“Well, but what did the House agree to? Why, to this: ‘Resolved, that it is the duty of this House to maintain a jealous guard over the purity of election; but considering that the attempt of lord viscount Castlereagh to interfere in the election of a member had not been successful, this House does not consider it necessary to enter into any criminal proceedings against him.’”
“Now, then, let us see what was done in the case of Philip Hamlyn, the tinman of Plymouth, who offered a bribe to Mr. Addington, when the latter was minister. The case was this: in the year 1802, Philip Hamlyn, a tinman of Plymouth, wrote a letter to Mr. Henry Addington, the first Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, offering him the sum of £2000 to give him, Hamlyn, the place of Land Surveyor of Customs at Plymouth. In consequence of this, a criminal information was filed against the said Hamlyn, by Mr. Spencer Perceval, who was then the King’s Attorney General, and who, in pleading against the offender, asserted the distinguished purity of persons in power in the present day. The tinman was found guilty; he was sentenced to pay a fine of £100 to the King, and to be imprisoned for three months. His business was ruined, and he himself died, in a few months after his release from prison.”
“Hamlyn confessed his guilt; he stated, in his affidavit, that he sincerely repented of his crime; that he was forty years of age; that his business was the sole means of supporting himself and family; that a severe judgment might be the total ruin of himself and that family; and that, therefore, he threw himself upon, and implored, the mercy of his prosecutors and the Court. In reference to this, Mr. Perceval, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, observe, said: ‘The circumstances which the defendant discloses, respecting his own situation in life and of his family are all of them topics, very well adapted to affect the private feelings of individuals, and as far as that consideration goes, nothing further need be said; but, there would have been no prosecution at all, in this case, upon the ground of personal feeling; it was set on foot upon grounds of a public nature, and the spirit in which the prosecution originated, still remains; it is, therefore, submitted to your lordships, not on a point of individual feeling, but of PUBLIC JUSTICE, in which case your lordships will consider how far the affidavits ought to operate in mitigation of punishment.’—“For lord Archibald Hamilton’s motion, the speakers were, lord A. Hamilton, Mr. C. W. Wynn, lord Milton, Mr. W. Smith, Mr. Grattan, Mr. Ponsonby, sir Francis Burdett, Mr. Whitbread, and Mr. Tierney. Against it, lord Castlereagh himself, lord Binning, Mr. Croker, Mr. Perceval, (who prosecuted Hamlyn,) Mr. Banks, Mr. G. Johnstone, Mr. H. Lascelles, Mr. Windham, and Mr. Canning.”
Extract 7.—Of Mr. Quentin Dick.
(On the 11th of May, 1809, Mr. Maddocks made a charge against Mr. Perceval and lord Castlereagh, relative to the selling of a seat in Parliament to Mr. Quentin Dick, and to the influence exercised with Mr. Dick, as to his voting upon the recent important question.) Mr. Maddocks in the course of his speech said:—“I affirm, then, that Mr. Dick purchased a seat in the House of Commons for the borough of Cashel, through the agency of the Hon. Henry Wellesley, who acted for, and on behalf of, the Treasury; that upon a recent question of the last importance, when Mr. Dick had determined to vote according to his conscience, the noble lord, Castlereagh, did intimate to that gentleman the necessity of either his voting with the government, or resigning his seat in that house: and that Mr. Dick, sooner than vote against principle, did make choice of the latter alternative, and vacate his seat accordingly. To this transaction I charge the right honourable gentleman, Mr. Perceval, as being privy and having connived at it. This I will ENGAGE TO PROVE BY WITNESSES AT YOUR BAR, if the House will give me leave to call them.” Mr. Perceval argued against receiving the charge at all, putting it to the House, “whether AT SUCH A TIME it would be wise to warrant such species of charges as merely introductory to the agitation of the great question of reform, he left it to the House to determine: but as far as he might be allowed to judge, he rather thought that it would be more consistent with what was due from him to the House and to the public, if he FOR THE PRESENT declined putting in the plea (he could so conscientiously put in) until that House had come to a determination on the propriety of entertaining that charge or not.”
The House voted not to entertain the charge, and Mr. Ponsonby and others declared, in the course of the debate, that such transactions ought not to be inquired into, because they “were notorious,” and had become “as glaring as the noon-day sun.”
Now let the younger Mr. Perceval grapple with this historian and public writer, whose opinions he has invoked, whose “true English spirit and feeling” he has eulogised. Let him grapple with these extracts from his works, which, however, are but a tithe of the charges Mr. Cobbett has brought against his father. For my part, I have given my proofs, and reasons, and authorities, and am entitled to assert, that my public character of Mr. Perceval, the minister, is, historically, “fair, just, and true.”
HISTORY
OF THE
WAR IN THE PENINSULA.