FOREIGN OFFICERS. (Hansard, 15 June 1837)

§ Sir Henry Hardinge

had no intention to oppose the Bill, but he had hoped that the noble Lord would have allowed him to introduce a clause, providing for the restoration of their pensions to certain old soldiers, who had long and faithfully served their country, in a Bill which was introduced with the view of doing an act of justice to foreign officers who had been employed in his Majesty's service. It would be recollected that some considerable time ago a plan had been adopted by the Government of the day, by which a number of old soldiers had been induced to dispose of their pensions for a commuted allowance from the War-office. The object of the plan was to allow those veterans an opportunity of settling advantageously in the colonies, and for that purpose part of the commuted allowance was paid in 1497 this country, and the other portion when they arrived in the country where they were to settle. As regarded some of those old soldiers, the plan might have been a good one, but it had. been carried too far, and many had been induced to accept the commutation, and to proceed to the colonies, who were by no means qualified to become settlers with advantage to themselves. As the consequence, they were obliged to return to this country, and having now nothing to depend on, were in a state of destitution. It was to restore their pensions to those old soldiers that he wished to insert a clause in the present Bill, and it was provided in the clause that they should only be restored in such instances as would not entail upon the public any greater expense than if such pensions bad not been purchased. Many of those individuals had accepted that portion of the commutation payable in this country, and had skulked behind the others, and never left the country at all. To those persons the Government had found it necessary to restore their pensions; and surely if they extended such a favour to those who had not fulfilled the contract into which they had entered, they were much more bound to restore their pensions to those who had fulfilled their agreement in every part, and who had only returned to this country when they found it impossible to procure the means of subsistence in the colonies. The measure, to the extent to which it had been carried, was, in his estimation, improvident, imprudent, and unjust; for those old soldiers had gone through the brunt of the war; they had served their country well, and had been deluded—he would not say defrauded—into the resignation of their pensions by prospects which had proved delusive, and by a scheme which had reduced them to a state of the most complete destitution in their old age. The condition of those old veterans in Ireland and in Scotland particularly called loudly for relief, and he had hoped the noble Lord would have allowed him by an instruction to the Committee on the present Bill to provide for the restoration of their pensions once more. His duty to the army imperatively called on him to take the steps which he had done, and he implored the noble Lord, if it was contrary to the rules of the House to insert such a clause as he had proposed, to take an early opportunity of introducing a Bill restoring those old soldiers to the pensions out of which they had been de- 1498 luded. He felt so strongly on the subject, he considered the restoration of those pensions so loudly demanded by justice, that, should the noble Lord refuse to acquiesce in his suggestion, he should consider it his duty to bring forward a specific measure on the subject himself.

Viscount Horwick

said, that he had found by an application to the Speaker that it would have been quite contrary to the usual practice of Parliament to insert a clause in a Bill quite foreign to the object of the Bill itself. For that reason he had resisted the insertion of the clause, but he thought also that the measure for the commutation of pensions was not of so harsh a nature as it had been represented. He admitted due caution had not been used, and that the commutation had gone further than was expedient, but the Government had done all they could to prevent improper persons from going out as settlers to the colonies, and the Government had, in fact, been imposed upon by the partial and improper representations of those persons who wished to commute their pensions. If a Bill were passed embodying the views of the right hon. Gentleman, he feared that it would only operate as an inducement to those who were settled in the colonies and actively employed in providing for themselves to return home, and once more throw themselves upon the pension list, even though their conduct since they had commuted their pensions would not justify the governors of Chelsea Hospital in restoring them, had they liberty so to act. He could not pledge himself to bring in a Bill providing for the restoration of those pensions.