HC Deb 15 March 1861 vol 161 cc2101-17
MR. MAGUIRE

I rise, Sir, to put a question to the noble Viscount at the head of the Government, with regard to the case of Mr. Turnbull. I may premise by stating that it is not my intention to enter into the merits of the case, and I shall abstain from doing so for two reasons. In the first place, it is one which peculiarly affects the feelings and susceptibilities of Roman Catholics; and I, speaking for myself, as a Catholic Member of this House, should much prefer that the initiative were taken by a Protestant Member, should any hon. Gentleman of that persuasion deem it right, at any future time, to ask the House to pronounce an opinion upon it. And, in the second place, were I inclined to enter into the merits of the case, it would be impossible for me to do so, because the materials are wanting for a full and fair judgment on the whole matter; and this brings me directly to the object of the question I am about to put to the noble Lord. My complaint is, that all the documents relating to this transaction have not been laid before the House; and it is indispensable to a fair and honest judgment upon this case that all the documents connected with the appointment and resignation of Mr. Turnbull—I may say the compulsory resignation of that gentleman—should be in the possession of Members. This case has excited considerable interest out of doors, and even in this House—an evidence of which will be found in the fact of two Motions for papers being almost simultaneously moved by two hon. Members—the Member for Harwich (Captain Jarvis), and the Member for Perthshire (Mr. Stirling). I hold in my hand a return of the result of the Motions made by those hon. Gentlemen. The Motion of the hon. Member for Harwich, for copies of the correspondence between the Master of the Rolls and Mr. Turnbull relative to the appointment of the latter gentleman has been complied with. The hon. Member for Perthshire moved for "all the letters and minutes which had passed between the Government and the Master of the Rolls relative to the appointment and resignation of Mr. Turnbull;" but, instead of all the letters and minutes having been granted, only one letter and one minute have been printed. Personally, I have no knowledge of the transaction; but I have Mr. Turnbull's authority for saying that the returns which have been laid before the House will not enable Members to form a full and fair judgment on the merits of his case. I may briefly state that on the 13th of August, 1859, the Master of the Rolls wrote to Mr. Turnbull offering him the appointment of Calendarer of Foreign State Papers in the State Paper Office; expressing, at the same time, his confidence in that gentleman's personal honour and integrity, and his literary competency for so important a task. On the 28th of January, 1861, Mr. Turnbull sent in his resignation. Shortly after the appointment of Mr. Turnbull, a large and influential deputation, headed by the Earl of Shaftesbury, a nobleman of great public piety waited upon the noble Lord to remonstrate with him in reference to the appointment; and it has been stated by a Minister, in "another place," that, in conquence of that deputation, the noble Lord entered into communication with the Master of the Rolls, the head of the department to which the matter rightly belonged, and that a correspondence ensued. Where is this correspondence? It has been withheld, although contemplated by the hon. Member for Perthshire, and essential to a proper understanding of the case. There was, however, a still more important correspondence between the noble Viscount and the Master of the Rolls, which has also been omitted from the return. Late in December, of last year, or early in January, this year, the Secretary to the Scottish Reformation Society communicated on the part of that body, with the noble Lord, complaining of the appointment, and remonstrating against the continuance of Mr. Turnbull in his office, and intimating to the noble Lord that the subject would be brought before a public meeting of the Society, which was to be held on the 9th or 10th of January. I am instructed to say that that communication from the Scottish Reformation Society was transmitted by the noble Lord to the Master of the Rolls, with an intimation that, if the question came before the House of Com- mons, the Master of the Rolls should be prepared to defend the appoinment. I make this statement not upon my own authority, but on that of Mr. Turnbull. That gentleman has authorised me to state that the Master of the Rolls had officially communicated with him, stating that a correspondence to this effect had taken place between the noble Lord and himself. The Master of the Rolls distinctly understood, from the tenor of this correspondence, that if the question of the appointment came before the House of Commons, the Government would not defend it. What, then, under such circumstances, could Mr. Turnbull do? No doubt, many persons considered Mr. Turnbull to have acted foolishly in having tendered his resignation without having been called upon to do so; but what was the fact?