Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/644

 616 SELECT COMMITTEE OF HOUSE OF COMMONS, 1835. examined on oath. It was " the worst and most democratic Star-Chamber that ever existed." Maurice O'Connell had caused heavy irons to be made as a pattern of those used in Sydney. Sir H. Hardinge described him as " the member who conducted the prosecution," and indignantly told the House that he would not continue to attend the committee unless he could be assured by the Speaker that there was any precedent for a select committee trying a man for murder. On the 1st Sept. Mr, Tooke brought up the report of the committee. It stated that "The conduct of General Darling with respect to the punishment inflicted on Sudds and Thompson was, under the peculiar circumstances of the colony, especially at that period, and of repeated instances on the part of the soldiery of misconduct similar to that for which the individuals were punished, entirely free from blame, and that there appears to have been nothing in General Darling's subsequent conduct in relation to the case of the two soldiers, or in the reports thereof which he forwarded to the Government at home, inconsistent with his duty as a public func- tionary, or with his honour as an officer and a gentleman." Dr. Bowring and other members of the committee were displeased with the report.^** On the 10th Sept. he pre- sented a petition from the soldier Thompson, averring that he had reached London too late to appear before the com- mittee, and praying for an opportunity to make known the injury he had sustained from confinement '*in irons of a cruel and unprecedented form and weight." Dr. Bowring arraigned the report ; but Lord Dudley Stuart., who had voted for the inquiry, confessed that as the evidence proved that Darling was not aware of the illness of Sudds, and as the irons used were neither cruelly heavy nor calculated to inflict torture— he did not think Thompson's evidence could rebut that which had been received. Mr. Freshfield, a member of the committee (33 in number), stated that there were only three dissentient voices on the acquittal of General Darling. Thompson's petition was ordered to lie on the table. General Darling was received at Court, was knighted, and honoured with the Grand Cross of the Order of Hanover. Eobison printed the various debates on his case with explanatory notes, and Darling circulated the judgment of the King's Bench under which Eobison was -'"iSaxe-Bannister placed charges against General Darling in the hands of Mr, Maurice O'Connell during tVie aUm^ o( the committee.