§ COLONEL GREVILLErose to put a question which arose out of statements that had been made respecting the Report of the Maynooth Commission—statements to the effect that the Report had been sent to Rome without the permission of the Commissioners, and that there the Report was garbled. He wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether it was true that Mr. O'Ferrall, one of the Commissioners for inquiring into the College of Maynooth, and the two secretaries to the Commission, had been summoned to London and examined as to the circumstances connected with the transmission of the evidence and Report to Rome, and the alleged additions and alteration in the evidence, without the knowledge or sanction of the Commissioners?
§ MR. HORSMANIt is quite true that the gentlemen referred to in the question of the hon. and gallant Member have arrived in London, and have been examined relative to the evidence taken before the Maynooth Commissioners. I will state as briefly as I can the results of the inquiry which has been made by the Government. When the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner) brought forward his charges, I could only state in reply, that those charges did not appear to me to rest upon sufficient evidence; the information of the hon. Gentleman being, as I understood, anonymous. Subsequently, however, in consequence of what took place here and elsewhere, I was led to the conclusion that a general impression prevailed that those charges were very important, and called for an inquiry on the part of the Government. Accordingly, on Monday last I told the hon. Member for North Warwickshire that if he would be so good as to give me an opportunity of seeing the documents upon which he founded his accusations, I would make them, if necessary, the subject of an investigation. I wrote the same day to Ireland, requesting that the two secretaries to the Commissioners would come to London, bringing with them all the documents in their possession, the evidence in proof, 406 the original transcript of the shorthand writer's notes, and anything additional which they might be able to get from the printer. On Wednesday morning the hon. Member called on me, and showed me all the documents to which he had referred in his speech, and very fairly, fully, and candidly stated to me the whole of the case upon which he had founded his charges. After he left me I saw the secretaries to the Commissioners, and asked them for their explanation. Subsequently, Mr. O'Ferrall, one of the Commissioners, and Mr. Thorn, the printer, also arrived in London; and I am, therefore, now able to state the result of the inquiry. The first charge made by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire was expressed in the following terms—
Was the noble Lord at the head of the Government aware that in the return of the priests educated at Maynooth, made by the officer of the College, and published in the appendix to the Report, the full territorial titles were given to the Archbishop of Armagh as the 'Primate of all Ireland,' and to Dr. Cullen as 'Apostolic Legate of the Pope,' both of which designations were in open defiance of the Act of Parliament passed by the noble Lord the Member for London a few years ago? The law had thus been trampled upon, apparently with the sanction of the Commissioners; but the sanction was only apparent, because he was authorised by Lord Harrowby, one of their number, to say that these territorial titles did not appear in the return when given in evidence before them, and must have been inserted afterwards.In answer to that, I will state to the House the real facts as they occurred. In page 33 of their Report, the Commissioners say—In order that we might learn the proportion of priests who had been educated at Maynooth, we sent to the president of the College a copy of Battersby's Catholic Directory, and requested him to mark off the names of those priests who had been educated at Maynooth.I hold in my hand the original document sent to the President of the College, and as returned by him. The letter "M" is written after the names of the priests who were educated at Maynooth, and in the list I find that certain Roman Catholic dignitaries are designated by their territorial titles. I think, therefore, that the statemeat that the document when put before the Commissioners had not those territorial titles is not correct. The explanation which is given for the appearance of the territorial titles is this:—In Battersby's Catholic Directory, the catalogue of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church takes up sixteen pages, and in the 407 twenty-eight dioceses which exist in Ireland there are only two in which territorial titles were given to the dignitaries of the Church. Dr. Twiss, who was properly described by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, being anxious that nothing objectionable should appear in the Report, turned over the pages of the Directory, and having satisfied himself by looking at fourteen and fifteen that territorial titles were not given to the Roman Catholic dignitaries, instead of continuing his examination through the whole list, he concluded that a territorial title was given to none. It was not until the return was printed in the appendix, and brought under the vigilant eye