April 28,1837.

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Lord Normanby’s Gaol Deliveries.

What was the next step of which the Protestants of Ireland complained?  The lord lieutenant, they say, went into the country, from place to place, without having any communication either with the judges or with the magistrates;—­and that is a fact on which I greatly rely—­the lord lieutenant, they say, released at every county gaol which he visited a certain number of prisoners.  I have said, that the Protestants of Ireland have a very peculiar interest in the impartial administration of the law, and in the tranquillity of the country, because they form the great body of its landed proprietors.  They must look at such a transaction with jealousy; and if there had been no circumstances connected with such a transaction save those which have been stated this evening, it must, I think, be admitted, that if the conduct of the lord lieutenant was not without precedent (and I believe that no precedent can he found for it) it has yet been still of such rare occurrence that it ought never to be repeated.  I do not mean to say that this power of enlarging prisoners has never been exercised, but I maintain that it had never previously been exercised in such a manner.  I do not pretend to be acquainted with the technicalities of the law on this subject; but it occurs to me that several of the persons who have been released in this peculiar manner by the lord lieutenant, had surely been guilty of felony.  I do not know exactly what the state of the law is, at present, upon this subject, but I apprehend that persons who have been found guilty of felony ought to have some document conveying their pardon, or in default of its production they become, I believe, liable to certain fines and forfeitures.  But in the present case persons guilty of felony have been enlarged without any writing at all, at the simple order of the lord lieutenant, I must say, that a proceeding of this sort is highly irregular, and that it is such an exercise of power as a lord lieutenant in the ordinary discharge of his duty ought not to repeat; and further, that this was an exercise of power which was most likely to produce a very pernicious effect on the minds of the Protestants of Ireland.

April 28, 1837.

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Objections to the Irish Corporations Bill of 1837.

I stated, on a former occasion, that these corporations existed in their present shape, and were brought to their present state, principally with a view to the support and protection of the religion of the Church of England established in Ireland.  Whatever may be done with respect to these corporations for the future, in my opinion that object ought never to be lost sight of.  It may be doubted, from what has lately occurred in this country, whether that opinion is so unanimously adopted as it was in former years;