—what were the real motives which influenced his conduct? The Master of the Rolls from a feeling of friendship, and knowing how competent Mr. Turnbull was to discharge this particular duty exercised his patronage to the best of his ability by conferring this appointment upon Mr. Turnbull: in fact, he became the patron of Mr. Turnbull. Mr. Turnbull was thus under a special obligation to the Master of the Rolls; and when he found that the Master of the Rolls was placed in this false position—the Government having abandoned a public officer, whose conduct Was blameless, and on whom no reproach could be cast, and the Master of the Rolls unfortunately having no longer a seat in the House of Commons, where he could vindicate the appointment—he (Mr. Turn-bull) felt it his duty, as a gentleman and a man of honour, to surrender his own interest out of consideration for his patron. This statement, which I make upon the authority of Mr. Turnbull, with whom I had an interview this very day, places his resignation upon a much more intelligible basis than that disclosed by the imperfect return now before the House. It was stated the other night, in "another place," that the noble Lord did not write this letter to the Master of the Rolls, putting, as it were, a moral screw on Mr. Turnbull, to drive him as a man of sensibility and honour out of his place. It was said that the noble Lord was too chivalrous ever to think of abandoning a public servant, especially one who had discharged his duty, according to the testimony of the head of his department, with ability and fidelity. In fact the whole issue was put upon that occasion, and in that other place, on the known character of the noble Lord for chivalry and manliness. But was the Master of the Rolls under a delusion?—or did he only imagine that he had received such an intimation from the noble Lord? Mr. Turnbull had this from the Master of the Eolls—that the noble Lord threw upon him the responsibility of vindicating the appointment. This statement Mr. Turn-bull believed, and on that belief he resigned. No doubt he was instigated to that resignation by clamour and persecution; but he would not have done so if he had received the protection of the Government—if, in fact, he had not been abandoned and thrown over by the Government. I say then, if there be such a letter in existence as that, which I have described—a public letter written by the head of the Government, in the name of the Government to a high public functionary, in reference to the exercise of his public patronage—it ought to be produced. I am told there passed between the noble Lord and the Master of the Rolls, not two letters, but six or seven letters, in some of which the wisdom and prudence of the appointment were, I assume, fully vindicated; and when a man's personal honour and literary reputation are at stake, as they are in this instance, these letters should be laid before the House. "We shall presently hear from the noble Lord whether such a letter as that which induced Mr. Turnbull's resignation was written to him by the Master of the Rolls, and if the Master of the Rolls had not written in reply. If so, where are those letters? Neither of them has been produced. There is a passage in the only printed minute in the return, to which, in justice to Mr. Turnbull, I shall call the attention of the House. The Master of the Rolls was so impressed with the ability which Mr. Turnbull had displayed in the performance of his important duty, and the loss to the public which would be occasioned by his resignation, that he urgently pressed the Lords of the Treasury not to accept his resignation, but to retain him in his office. And in answer to this testimony and appeal of the Master of the Rolls, here is this public acknowledgment by the Government in the Treasury Minute of February, 25, 1861— Write to the Master of the Rolls that my Lords readily accept his Honour's testimony to the manner in which Mr. Turnbull has performed his duties, and willingly acknowledge that no cause has been shown for doubting: that the work has been executed with ability and fidelity. If, then, such a man has been driven from his office, are we not entitled to some explanation of the fact from the Government? I ask the noble Lord why he has not frankly given to the House all the communications which have passed between him and the Master of the Rolls on this subject? The Return ordered by the House has not been granted. It is—if I may be excused for so fade an illustration—like the play of Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet cut out. We have the parts of the Gravediggers and of Polonius; but the Prince himself—the chief actor, the noble Lord opposite—has been omitted. Under the peculiar circumstances of this case, I am right in saying that a full return should have been given. In the production of Foreign Despatches, there may at times be necessity for some reserve; but here the principal part—the important part—that by which a judgment could alone be fairly come to—has been entirely left out. The personal honour and literary reputation of Mr. Turnbull are here at stake; and the noble Lord is bound to afford the House the fullest means of forming an opinion on the real merits of the case, and to this gentleman every facility for his vindication. I now beg to ask the noble Lord the question of which I have given him notice, and I call his attention to the precise and comprehensive manner in which I have framed it. The honourable Member concluded by putting the following question:—Whether any other letters than those printed in the Return, dated the 15th day of February, have passed between the Government and the Master of the Rolls relative to the appointment and resignation of Mr. Turnbull; whether, in fact, several letters have not passed between the noble Lord himself and the Master of the Rolls prior to the resignation of Mr. Turnbull, and directly bearing on Mr. Turnbull's case; and if such letters have passed between the noble Lord and the Master of the Rolls, whether there is any objection, and what objection, to their immediate production?