of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, that it was discovered that in two cases territorial titles were given. In those two cases the entry in the appendix is a literal transcript of the titles, as given in the Directory; and I have told the House the manner in which the thing occurred. The second statement made by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire was—That alterations had been made in the evidence, that the full territorial titles had been given on the third time of correction, while in the transcript of the shorthand writer's notes the Roman Catholic bishops were only designated by their legal titles of bishops, and that they were afterwards inserted.I hold in my hand the original transcript of the shorthand writer's notes of the evidence of Dr. O'Hanlon—the evidence to which the hon. Member more particularly referred—and I find that every one of the ten Roman Catholic bishops who are mentioned are designated by their territorial titles. The explanation of the secretaries to the Commissioners is, that when a Roman Catholic came before the Commissioners and called a dignitary of his Church by his territorial title, they did not think they would be justified in refusing to let the witness give his evidence in his own words; but when a Protestant witness came forward and called a Roman Catholic bishop by a territorial title, they checked him at once. One of the witnesses examined was the Rev. Mr. Leahy, now a Protestant clergyman, but formerly a Roman Catholic priest. I hold in my hand the original transcript of the shorthand writer's notes of his evidence. During his examination he spoke of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Clonfert; but Mr. West, one of the secretaries, with his own hand struck out the territorial title, and the evidence 408 was thus given to the printer. But Mr. Leahy, the Protestant clergyman, having received a proof of his evidence, himself reinserted the territorial title, which accordingly appears in the evidence as printed. The strangest part of the statement of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire was this—that he had the authority of the Earl of Harrowby, one of the Commissioners, for asserting that the territorial titles were inserted after the evidence was taken, without the authority of the Commissioners. I can state to the House that Lord Harrowby's recollection of what took place between the hon. Member and himself differs considerably from that of the hon. Gentleman. Lord Harrowby has written a letter to me on the subject. I showed it to-day to the hon. Member along with all the other documents in my possession, and he requested me to read it to the House. It is to the following effect—My dear Sir—I find that a question is to be put to you to-night on the subject of some charges which have been brought by Mr. Spooner against the secretaries of the late Maynooth Commission, and as I have reason to believe that he supported those charges by reference to a conversation held with me, I am anxious that this opportunity should be taken for a clearer statement of the spirit at least of what passed between us than seems to have been conveyed. A few days before Mr. Spooner's Motion he called me out of the House of Lords and told me that he had discovered that the evidence given before the Commission had been tampered with; that the ecclesiastical titles which Parliament had forbidden parties to assume had been admitted into our Report and evidence; that it had been ascertained by the indisputable testimony of some of the original transcripts, which by some strange accident had fallen into his hands, that these titles had been subsequently introduced into the printed evidence; that it appeared also, by a comparison of the same papers, that other and large alterations had been introduced subsequently to our last revise. He asked me if the Commission had sanctioned the assumption of these titles. My answer was—Certainly not; that we had been very careful on the subject, and my learned colleague, Dr. Twiss, particularly vigilant, so that I thought no such assumption could have escaped his observation. I told him that, the evidence having been returned by some of the witnesses after we had left Ireland, we had given it in charge to the secretaries to compare the evidence so returned with the shorthand writer's notes, and to admit what appeared to be mere clerical corrections, reserving for our consideration any more material changes; that I had not read through the evidence as finally laid on the table of Parliament for the purpose of comparing it with the original transcript, and therefore could not deny off-hand his assertion, but that I had no reason to doubt the fidelity and honour of the secretaries on whom this care devolved; but that at any rate, I said, laughing, he 409 must admit we had ample security in Mr. West, one of the secretaries, a good strict Protestant, against any such operations as he had described. To the best of my recollection I warned my friend Mr. Spooner against mares' nests in general, telling him that my experience had led me to the conviction that they abounded everywhere, and not less than elsewhere in Ireland, and not less than elsewhere among my good friends the Irish Protestants. This part of our conversation I have not seen reported. If my authority has been quoted