§ MR. MALINSsaid he rose, pursuant to notice, to call the attention of the House to the charges which were made by the Clerk of the Ordnance against Messrs. Grissell of having inserted pieces of iron in the mortars which were made by them, in order that the flaws in the materials which they had used might escape observation. That charge related to men of great respectability, and he was himself satisfied, and he hoped also to be able to satisfy the House, that it was entirely destitute of foundation. During the summer of last year the Government were greatly in need of mortars for carrying on the war, and, not being able to obtain the requisite supply from the houses with which they usually dealt, they applied to no less than fifty-four manufacturing firms of high reputation to ascertain whether they could furnish the mortars which were required. Among other persons, Messrs. Grissell, who held extensive Government contracts for machinery, and who carried on a very large business, were asked if they would undertake to supply a certain number of mortars. They stated that as the manufacture of mortars was not within their line of business they were reluctant to undertake a contract, but that as the Government were pressed they would afford any assistance in their power. They accepted a contract for furnishing eight mortars of five tons each, the price being limited to £24 a ton. Now, he was assured by those gentlemen, that having entered upon the contract, and deeming it important that the best materials for the mortars should be secured, they had instituted all the necessary inquiries upon the subject, and had come to the conclusion that Staffordshire cold blast-iron, with a mixture of Cumberland and old iron, would be found to be the best materials for their purpose. Acting upon that opinion one member of the firm had taken a journey through England, and having acquired all the information he could collect, had provided the necessary materials, and proceeded to carry out the manufacture of the mortars in question. Now, six out of the eight mortars which had been contracted for had subsequently 1327 been delivered, and of those six mortars no complaint whatever had been made. Upon the 29th of October, however, a mortar described in the papers as No. 4, was delivered, and with respect to that mortar the foreman, having been anxious to render it as perfect as possible, had adopted a new system of pouring in the metal, both at the bottom and the top, the consequence of which was that, when the currents of metal met a blistering was caused and some small holes appeared. Messrs. Grissell were perfectly satisfied that, notwithstanding these blemishes on the face of the metal, they had not cast a sounder mortar or one of greater strength. They therefore filled up the holes on the surface with iron of a different quality, and on the 29th of October the mortar was delivered. On the 20th of December that mortar was inspected for the first time by Colonel Wilmot, by whom it was rejected. The Messrs. Grissell considered that no good reason whatever existed for that rejection; and requested that the mortar might be tried. That request had, however, been refused and the mortar was thrown into what was called the "rejected ground." He might inform the House that the Messrs. Grissell, having found the contract more difficult of performance even than they had anticipated, had actually been obliged to expend upon the erection of new machinery a sum of £1,000, that being the whole amount for which they had originally undertaken to carry the contract into execution. On the 19th of November, Messrs. Grissell received a communication from Colonel Wilmot, asking whether they would enter into a contract to furnish the Government with fifteen more mortars. They stated that the price at which they had undertaken the first contract was too low; they sent in new specifications, and on the 23rd of November they were instructed to proceed with the manufacture of fifteen additional mortars, the price of which was to be £28 per ton. The terms of the contract provided that these mortars should be delivered by the last day of February, and at the end of January, when it became apparent that peace was about to be concluded and that the additional mortars might not be wanted, Messrs. Grissell were informed that none of those mortars would be received by the Government after the 29th of February. The firm were therefore obliged to work night and day in order to complete the contract, and on or before the last day of February all the mortars were delivered. 1328 It must be remembered that the manufacturers of guns and mortars had no means of testing them, but they were tested by the Government themselves. One of the mortars delivered by Messrs. Grissell burst, but mortars sent in by all other manufacturers had also burst, and on the 7th of March, Messrs. Grissell received a letter, signed "T. H. Monk," informing them that one of their 13-inch mortars had burst, on the firing of the tenth round, at Shoeburyness, when a plug was discovered screwed into the breech. The letter further stated that, in consequence of this discovery, the mortars at Woolwich, supplied by Messrs. Grissell, had been minutely inspected, and that a plug had been discovered in mortar No. 4, which was delivered on the 29th of October. Before they had time to answer that letter the Clerk of the Ordnance had come down to that House, upon the night of the 7th March, and in Committee of Supply had made, without the slightest investigation into the merits of the case, a charge against the Messrs. Grissell, for which, if true, no punishment could be too severe. The right hon. Gentleman told the House, on the 7th of