LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he had to present the petition of a gentleman of the name of Anderson, of the city of Dublin, solicitor. He ought to state to their Lordships that he had been informed by those who knew this gentleman that he was of the highest respectability, that the party who was his client was also a person of great respectability, and the head of one of the banks in Dublin. He knew nothing whatever of the parties. The facts were wholly unknown to him, except upon the statement of the petition. In the year 1844, Henry Augustus Brown intermarried with the daughter of a Mr. Copeland, and went abroad with his wife; but some time afterwards the father-in-law, Mr. Copeland, discovered that Brown had been previously married to another person, of the name of Mary Downes, in 1842. Upon Mr. Brown returning to Ireland, therefore, he caused him to be arrested upon a charge of having intermarried with his daughter, as his second wife, his first wife being still alive. Upon this charge Mr. Brown was arrested, committed to prison, brought to trial, and 1046 convicted; his defence upon the trial being twofold—first, that he was a minor at the time of his former marriage; and, secondly, that his former marriage was invalid, inasmuch as he had discovered that the first wife had been herself previously married to a person of the name of Fitzgerald, who was alive at the time of his marriage with her. In support of this he produced no evidence whatever; and to rebut the defence as to his having been an infant at the time of the first marriage, there was produced against him his own affidavit upon obtaining the license under which the marriage was had, in which affidavit he had sworn that he was of full age. According to that statement, there being no evidence whatever of his being under age, the jury, under the direction of the learned Judge who tried the cause, without hesitation found him guilty; and on the 11th of April, 1846, he was convicted, and on the 23rd of that month sentenced to seven years' transportation. He had been originally committed to the county gaol, and continued there, occupying the master debtors' apartments, till the 8th of February, 1847. Now, one complaint of the petitioner was, Brown being allowed to remain so long in the Kilmainham county gaol, and in the master debtors' apartments, the usual course being immediately after conviction to transfer the party to Smithfield, in Dublin, which was a government prison. But his opinion was, that there was an answer to that statement arising from the circumstances, which operated the other way, and against the complainant. Previous to the conviction of Mr. Brown, which took place on the 11th, and pending the proceeding against him, viz., in the month of February, a suit was commenced of nullity of marriage, and that suit being prosecuted, there was afterwards a decree of nullity of marriage on the 23rd of April. It was commenced by Mr. Copeland, to set aside the second marriage, on the ground of his having been convicted of bigamy. Upon sentence of nullity being pronounced, Mr. Brown entered his protest, meaning to take the case before the Court of Delegates. They entered very fully into the subject, and pronounced their judgment, affirming the original sentence of nullity on the 5th of February, 1847. He (Lord Brougham) had stated to their Lordships, that the 8th of February was the day when Brown was taken from Kilmainham gaol to Smithfield prison. He was retained until three days after the sen- 1047 tence of the Court of Delegates; but as there was a possibility that the sentence of nullity would be set aside, he (Lord Brougham) did not think there was a sufficient ground of complaint against the authorities for having kept him in the master debtors' wards. He had then a conviction, a sentence, an imprisonment under that sentence, a suit of nullity of marriage, a sentence pronounced of nullity, an appeal from that sentence, a confirmation of the sentence, and therefore decree of nullity of marriage, finally pronounced; and there was the judgment delivered by the Court of Delegates, most respectable judges, who formed a very strong opinion, not only in respect of Mr. Brown's marriage, but of the defence which he had set up. Mr. Brown himself thought fit to become the prosecutor of the first wife for bigamy, upon the ground that she had deceived him, and made him believe that she was a single woman, and he thought that if this prosecution ended in conviction, it might assist him in obtaining a pardon, for he did not prosecute her for bigamy till after his own conviction. The cause came on for trial, and to the surprise of all present she pleaded guilty, although most satisfactory evidence could have been produced that she was not guilty, and she was sentenced to two months' imprisonment. This was one of the main grounds for the censure passed on Mr. Brown's conduct. The same sentence condemned Mr. Brown in the payment of the whole costs, amounting to somewhere between 2.000l. and 3,000l. to Mr. Cope-land, the prosecutor of the suit for nullity, and defendant on the appeal. He was now about to state how Mr. Copeland had been deprived of that sentence, and how another creditor of Mr. Brown had also been deprived of the judgment which he had obtained; for by various pretences Mr. Brown had succeeded in obtaining a loan of 200l. from a banker, who prosecuted the suit against him through Anderson, his attorney, and obtained judgment and sued out execution on the judgment. Mr. Brown being then in Kilmainham county gaol, Mr. Anderson, as the attorney acting for this gentleman, lodged a detainer with the sheriff of the county of Dublin, to prevent Mr. Brown from escaping, when he should, by the expiration of the sentence or by pardon, be liberated from gaol. It was so lodged; but soon after, Brown was transferred to Smithfield gaol, in the city of Dublin, being the common gaol. Now, 1048 although Kilmainham gaol was under the sheriff of the county of Dublin, Smithfield gaol was not under the sheriff of the city of Dublin, although situate within the bailiwick, and the sheriff could not execute any process whatever in the gaol. Mr. Anderson wrote to the Government, and wished to lodge a detainer; he found that it was useless to lodge a detainer; he then applied to the Secretary's office, there being a report that a pardon was expected for Mr. Brown, and some correspondence took place, the substance of which was, that Mr. Brown's removal from Smithfield to Kilmainham was for the benefit of his health, and that his being brought back to Smithfield was for a reason which had no reference to the fact of execution for debt; that he had been pardoned on certain conditions only, and in consequence of the precarious state of his health, it having been ascertained, after careful investigation, that his life would be endangered by further confinement. The answer of the Secretary's office concluded thus:—
