Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/76

 did not collect? I instructed my counsel to rely on the naked facts, extenuating nothing, and withholding nothing committee was constituted in the usual manner—of two Whigs two Tories, and a chairman of moderate opinions.

My first witness was Mr. O'Hara, a retired solicitor of capacity and experience. After stating that he had offered me, and that I had accepted, a rent-charge of £300 a year on his landed property, he was cross-examined. "I presume Mr. Duffy paid at least a dozen years' purchase for this annuity, or was it twenty years?" said the counsel for the petitioner in the tone of badinage usual on such occasions. "No," replied Mr. O'Hara, "he did not pay a penny." "Did not pay a penny!" echoed the learned counsel, with uplifted hands and eyebrows, and a triumphant glance at the committee. "The annuity (he continued) was received quarterly; no doubt Mr. Duffy collected it punctually?" "No," replied Mr. O'Hara, "he has not collected it at all." "Pray tell us, Mr. O'Hara, were you surprised at this neglect in realising his property?" "Certainly not? I granted the annuity for the purpose of a Parliamentary qualification, and I never expected him to enforce it." "So, sir, you created this charge on your estate without receiving any price for it? The grantee never asked you to pay a single instalment, and you admit that you never expected that he would? In point of fact, was not the arrangement a mere pretence and delusion?" "Not at all," rejoined Mr. O'Hara, with admirable coolness, "the law requires that a borough member should have a legal estate of £300 a year, and I granted Mr. Duffy such an estate as effectually as if he had paid ten thousand pounds for it; he had the right and power to enforce it at his discretion; if he had judgment creditors they might enter on the land, seize my cattle, and sell them to satisfy their claims. I have given him all I could give. The price to be received in return is, I conceive, a question affecting me alone."

Mr. William Eliot Hudson was in attendance to prove a second rent-charge; but it was not necessary to produce him, as the intrinsic value of Mr. O'Hara's grant was not disputed. The committee retired to deliberate on the case submitted to them. M'Mahon, the member for Wexford,