OUR NEW GOVERNOR.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVIII, Issue XXIV, 12 June 1897, Page 760

OUR NEW GOVERNOR.

The following sketch of the early history of Lord Ranfurly’s family, taken from Carpenter’s * Peerage for the People,’ may be of interest :—Mr Thomas Knox, a descendant of one of the early adventurers into Ireland, represented Dungannon in the Irish Parliament, and was rewarded pretty liberally by * the heaven-born Minister ’ for the influence he afforded him in carrying the measure of the union between the two countries. Two of bis sons, Thomas and Vesey, were appointed Prothonotaries in the Irish Court of Common Pleas ; another son was transferred from the worst bishopric— Killala—to the second best in the county Limerick ; another was appointed to the Deanery of Down ; and a fifth was made a General on the Staff. No other family in Ireland —the Beresfords alone excepted—have received so much of the public money as have the family of the Knoxes. But a few words about the Prothonotarysbip of the Common Pleas. The office was, of course, a mere sinecure, the duties being discharged by deputy, who handed over to his principals a year, upon the average, without subjecting them to any other trouble than that of receiving the money. (They had in all Z’235,127 7s 3d). While these Knoxes were in office Mr Peel filled the situation of Secretary for Ireland, and a communication was made to him by a gentleman named Ball, who was practising as an attorney, that frauds on the revenue to an enormous extent were annually committed in the Prothonotaries’ office. Mr Peel, in a letter which can still be produced, replied that if the statements made by Mr Ball proved to be well founded, ‘ neither family, rank, nor influence ’ should prevail upon him to screen the parties. An inquiry was instituted, and Mr Ball’s statements were more than borne out by the results. It was ascertaiued that a practice had long prevailed in the Prothonotaries’ office of recording the judgments of the Court on parchments without any stamps, although the usual payments, including the charge for stamps, were demanded and received. Tnus large sums belonging to the public revenue were abstracted and transferred to their own pockets by these trustworthy officers'. But these frauds, enormous as they were, constituted but a small part of the evil. The most dreadful grievance was the insecure state in which the practice had placed the property of all those persons for whom judgments had been entered ; for in consequence of the records being destitute of the stamps required by law, they were not legal instruments, and their effects became null and void. Any man who had obtained judgment on a bond, and afterwards came into possession of an estate in virtue of such judgment, might be turned out of his property, after his security was cancelled, on account of the illegality of the instrument which purported to convey it to him '. Every individual, in fact, against whom a judgment had been entered, might have had it reversed upon this ground. The Commissioners of Inquiry found piles upon piles of parchments containing the records of cases adjudged in the court upon which there was not a single stamp ; and the calculation that was made —although it did not go to the whole extent of the case—showed that the revenue had been defrauded of at least half a million of money ! Mr Ball, who had brought this enormous atrocity to light generously refused compensation for the discovery, and insisted that the affair should be investigated in Par--I'ament, that the delinquents might have their merited reward This was promised by Mr Peel, and letters under his own hand show that he was fully satisfied of the enormity of the case. The inquiry was, however, postponed from time to time, one excuse after another being suggested, until at length he resigned the Secretaryship of Ireland, and entered upon that for the Home Department. Mr Ball followed him to England, and tried various means to extort from him the fulfilment of his p.edge. Persecution, however, was all this worthyman could realise, in return for his generous exertions. He was reduced to poverty and want ; and one morning his room was entered by two men, who placed upon him a straight waistcoat and conveyed him to a private mad house, where he died within a few weeks afterwards. It was impossible, however, after the circumstances which were brought to light by the commissioners of inquiry that the patent office should be continued to Messrs the Hon. Thomas and Vesey Knox. The patent was rescinded, and the office swept of the parties inculpated in the proceedings we have detailed. The reader will, of course, expect that they were transported—if not hung—or if not so, that they were sent to the treadmill for life—or, at the least, to wander about as vagabonds, to be shunned and abhorred by honest men. No such thing This is not the fashion in which great public delinquents are dealt with. Thomas and Vesey Knox, the prothonotaries, were rewarded with a pension, for their lives, of Z. 7,150 3s a year; Mr George Hill, their deputy, was granted a patent place in the same office; and their father, the member for Dungannon, was elevated to the Peerage of Ireland, as Baron Wells, and subsequently created Viscount Northland.