March, that the Government had obtained a considerable number of mortars from private firms, but that the result had been most unsatisfactory; that several failures had taken place in respect to those mortars, and he was sorry to say that one firm, which he would not name, was found to have made attempts at deception in the manufacture of five of them by inserting pieces of iron in order that flaws in the material they had used might escape observation. That statement of the right hon. Gentleman had naturally awakened a feeling of profound indignation in the House against the men who had been guilty of a fraud so infamous. The hon. and gallant Member for Chippenham (Colonel Boldero), in giving expression to that indignation, had said that the firm which had supplied those mortars ought to be prosecuted for felony; and the hon. Member for the Cardigan Burghs (Mr. L. Davies) said that the name of the man guilty of the conduct described by the right hon. Gentleman ought to be published, so that every honourable person might treat him as a felon, and that he might be consigned to the infamy he deserved. But no name had been given in connection with the charge until the evening of the 11th of March, when the noble Lord the Secretary for War stated in another place, in reply to a question put by 1329 the Earl of Derby, that the firm to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred was that of the Messrs. Grissell; and when the Earl of Derby urged on the Government the propriety of considering whether the head of that firm ought not to be prosecuted, the noble Lord the Secretary for War said that the Government had, in the first place, erased the firm from the list of Government contractors, and had submitted to the law officers of the Crown whether Messrs. Grissell ought not to be prosecuted. Up to that moment the Messrs. Grissell had not received the slightest intimation from any quarter that they were the parties against whom the charge of the right hon. Gentleman was directed; but of course, after the declaration of the noble Lord the Secretary for War, they could no longer remain silent. What was the foundation of the charge against those gentlemen—a charge which was virtually one of felony? Why, it was simply this, that preparatory to turning the mass of iron a hole had to be bored in the breech for inserting the centre of the lathe, and when the mortar was finished a plug of iron was driven into this hole, simply to fill up an unsightly cavity. The plug had not, therefore, been inserted for the purpose of concealing any defect in the material, but simply for the purpose of filling up a hole which it was necessary to make in completing the manufacture. It was not a little remarkable that on the 10th of March, the day before the noble Lord the Secretary for War had made his statement in the House of Lords upon that subject, Colonel Wilmot had written to the right hon. Gentleman the Clerk of the Ordnance a letter, in which he stated that there was reason to believe the hole at the breech had been made in the process of manufacture, and not with a view to conceal any flaw in the material; and yet, notwithstanding that statement of Colonel Wilmot on the 10th of March, the noble Lord the Secretary for War on the following day repeated in the House of Lords the charge of fraud, which had first been put forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Clerk of the Ordnance in the House of Commons. That fact revealed at least a very infelicitous mode of conducting Government business. A correspondence ensued between the War Office and Messrs. Grissell, and those gentlemen, in a lengthened interview which they had had with the noble Lord the Secretary for War, on the 14th of March, had convinced the noble Lord, as appeared from the papers laid before 1330 the House, that the charge of having put in the plugs for the purpose of concealing a flaw in the materials was unfounded. It further appeared, that two engineers of the highest reputation—namely, Mr. Brunel and Mr. Fowler, had, after due inquiry, made a report, in which they expressed their belief that "the description of iron used by the Messrs. Grissell, and the mode of proceeding which they had adopted, indicated a desire to perform work to which they were not accustomed in a creditable manner, and that it was clear no fraud had been attempted in the case." A letter had been written by the Messrs. Grissell, on the 14th of March, in which they entered into the fullest explanations upon the subject; and that letter was answered in a communication which, for some reason or another he (Mr. Malins) could not understand, was not inserted in the papers that had been presented to Parliament. In that communication the authorities at the War Office acquitted those gentlemen on the charge of fraud, but persisted in stating that they believed the plug had been inserted for the purpose of concealment. But the Messrs. Grissell very properly considered that a charge of concealment involved a charge of fraud, and did not allow the matter to rest there. The point in dispute was referred to Colonel Wilmot, and he drew up a Report, in which he made a statement to the effect, that on the whole he thought the opinion given by Mr. Brunel and Mr. Fowler, in favour of the honesty of the contractors, ought to be considered conclusive; and then he went on to declare that, in his belief, iron compounded of Blenavon and Pontypool would have been better than the iron compounded of Staffordshire coldblast, Cumberland hematite, and old iron, used by the Messrs. Grissell. That latter opinion, however, had been then stated for the first time by Colonel Wilmot—he had never before expressed a wish that the compound