for the purpose of giving any other impression of the spirit of what passed between us than the above statement conveys, it must have been given under misapprehension of a few hasty words, listened to with strong previous impressions by the hearer. On other points you will be fully informed from other quarters; but I should have been sorry if you had not had from my own pen an authoritative disclaimer of imputations cast upon honest and upright men, who had discharged a responsible and laborious duty with zeal, ability, and faithfulness, and appearing to rest on my authority.So far I think I may say that the assertion that the territorial titles were not in the original transcript, but were afterwards inserted without the authority of the Commissioners, is totally incorrect. The next and most important statement made by the hon. Member was, "That the evidence taken before Her Majesty's Commission was sent by Dr. Cullen to Rome without Her Majesty's consent, and without the knowledge of some of the Commissioners; and that the document remained in Rome for several weeks, if not months. This happened while Parliament and the country were anxiously awaiting the result of the inquiry; and the Report was being 'cooked' with the view of making things pleasant." Now, as to the fact of the evidence having been given by one of the Commissioners to Dr. Cullen, there is no doubt. That has been publicly admitted on more than one occasion by Lord Harrowby, who has given such an explanation as he could for what was undoubtedly a great irregularity and impropriety; and if the hon. Member for North Warwickshire chooses to use a stronger phrase I do not wish either to explain or to extenuate it. But the question is, did the evidence in consequence undergo an alteration? The hon. Member speaks of two witnesses—Dr. Flanagan and Dr. O'Hanlon—whose evidence, he says, has been greatly altered. The explanation is a very simple one. Dr. Flanagan and Dr. O'Hanlon were the first two witnesses examined by the Commissioners; and the secretaries, in accordance with what they believed to be the usual practice, permitted them to correct their evidence in print. At their very 410 next meeting, however, the Commissioners, hearing of what had been done, gave directions that in future the printed evidence should not be given to the witnesses, but merely the original transcript from the shorthand writer's notes, and that I believe was ever afterwards done. Dr. Flanagan was the first witness. He was examined upon merely formal points connected with the college arrangements. He is a very old man, infirm, nervous, and deaf, and the Commissioners had great difficulty in making the examination intelligible. When it was concluded, he himself was annoyed at seeing the confused state in which his evidence was. He asked permission to revise it, and endeavoured to do so on the printed paper; but, finding there was not room to make all the corrections he wished, he was allowed to write out the whole of his evidence, and return it in manuscript. The House recollects, of course, that he was examined upon purely formal points. The other witness referred to by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire was Dr. O'Hanlon. He also endeavoured to correct his evidence on the printed paper; but, finding that impossible, he asked and obtained permission to write it out with his own hand. The instruction given by the Commissioners to their secretaries was, that whenever a witness gave in his evidence with nothing but clerical corrections, it should be allowed to pass without notice; but whenever material alterations were made, they were to be submitted to the Commissioners. That inspection was followed in the case of these two witnesses. In Dr. O'Hanlon's case the rewritten evidence was submitted to the Commissioners by the secretaries on the 9th of December, 1853, along with that of Dr. Flanagan; the former because it had been rewritten, though the secretaries at the same time expressed their opinion that no alterations had been made in it; the latter, because it had been corrected in a manner which appeared to them ought not to be allowed. In the former case Lord Harrowby, by a letter dated December 12, 1853, allowed the rewritten evidence of Dr. O'Hanlon to be inserted; in the latter case, where substantial corrections had been made, and evidence inserted which had not been given, they refused to receive them. I beg the particular attention of the House to the dates which I am about to bring under their notice. The above letter was written by Lord Harrowby on the 12th of December, 1853. On the 3rd of January, 411 1854, orders were given for the printing of the evidence, including that of Dr. Flanagan and Dr. O'Hanlon. On the 9th and 11th of the same month proofs of the evidence were delivered to the Commissioners. On the 24th the types were distributed. On the 25th of April a letter was written by Lord Harrowby desiring that the evidence might be sent down to him to his mansion in the country. On that day it was bound up in the form in which it now appeared before the House, and was despatched to Lord Harrowby. It was in the month of May that the evidence was given to Dr. Cullen. In the month of October following Dr. Cullen went to Rome; and the evidence as it appeared in the blue boot now on the table of the