§ Mr. Humesaid, he had a Petition to present from a gentleman of the name of Taylor, who called himself the President of the Christian Evidence Society, to which he wished to call the attention of the House. The House would recollect, that, on the 29th of November last, he had presented to it a petition, purporting to come from this individual, and praying that he might in future be sworn upon the works of nature. He had now to inform the House, that that petition was a forgery, which he had been deceived into presenting. A short time previous to the presentation of it he had received a note from Mr. Taylor, requesting him to present a petition on his behalf. He was, therefore, 390 in expectation of receiving a petition from that gentleman; and on receiving the petition which he had formerly presented, he had never doubted that it was the petition which he had to present, and had presented it accordingly. Mr. Taylor now declared that petition to be a forgery, and on inspecting it had discovered that it was written in the same character with an hundred anonymous letters, with which he had been recently pestered. He also begged leave to say, that a letter which had appeared in "The Times," of the 26th of February last, purporting to be a letter from his brother, and reviling him in very grors terms was a forgery, which he believed to be perpetrated by the same person. The petition making this complaint would have been presented at an earlier period, had not the petitioner entertained some hopes that he should be able to discover the individual who had perpetrated this forgery. In case that individual should be discovered, the hon. member pledged himself to bring him before the bar of the House, to answer for his contempt of its privileges.
Ordered to lie on the table.