He has been released upon conditions: when those conditions shall have been complied with, he will at once be discharged from custody.Mr. Anderson, reasoning upon this, of course took his measures, as the Secretary's office gave no other assistance; these measures being to watch his discharge by a sheriff's officer, and also by again lodging the execution in the county gaol. The first execution having expired by lapse of time, he obtained a second, and lodged a second execution. Immediately after that, Mr. Brown was removed from Kilmainham gaol again to Smithfield. The petitioner stated, that as Mr. Brown, on account of his health, had been removed from Smithfield to Kilmainham for the benefit of the air, Smithfield gaol being unwholesome, they did not well see how it happened that he was removed back again from Kilmainham gaol to the unwholesome gaol of Smithfield. He should give the remainder of the case in the words of the party himself. Now, all the steps were completed, and the whole might have been perfected on Thursday, the 16th of September; but instead of that, the completion of the document was suspended till Saturday, the 18th of September; the patent for the pardon was sealed on that day. In the ordinary course of business it should have been brought to the Rolls Office for enrolment; it could not have been perfected till the following Monday; but by extraordinary exertion the patent was en- 1049 rolled on the same day, the enrolment having been engrossed by anticipation the day before, so that the patent should be sealed, and no delay might intervene; and he added, that after the assurance that the fulfilment of the conditions of Mr. Brown's pardon rested entirely with Mr. Brown, and that it consequently was impossible for the Government to give him notice of Mr. Brown's discharge, he was somewhat surprised to find that the preparation of the patent, the delivery at the Hanaper-office, the directions for sending an enrolment, and every part of the duty in connexion with it, was done by the sanction and by the servant of the Government, and the order for Mr. Brown's discharge was sent direct from the Chief Secretary's office to the governor of the prison in which Mr. Brown was confined. The pardon was received at four o'clock on the Saturday, and the governor kept him in prison till next morning, when he could not be arrested, so that Mr. Copeland and Mr. Anderson were deprived of their costs. The noble Lord said that he would make no observation whatever upon the case, but leave it for his noble Friends to require an investigation of the facts.
The MARQUESS of CLANRICARDEsaid, he had no fault to find with the manner in which his noble and learned Friend had brought this case before the House; but he could assure their Lordships that no unfairness or partiality had been shown by the Government in the transaction, and that no attempt whatever had been made by them to shield Mr. Brown from his creditors. The reason that that individual was left so long in Kilmainham gaol was, because an eminent barrister had given it as his opinion that the" conviction of the first wife amounted to an acquittal of Brown, and that he ought not therefore to be confined in a convict gaol. He remained in Smithfield prison, and was treated in all respects as a convict for some time; but at length the surgeon of the prison reported that his health would suffer mateterially by his continuing there longer. Upon this being reported, he was sent back to Kilmainham; in fact, removed from one convict depot to another convict depot for the benefit of his health. But his health continuing very bad, application was again made to the Lord Lieutenant, who did not act upon the report of the medical officer alone, but directed an inquiry into the state of this gentleman's health; because, on account of his family connexions, his 1050 former position in society, and the extraordinary nature of the case, which had become notorious, the Government were anxious that there should not be the least ground for suspicion that they had exercised any partiality in his favour. Brown was pardoned upon the condition that he should absent himself from Her Majesty's dominions in Europe for the space of seven years, and provide securities for his observance of the conditions to the amount of 5,000l. Now, these securities he was not able to get until Tuesday the 14th of September; but on that day, the Crown Solicitor reported that satisfactory security had been found, and the conditions complied with. This report went in to the Secretary on Wednesday the 15th, and the Lord Lieuteuant signed a pardon and sent it back that evening. On Thursday the 16th, it was in the Secretary's office again, and was sent by him to the Crown Solicitor. On Friday the 17th, the Crown Solicitor had it enrolled—in other words, had the necessary forms perfected—and it was returned to the Secretary's office in the natural course of business—of course with no delay, because it would have been highly improper if delay had taken place—on Saturday the 18th. And accordingly, in the ordinary hours of business on Saturday afternoon, Sir W. Somerville, having the papers before him, wrote the usual form of order to the governor of the gaol to discharge the prisoner. At what hour that order was received by the governor, he could not say; but he could assure their Lordships that, as far as any Member of the Irish Government was concerned, the proceedings went through the usual course; and the only question was, whether the Government ought to have given the petitioner notice, so that he might have been ready to arrest the man immediately upon his discharge. It was for their Lordships to say whether it would have been right had the Government done so. For his own part, he was of opinion that the proper course would have been for Mr. Anderson to move in the Court of Queen's Bench. He would only say further, that the Government had taken as straightforward a course with reference to this convict as they would have done in the case of any other, and without exhibiting the slightest favour; and there was no ground whatever for attributing partiality to them.