House was word for word the same as the original transcript from the shorthand writer's notes in December, 1853. I am speaking on the authority of documents which are accessible to any hon. Member in this House, and which I showed to-day to the hon. Member for North Warwickshire. There is no doubt, therefore, of the fact that, with respect to that portion of the evidence from which he quoted in his speech on the Maynooth grant, the types were distributed in the month of January, 1854, four months before the evidence was given to Dr. Cullen, and eight months before Dr. Cullen went to Rome; and that, moreover, on comparing the original transcript of the shorthand writer's notes with the evidence, as printed in the blue book, neither alteration nor addition is discernible. There is only one other statement made by the hon. Member which I desire to notice. He said that to a question respecting the turbulent conduct of certain students at Maynooth, during periods of political excitement, the original reply was this:—"That such conduct was scarcely to be wondered at, when it was discovered that very many of those students were sent from dioceses such as that of Dr. M'Hale, and the students imagined that such ebullitions were tolerable because they were in unison with the avowed principles of their patrons." "This answer," added the hon. Member, "appeared in the shorthand writer's notes; but in the transcript where it appeared the word 'irrelevant' had been marked against it, and the question and answer were left out in the printed Report." Now, even if this were so, the evidence had only been struck out; just as many answers given before the Committees of that House by the 412 permission of the Committee when they seemed to the witnesses, on reading them over, to be irrelevant. But, the whole of the transcript from the shorthand writer's notes, which is now in London, has been examined; the shorthand writer himself has made a further examination of his original shorthand notes; and both he and the secretaries have assured me that they cannot find any trace of such an answer having been given by any witness—that they do not believe it was given—and that, therefore, it could not have been erased. I wish to state these facts to the House without comment. The only remark I intend to make is this, that whatever may be said of Lord Harrowby, of the Commissioners or of the Government, their position and character will sustain them; but it is far otherwise with the secretaries. Their good name is valuable to them, and when it has been insinuated, if not directly asserted, that they have been guilty of a gross and culpable neglect of duty, I do feel that the hon. Member for North Warwickshire will do them at least that justice to which they are entitled. If the hon. Member does not think, after the documents I have shown him, that he was mistaken in the charges he made the other night—if he thinks that further inquiry is necessary—I can only state that the Commissioners court that investigation, and the Government have not the slightest objection to grant it.
§ MR. SPOONERhoped the House would grant him its indulgence after what had passed. His right hon. Friend, if he would still allow him to call him so, had placed him in a painful position. He was obliged to say, and he did it with great pain, that the letter of Lord Harrowby was full of inaccuracies, and he was now prepared to reassert in the strongest manner, that what he (Mr. Spooner) had stated on a former occasion, was exactly what passed between them. The noble Lord said, he merely gave the spirit of the conversation which passed; that, of course, was a matter of construction, but he (Mr. Spooner) had given, not the exact words, certainly—for that would be impossible, of any conversation which was not written down at the time—but the substance of what passed, and that substance differed very much from what Lord Harrowby represented to be the spirit. He did not mean to impute to the noble Lord any intentional misrepresentation, but he could show such inaccuracies in the letter, as to convince every one that 413 the noble Lord was under a great mistake, and did not give a correct account of what had taken place. The noble Lord gave as one conversation that which was, in fact, two conversations—one in his own House, and one in the passage leading to the House of Lords. It was in the conversation which took place in his own House that the noble Lord had warned him (Mr. Spooner) against "mares' nests;" upon which occasion he (Mr. Spooner) answered that he would take good care before he took any steps in the matter. He (Mr. Spooner) informed the noble Lord that he had the facts of the case respecting the garbling of the evidence on the best authority. Then it was that the noble Lord warned him against "mares' nests." This was before the conversation in the House of Lords. The noble Lord, in his letter, admitted that "he called me out of the House of Lords, and told me that he had discovered that the evidence given before the Committee had been tampered with; that the ecclesiastical titles which Parliament had forbidden parties to assume had been admitted into our Report and evidence; that it had been ascertained by the indisputable testimony of some of the original transcripts, which, by some strange accident, had fallen into his