§ MR. G. A. HAMILTON begged leave to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department, whether he had received any official intelligence from Ireland, in confirmation of a statement which he had read in the Times of that morning, and which he could not help adding was most ably and amusingly commented upon in that newspaper, namely, that there had been a moral force demonstration in the city of Limerick? An émeute, in fact, in that city, on the part of the moral force party against the leaders of the physical force party—that the leaders of the physical force party, including Mr. O'Brien and Mr. Meagher of the sword, and Mr. Mitchell, had been seriously maltreated and injured by those moral force men; and that these bellicose gentlemen of the physical force party had actually been obliged to seek protection from Her Majesty's troops, and the constabulary of the city of Limerick?
§ SIR G. GREY: In reply to the question put by the hon. Gentleman, I beg to inform him that I have received a letter from the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland which substantially confirms the statement he has alluded to. It appears, that a meeting was held at the city of Limerick, at which about 400 persons assembled, the gentlemen to whom the hon. Member has alluded being present, and that, during the meeting, an attack was made upon them by the people of Limerick, and I believe that it is to the prompt intervention 591 of the military and the police that the safety of the three gentlemen may be attributed.