§ MR. THORNELYbrought up a report from the Committee on public petitions.
Special report brought up, and read, as followeth:—
Your Committee have to report to the House, that Mr. Henley, one of the Members for the County of Oxford, having stated to the Chairman, that a Petition from Charterville, in the parish of Minster Lovell, in the said county, presented by him to the House on Thursday, the 14th of February, and ordered to be upon the table, had not been reported by the Committee;The Committee have to submit to the House, that they directed inquiries to be made into the said matter, the result of which is, that the said Petition was taken from the Table of the House by Mr. Feargus O'Connor, one of the Members for Nottingham.
§ MR. THORNELYsaid, that the report had been agreed upon yesterday morning, and would have been brought up at the sitting of the House, had the hon. Member for Nottingham been in his place. He (Mr. Thornely) understood, that last night the petition had been restored to the table, after having been absent from the House for eleven days.
§ MR. F. O'CONNORsaid, he could 15 plead, in extenuation, his thorough ignorance of the forms and practice of the House with regard to petitions. A petition had certainly been presented by the hon. Member for Oxfordshire, which he did not know until after its presentation contained very extensive abuse of himself. He thought that, under the circumstances, the best thing he could do was to give it the widest circulation through the country, and he accordingly took it, and sent it to his own office, where he had it printed and published in his newspaper. In a few days after its publication, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire reminded him of it, and he then told his secretary to go to the office and get it. The secretary went, and brought it down on Thursday evening last, but left the House with it at half-past seven o'clock, supposing that he (Mr. O'Connor) would not come that night. On Friday evening, at an early hour, and not, as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton had stated, at a late hour last night, he came down to the House, brought the petition with him, and gave it to the clerk; and if, in taking it away, he had violated any of the rules or orders of the House, he begged, through the right hon. Gentleman the Speaker, to apologise. He was not aware that he was doing anything contrary to the rules or orders. He believed there were very few hon. Members present who would circulate, as he had done, the gross abuse of himself which this petition contained; and he begged to add, that if he were going to present a petition which reflected on the character of the hon. Member for Oxfordshire, he would give that hon. Gentleman notice of his intention, and of its contents, before he presented it: Now, the hon. Member for Morylebone had very properly given him notice that he was going to present a petition or two on Friday night, which reflected on his character; and this was the course of proceeding which hon. Members ought always to adopt in cases of the kind. He (Mr. O'Connor) should be ashamed to pursue any other course. He could only say, as he had said before, that he regretted he had so far violated the rules of the House as to take the petition away, but he had brought it back in the same state as when it was taken.
§ MR. HENLEYsaid, the petition in question had emanated from a number of parties in the county of Oxford, and that it appeared to express the opinions of the petitioners against the land scheme of the 16 hon. Member for Nottingham, and not personally against the hon. Member himself. In fact, all the inquiries which had been instituted had pointed to the scheme, and not to the hon. Gentleman personally. Had the petition been of a different character, he would have given the hon. Gentleman notice; but, as it was, he had privately explained to him the nature of the petition on the very day he presented it.
§ Report to be on the table.