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

Sir, I am quite ready to answer the question of the hon. Gentleman. But in the first place I may be allowed to say that, although I have no knowledge whatever of Mr. Turn-bull, although I never saw him, and only have heard of him in consequence of the discussion which has taken place with re- gard to his appointment, I believe him to be a man of perfect honour, and I regret very much that a person of his abilities and his high character should, by circumstances over which he had no control, have been placed in a situation very irksome to the feelings of a man who naturally has a high respect for himself. I think the course which he took was highly honourable to him. I think that a man who finds himself placed in a situation in which, in the discharge of duties conscientiously performed, he finds that a very great amount of public prejudice has arisen against him, and that he is the object of attack from a great number of persons—I think that that person, with those feelings of self-respect which ought to actuate him, does rightly when he withdraws from a situation which has become invidious, and in which he is exposed to what he naturally thinks misrepresentation and unmerited censure. So far from thinking that he acted foolishly in tendering his resignation, I think that is the course which any man of honour and self-respect would have pursued in the position in which Mr. Turnbull was placed. The hon. Member has stated that he will not enter into the case of Mr. Turnbull and discuss his merits and demerits. I do not wish to do so either, Mr. Turnbull was appointed, not to an office, but to a temporary employment by the Master of the Polls. The Master of the Rolls is not the servant of the Government. He holds an entirely independent situation, over which the Government have no control, and over which I cannot pretend to have any control whatever. He is not my servant, and I am not his servant. The Master of the Rolls, having chosen Mr. Turnbull to perform certain duties for a limited period, applied to the Treasury, as is shown by the papers, to recommend that he should be employed and a certain; salary given to him. That was in the 1 month of August, 1859. Soon after that the appointment took place. It was sanctioned by the Treasury as a matter of form—as a matter of course, upon the recommendation of the Master of the Polls. I knew nothing of it. It did not come naturally within my cognizance. But very soon after that appointment representations were made to me from various quarters that Mr. Turnbulll, on account of peculiar opinions which he entertained, and from his temperament and character, was not the person who ought properly to be employed to perform the particular duty which devolved upon him. I communicated, no doubt, immediately afterwards with the Master of the Rolls to let him know the representations which had been made to MR. Those representations came frequently and from large bodies of persons both in England and Scotland—persons just as fully entitled to entertain the opinions which they expressed as Mr. Turnbull was entitled to entertain the opinions which he expressed. I thought it right to let the Master of the Rolls know that the current of public opinion was setting against employing Mr. Turnbull in that particular duty. Several letters passed between me and the Master of the Rolls between the period, I think, of September, 1859, and the mouth of January in the present year. Those letters were private letters, most of them written from my private residence in the country. They were not letters from the Government, and did not express at all any opinion on the part of the Government. But they were letters to the Master of the Rolls as an old friend and an old colleague, which I thought I was entitled as an individual to send, and he answered them in the same way. The object of those letters was to urge on the Master of the Rolls that I thought the selection made by him upon his own responsibility had been an unfortunate one, that it had created a great amount of public misunderstanding, and I earnestly urged him that he should employ Mr. Turnbull on some other duty in the performance of which he would not be liable to the same suspicions, unfounded as they might be, or to the same amount of prejudice which prevailed with regard to the appointment which he held. The Master of the Rolls, in answer, gave me reasons why he did not think it expedient to follow the course which I recommended. It was perfectly competent for him on his own responsibility to take that line. Towards the end of December last year I wrote the letter to which the hon. Member has more particularly alluded, and in that