hands as the printed evidence, that these titles had been subsequently introduced; that it appeared also by a comparison of the same papers, that other and large alterations had been introduced subsequently to our last revise. He asked me if the Commission had sanctioned the assumption of these titles? My answer was, certainly not." Now, on the honour of a Gentleman, and as a Member of that House, in his place in Parliament—a declaration he considered to be as binding as an oath—he must state that the noble Lord had left out a most material part of the conversation. The material part was the commencement. He (Mr. Spooner) had asked the noble Lord this—"Are you aware that in the appendix to the Report, the Commissioners have inserted the territorial titles of the Roman Catholic bishops?" The noble Lord's answer was—"I know nothing of it. If it was done, it was done without my knowledge." He (Mr. Spooner) replied, he made no doubt about that; but had he looked over the evidence? The noble Lord replied "No;" and the noble Lord gave him his unqualified authority to state that to the House, and to say, that the alterations made in the Report of the evidence laid before Parliament were made 414 without his knowledge or authority. That was what he stated to the House the other evening on his honour, and that was what he again stated as the fact. He was ready to meet the noble Lord anywhere, and to assert the same thing in his presence; and he was sure the noble Lord, on recollection, would find, and would admit, that he the noble Lord had been inaccurate. He had had the honour of the noble Lord's acquaintance for many years, and he would fearlessly ask him, whether, from his personal knowledge of him, he thought that he (Mr. Spooner) was capable of wilful misrepresentation? The noble Lord should be his judge, and he was confident the noble Lord would, from his sense of truth, admit he had not misrepresented what took place. He again asserted he was not mistaken, and it was on that assertion he now acted. He spoke in the presence of hon. Friends to whom he could appeal—to whom he had made the same statement a few hours after he heard it, and who would say he used the very words to them he had used in that House. He must say that the noble Lord had not used that courtesy which one Gentleman ought to show to another. In his letter, the noble Lord says, "I have reason to believe that he (Mr. Spooner) supported his charge by reference to a conversation held with me." Reason to believe! Why, by that courtesy shown to Members of the other House, the noble Lord was himself present during the debate, and from that time to this he had never received from the noble Lord one word, either impugning what he said, or asking him to explain, on the subject. The first communication he (Mr. Spooner) received, was from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland, and he would put it to the House to say, whether the conduct of the noble Lord was courteous from one Gentleman to another? He would put it to the House to say whether, if Lord Harrowby considered that he had given an improper colour to what had passed between them, that noble Lord ought not to have addressed him personally on the subject. He could, however, account for the noble Lord's conduct in this way. The noble Lord was a kind, a compassionate man; he fancied some charge was fixed on the secretaries, and, feeling this, he wished to palliate and to weaken what he said. He would, however, again unequivocally declare the noble Lord said that the alterations had been done without his knowledge and authority. The noble Lord would not 415 deny that he had used the words "you are authorised to state to the House, &c." What was he (Mr. Spooner) "authorised" to state, he would ask? Not that the asscription of territorial titles was made with the knowledge arid consent of the noble Lord, for that appeared upon the face of the appendix of the Report which he had signed; but it must have been, as he (Mr. Spooner) stated, and again asserted, an "authority" to declare that it was done without his knowledge or consent. He felt deeply concerned at being obliged to impugn the statement of the noble Lord. Having thus shown the House that Lord Harrowby had mixed up two different conversations, and had omitted the commencement of the conversation which took place in the passage of the House of Lords, he confidently asked whether he had not proved that at least he (Mr. Spooner) had not been guilty of misrepresentation? The noble Lord would not deny that he had stated that the ultimate making-up of the Report for the press was left to the secretaries; the reason alleged for this being that there were so many delays and so much diffiulty in getting in the evidence that the Commissioners were obliged to leave Dublin before it could be printed. He (Mr. Spooner) had never charged the secretaries of the Commissioners with any dereliction; he had only stated his inference that, from what had occurred, the secretaries ought to be required to account for the omissions and alterations that were proved to have been made in the evidence since it first appeared in the transcript of the shorthand writer's notes. It was confessed, both by the noble Lord and the Government, that the Report had gone to Rome. He had referred to an anonymous letter handed to