§ MR. HINDLEYrose to give notice of his intention to ask the right hon. the President of the Board of Control, "Whether the statement in the public journals is correct, that the Governor General of India has decided that the property taken at Moultan is to go to the captors of the place as a prize?—Whether the Government have any information confirmatory of the statement in the Bombay Times to the effect that the troops having made their way in numbers into the fort of Moultan, a scene of plunder ensued in the last degree discreditable to the discipline of the Bengal army—the details being too distressing to be dwelt upon, and that the amount of plundering in the town of Moultan permitted by the Bengal troops was fearful, and the work of spoliation was by no means confined to the men?—Who were the parties responsible for having permitted such excesses, and (if the statement be substantially correct) what steps the Government intend to take in order that the perpetrators of them may be brought to justice?"
§ SIR J. C. HOBHOUSEsaid, he would answer those questions now. And first, with respect to the distribution of prize-money. The question had arisen, whether the commander-in-chief of the main army was entitled to a share of the Moultan prize-money, and had been referred by the Governor General of India to the home authorities, and would by them be decided in the usual way according to precedent. With regard to the other questions, he had only to say that he had that day gone through the whole of the despatches respecting the taking of Moultan, and particularly respecting those transactions which had been so much misrepresented; and he could assure the hon. Gentleman that unless facts occurred which did not appear and were not even hinted at in those despatches, the rumours he alluded to—and where he read them he (Sir J. C. Hobhouse) was at a loss to know—were totally unfounded.