letter I repeated a statement I had made before—that I had received a petition signed by some thousands of people and applications from various quarters; I said further that I thought it very probable the matter would be brought under discussion in this House, and that I hoped, in that case, he would furnish somebody with arguments in defence of the course which he had taken. I hold that there was nothing unbecoming the relations between the Master of the Rolls and myself in that statement. If I employ any officer, whether naval, military, or diplomatic, in the performance of a duty under instructions from the Government, and if I believe that, placed under whatever difficulties he may have had to encounter, he has performed it to the best of his ability and judgment, it is my duty to defend him to the utmost of my power in this House, and everywhere else. And I fancy I have always performed that duty. I am responsible for the instructions under which that person is acting, and if I think he does not act according to the best of his ability, judgment, and integrity, I am bound to recall and dismiss him; and if he is not recalled and dismissed, it is my duty as a Minister and as a man to defend a public officer when I believe he deserves to be defended. But here the case is of a totally different kind. Here was an independent public servant, totally free from any orders or instructions from me, who upon his own responsibility declined the advice which I gave him—not to dismiss Mr. Turnbull, or to do anything to affect his private or public character—but to employ him in different work in which he would not be liable to the same objections. The Master of the Rolls, acting upon his own judgment and upon his own responsibility, did not choose to do that—he saw no reason for doing it. But why am I, if that decision of the Master of the Rolls is called in question—why am I to come and give an opinion which I do not entertain? and, having told him repeatedly that I thought the selection unfortunate, and that he would act judiciously both for himself and Mr. Turnbull in employing him in some other occupation—why am I to come and say "black is white," and to give an opinion diametrically the reverse of that which in private communications I had expressed? Such a course would be neither manly nor chivalrous. It would be mean and disgraceful. I am not the servant of the Master of the Rolls. I stand here to defend my own opinion and conduct. I am not bound to defend the opinions or conduct of a totally independent authority when I do not think those opinions right or that conduct judicious. I have now put the hon. Gentleman in full possession of everything which he could know if those letters were produced. I do not choose to produce those letters, for this reason—that they were private let- ters, written in private intercourse, dated from my own house, and not one of them recorded in any public department. They are totally different from letters written on the part of the Government, and they form a correspondence which it would be inexpedient to make a precedent of producing to Parliament. If every man in a public situation were to he liable to have produced all communications which from time to time in the confidence and unreserve of private intimacy he might write to another person holding a public situation, I am sure I need not explain to the House, it would be a bar to intercourse essentially necessary for the conduct of public business. It is not that I shrink from an avowal of any opinions which I expressed in those letters, for I have stated them. The hon. Gentleman is as fully in possession of everything which I wrote in substance as if those letters were laid upon the table. But, as a matter of principle, I protest against calling for the production of private correspondence, taken out of the drawer of my table, or out of the pigeonholes of a desk in my house, which are in no respect public documents, or documents which it is at all advisable Parliament should require. I am not responsible for the appointment of Mr. Turnbull. I deemed it my duty to make known to the Master of the Rolls the objections which were taken to his selection. I concurred to a certain extent in those objections. I do not mean to say that I concurred in any of those suspicions which may have existed in some quarter that Mr. Turnbull really would, in consequence of the peculiarity of his opinions, swerve from the honest performance of his duty. All that I have heard leads me to the conviction that he would perform his duty honestly, however it might conflict in its exercise with any private or personal opinions of his own. But it appeared to me inexpedient, in a matter connected with the historical