him, though the writer was known to those who gave him the letter, in which the writer said he was ready to make oath that what he (Mr. Spooner) had stated was true—namely, that there were many things in the printed Report laid on the table of that House which did not appear in the original Report, and that many things that did appear in the Report were not to be found in the shorthand writer's notes. What he said at the time was that the secretary ought to account for this. He had heard who the Commissioner was who had given the evidence to Dr. Cullen, and as the evidence was altered and changed one of the secretaries, at least, must have been in communication with those who made the alterations. The inference 416 was plain. He was justified in drawing that conclusion which every one who looked at the evidence impartially must draw. He was told that the alterations were made in the evidence of two only of the witnesses. It was true he only proved that two of the witnesses' evidence had been altered, because he had only documents relating to two witnesses, but he did not say that was all that had been altered. Lord Harrowby said that it was the Parliamentary practice to correct evidence before it was printed. But would any one in that House say that evidence was given out for correction before it was printed? Where did the noble Lord get his Parliamentary practice from? and, if the noble Lord was inaccurate in that statement, he might be equally so in others which he had made. He thanked the right hon. Gentleman for consenting to an inquiry, and he would appeal to the House to institute such an inquiry that should satisfy the House and the country. He had from the first told the House that the letter he had referred to was anonymous. He should not have paid attention to it, had not the parties who transmitted it to him been two gentlemen well known in Dublin—one of them had authorised him to use his name, the other was not at present in England. One of them was Dr. Gregg, a clergyman of the Church of England, a highly-respectable, able, honourable, and trustworthy man; he sent the letter with an assurance that he had seen and talked to the writer, that he knew him to be a hardworking man, and one that could be safely relied upon. The letter could, therefore, hardly be called anonymous; but be the letter what it might, it contained facts confirmed to him by Lord Harrowby in his conversation in the House of Lords—that the territorial titles in the evidence had been given without his knowledge or authority. He had shown so far that he had stated nothing but what was grounded on a sure foundation, and on a strong primâ facie proof. But he had made out more than this—he had made out a case which was unanswerable, and he felt convinced that the impression which must have remained on the minds of those he had the honour of addressing was, that the charges which he had brought forward were true, and that the evidence had been cooked. The right hon. Member had accused him of saying that the Report had been cooked, but he had not done so; and what he had said he would read from his speech on the 417 former occasion, which had been furnished him by the right hon. Gentleman. His words were:—
The evidence remained in Rome for some weeks, if not months; and, while Parliament and the country had been waiting the result of the inquiry, it had been cooked to make things pleasant.He had said the evidence had remained at Rome and had been cooked; but he had not made any charge as to the Report. He did not say that it had been tampered with. This evidence, as they had been told for the first time, was concluded in December, 1853, and was all printed in April, 1854, and when they were waiting for this Report the noble Lord at the head of the Government had told them that the delay in presenting it had arisen from part of the evidence having been sent to Dr. Cullen, as the Commissioners wished to have his opinion on some questions connected with the ecclesiastical discipline of the Church of Rome as applicable to Maynooth College. Was this consistent with the statement that had been made that the evidence had been completed? He had looked for Dr. Cullen's evidence in the Appendix, and could not find that a question had been asked, or that a communication had been made from that gentleman on the point which had caused so much delay. He was sure that this circumstance would convince all that the evidence had been delayed for some other purpose than that which had been alleged, and he considered it an insult to Her Majesty, the House, and the country that the Report should have been so bandied about, and parts of it published at Rome before it had been laid before Her Majesty. It was more than twelve months after the Report was not stated to have been finished that it was delayed for the opinion of Dr. Cullen. He did not charge the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) with having given an incorrect answer as to the cause of the delay, but those who had stated the cause to the noble Lord had done so incorrectly, and the Report must have been delayed for some hidden and mysterious reasons which had not been laid before Parliament. They ought to have a searching inquiry to ascertain who had dared to give the evidence to Dr. Cullen, and, if steps had not been taken to ascertain this, the