HC Deb 13 February 1850 vol 108 cc735-6
MR. ROEBUCK

said, he had to solicit the indulgence of the House in a personal matter. He did not like doing so where it was possible to avoid it, but in this instance he had no other means of setting himself right before the public, and it was besides a matter which referred to the memory of persons who were dear to him. In consequence of certain observations which he had thought it to be his duty to make in that House a few evenings since on the subject of the recent proceedings in Ceylon, he found in one of the public journals, the Morning Chronicle of this day, the following observations having reference to him. After commenting at some length on his speech, it proceeds to say:— Let us test Mr. Roebuck himself by the measure which he wishes to mete out to our colonies—we beg his pardon—to our conquered dependencies. We believe he lost a relative, amongst the ranks of the Canadian sympathisers, during the antepenultimate troubles in Canada. And we believe—and to his credit we say it—that he left no stone unturned to avenge his death, which he considered to have been an unjust act. And then there was afterwards a supposititious case put, how he would have acted in that case if his brother had been hanged, thus leaving the world to suppose, what the direct assertion previously made would naturally suggest, that he (Mr. Roebuck) having lost a relative during the disturbances in Canada, that relative, according to the writer's belief, had been hanged. All he could say in reference to that assertion was, that all his relatives in Canada entertained very different views from what he had advocated with regard to that colony—that none of them had been sympathisers in the cause of the French or insurgent party, but that they had, on the contrary, acted against that party—that he had lost no relative throughout these transactions, and could not, therefore, have been influenced by feelings of revenge in the course which he had taken—and that, in point of fact, he had not been actuated by any such motives. He had heard a variety of statements made and insinuations thrown out against him with regard to this subject, but with these he had nothing to do on this occasion. In offering the present explanation, he had been influenced by a feeling of respect for the memory of those whom he held dear, and he therefore trusted that he should be pardoned for giving this explanation to the House.