he recommended should be employed by the Messrs. Grissell—and he (Mr. Malins) could not help thinking that that new question had been introduced for the purpose of diverting attention from the real point at issue. Colonel Wilmot further stated in his Report that he had satisfied himself that the Messrs. Grissell had spent a sum of £1,000 in machinery, for the purpose of properly fulfilling their contract. He (Mr. Malins) had been induced to take up the case solely from a desire to obtain for a firm which had hitherto borne an unblemished character the reparation 1331 of what they regarded as a gross injustice; and on the 2nd of the present month he had asked the right hon. Gentleman the Clerk of the Ordnance, whether the Government had yet satisfied themselves of the groundlessness of their charge against the Messrs. Grissell. The right hon. Gentleman had stated, in reply, that the correspondence upon the subject was still going on, and that he could not answer the question. But he (Mr. Malins) hoped that at present, at all events, that answer would not be repeated, and that the right hon. Gentleman would at length be prepared to do justice to those gentlemen. Among the papers presented to Parliament was a memorandum written by Colonel Wilmot, on the 11th of April, in which he stated that on the 7th of March, in the course of a conversation with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Monsell), he had used the words "flaws in the material," when he ought to have said "defects in the manufacture." It thus appeared that after a loose conversation with Colonel Wilmot, perhaps in the lobby of the House, the right hon. Gentleman felt himself justified on the evening of the same day in making a ruinous charge against a highly respectable firm. There was no duty more incumbent upon Members of the Government, whose statements in that House, however hurtful, could not be questioned in a court of law, than to be particularly abstemious in bringing charges against individuals. But what did he find in a letter written from the War Department on the 14th of April? Lord Panmure there stated, that the material had been proved not to be of such a quality as to secure the fitness of the mortars for the service; but, on the other hand, he willingly admitted that the plugs inserted in the mortars, with the exception of those on the face, were not placed there for the purpose of concealing flaws, but for filling up holes made in the process of manufacture. Surely the Clerk of the Ordnance must now regret having made his rash and unfounded charges on the 7th of March. Messrs. Grissell were charged with having inserted plugs into three mortars, but of that charge they had been subsequently acquitted. This observation, however, did not apply to No. 4, but the pieces inserted in that mortar were as plain when sent to Woolwich as the spectacles on a man's face. The Government endeavoured to get out of the scrape of not detecting this, by alleging that the mortar had been painted; but that was disproved. The 1332 grounds of the charge against the Messrs. Grissell were at present completely removed, as he (Mr. Malins) believed, and were evidently in the opinion of the Government itself at least greatly altered. There was no longer any question even as to the character of the iron which those gentlemen had employed; for a Commission, in which Colonel Wilmot himself had served, had reported that their compound was the best they could have adopted. He had been informed by persons most competent to give a decision in such a case, that the piece of iron inserted in the hole of the mortars had not in the slightest degree diminished their strength. That was the opinion of Mr. Brunel and Mr. Fowler; and he believed it was also the opinion of the hon. Member for Whitby (Mr. Stephenson), than whom there could be no higher authority upon such a subject. Under all the circumstances of the case, he thought the right hon. Gentleman had violated the rules of fairness in bringing forward a grave charge in the hasty manner he had done against gentlemen who, he must have known, had long maintained an unsullied character in the performance of the duties of an honourable business; and he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman, now that the whole of the facts were before him, would frankly admit that those gentlemen had honestly endeavoured to fulfil their contract. He felt assured that the House would concur with him in the belief that the charge was one which ought never to have been made, and that having once been made the right hon. Gentleman could not take too early an opportunity of retracting it. The right hon. Gentleman made a complaint that some of the mortars had burst. He did not, however, select those of Messrs. Grissell as having failed more than any others, but alleged general insufficiency; and if, out of the twenty-three mortars manufactured by that firm, one had burst, it was not from defective manufacture or material. Having gone out of their usual course of business in manufacturing those mortars they had determined to perform the duty in the best way they could. By doing so they had subjected themselves to a charge in that House which they had no means of removing but by an appeal to the generosity of the Members. If the right hon. Gentleman gave the assurance that he was now perfectly satisfied that whatever error might have been made by the contractors in the perforance of their contract the error was unintentional, there would be an 1333 end of the matter; but if he persisted in the charge which he had made, he (Mr. Malins) should consider whether it would not be his duty to move for a Select Committee to investigate the question.