Ministry had neglected their duty. Now, what had been the course taken by Gentlemen who had felt so much hurt, and who now preferred a claim to be heard. The statement of which they com- 418 plained was made last Tuesday week, and would be in Dublin at the latest by Thursday; but no explanation was asked for, nor any complaint made until it was felt that the pressure from without was becoming too strong. Thus, these much-injured secretaries—these much-misrepresented Gentlemen—had remained silent and passive for a week until they were stirred up by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. [Mr. HORSMAN made a movement of dissent.] The right hon. Gentleman shook his head. Why, the right hon. Gentleman had told him (Mr. Spooner) so himself. But if the right hon. Gentleman stated distinctly that the secretaries had complained before he wrote, then he (Mr. Spooner) would withdraw that expression, and give them credit for the feeling which they professed to have entertained. But, unless the right hon. Gentleman made a statement to that effect, it could only be supposed that the secretaries had been perfectly content to remain under the heavy charges preferred against them until the remonstrances of the right hon. Gentleman, of the country, and of the press—which always came forward to unravel a mystery, expose a wrong, and bring discreditable tricks to light—compelled them to come forwar'd with what they called a fair statement of the case. If the House would grant a Committee of Inquiry, it would soon be seen who was mistaken in the matter. The statement he had made to the House had been made after full examination and due deliberation, and in laying it before the House he had merely acted in the exercise of an undoubted privilege, and with no other view than to insure a complete investigation of the subject. With regard to Lord Harrowby, if that noble Lord had heard a statement made, which he knew to be incorrect and which impugned the conduct of those whose administration he had joined, charged them with negligence, with a dereliction of duty and with not having properly vindicated the honour of the Crown, he should have thought that the noble Lord, in his place in another House, would have asked for a Committee of Inquiry to examine into and thoroughly sift the matter. It was in the House of Lords, that the Committee ought to be formed, but no move had taken place. He was anxious that the Committee should be in the Lords. He would not ask witnesses from Maynooth College to be examined. He would not call Maynooth students. He would call witnesses, who would 419 prove the allegations he had made, and who would be free from the trammels of the priests, by whom other witnesses had been surrounded. One remark more. The Commissioners appeared to think it was their duty to allow the Roman Catholics to use what titles they pleased, but denied this privilege to Protestants. How strange was this! In the name of the country at large, he implored the Government not to let this matter sleep. Ho had furnished documents and information, with the view that the whole question should be examined to the very bottom, and that the country should know whether we were to be governed by priests educated at Maynooth, or whether we should preserve our Protestant Constitution untainted and unimpaired. Keep up the dignity of Parliament—meet the wishes of the people, and vindicate the Crown from the gross insult which had inflicted upon it in consequence of evidence taken by a Royal Commission being altered and garbled to such a purpose. He hoped the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) would take means to have a full investigation in the House of Lords; but, if not in the other House, he (Mr. Spooner) would have no objection to its taking place in that. All he wished was a searching inquiry, and that witnesses should give evidence under the pains and penalties of perjury, by which means they should come at last to the truth, and make manifest the working of the system. He might be called uncharitable; but he was speaking of doctrines, not men, which were the result of such pernicious teaching, as that equivocation in a good cause was to be permitted, and the definition of what constituted a "good cause," was left to the priest. To his original statement he adhered. The original draft of the shorthand writer's notes could be referred to, and that would hear out his statements. He thanked the House for the attention it had afforded him. He was prepared to prove everything he had advanced, and he hoped the matter would have full investigation.
§ MR. HORSMANsaid, he wished to correct a false impression under which the hon. Gentleman was labouring. The secretaries had not remained passive and silent. He had himself had no communication with the secretaries, but he had learned that a letter had been addressed by those Gentlemen to the Chief Commissioner (the Earl of Harrowby), in which they referred to the statements of the hon. 420 Gentleman (Mr. Spooner), and they requested his Lordship to do an act of justice to them.
§ MR. SPOONERsaid, that his right hon. Friend had never told him of that. What was the date of the note? [Mr. HORSMAN intimated that it was soon after Mr. Spooner's speech reached Dublin.] And yet Lord Harrowby had remained silent up to the present moment.