§ SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTHsaid, that he wished to ask the Secretary for the Colonies whether he would have any objection immediately to lay upon the table of the House the constitution of the Cape of Good Hope as amended by the Legislative Council? He desired, also, to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to another subject. In one of the blue books which had been presented to that House there was a despatch from the British Resident in the Orange Sovereignty expressing great apprehension lest the emigrant Boers, under Prætorius, beyond the Yellow River, should attack the Orange Sovereignty; for he stated that if they 500 did, he should have no means of resistance, as they would in all probability be extensively joined by their own countrymen, the majority of the farmers in the Orange Sovereignty being rebels at heart, while the remainder were not to be relied upon. This officer further stated that in the event of any attack, a very large military force would be required to restore anything like peace in the Orange territory, and that the cost to this country would amount to an enormous sum of money. He had heard it reported that these Boers had laid claim to the Orange Sovereignty and to Natal, had bade defiance to the British Government, and had attacked the native tribes in those territories. He wished to know whether there was any truth in those reports, and if so, what steps Her Majesty's Government intended to take?
§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, that the terms in which the hon. Baronet had couched the first of his questions would rather tend to mislead the House, and showed, he thought, that the hon. Baronet was himself to some degree under an erroneous impression in respect to the present state of the ordinances for establishing the colonial constitution. It was true that by the last mail copies of those ordinances, containing certain alterations and amendments by the Legislative Council, had been sent over; but those ordinances were still incomplete, and, in fact, they could hardly, strictly speaking, be spoken of as ordinances. There were still certain forms remaining to be completed by the Legislative Council; and the Governor (General Cathcart) was reported to have deferred giving his assent to those ordinances until after the arrival of the next mail from England. Under these circumstances, he thought it would be premature to lay the ordinances, such as they were, on the table of the House. In reply to the second question of the hon. Member for Southwark, he had to state that the despatches lately received afforded no ground for the alarming reports to which he had referred.
§ SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTHwould beg to ask the hon. Member for North Staffordshire if he had received any information bearing out what he (Sir W. Molesworth) had stated.
§ MR. ADDERLEYreplied that the tenor of the information that he had received was very much in accordance with what had been stated by the hon. Baronet (Sir W. Molesworth) himself.