§ MR. MONSELLsaid, he could assure the hon. and learned Gentleman and the House, that he should be glad if he could conscientiously arrive at the same conclusion with the hon. and learned Gentleman in reference to the subject before them. He should, in a few words, dispose of the charges which had been brought against himself and his noble Friend (Lord Panmure) in reference to the course which they had thought it their duty to pursue, and he should then explain to the House the real position in which the affair stood. With regard to himself, he thought the House would agree with him in thinking, that he was justified in making the statement to which the hon. and learned Gentleman had referred, when it was nothing more than what had been reported to him by the competent authority—the officer whose duty it was to examine and test the quality of the mortars supplied. Referring to that report, the only mistake which he could discover, after the explanation of the hon. and learned Member, was, that it was there stated that the plugs were to conceal defects in the material, instead of saying that they were to conceal defects in the workmanship. As to the fact that the mortars were plugged, there was now no denial; but the hon. and learned Gentleman stated that that was a matter of no importance, and that he was supported in that opinion by the hon. Member for Whitby (Mr. Stephenson). Now, on the other hand, officers well acquainted with such subjects—Colonel Eardley Wilmot, the chief officer of Woolwich Arsenal, Captain Carrick, of the royal navy, and Sir Thomas Maitland, the head of the experimental department of the royal navy, had also given an opinion on the same subject, and it was one directly opposite to that of the hon. Member for Whitby. Their opinion was, that the flaws were defects of a most serious character, and weakened the mortars most materially. As to the question raised with respect to the holes being necessary for the process of turning, he could only refer to the unanimous resolution of the board of officers to refuse all mortars in any way flawed, and if the House would refer to the rule laid down by other nations in the selection of their mortars, they would find that their provisions were most distinct on that point. He (Mr. Monsell) 1334 could not agree with the conclusions to which the hon. and learned Gentleman had arrived, that the insertion of the plugs was no defect, for, on the contrary, he considered it a grievous and serious defect. He wished now to call the attention of the House to the mode in which the present question arose. On the 20th of December, it was discovered that there were certain plugs in mortar No. 4, when Mr. Grissell stated, that the flaws which they concealed were of a very insignificant character; but Colonel Wilmot refused to receive it. Colonel Wilmot, in his report, stated that Mr. Grissell waited on him, on hearing of the discovery, and expressed his regret that such a thing should have happened, but that it was an ordinary thing for such flaws to appear in castings, but that the mortar was nothing the worse for it, after which he earnestly besought him not to reject it, but that he (Colonel Wilmot) replied, that he would not enter into the question, as to whether the mortar was weakened by the plugs, but that, had he at first known it was plugged, he should not have even looked at it. Now, every one could see, that a plug in the breech of a mortar was a much more serious thing than one in the face of it, and he wished to ask the House this question—Did Mr. Grissell act as a man of that high character, which he was represented to bear, ought to have acted in not saying to Colonel Wilmot, when he knew that three other mortars supplied by his firm were also plugged? "Since you object to this mortar on the ground of its being plugged, although I, myself, think it is nothing the worse for being so, I think it right to inform you that there are also plugs in the other three." The House, then, would agree with him in thinking that it was impossible to acquit Mr. Grissell of misconduct in the matter. Again, in his letter, Mr. Grissell stated, that the plugs were used merely to stop up air holes which were of little importance, and that they were not more than from one-eighth of an inch to a quarter of an inch in diameter; but when it became Colonel Wilmot's duty to extract those plugs, he found them to be 1½ inch on the head, and from five-tenths to seven-tenths of an inch in the screw, and that the interior of the mortars were honey-combed. With regard to the question as to the badness of the materials, that was a matter on which the Government had no grounds of complaint. The three mortars tested had burst respectively at the 9th, 10th, and 1335 116th round, and, in fact, he (Mr. Monsell) thought that all he had advanced against the contractors was borne out by the statement of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, that it was impossible for young hands to manufacture mortars. It was painful to him to make that statement, and he could assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that he entertained no personal feeling against the Messrs. Grissell, but it was his duty, from the position which he had the honour of occupying, to lay those facts before the House.
