§ MR. MARK STEWART (Kirkcudbrightshire)I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any intelligence has reached this country about the ship Ravenshall, Captain Telfer, which sailed from New York on the 11th June, 1890; whether he has any reason to suppose that the crew have been cast away on the Crozet Islands; and whether he will consider the possibility of sending one of Her Majesty's cruisers to examine the Islands, or, if that is not possible, whether it would be possible to subsidise a merchantman or passenger steamer to go out of their course for that purpose?
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord G. HAMILTON, Middlesex, Ealing)The only information in the possession of the Admiralty is that the Ravenshall was last spoken in latitude 30 S. and longitude 34 W., or about 4,500 miles from the Crozet Islands. It is, therefore, only a very far-fetched conjecture that she was lost in the neighbourhood of these Islands, and on such very improbable contingencies the Admiralty would not be justified in sending one of Her Majesty's ships several thousand miles to make a search.