Note 363 — Chapter XI · OUT OF OFFICE (1842-3).

I give the following draft, which did not, however, take full shape as a letter, as a record of my feelings during the Parliamentary Inquiry of 1843, and of the facts which produced them:—

“Orme Square, Bayswater, “August 12th, 1843.

“Sir,—The scenes of yesterday, and your part in them, will form my justification for the unusual course which I am taking.

“The open display of your hostility would not alone have moved me to it; but, unhappily, that hostility has taken a form which, if persisted in, will most effectually suppress the greater part of my evidence in reply. You will be aware that I refer not merely to the perpetual interruptions which I receive, but the contradiction of my testimony, of which those interruptions so frequently consisted.

“Sir, I must use the freedom of reminding you of the positions in which we respectively stand. I have appealed to Parliament against the Treasury Board of which you are an active member. This appeal is now trying before a Committee of which you are chairman. You are, therefore, already a party and a judge. If you desire to add to these characters that of witness, I have no power to object; and, if I had the power, I should be far from wishing to exercise it.

“When you present yourself as a witness your statements will be sifted by cross-examination, and I should evince a distrust of my own evidence if I could wish to throw any obstacle in the way of such a proceeding. But I must object—most earnestly object—to your giving evidence while in the act of examining me. Such a course is monstrous in itself, and can only lead to a repetition of personal altercation, to which, although it has been forced upon me, I cannot revert without a deep sense of humiliation. Such courses are foreign to my habits and most repugnant to my feelings.

“Be pleased, Sir, to recollect that the result of this investigation is of vital importance to the public and to myself, and that I am contending single-handed against the whole force of Government. If you have the slightest confidence in the justice of your cause, you will not deny me the full benefit of the very brief period which is allotted to me for my evidence in reply to the numberless misstatements (as I maintain them to be) which I anxiously desire to answer. Depend upon it, I have every motive to be as short as I can be with justice to myself. The treatment which I have received will make the termination of this inquiry a most welcome relief.

“If, however, it should still be your pleasure to subject me to the annoyances which I have endured, I must beg leave to state that, after much thought, I have come to this resolution: I will answer any question, however insulting, and will reply to any statement, whatever imputation it may convey, provided the question and statement, together with its answer, are permitted to make part of the evidence on the short-hand writer’s notes. Let the House of Commons see the animus which prompts the treatment of which I complain, and I shall not despair of redress sooner or later; but I shall steadfastly decline answering whenever the short-hand writer is ordered to desist from recording. I know of no right which any member has to subject me to an examination which is to be kept back from the House. I regret I did not act on this principle from the first. Probably the knowledge that an offensive examination would be recorded would have been quite sufficient to prevent its being made.

“R. H.

“Sir George Clerk, Bart., M.P., &c., &c., &c.”