I will bring this matter before the public, even at the risk of my life; and I earnestly and respectfully entreat you to compassionate those poor men, twenty-five in number, who signed the petition to the House. My own wrongs I bury in oblivion. I advocate the wrongs of others, and I court the severest scrutiny into my morals and character. Be sure, Sir, some day all the facts will come out, when you will stand convicted of partiality and injustice.—I am, Sir, your faithful, humble servant,
§ "H. C. JENNINGS."
"The Right Hon. Secretary Peel."
The second Letter was to the following effect:—
"18 Norfolk Street, Strand, April 5."Sir; I had hoped to have had the honour of a reply to my letter of yesterday; in which I accused you of having stated circumstances to the House of Commons highly prejudical to my character, as it was a deliberate falsehood; for you uttered it not in the heat of passion, but with a grace which only makes the offence more deep, but deserving a better cause. Do you refuse to make me an apology, because I have just been released from prison? because I am defenceless and in ill-health? If you do, I pity your courage as much as I deplore your want of generosity. To attack me in this manner, and under my circumstances; to hold me up to the world, and debase me in the eyes of 284 the public, and of the House of Commons, is a moral assassination, and I envy you not the triumph obtained over truth and misery, by such base and unworthy means, of late years resorted to by official men. But when you got up, and stated such a fabrication, I confess I was hurt, and disappointed; as, whatever may be your opinion of my character, I take the liberty of forming, no very honourable one of yours, unless you apologise to me; and I shall take the liberty also of considering my situation in society, however struck down I may be, as more desirable than yours, for you shall stand at the bar of the public a detected liar. In case I had written such words as you stated to the House, show the words, prove them by my handwriting. I defy you to do so; I am incapable of saying any thing against any one's character that is false, to gain any purpose whatsoever; and I do not believe any misfortune would so far corrupt my heart, or degrade my mind, as to make me pursue such a course."
The third Letter was to the following effect:—
"Sir; Finding you are determined not to offer me any apology for the false and injurious statement you made to the House of Commons and the public, to the great prejudice and ruin of my honour and character, I shall, therefore, regardless of the result, speak to you from the gallery of the House, as my life is a curse to me under the present affliction. Your honour demands this apology, as well as my feelings; for how can you rise in the House, and state facts, if it is proved against you, you have told a wilful falsehood? This must paralyse every power you have, unless you defy truth and justice, you will live in a country where laws are not distributed equally for rich and poor alike. I am determined at all events to obtain the reparation I demand."
Mr. Secretary Peelsaid, he should perhaps be excused for stating the circumstances under which he had transmitted these letters to the Speaker. As he had received the last of them at four o'clock that day, he thought it possible, from what was therein stated, that a breach of decorum might be committed, and he had therefore deemed it best to send them to the Speaker. He had not had an opportunity of communicating with the right hon. gentleman upon the subject; and he 285 supposed that the right hon. gentleman, drawing the same conclusions as he had done from the intimation in the last note, had thought it proper to call the attention of the House to the matter. He wished to take that opportunity of saying, that the impression which the writer seemed to have formed concerning what he had said, was certainly erroneous. When the hon. member for Aberdeen had brought forward his motion on the state of the prisons, he (Mr. Peel) had stated, that he had certainly received a great many communications on the subject, from a gentleman of the name of Jennings; and he supposed that Mr. Hume, too, must have received communications of a similar nature; and if he had, he had expressed his opinion, that that hon. gentleman ought not to place implicit confidence in them, for that, in his opinion, they were exceedingly exaggerated. In the course of the evening he had made an inquiry into the statement, that the jury assembled on lieut. Devenish had been made drunk, and had sent to the chief justice of the Common Pleas, who had despatched a messenger to the prison, and had found on inquiry that the statement was not true. He (Mr. Peel) had merely stated the result of that inquiry. He therefore repeated, that Mr. Jennings seemed to be labouring under an erroneous impression as to what had been said. Whatever degree of lenity the House could show to Mr. Jennings, of course they would shew him; but if he had allowed any individual to tell him, as Mr. Jennings had done, that he should make an address from the gallery of the House, and had not communicated the fact to the House, he feared that he should have been censured for negligence. He wished now to state that Mr. Clayton Jennings had also written to him on the subject of Tuesday night's debate, and through some misconstruction of what had been said, seemed to imagine that he had been alluded to. To correct that error, he thought it only necessary to say, that Mr. Clayton Jennings was not the person referred to by him, but a Mr. Constantine Jennings, who had been before a committee of the House.
§ Mr. Humesaid, he had received letters from Mr. H. Jennings, complaining in the same manner as in the letter to the right hon. Secretary of State. His impression had been, that the right hon. Secretary had alluded to Mr. H. Jennings. Now, 286 he assured the House that that gentleman, who certainly had displayed much warmth in his letters, did not number among his failings a want of humanity. He had seen him that day, though he did not then know of these letters; and, undoubtedly, Mr. Jennings did appear to be much excited by the imputations which he imagined to have been cast upon him. It was to be hoped, that the House would take the circumstance of warm and excited feelings into their consideration, as an excuse for what Mr. Jennings had done; and that they would make some allowance for the natural warmth of a man who believed, however unjustly, that he had been misrepresented, and who thought he was deprived of any chance of redress, except through the means mentioned in his letter. He thought that, after what had now passed, the further notice of the matter might be dropped.
Mr. Secretary Canningsaid, that however painful it might be to proceed against an individual circumstanced as Mr. Jennings was, it was impossible to let the matter pass by quite in the way proposed by the hon. member for Aberdeen. The letters were a manifest breach of privilege; and he should therefore move, that Mr. Jennings be ordered to attend at the bar of the House on Monday next.—Agreed to.