MR. H. BERKELEYsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it be his intention to continue to refuse compensation to William Bewicke, of Threepwood Hall, in the county of Northumberland, for suffering imprisonment as a felon for twelve months, under an undeserved sentence, and for the confiscation of his goods, chattels, family pictures, and library, to his great pecuniary loss and irreparable injury?
§ SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, in reply, that he had never received any application from Mr. Bewicke for any compensation claimed by him under the circumstances alluded to in the question of the hon. Member. He had neither the power to grant nor to refuse such compensation. A Petition from Mr. Bewicke was presented last year to the House, asking for redress, 465 which, of course, meant compensation, and his hon. Friend had founded a Motion upon it. On that occasion he stated, as he felt now, that it would be extremely inexpedient for the House, on a mere statement of a particular case and by a Resolution framed to meet it and perhaps hastily adopted, to do what would involve an important alteration in the law applicable to that class of cases. He was free to admit that the law with reference to the forfeiture of property on a conviction for felony was well worthy of consideration and revision.