§ MR. BIGGARasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he has any objection to lay upon the Table of the House the Petition of Mr. John Clare, the inventor, patentee, designer, 104 promoter, and upholder of the metal shipbuilding of the State Navy (vide records of the Admiralty since 1853), and the plaintiff in Clare v. The Queen, forwarded by him 17th June 1863, addressed to Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, with the affidavits of John Morrison, iron shipbuilder, and John Clare; also the letter
requesting the Home Department to advise what Department of the State would initiate criminal proceedings against the Admiralty witnesses for perjury in Clare v. The Queen;and the opinion given by the Law Officers of the Crown?
§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON,in reply, said, the Petition alluded to was sent in 1861, and the case tried in 1863, before Chief Justice Cockburn, in the Queen's Bench. In that year a motion was made for a new trial, and refused. In April, 1864, an appeal followed, when the judgment of the Court below was confirmed. It was not the custom to produce the opinions of the Law Officers of the Crown, and he must, therefore, decline to do so.