§ SIR WILLIAM MILESsaid, he wished to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to recognize the great services of Captain Speke in opening Equatorial Africa to the knowledge of the world?
§ VISCOUNI PALMERSTONSir, I fully acknowledge the merits of Captain Speke. He has shown great sagacity in selecting the point at which he aimed. He displayed great enterprize, courage, endurance, and perseverance in the accomplishment of his purpose. There are people, however, who demur as to the originality of his conception, but at all events it may be admitted that he has settled a very interesting geographical problem—namely, from what source the waters of the Nile are derived. But as to any immediate practical advantage that mankind are to derive from the solution of that problem, I am not particularly aware that any great results are to be expected from it. If, however, we consider Captain Speke simply in the light of an adventurous traveller encountering great dangers for the object he had in view, there are other persons who in Africa and elsewhere have encountered equal, if not greater, dangers, and undergone equal, if not greater, labours, and have obtained results more immediately interesting and advantageous to mankind. I have only to mention those who explored the Niger and proved its navigability into the interior of Africa. I would mention Dr. Livingstone, who for several years has laboured incessantly, and who has discovered vast regions where cotton of the finest description grows, and which might be made available for the commerce of this country if it were not that the Portuguese lay waste that country by encouraging the slave trade. I may mention also Count Strzelecki, who, by incessant labour and at considerable expense to himself, explored important regions in Australia, and pointed out those gold formations which have since become a source of great wealth to the Colony and great advantage to Europe. Therefore, while doing every justice to the merits of 1454 Captain Speke, Her Majesty's Government have not thought that he and those brave and enterprising men who accompanied him have done that which so takes them out of the category of successful travellers and explorers as to warrant any particular manifestation of the favour of the Crown.
§ SIR WILLIAM MILESsaid, he would at an early day move for papers and make a Motion on the subject.
§ MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he wished to ask the noble Lord, whether he was aware that one of the earliest explorers in Africa, who perhaps laid the foundation of these discoveries by Captain. Speke, was Dr. Beke, who had written on that subject, and had pointed out the direction of these investigations.
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONI alluded to Dr. Beke when I said there were others who disputed the originality of Captain Speke's theory.