records of the country—in a matter connected with the compilation of documents which are to serve as guides to those who study the history of past transactions in which this country has been concerned—that a person should be employed of whose fidelity a large portion of the community entertained doubts which might affect the trust reposed in the accuracy of his labours. The Master of the Rolls himself, in the papers produced, tells Mr. Turnbull, in the first letter of appointment, that it is of great importance that there should be no imperfection or inaccuracy in the records which he was to compose and draught, and, therefore, I think it was unfortunate a person should have been chosen in respect of whom it could possibly be imagined on the part of anybody that the work would not be correctly and perfectly prepared. I say, again, that I think Mr. Turnbull acted as a man of honour. I am far from throwing any reproach on him for having resigned; but, as he resigned from motives connected with his own personal feelings, I do not think the Master of the Rolls had any right to require me or the Treasury to urge him to continue in an office which consistently with those feelings he could not retain. Be it remarked that in his letter the Master of the Rolls, while he accepts Mr. Turnbull's resignation, says distinctly that he will not press him to continue in his situation. Yet having stated this, and having in his letter to the Treasury declared that it was not for him to suggest any course to the Government, he goes on in that same letter not only to suggest a course, but earnestly to recommend the Treasury to do that very thing which he declined to do himself—namely, to press Mr. Turnbull to remain in his office. I thought it consistent neither with Mr. Turnbull's comfort, nor his character, nor with the interest of the public, that he should be urged by me to continue in the performance of a duty which exposed him—undeservedly if you will—to great public obloquy, and which was evidently incompatible with his own feelings and personal satisfaction.

MR. CONINGHAM

said, that however much he might regret the decision arrived at by the noble Lord that Mr. Turnbull's appointment was one that could not be defended, he must admit that the noble Lord was fully entitled to come to his own conclusions on the subject. Still, the painful fact remained that a most respectable and accomplished man, who received an important appointment from the Master of the Rolls, was persecuted on account of his religious opinions to such an extent that he was ultimately induced to resign his office, and that so great, indeed, was the virulence of that persecution that the Prime Minister was compelled to come to the conclusion that it would not be wise or expedient in him to uphold that Gentleman's appointment. The House of Commons and the community at large were deeply interested in setting their faces against a system of that kind. At an earlier period of the evening they had heard an ardent appeal from an hon. Member against the persecution of Protestants by Catholics in a neighbouring State; but the position of this country as the champion of religious freedom would be far stronger and better if that neighbouring State could not point to such an incident as the resignation of Mr. Turnbull as a reply to our strictures upon its own conduct. Indeed, we might almost be reproached with seeing the mote in our neighbour's eye without removing the beam from our own. He strongly protested against the proceedings adopted towards Mr. Turnbull. Though not of the same religious persuasion as that gentleman he thought he had been very unfairly used; and he was equally convinced that had Mr. Turnbull been allowed to remain in his office he would have completed his task with the same fidelity as he had hitherto executed it.

He would next refer to the answer given earlier in the evening by the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary to the hon. Member for Finsbury. That answer he thought by no means satisfactory. The noble Lord had not shown in what manner our interests in the Ionian Islands justified the menace he had addressed to Sardinia through his despatch to Sir James Hudson. A united Italy would be a far better counterpoise against France than Austria; and, as the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was impending, the emancipation of Hungary and the union of the Rouman and Slavonian races were objects of much greater importance to us than the maintenance of an effete power like Austria, which must soon sink to the level of Spain. If we must seek for new alliances lot them be not mere dynastic alliances but alliances with the free and emancipated peoples of Europe.

