MR. TAYLORsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the statement published in the public papers by the Rev. Richard Payne concerning the conviction of Henry Fulford and Mark Wellstead by the Salisbury Bench of Magistrates for alleged poaching on the 26th of March last; and, if he will lay upon the table all the communications that have passed upon the subject?
§ MR. GATHORNE HARDY, in reply, said, his attention had been called to the letter in question. Before that letter appeared certain other circumstances connected with this case had been brought to his notice, and at the time the hon. Gentleman put his Question on the Paper the only one of the two men who remained in prison had been discharged by his (Mr. Gathorne Hardy's) order. On re-considering the case, as he had been asked to do, he had again gone carefully into the facts, and on the whole it appeared so extremely doubtful whether the keeper was right in his identification of the prisoner, that he had ordered the discharge of the one in custody. He could only say that though he thought the magistrates were perfectly justified in believing the evidence before them—he did not make the least imputation upon them in respect of the conviction—the case, upon the further evidence submitted to him, appeared to be so extremely doubtful, if not more than doubtful, that he felt it to be his duty to discharge the prisoner. With reference to the latter part of the Question, it was contrary to practice to produce such communications as those mentioned by the hon. Member.