§ MR. G. DUNDASbegged to say a few words on this matter, with the details of which he had endeavoured to become familiar by careful inquiry, by a perusal of all the papers laid on the table, and by personal inspection of the mortars as they lay on the wharf at Woolwich, and of the heads of the mortars which were now lying at Messrs. Grissell's manufactory on the Regent's Canal. He must confess that when he first heard the statement of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Monsell) he received it with surprise and incredulity. He would not believe that persons in the position of Messrs. Grissell would so hazard their reputation, as to attempt to palm upon the Government bad material and workmanship, knowing it to be so, and, from these inquiries, he was convinced that the charge was unfounded. The charges divided themselves into three heads. First, that Messrs. Grissell had inserted plugs into the base of the mortar for the purpose of covering defects in the metal. That statement was made by a noble Lord in another place long after he had had the opportunity of informing himself of the facts by communication with Messrs. Grissell, and on which very day, namely, the 10th of March, as appears by the correspondence now on the table of the House, the right hon. Gentleman the Clerk of the Ordnance received the following communication from the Superintendent of the Royal Gun Factory:—
It is probable that the holes in the breach were made in the process of manufacture, and were not flaws in the metal.The second charge was, that they had inserted pieces of iron into the face of a mortar in order to hide defects in that face. The third charge was, that they used a material for the construction of the mortars which was altogether unsuited for them. With regard to the plugs which had been inserted in the breach of the mortars, it was to be observed that mortars are generally cast with a heavy head of iron over that 1336 part which afterwards becomes the mortar. This is to give density and solidity to the piece of ordnance. These heads are about fifty inches high, and weigh perhaps six tons. The finished thirteen-inch mortar weighs about five tons. Any one may judge of the density imparted by these heads by inspecting one which is cut up into sections at the Messrs. Grissell's works. Near the mortar it is dense, hard, and heavy as adamant, while at the upper part the metal is loose and spongy. To separate this head from the mortar the mass must be placed between the centres of a lathe, and a parting tool being applied in the slide rest, the two masses are divided; but centre holes, small conical indentations, require to be made for the lathe centres to work in—one in the top of the head, the other in the base of the mortar. These need not be above an inch and a half deep, and the upper centre holes might be seen in the heads now. The lower, or that in the base, was, on Messrs. Grissell's afterwards observing that the Government mortars were finished off straight on the base, filled up by a small hole being tapped in the base, and a screw inserted, for the sake of neatness and uniformity, but without the most remote idea that by so doing the mortar was weakened. The first four mortars made by Messrs. Grissell were thus treated, but in subsequent ones a boss was cast in which the lathe centre worked, and this boss was subsequently chipped off. It was difficult to suppose that great importance could have been attached to the minute aperture thus made in the breaches of these mortars, as there was now lying on the wharf at Woolwich a burst mortar, the vent of which had been bored to the size of nearly an inch in diameter, from the exterior of the piece to the chamber, in order to receive a bouche of wrought iron. This mortar was split into two halves through the vent, in the manner that mortars generally burst, the fracture passing also in a line with the centres, and, in the case of Messrs. Grissell's mortars, disclosing the small plugs which gave rise to those grave and unfounded accusations that have been brought against them. With regard to inserting plugs into the face of the mortar, he thought it a great pity that the charge had been revived, because, after the mortar was rejected on that ground, the Government entered into a second contract with Messrs. Grissell, thus evincing the slight importance attached to the charge. The fact of the plugs appearing on the face of the mortar 1337 was known by the end of December. The second agreement with Messrs. Grissell was signed on the 23rd of January. If the Government had had any very strong grounds for supposing that fraud had been intended by Messrs. Grissell, it was not too late to have broken that agreement. He had not seen the air-holes before they were filled up, but he had seen the doubles of them in the head of the mortar. They appeared to him to be very insignificant, and they had appeared equally so to Messrs. Grissell and their foreman. A mortar made just before this particular one, having presented the same appearance, had been sliced into small pieces by the planing machine, and upon examination disclosed nothing like flaws. Messrs. Grissell had every reason to believe that the mortar was perfectly sound and solid, and that the small defects which they filled were superficial and of very little consequence. The mortar stood the proof at the butt with twenty-one pounds of powder, and it was only upon the application of the water test that the holes became more apparent, in consequence of the water trickling down the face and lodging in the interstices, between the plugs