§ Mr. Sheilsaid, he had a petition to present from several tenants of Lord Lorton, which, as it was short, he would beg to read. The hon. and learned Gentleman then read the petition, which stated, that on Thursday the 4th of the present month, Mr. Courtenay, the agent to Lord Lorton, accompanied by the sheriff of Longford, and a large force of military and police, had turned them out of their houses, which were afterwards levelled to the ground. That the petitioners were not conscious of any crime they had committed, or of having given any reason for such a calamity being inflicted upon them, but that they had reason to believe, that they were ejected on account of their religion, they being Roman Catholics; and they believed this, from the circumstances that no Protestants had been ejected, and that Protestants had been placed in the holdings from which the petitioners had been ejected. The petitioners stated, that they were in number 250 persons; that having been thus ejected, they had no prospect before them but beggary in their own country. That they were desirous of emigrating, but had not the necessary means of doing so, and they prayed the House to afford them those means.
§ The Speakerthought, that as the petition involved an application for pecuniary relief, it could not be received.
§ Dr. Lefroyrose, but was met with repeated cries of "Chair!"
Mr. Shedsaid, that having been informed that the prayer of the petition was informal, he had withdrawn it.
§ Dr. Lefroysaid, that upon the question 319 that the petition be withdrawn, he would make a few observations.
§ The Speakersaid, there was no question before the Chair.
Upon the motion that the Order of the Day for resuming the adjourned debate be read,
§ Sir E. Knatchbullsaid, with respect to the petition presented by the hon. Member for Tipperary, the strict rules of the House had been adhered to; but the hon. and learned Gentleman had made statements of a very harsh description affecting the character of a noble Lord, and it was most important that they should not go forth without explanation. There was now, he apprehended, an opportunity for his hon. and learned Friend, the Member for the University of Dublin, for giving that explanation, upon the motion that the Order of the Day be read.
§ Dr. Lefroyfelt it necessary to take the opportunity of observing upon what he must call the unfair course that had been taken in this matter. A petition containing most unfair and uncandid reflections upon a noble Friend of his had been read nearly verbatim. The whole sting of the insult had been inflicted, and then the petition was withdrawn. The petition purported to come from 220 persons, but was, in fact, signed by only seventeen, and of those seventeen, five were workmen. He must do the hon. and learned Member for Tipperary, however, the justice to say, that he acted in this with that becoming feeling which had been at all times experienced from him. The hon. Member had shown him the petition, and on looking on the hand-writing of the signatures, it was almost palpable that they had all been written by the same person. The petition stated, that Lord Lorton had ejected only his Roman Catholic tenants; implying that he allowed the Protestants to remain. But there was not a single Protestant tenant in the village—a strong proof of the way in which his noble Friend's estate had been managed. It was said, that the noble Lord had given his lands to Protestant tenants; but he pledged himself that, up to that moment, not an acre of the land had been disposed of, nor a single tenant named nor thought of. On the rest of his estate, Lord Lorton had made a selection of the most industrious and solvent Roman Catholic tenants; and not a single pauper bad been turned out, without getting 320 money for emigrating to America—yet these facts were suppressed, although not denied. He thought it due to the excellent and benevolent nobleman, whose conduct had been questioned, to make these statements, for the truth of which he pledged himself before the House and the country.
§ Mr. Sheilsaid, that when he bad understood there was an objection in point of form to the petition, he had withdrawn it. He did not think it could be said, that there was anything unfair on his part. He felt, that where charges were made against an individual with whom he knew the right hon. and learned Gentleman had communication, it was only right to apprise him of the fact. Notwithstanding the statements of the right hon. Gentleman, he was rather apprehensive that it would be found, on investigation, that the principal facts in the petition were correctly stated. He wished to be allowed to read for the right hon. Gentleman and for the House, who might not be aware of the system adopted by Lord Lorton in the county of Roscommon, a document—a proclamation coming from that noble Lord, dated the 5th of the present month, which had been published from Rockingham, his residence. There might be controversy as to matter of fact, of which there was no evidence before the House; but there was an easier way of arriving at a conclusion as to the nature of the system adopted by Lord Lorton. In this document Lord Lorton said, that, in consequence of the persevering, barbarous, and savage murders of Protestant tenants, Lord Lorton had taken possession of Ballinamuck. [Mr. Sheil here remarked, that the hon. and gallant Colonel, the Member for Sligo, had said, that Lord Lorton's tenants were turned out for non-payment of rent. Colonel Perceval denied the statement, and Mr. Shell having begged pardon for the mistake, proceeded with the reading of the document.] Lord Lorton said, that in order to put an end to those atrocities, and the machinations of vile incendiaries, he gave notice, whenever an outrage should occur, to which the law affixed the penalty of death, and the offenders were not discovered, the same system should be adopted. Lord Lorton trusted, however, that after these examples and warnings, it might never be necessary for him to repeat the performance of the same painful duty. He hoped that his Catholic tenants would 321 not hereafter view their fellow-subjects as heretics because they worshiped the Almighty according to the precepts of his holy word. It was not denied, that this document was authentic. Let it be compared with the petition, and it was enough to decide the matter.
Colonel Percevalsaid, that the hon. and learned Member for Tipperary having attributed to him a statement that Lord Lorton had dispossessed some tenants on account of non-payment of rent, he wished to state what he did say. It was this: Lord Lorton, finding a portion of his estate crowded with pauper tenants, under a middleman, to such an extent that families could not subsist on the small holdings into which the land had been divided, had deemed it necessary to dispossess a certain portion of them, leaving the most respectable and industrious tenants, without reference to religion, in possession of holdings sufficient to sustain a family. To those who were removed, the noble Lord had, with his usual liberality, given from five to twenty-five guineas, and forgiven from one to three years' rent. The noble Lord had been compelled to make an example of the village of Ballinamuck, in consequence of a repetition of murders, disgraceful to the county and to the character of the people. Murders had been committed in broad daylight, and the widow of one of the victims who went to the village for assistance, was turned into ridicule, gibed, and hooted at. It was not one or two either, but a continuation of murders; and in four cases of outrage, the parties were worse than murdered, for they were so mutilated as to he left unable to support themselves. Therefore he thought that the document which the hon. and learned Gentleman had read with an emphasis calculated to turn it into ridicule, was such as to do equal credit to the head and heart of the excellent nobleman who wrote it.