§ MR. W. BROWNasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, whether he had any official information of an event that had occurred in the United States touching the British vessel of war Resolute, which had 402 been abandoned in the ice, and was met by a whaler floating about, and which was carried into the United States? The American Government paid the salvage to the whaler, and the American Senate had passed an unanimous Resolution, in which the President and the Secretary of State concurred, that the vessel should be fitted out and restored to Great Britain.
§ SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, that the circumstances mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, if accurate, were certainly very creditable to the Government of the United States; but no official report on the subject had been received by Her Majesty's Government. The vessel referred to was, no doubt, one of the Arctic discovery ships that was abandoned a few years ago, and subsequently found adrift in the ice by an American whaler, which put a crew on board of her and took her to the United States. Her Majesty's Government had been asked, whether they would claim her, and they answered in the negative, thinking that those who picked her up after she had been abandoned were entitled to retain her.