and the solid metal. Messrs. Grissell were so satisfied, no imperfection whatever having been discovered when the bore was turned out, that they were ready to stake their reputation upon that mortar. With regard to the third charge of using materials unsuited for the purpose, Messrs. Grissell had taken every means in their power to secure proper materials. The iron they used was Messrs. Grazebrook's cold blast, which was a very high-priced iron, and believed by Messrs. Grissell to be the best for the purpose intended. As to the mortar that burst under proof, though cast of the same high-class and expensive metal as the others, it appeared to have got chilled in the casting from the mould becoming damp, thus seriously affecting the texture and strength of the iron. It must be remembered that Messrs. Grissell were new to the trade, and had to contend with difficulties which the right hon. Gentleman the Clerk of the Ordnance would know something more about when the Government established their own iron foundry, as it was in contemplation to do. He was certainly of opinion that the Government ought to be the manufacturers of their own implements of war, and though, at first, many similar errors to these now denounced 1338 would be committed, and probably a good deal of money spent, yet valuable experience would be gained, and it must in the end prove beneficial. What he had said was a plain and simple statement of the case, and he regretted that the appeal which had been made to the right hon. Gentleman the Clerk of the Ordnance had not been attended with such results as might have been anticipated. He had hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would have acknowledged that he had, at the least, spoken rather hastily, and have made to Messrs. Grissell that amende which bare justice required, for the expressions used by the right hon. Gentleman a few weeks since, echoed and indorsed as they were by a noble Lord in another place, and giving rise to still darker insinuations of a traitorous sympathy with the foe, were well nigh sufficient to blast the reputation and irretrievably injure the character of a firm, whoso fair fame, however, rested upon years of acknowledged integrity, and who, he (Mr. Dundas) believed, were second to none in England for honesty and uprightness, for patriotism, and for loyalty.
§ LORD LOVAINEsaid, it appeared to him that the debate had taken a very strange turn, for the Government seemed to be put on its trial for their condemnation of the material and workmanship of articles supplied to it under a contract. That was a contract, too, in which if there were any fraud, it was calculated to inflict immense damage and risk of loss of life. The Government, therefore, were justified in instituting the most searching examination into the quality of the articles, and it was hard, indeed, that they should be called in question for rejecting what they considered improper articles; and the moment that they hinted that there was an intention to defraud them, up jumped a dozen hon. Gentlemen to defend the contractors. It was the bounden duty of the officer rigidly to inspect those mortars, and he seemed to have done nothing more than his duty, He (Lord Lovaine) thought that it was impossible, after perusing the papers which had been laid before the House, and after hearing the statements which had been made, to deny that the Government were perfectly justified in the course they had taken; and in his opinion, when the mortar in which the plug was first discovered was rejected, the contractors ought, in common honesty, to have pointed out that the same defects existed in the others. It was a matter of immense 1339 importance to the country at large, and hon. Gentlemen had no right to treat it as a private concern, or to impute motives to the Government which they did not deserve to have imputed to them.
§ COLONEL BOLDEROsaid, that after reading the whole of the correspondence on the subject, he thought it quite clear that of the charge of fraud the Messrs. Grissell must be acquitted; but he certainly could not acquit them of negligence, for the results of the defects in their mortars might have been very serious in the military operations the country was then carrying on. There could be no doubt that the firm had some difficulties to contend with; they were new to their work, and should have been extremely cautious. If Messrs. Grissell and Co. could not devote their time to the superintendence of casting and forging of the guns, their foreman, who was doubtless a person of great experience, should have reported to them that certain defects existed in a given number of mortars. They would, undoubtedly, at all events, be acquainted with the fact, and it appeared to him (Colonel Boldero) that they were to blame, inasmuch as they had not represented to Her Majesty's Government, when sending in the guns, that they had done their utmost, but that in four of the mortars those defects did exist. He would like to be informed, however, of the reason why the Messrs. Grissell had been singled out from amongst the thirty odd iron founders who had accepted Government contracts some time back. Nothing had been said of the number of guns which had been rejected, or which had burst that were manufactured by other firms. He would also inquire why the test charge used had been one of 21 lbs.? It was an insufficient one, insomuch as the service charge which produced the greatest range was one of 25 lbs. The contract altogether was an improper one. The Messrs. Grissell had supplied twenty-three pieces of ordnance, but of which one