MR. NEWDEGATE

I was one of those, Sir, who signed a memorial representing the strong opinion of no less than 2,500 of the educated classes of society, that Mr. Turnbull had proved himself by his writings to be a person of such exaggerated opinions as must disqualify him altogether from the performance of duties so important as those of calendaring the State papers of the country from the period of the Reformation, since these papers have particular reference to the conduct of the Jesuits of whom he has expressed himself in terms of unqualified admiration. Entertaining, in common with the other gen- tlemen who signed that document, a very strong opinion that no person so biassed and prejudiced ought to be employed to assort, and to compile an index of those papers which are to furnish the basis of the future education of England, I concurred in the representation to the noble Lord; and I can attest this fact, that from the very time that it was even rumoured that Mr. Turnbull was about to be appointed by the Master of the Rolls, representations were addressed from numerous persons entertaining like opinions, who made them known to the noble Lord and likewise to the Master of the Rolls. It is a most unfortunate circumstance for Mr. Turnbull himself, and for the Master of the Rolls, that he seemed determined to set educated public opinion at defiance, in such a manner as the result has clearly manifested, that he could not maintain his decision. That, Sir, is a very great misfortune. The noble Lord has explained the position in which he was placed, and has, I venture to say, amply vindicated his conduct before the country; but I must add that it was scarcely worthy of any one in this House to endeavour to cast upon the noble Lord a responsibility which really does not attach to him. The noble Lord honestly represented to the Master of the Rolls the strong opinions which had been expressed to him, notwithstanding which the Master of the Rolls chose to exhibit a total disregard of those opinions. Well, Sir, under the pressure of public opinion Mr. Turnbull retired, and it is altogether unreasonable to expect the noble Lord, who sympathized in some degree with, or at all events did not scout, as the Master of the Rolls scouted, public opinion, to have reinstated Mr. Turnbull in his situation, when if he had so reinstated him, the appointment would have been of the noble Lord's own making. "Who could expect the noble Lord to do this when from the first he had disapproved of Mr. Turnbull's appointment? The thing is too unreasonable to be entertained by the House for one moment. I may, perhaps, be permitted to state to the House what first attracted my attention to this subject. Three years ago Mr. Jardine, a barrister of the Middle Temple, published a narrative of the great conspiracy of the Popish party in this country—I mean the Gunpowder Plot, and if the House will permit me, I will read a few words from the preface to the work, which will show that important documents have been abstracted from the State Paper Office. This is a portion of the subject which has not come before the public, and in vindication of those with whom I have concurred in this matter, I hope the House will allow me to read a passage from a perfectly impartial author, who has deeply investigated the subject. He says, referring to certain documents which are missing— When Sir Edward Coke was discharged by James I. from his judicial station, in 1618, his papers were seized by order of the Privy Council, and deposited in the State Paper Office, and it appears from an inventory of the articles so deposited, in the handwriting of Sir Thomas Wilson, who shortly afterwards became keeper of the State Papers, that among many other documents of a public and private nature, there was ' a black buckram bag, containing papers about the Gunpowder Plot.' Although the documents upon the subject of the Gunpowder Plot preserved at the State Paper Office are numerous, the collection is not by any means complete. Many important papers which were particularly mentioned and described by Bishop Andrews, Dr. Abbott, Causabon, and Other contemporary writers, and some of which were copied by Archbishop Sancroft from the originals so lately as the close of the seventeenth century, are not now to be found. It is remarkable that precisely those papers which constitute the most important evidence against Garnet and the other Jesuits are missing; so that if the merits of the controversy respecting their criminal implication in the plot depended upon the fact of the original documents now to be found in the State Paper Office, impartial readers might probably hesitate to form a decided opinion upon the subject. The missing papers of particular importance are minutes of an overheard conversation between Garnet and Hall in the Tower, dated the 25th of February, 1605–6; an intercepted letter from Garnet addressed to ' The Fathers of the Society of Jesus,' dated on Palm Sunday, a few days after his trial, and an intercepted letter to Greenway, dated April 4, 1605–6. That all of those papers were in the State Paper Office when Dr. Abbott wrote his Antilogia, in 1613, is evident from the copious extracts from them published in that work, and a literal copy of the first of them made by Archbishop Sancroft