§ SIR DE LACY EVANSasked the Secretary at War what decision had been 1092 come to respecting the restoration of their pensions to the commuted pensioners, so many of whoso petitions had been laid before the House at different times during the Session; and respecting the arrears claimed by the petitioners, consisting of the amount they would have received had the warrant of 1834, authorizing the restoration of these pensions, been made known to them.
§ MR. FOX MAULEreplied that the matter stood thus: In 1832 pensioners who wished to emigrate to America were told that they might commute their pensions at four years' purchase. The bargain was certainly improvident; but the pensioners did not make it without being fully aware of the nature of the contract. The effect was, that not being used to the possession of so much money, they spent it incautiously in the colonies, and the result was that many of them became destitute mendicants; and Lord Durham had noticed the fact in one of his reports. To some of these, what had been called compensation had been given; 4d. or 3½d. per day had been paid out of the colonial chest, and guaranteed by the Treasury at homo, to pensioners who were positively starving. Some had been replaced on the pension list as soon as their pensions had accumulated to the amount of half the sum paid to them. The parties on behalf of whom the hon. and gallant Member spoke, had commuted for their pensions fifteen years ago, and they went with the money to British America for purposes of their own; they subsequently left the colony, and now they applied for their arrears and to be replaced upon the pension list. The whole question had been discussed in detail, as he found by records in the Treasury, in 1845; and a Treasury Minute had been drawn up which was founded upon a right principle. He did not think it would be safe for Government to establish the principle that men who had commuted should at a remote period claim not only restoration but their arrears.