HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



159 



chapter, stating that it was the 

 duty of that house to maintain 

 a jealous guard over the purity 

 and independence of parliament, 

 was also read. Mr. Madocks 

 then rose, and enumerated various 

 cases in which the influence of 

 the treasury had been exerted, in 

 returning members to that house 

 — » But (said Mr. Madocks) 

 having enumerated these cases, 

 which, in my opinion, ought to be 

 submitted to a committee to ex- 

 amine, sift, and regulate, I come 

 now, Sir, to a case of what I con- 

 sider as aggravated in the extreme, 

 and one that calls for an imme- 

 diate investigation at your bar.— 

 It is to this case that, for the pre- 

 sent, I propose to call the parti- 

 cular attention of the house, and 

 to conclude with a motion for 

 hearing evidence at the bar in 

 support of the statement I am 

 fully prepared to prove.'' The 

 case was this: — In the last general 

 election, Mr. Quintin Dick pur- 

 chased a seat in that house for 

 the borough of Cashell, through 

 the negotiation of lord Caslle- 

 reagh to Mr, Henry Wellesley, as 

 the agent of the treasury. That, 

 on a recent occasion of great im- 

 portance (the inquiry into the 

 conduct of the duke of York) 

 lord Castlereagh intimated to that 

 gentleman the necessity of his 

 either voting with the govern- 

 ment, or resigning his seat in that 

 house. That Mr. Dick, sooner 

 than vote against principle and 

 conscience, made choice of the 

 latter alternative. To this trans- 

 action Mr. Madocks charged tiie 

 chancellor of the exchequer (iNlr 

 Perceval) as being privy, and 

 having connived at it. This he 

 would tngagc to prove, by wit- 



nesses at the bar, if the house 

 would give him leave to call them ; 

 than which they could not take 

 a more direct method to remedy 

 the abuses of the representative 

 system of such places as Hastings 

 Rye, Cambridge, Queensborough, 

 and many other places. 



The Chancellor of the Exche- 

 quer considered this not merely 

 as a criminatory charge against an 

 individual, for alleged mal-prac- 

 tices (in which case he would 

 have no doubt that the house 

 would readily entertain it). But 

 he did not look upon the present 

 charge in that light: the honour- 

 able gentleman had intimated in 

 the opening of his charges, that 

 there was still behind them a 

 mass of other matter, which had 

 been sufficiently illustrated in 

 his detailed statements respect- 

 ing the boroughs of Hastings, 

 Rye, Cambridge, and Queensbo- 

 rough. It was not so much the 

 vindication of the injured honour 

 of the house that appeared to be 

 the object, as that more general 

 one of following up the system of 

 what was denominated " a cer- 

 tain system." This, it seemed, 

 was to be a first step towards ge- 

 neral reform. — Whether, at such 

 a time, it would be wise to w'ar- 

 rant such charges as merely intro- 

 ductor'y to the agitation of the 

 great question of reform, he left 

 it to the house to determine. 

 For the present, he declined 

 putting in the plea he could con* 

 gcientiously put in, until that 

 house should have come to a de- 

 termination on the propriety of 

 entertaining the charge or not; 

 protesting, at the same time, 

 against the slightest inference of 

 his guilt, from his deferring such 



a plea 