many years afterwards from the State Papers is still in existence. The originals of these documents, however, do not appear to be now contained in the proper depository for them, and it is undoubtedly a singular accident, that amongst so large a mass of documents, precisely those should be abstracted upon whose authenticity and effect the point in the controversy between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants in great measure depended. Many of the facts in the following narrative are taken from a manuscript relation of Father Greenway, brought by Dr. Lingard from Rome, and much relied upon by him in the interesting account of this conspiracy given in his History of England. … Though little is known of the history of this manuscript, there is strong internal evidence that it was written by Greenway, probably at the suggestion of the Pope, or of the Father General of the Jesuits, in order to vindicate his own conduct and that of Garnet from the charge of having encouraged the plot.… Some allowance must be made, however, for the partial colours in which he depicts the character of the conspirators. That they were not the brutal ruffians, as described in the popular representations of them, is beyond all doubt, but, according to Greenway's statement, the men who contrived this monstrous and cruel treason were the gentlest, the most benevolent, and the most pious of the human race; and if we are to believe him, 'the seven gentlemen of name and blood,' as Faukes truly calls them, who worked in the mine, together with those who afterwards joined them, composed as amiable a company, with respect to virtues and accomplishments, as could have been desired. Now Sir, when we know that documents so important in the history of this country as these have been abstracted, I say it was not unnatural that, finding a person appointed to make extracts, and calendar and index, the State Papers, who had expressed himself in the terms which I am about to read, we should object to his appointment. We have reason for the following opinion, I which is expressed in the memorial— Mr. Turnbull is not only a Roman Catholic, but an avowed defender and admirer of the Jesuits, ' for whom he expresses, in his Life of Father Southwell, a ' natural bias,' and holds them in 'the highest veneration, honour, and esteem,' and has, in the same work, manifested this 'natural I bias' by calling the Jesuit priest Garnet, who was implicated in the Gunpowder Plot, a 'well-known martyr,' and the conspiracy of Babington against the life of Elizabeth and the State of England a 'gallant confederacy;' that in another work he designated the Reformation 'a mischievous event,' and has declared that 'he would rather be condemned with a Papist than saved with a Puritan.' These are the opinions of the person to the appointment of whom to this important office the gentlemen who hold the same opinions as myself object. "We never said that Mr. Turnbull would steal the papers; but we say this, that it requires an impartial mind to prepare extracts and indexes on which the teaching of future history depends. One man might be sorely tempted to leave a passage which another man would extract. He might omit a number from the index, or a page from the calendar. Suppose that this was suspected, and a person went to the State Paper Office and applied to look at the index, and not finding there what he sought, were to say, "I am confident it ought to be there;" what is the answer he would get? It would be, "You are not appointed calendarer; we shall not allow you to search;" and that document would be as completely lost to the public as if it were buried in the bottom of the sea. These are things which we did not wish Mr. Turnbull to be tempted to do, because he had told us that he had a natural bias which would tempt him. He had published the Life of Father Southwell. [Mr. MAGUIBE dissented.] The hon. Member will forgive MR. I am sure I do not wish to speak uncharitably of any man, but I hare not studied history in vain, and it is idle to say that any one, connected with the Jesuits can be judged by the same rules as other men. I say, upon the authority of those who have studied the morality and rules of the Jesuit among others, on the authority of the Abbé Lamenais, that every man connected with the Jesuit body loses his individuality. I say that on the testimony of all history with respect to that order, and I further say that the loss of their individuality makes them anti-social; that the complete obedience to which they are bound, and which they yield makes them tyrants over others. These characteristics of the Order of the Jesuits have led to their expulsion from Italy, as they have done fifty times from different States, from this country among others, and this fact affords a strong proof that the Order is anti-social. Theirs is a morality which all other Christian sects condemn. No man who has been once subject to their influence can be judged by the same rules as others must be judged by. I will not further detain the House; but having attached my signature to this document, I felt it due to a large number of gentlemen, many of whom are not connected with the Protestant Alliance, but with whom I consulted, to state our reasons for our conduct, and that we are not ashamed of them.

