MR. REDHEAD YORKE, in pursuance of the Notice he had given, begged leave to ask the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he could give any specific information in respect to the return to England of Joseph Mason, who was sentenced to twenty years' transportation at the York March Assizes, in 1843, upon a conviction which turned out to have been given in error, and which was established so to have been given in December, 1845?
§ SIR JAMES GRAHAM, in reply, said, that the statement to which the hon. Gentleman had alluded had been made soon after the trial of Joseph Mason had taken place, upon the ground of the verdict having been erroneous. When that representation had been made at the Home Office, he had at once consulted with the learned Judge before whom the prisoner had been tried, and with his counsel. Information was given to him (Sir J. Graham) that an alibi could be satisfactorily established; but he thought that it would be contrary to the practice of the Home Office to enter into such an ex parte inquiry in that office, after a trial in open court. He, however, caused a strict inquiry to be 1275 instituted into the allegations relating to the alibi; and the consequence of that inquiry was, that circumstances appeared so strongly in favour of its truth, that he caused the whole information to be laid before the learned Judge, Mr. Justice Coltman, who recommended that a free pardon should be granted. A free pardon had been transmitted accordingly to the Colony in the latter end of the year 1845, and there had been no opportunity since of receiving an answer. He should observe, that in addition to the free pardon, an order had been sent out that all the expenses which Mason might have incurred in consequence of the proceedings, together with the cost of his return, should be defrayed by the Government.