§ ADMIRAL WALCOTTWithout any desire to touch upon the prerogatives of the Crown, I wish to ask the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) the First Lord of the Treasury, whether it is intended to recommend the issue of the existing decorations of the Bath without reference to the projected order of merit contemporaneously with the eminent services which deserved them, especially at a time when gallant officers—some, indeed, already formally recommended for distinction were in hourly exposure to loss of life, and therefore, in the case of death, whether it would not be proper to date back the Gazette which rewards the survivors, in order to include the names of the fallen as a national acknowledgment of the merit of those who died nobly for their country and a sacred heirloom of their families.
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, the Order of the Bath would be conferred, without reference to the order of merit, by an entirely separate arrangement. With regard to the latter part of the question, the hon. and gallant Gentleman must be aware that the insignia of the Order of the Bath were restored to the Crown at the death of the person to whom they had been granted, and, therefore, that they could not continue to be heirlooms in the families of individuals who had earned those distinctions. The names of those who had been recommended for the Order of the Bath, but who had been prevented by death from having that honour conferred upon them, would be published, with notices of 414 their having been so recommended, and of the cause which had prevented them from receiving the honour. That record would, he trusted, be a memorial, honourable to themselves and gratifying to their families and friends.