was less peremptory than the established form of an order for the production of a paper, or attendance of a witness. That form begins, "It is ordered that A. B." &c. The circular began, "I have to require," &c. As to the right of demanding answers-any doubt of it was bottomed in the grossest ignorance, and the most childish inattention to the shape of the proceeding. The Committee had a right by their instructions to send for all persons, papers, and records. They might have summoned the clergy to Westminster to be examined. Was it not a relaxation of this right, to allow them at their own homes to answer the circular queries ?-I do not impute all this wretched blundering to the Right Honourable gentleman. His objections could not have originated within these walls. They must have been gathered from some coarse manufactory abroad. But he should have been far above suffering any designing or bigoted persons to get possession of him, and persuade him in so great a matter. This good work, I trust, will not be impeded by what has passed to-day, though I doubt not there are some persons out of doors who indulge hopes that it may. I shall, for my part, persevere. I am beset and attacked at every step, as if I was pursuing some object of personal advantage or aggrandizement, and as if the enemies of the cause supposed that a person, giving up his days and nights to such a work, must needs have some bad purpose to serve. But I shall leave it to time and the contempt of the community, to cure men of such absurd prejudices, which I assure you give me no sort of angry feeling, and only move my pity. The last charge preferred by the Right Honourable gentleman is of a singular description. It is not for anything which I have either done or left undone in the Committee, nor indeed for any substantive part of my conduct at all, either in or out of Parliament; but it seems I have, in my letter to Sir S. Romilly, taken credit for not doing something, which if I had done, I would, in the Right Honourable gentleman's opinion, have been guilty of a breach of duty as chairman. Perhaps I ought to be sufficiently well pleased to find the gentleman and his instigators reduced to such flimsy accusations as this, which, if well founded, is really no very mighty matter. But it happens to be, like all the rest, quite groundless. I do not exactly recollect the words used by me; I have not of late been so conversant with my own writings, as the Right Honourable gentleman seems to be; who, I am sorry to see, has thrown away much valuable time upon what I fear he may find an unprofitable study, at the best, but the more especially, if he did not comprehend what he read. I shall, however, take the quotation as given by him-and to what does it amount? Only that, in order to prove how little truth there was in the charge so often reiterated, from the first day of these discussions to the present, of my having been actuated by party views in the Committee, I cited the known fact of my having refused my partizans in the North access to the evidence respecting St. Bees' school? But how could I have granted this access, asks the Right Honourable gentleman, without betraying my trust as chairman? Why, in various ways. What was there to prevent me from lending my own notes? What to keep me from communicating any private copies I might have of the printed and unpublished evidence? Then, who ever before questioned the right of a chairman to regulate the manner and time of printing and circulating the minutes of a Committee? I have known recent instances of notes being used for private purposes by warm friends of the Right Honourable gentleman, although the chairman of the Committee had joined with the Speaker in impounding them to prevent publication. They have been published to the injury of every individual, for whose protection the original minutes were impounded. Of such conduct, indeed, I greatly disapprove. For me to have communicated my notes, or to have allowed the publication of the Report some weeks sooner, would clearly have been no such impropriety; yet still I deem that it would have been blameable, because it would have been perverting to party purposes an inquiry that should be kept free from all such connexion. And therefore it was, that I abstained from it; nay, interposed to prevent it. I did so, because I deemed that it would have been improper; and the Right Honourable gentleman sagaciously answers, "Had you done so, it would have been an impropriety." There I leave him and his ingenious and subtle instructors. In conclusion, I must apologize for the time which I have been obliged to occupy in the defence of myself and my colleagues. As far as regards our cause, we have much reason to complain of being taken unawares; but the House, too, has been a sufferer, in being compelled to hear a statement not only inadequate to the greatness of the occasion, but necessarily rendered prolix by the suddenness of the demand which has imperiously, though most unexpectedly, called it forth. It is a satisfaction to me, that, how defective soever in other respects, I at least believe it to have been full, and to have honestly met each individual part of the accusation. In casting my eye back upon the large space over which I have travelled, I can descry nothing that I have left untouched. Í rather fear I may be blamed for stopping to take notice of some things which merited none. But I deem this the safer side on which to err, as being made aware by experience of the shifts and devices to which malignity has recourse. If I have passed anything-if it should be found, on further reflection, that there is a single point overlooked by me-I beg to be instantly informed of it, and I pledge myself to take the earliest opportunity which the forms or the kind indulgence of the House can afford, of supplying the omission. I have not shrunk from the fullest inquiry, in circumstances which gave me a very fair ground for demanding some delay; and I still court the most unsparing investigation of every part of my conduct in the chair of the Committee, and of every single incident that has happened in the course of our whole proceedings.* A gentle * The preservation of this speech is owing to an accident. man at the Bar, who had taken much interest in the progress of the Bill, having the intention of editing Duke's work on Charitable Uses, happened to be in the gallery, and took a very full note of the debate; from which and some further notes kept by Mr. Brougham, and from some others which have since been obtained, the speech was corrected for Hansard's Debates, then edited by Mr. Wright; and from that it is now printed, Iwith only the change of the person and tense, and one or two verbal alterations, founded on notes made at the time. The newspapers, for some days before this debate took place, had refrained from reporting Mr. Brougham's speeches, in consequence, as it is said, of some offence given by him to a reporter, in the form of words used in referring to him; and by no means from the course taken by Mr. Brougham, for it appears from the Debates (Hansard, vol. xl., 1174), that he took a very decided part in the gentleman's favour, when the question of his committal to Newgate was discussed, and that he strongly and successfully opposed that proceeding. He was a person of great merit and accomplishments, as afterwards appeared. It is seen in the Debates, that Mr. Sheldon, Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. J. Smith, and other members of the Education Committee, confirmed Mr. Brougham's statements of fact. They flocked to the House on the news reaching them that the wholly unexpected attack had been made upon the Committee and its chairman, the more unexpected because he had just resumed his attendance on the House after being confined by a very dangerous illness. |