§ COLONEL SALWEYbegged to put the question to the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department, of which he had given notice. It was one which had reference to the case and claims of that meritorious and gallant body of men, the Military Knights of Windsor, who complained that whilst the revenues of the Dean and Chapter of Windsor, who were appointed trustees and stewards for the Military Knights to protect them, whilst their property and their interests had increased tenfold, and now amounted to 22,500l. a year, they compelled those gallant and deserving men to subsist on their miserable stipend of one shilling a day, the same as they received at their first foundation in the reign of Edward the Third. As the case was one that affected the interests of every man of every rank, and of every grade, in the 209 British Army, and was of vital importance to the Military Knights themselves, he begged to ask the right hon. Baronet whether the late Attorney General, Sir Frederick Pollock, and the late Solicitor General, Sir William Follett, gave their opinion on the case and claims of the Military Knights of Windsor; and whether, in case such opinion was given, there was any objection by the Government to lay such opinion, or a copy of it, on the table of the House, with the papers, documents, and letters relating thereto in the Home Office and in the State Paper Office?
§ Sir G. GREYsaid, that in 1844 his predecessor in office caused an opinion to be taken upon the legal point in dispute between the Dean and Chapter and the Military Knights. In fact, three opinions were successively taken of the then law officers; and an intimation was conveyed to the Military Knights, through their Governor, that in consequence of those opinions the Government could not advise the Crown to take any steps in the matter. An application was made by the Governor for the production of those opinions; but the then Secretary of State informed him, that when an opinion was taken for the private guidance of the Government, it was not the practice to produce such opinion; and he (Sir G. Grey) felt that, for the same reasons, he could not lay the document in question before the House; but he might state in general terms that it was certainly not favourable to the claims of the Military Knights. The question depended entirely upon the construction of certain documents, and the opinion was adverse to the Knights.
§ COLONEL SALWEYsaid, he should feel it his duty to give notice that he should take an early opportunity after Easter of moving that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the claims of the Military Knights, as set forth in their several petitions to that House.