§ MR. URQUHARTbegged to ask the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Government defended the actions in the cases of "Buron v. Denman," &c, and if so, what money had been expended, and from what source the money was drawn; and whether there would be any objection to lay on the table the correspondence relative to those actions, or the circumstances out of which they arose, between the Admiralty, the Foreign Office, and the law advisers and officers of the Crown?
The ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, that although the questions had not been put directly to him, yet he felt that it was more particularly his duty to answer them. He begged to inform the hon. Gentleman that he, by the direction of the Government, appeared to defend the action of "Buron v. Denman." In answer to the second question of the hon. Gentleman, he had to observe that it was not the practice of the House to require the Government to give a detailed statement of the expenses incurred in a legal proceeding still pending; and in respect to the third question, the hon. Gentleman must see that it was utterly impossible that the correspondence upon which the Government were defending an action could be produced.