§ Mr. Wakleypresented a petition from 5,000 394 inhabitants of Bristol, praying for a total remission of the sentence passed on the Dorchester Labourers. In presenting such a petition he said that he could not avoid observing upon the punishment inflicted upon those unfortunate men, and the perfect impunity with which the members of Orange Lodges, who had committed as great, if not a greater offence, had been allowed to escape. He was not one of those who would wish to press severely upon any class of persons, but it certainly did appear to him not a little extraordinary that persons of high station, of character, of great talents, and large experience, should be allowed to commit with impunity an offence such as it had been shown within the last two or three nights the members of Orange lodges had committed, while persons so ignorant, and so unacquainted with the law they were transgressing, as those unfortunate labourers, should be visited with the heavy punishment inflicted on them. It appeared in the course of the discussion last night, that previous to 1834, a declaration was taken by the members of Orange Lodges, requiring secrecy in their proceedings, exactly similar to that taken by the Dorchester labourers. Now, every Orangeman that assented to, and that took the declaration, came under the operation of the 39th George the 3rd. c. 79, as fully and as completely as those unfortunate men. The country would demand that these unfortunate men should not any longer be subjected to the punishment they were now undergoing, after those disclosures respecting Orange Lodges. If all those Orangemen thus accused were not prosecuted, the people of England would be satisfied that there was one law for the rich and another for the poor in this country.
§ Colonel Percevalsaid, that the hon. Member had indulged himself in inferences against the Orangemen which had no other foundation than the declarations made by Members in that House—declarations originating in party feeling and to which no credit was due. He had already expressed his condemnation of the existence of Orange Lodges in the army, but their existence in the army was not contrary to law. It was merely a breach of the military discipline prescribed at the Horse Guards, but it was not contrary to any Act of Parliament. He did not see, then, how it was possible with any show of justice or of reason to associate the 395 Dorchester labourers, and every convict who had been found guilty of violating the laws, of the land, with the members of Orange Societies. He would say of that society, that it was second to none in loyalty to the King, and in attachment to the laws and the constitution of the country. He would repeat what he had stated last night, that Orangemen do not make any declaration—that as soon as the Act of 1834 was passed the society dissolved, and that on its re-formation it omitted any oath, test, or declaration, that had been previously taken. With regard to the 39th George the 3rd., it had nothing to do with Orange Lodges in Ireland; it was passed in reference to some French Jacobinical societies in this country. He must on this occasion protest against hon. Members in that House making their own prejudices the standard of right and wrong. He defied the hon. Member, or any other hon. Member, to show that Orange Societies were either disloyal or contrary to law. If they were, let them be dissolved. He had tendered himself to the learned Member for Dublin to try the question. He was not out of order, and he would insist on his privilege to answer the hon. Member for Finsbury, who had made an ungenerous, he would say, an uncalled-for attack upon the members of the Orange body.
Petition to lie on the Table.