§ MR. NOELsaid, he would beg to ask whether the Government will give to those of Her Majesty's Officers who are ordered to rejoin their Regiments in India before the expiration of their leave, on account of the Mutiny in that Country, a free passage; or whether they will have to return there at their own expense? As was well known to the Government, many of these officers have no private means, and it was, therefore, through the exercise of a rigid economy that they had been enabled to save sufficient money to pay their passage home. Some of them had not been two months at home—others not one—yet they were threatened with having to pay another sum of £150 passage money, without having derived any advantage from all the expense they had undergone. He was well aware that in an emergency like the present officers might expect to have to rejoin their regiments; at the same time, under such peculiar circumstances, he thought the country ought to take upon itself the expense of transporting them to India.
§ SIR JOHN RAMSDENsaid, upon a former occasion, when my hon. and gallant Friend (Mr. Noel) put this question to me, I said the matter was under the consideration of the Government. I now am happy to be able to say that the Court of Directors, as soon as ever the question was brought 295 under their notice, announced their intention of defraying the expense of the passage out to India of officers on leave, in consideration of the emergency of the crisis.