had burst, which was a matter of no great blame to them. The present charge against the Government contractors affected the whole contractors of the kingdom. The debates in that House were translated into foreign newspapers, and would be calculated to affect, injuriously, British manufacturers, by encouraging the idea that one eminent house had imposed upon the Government of the country, and that therefore they were not to be relied upon. The merchants 1340 of England, however, need not fear, particularly that class which had undertaken ordnance contracts; the manufacture of 13-inch mortars required a great deal of experience to attain perfection, and the guns and mortars used at the siege of Sebastopol would sufficiently speak for the ability of the old firms which had manufactured them. From a Return which he held in his hands, it appeared that the total number of guns which burst, out of 476, in active service during the whole siege, was only eleven, although 269 were rendered unserviceable from other causes. That number was, however, susceptible of still greater diminution, for three out of the eleven were Lancasters; and although he (Colonel Boldero) believed that the invention of Mr. Lancaster would ultimately prove to be the most effective portion of the artillery, it had not been sufficiently used as yet to insure the degree of perfection which it would doubtlessly attain. One 68-pounder burst through being struck in the mouth by a shell from the enemy, and another piece of a like calibre met with a similar fate owing to its having been elevated for a very unusual range. Considering that during the siege 1,239 tons of gunpowder had been used by our artillery, and 9,056 tons of shot and shell projected from those pieces, he did not think that eleven casualties by bursting was a large proportion upon nearly 500 pieces of ordnance The present discussion he thought would be attended with good results in the event of the country finding itself engaged in another war. It would, at all events, insure its entering upon it with efficient artillery, and in a better position as regarded the condition of the soldier; and, in a word, more to the satisfaction of the country.
§ MR. EVELYNsaid, he must express his regret at the accusation which had been made against Messrs. Grissell, and at the same time to declare his belief that there was no ground whatever for imputing fraud to those gentlemen. He had read the documents bearing upon the case, and he entirely acquitted Messrs. Grissell of any fraudulent or dishonest intention.
§ MR. CUBITTsaid, he had known Messrs. Grissell for many years, and had read with astonishment the charge which had been made against them, for he knew it was morally impossible that such men could have meditated or committed fraud. He had read the documents, and he was 1341 satisfied that Messrs. Grissell had not been actuated by any fraudulent intention, but that they had undertaken the contract with the desire of carrying it out in such a manner as to sustain their reputation. Numerous errors had been committed in the course of the war by the Government themselves, who, he thought, ought to be somewhat more indulgent when, from want of experience, gentlemen who had endeavoured to carry out their objects had been betrayed into mistakes.
§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he did not rise for the purpose of imputing any blame to the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Monsell) or to Her Majesty's Government for being strict in their investigation. He quite agreed with the noble Lord the Member for North Northumberland (Lord Lovaine) in thinking it the first duty of the Government to do their utmost in protecting the public from anything like imposition. He thought that the Government would, on the other hand, however, admit that a house of great eminence and respectability, like that of the Messrs. Grissell, was entitled to the fullest consideration. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Monsell) must have been aware that the firm had complained, amongst other things, that the diagrams furnished by the Government for the construction of those mortars were not correct. No answer had been returned to that complaint. The main question at issue, however, was not whether the Messrs. Grissell were led into any error in the construction of those mortars, but whether that error was committed with fraudulent intentions. The noble Lord the Secretary for War (Lord Panmure), if he (Sir J. Pakington) had read the papers rightly, had already acquitted the Messrs. Grissell of that imputation. He had no hesitation in saying that he could not, for a moment, believe that the Messrs Grissell would, for so insignificant an object, be guilty of an intention to defraud.
§ MR. TITEsaid, that Messrs. Grissell had executed very extensive works for him in the most satisfactory manner, although they could scarcely be gainers by the contracts. With regard to the general question, he might state that, at the last meeting of the British Association, it was asserted in one of the sections that the guns cast for the present war were not equal in quality to those cast before the last peace; and that, at the request of the Duke of Argyll, a Committee was appointed 1342 to consider the subject. He mentioned that to show that to scientific men themselves the casting of guns and mortars was a matter of considerable doubt and difficulty.
§ The Motion for the adjournment of the House till Thursday was then agreed to.
§ On Mr. SPEAKER putting the Question that the House should go into Committee of Supply,