Mr. Eyre's conduct in Jamaica has come up again in
Parliament on the vote of 14,133 for the defence of Mr. Eyre in the actions brought against him. The ground of the vote was a virtual promise from the Conservative Government of the late Lord Derby that a reasonable sum would be proposed to Parliament to defray the expense,—the present Government arguing, very justly, as we think, that an Administration is honourably bound by the promises of its predecessors, otherwise there would be no moral continuity in the Government. But Parliament was not bound by any promise. The only promise given was to propose such a vote to Parliament, and the House would have been wise to reject it. In the first place, Mr. Eyre had received mach more than enough to cover his legal expenses under the form of a "defence fund," and the whole of this vote therefore amounted to a kind of tardy Par- liamentary testimonial to a censured, and most deservedly cen- sured, Governor. The truth is, that the opposition in Mr. Bowring's hands was badly managed. His speech was prolix and somewhat pretentious, and though this defect was almost com- pensated by the wonderful blunder of Sir C. Adderley, who replied to him in a strain of almost blind passion, and made as many political mistakes as he uttered sentences, and though • Colonel North made Sir Charles Adderley's confusion worse confounded by a ridiculous attack on Mr. Bowriog for receiving a (commuted) pension at a time when he was resisting a money grant to another public servant, yet the whole debate was never • really raised out of the atmosphere of angry feeling into which it was so auddenly, plunged. The Recorder of London (Mr. Russell Gurney), who went out on the Jamaica Commission, did indeed pass judgment on Mr. Eyre,—in anxiously lenient, but for that very reason only the more scathing, judicial language,—and Mr. Glitclatone earefully pointed out that the Government had been silent
• mi the, merits of the case, precisely because they could not have defended the vote if they had gone into it. But the House passed the vote by a majority of 113 (243 to 130). It was a bad vote, and an Vvil example.
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