§ CAPTAIN PIMasked the Eight honourable gentleman the Member for Pontefract, Whether he has seen the Petition of Mr. Charles Henwood, ordered by this House to lie upon the Table, and subsequently printed in the Appendix to the Twenty-third Report on Public Petitions, No. 392, complaining of erroneous statements which have seriously prejudiced his professional reputation and prospects, in the Minute written by the Eight honourable gentleman in reference to the "Captain"; whether he was not led into error when stating in that Minute that the plan described for the "Duncan," and illustrated by a "curve of stability," was "Mr. Hen-wood's design;" and, whether, if such is the case, he will take steps to remove the stigma which has in consequence so long attached to Mr. Henwood's professional reputation?
§ MR. CHILDERSI might decline altogether to answer this Question, as I am not a Minister, and it does not relate to any Bill or Motion of mine; but if my answering it will save the time of the House, which has already been a good deal taken up by Mr. Henwood's grievances, I will do so. I have read Mr. Henwood's Petition, in which he complains of a Report on his plans made by the professional officers of the Admiralty in 1867, long before I was First Lord, and published in extenso by me in a Parliamentary Paper of the year 1871. I neither had then, nor have I now, the means of determining whether those officers were accurate or not in their professional criticisms of Mr. Henwood's plans which my Predecessors had received and acted upon; and if it is any satisfaction to him to know that it was not my business, nor within my competency, to review 867 these scientific calculations submitted to a previous Government, he is welcome to the admission.