§ SIR W. VERNERwished to ask the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he had heard, and if so, whether the report was true, that John Mitchel, when put on board the Shearwater steamer to be conveyed to Spike Island, was entertained by the officers of that ship—that he was placed at their table, took part of their mess, and was treated by them, not as a convicted felon, but as a passenger.
§ SIR G. GREYknew only that Mitchel was placed on board the Shearwater by direction of the Lord Lieutenant. A report had certainly reached him that an officer on board the Shearwater invited Mitchel to breakfast on the morning the vessel was on her passage; but he had been informed most distinctly that the officer who had acted so was not the commanding officer, but the assistant surgeon of the ship. He had called the attention of the First Lord of the Admiralty to the statement.