§ COLONEL SYKESrose to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether, con-sequent upon the communication made by him to the House on the 1st of June, respecting Captain Dew's Report of the death of Lieutenant Tinling, of Her Majesty's ship Encounter, under the walls of Shou-hing, it is the intention of the Admiralty to call upon the Admiral commanding in the China Seas, for a special Report of the circumstances which led Captain Dew and Lieutenant Tinling to be engaged in 322 two unsuccessful assaults upon Shou-hing, and whose authority they were engaged in the siege; whether Captain Dew was held responsible for the 8-inch howitzer lent by General Staveley to aid in the siege of Shou-hing, and generally to report what foundation there is for the statements in the Shanghai newspapers that the Paymaster of the Encounter was dangerously injured by an explosion of gunpowder at Shou-hing, and that after the repulse of the second assault at Shou-hing, Captain Dew visited Shanghai to obtain supplies of siege ammunition, and, by his agency, induced a body of European adventurers of all nations to proceed to Shou-hing as military volunteers, whose indiscipline is inflicting great misery upon the peasantry? The statements embraced in the Question were not his own, but had appeared in a Shanghai newspaper.
§ LORD CLARENCE PAGETreplied, that he could assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that he should be very happy to give him any information that lay in his power with regard to the matters in question. The Government expected to receive a full Report from the Commander in Chief on the Chinese station—Admiral Kuper—in reference to the circumstances connected with the death of Lieutenant Tinling, who was a young and meritorious officer. He might add, that the Admiralty had no knowledge of an 8-inch howitzer, or any other gun, having been lent to a Chinese force. He might, moreover, state that he had, with the view of giving the hon. and gallant Gentleman every information he could on the subject, applied to the War Office, and that he had been informed by them that they had received no communication whatsoever, either official or private, to the effect that a gun had been lent to a Chinese force. It was not, he might further observe, the intention of the Admiralty to give any orders at present on the subject; they would wait for Admiral Kuper's Report.