§ Mr. Blackstonefelt it to be his duty, and it was to him a most painful duty, to call the attention of the House to a letter which had been printed in The Morning Chronicle of that morning; and he thought himself, as an individual, and he was sure the House would likewise think, that it was a gross and scandalous breach of the privileges of the House. He felt that this letter was quite indefensible, and it was such a letter that he could hardly believe it to be the production of the gentleman whose name was signed to it. He could not believe, that it was written by Mr. Poulter, the late Member for Shaftesbury. He could assure the House that he could scarcely believe, that a person belonging to the legal pro- 454 fession could have written such a letter; and therefore it was, that he should feel it to be necessary, in the first instance, to call the printer of The Morning Chronicle to the bar, to see whether the gentleman whose name was affixed to the letter had written it or not. Now, when he read this letter he was sure the hon. Members of the Committee would bear him out in the opinion that he expressed, that the statements contained in the letter were unfounded and unjust. He would commence by reading the several paragraphs to which it would be necessary to call the attention of the House. He should, however, first state, that the letter was signed "J. S. Poulter," and purported to have been written on the 4th of April, 1838. It was a letter deliberately written—it was not written under the excitement of the moment; for the Committee had, he believed, come to the resolution of unseating Mr. Poulter on the 31st of March, and even the Sabbath-day intervened between the knowledge of their determination and Mr. Poulter's writing the following letter:—
To the Electors of the Borough of Shaftesbury—Gentlemen—An unprincipled combination to which I have been for some time exposed has been but too successful. A petition, which under ordinary circumstances and with a fair Committee might probably have been found frivolous and vexatious, has, by the effect of mere chance, been enabled to call to its assistance the services of the most corrupt majority of a Committee that ever degraded the administration of justice and the name of the Commons of England. The consequence has been, that I have ceased to be your representative in Parliament. The printing of the evidence by the order of the House will, I trust, exhibit to you and to the world the full particulars of this most flagrant and wicked case.The next paragraph related to the revising barrister. That gentleman was attacked, and he now noticed the attack only for the purpose of remarking, that he had given his testimony in the best taste possible; and he was sure he was only expressing the universal and unanimous testimony of the Committee when he said that they all highly approved of the manner in which Mr. Graves had given his testimony:—The conduct of a revising barrister of the name of Graves, in neither giving the overseer of Stower Provost an entire day for bringing in his list, nor adjourning (as it was his duty to have done) in such a manner as to prevent 455 even the most trivial and technical objection being raised, was the first cause of the monstrous injustice which has been inflicted upon me, The Committee having decided this point in my favour after an elaborate and unanswerable argument, founded upon reason, principle, and justice, as well as precedent, subsequently, on the application of the petitioner's counsel, re-opened the matter, and ultimately reversed their own solemn decision.