MR. ROEBUCK

The noble Lord has mistaken the object of the inquiry addressed to him. He was not asked why he did not defend Mr. Turnbull, but why there was not given full, fair, and complete evidence of all that had taken place. The noble Lord says that the correspondence between himself and the Master of the Rolls was a private one, and I will allow that to be a good reason why it should not be published; but is that a good reason for writing it? He must recollect that the accusation against Mr. Turnbull was laid before him as Prime Minister, and every act of the noble Lord in that capacity is a public act. He had no right to write a private letter. The noble Lord seems to combat that proposition, but I think it is a very fair one. Here is a man whose character and whose livelihood are at stake; an accusation is made against him before a competent authority, and what I complain of is that the competent authority should have taken a course by which his conduct can be shrouded from the public view. I do not accuse the noble Lord of any sinister intent, but I think it was an unwise proceeding. I do not want to say a word about the accusation itself, nor a word in defence of the Jesuits, but at the bottom of the whole of this transaction is a feeling which I think the country will deprecate, it is that intolerance of which the hon. Gentleman has just given a proof. It is said that some twenty or thirty years ago Mr. Turnbull wrote a book, and that in that book he expressed certain opinions; but when I look round me and know what men here have written and said and done I am sure a great number of them would feel very strong repugnance to having their juvenile follies brought up against them. The question is whether Mr. Turnbull has done anything in the prosecution of his office which calls upon him the reprobation of society? The Master of the Rolls is the person who is responsible for the appointment. He is known well to this House and the country; he is a candid and a liberal man; and I take it that all the world will admit that he is a highly moral man. He is a man who has been before the public all his life, he sits now upon the judgment-seat, and his life is passed as it were in a glass-house. He appointed Mr. Turnbull, and appointed him in terms of the highest eulogy. He said to him, "I appoint you to a delicate office; but I have that confidence in you that I am sure you will perform your duties in it as becomes your character," Thereupon, all of a sudden, certain gentlemen, and among them the hon. Member for Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) are inspired with dread and alarm lest an incorrect index should be made. Recollect that the papers from which that index is made remain. It is not as if the papers are destroyed after the index is made. The papers remain, and then the hon. Member says that if anybody were to go to the State Paper Office and say "I want to look over the papers," he would be told "You cannot look over them; you must look at the index." Suppose I were to go to the State Paper Office and were to say, "I am writing the history of the period, and I believe the index to be a false one; let me see the documents themselves;" does anybody imagine that I should not get immediate access to these papers. And then what was the system at the Record Office? A catalogue was taken of all the papers given to Mr. Turnbull. After the papers were taken back they were compared with the catalogue. And yet a Protestant Association is so very nice in its view of morality and Christian justice as to insinuate that a gentleman would be fool enough to abstract a paper when there was a catalogue to act as a check against him if he did so. Upon the face of it this is the result of intolerance. I do not say that the noble Lord has helped the manifestation of the intolerance. I am sure that a more tolerant man and a more chivalrous patron does not exist. I think the noble Lord was not bound to defend the appointment, but he was bound in everything he did regarding the appointment to act so that it might be laid before the public. And the charge I make against him is a want of care and circumspection—nothing more—in writing private letters, when every-thing ought to have been done, as indeed it was done, in his character of Prime Minister. I say that he was and is bound to lay before this House, and before the world, every word he has written on this question, because he wrote it in a character of which he cannot divest himself save by resignation—the character of Prime Minister of this country.

Motion agreed to.

House, at rising, to adjourn till Monday next.