§ MR. PAPILLONsaid, he would beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War how it happened that the 14th Light Dragoons were sent home by long sea instead of overland, as intended; what were the circumstances under which the Himalaya was detained at Alexandria with the two Armstrong batteries of Royal Artillery barracked on board; whether the Himalaya, having been further detained owing to the expected arrival of the 14th Light Dragoons, will now return empty; and what is the probable amount of expense to which the 1328 country will have been put owing to these arrangements.
§ MR. SIDNEY HERBERTSir, in reply to the questions of the hon. Gentleman, I have to state that on the 22nd of December last a telegram was received from Lord Elphinstone, proposing that the Himalaya, the ship in which the batteries of artillery were sent to Alexandria, should bring home the 14th Light Dragoons, which he proposed to send by ships which were going from Bombay to Suez. We accepted that proposal, and upon the following day telegraphed our acceptance of it, sending duplicate telegrams, one by Trieste and the other by Marseilles. It is impossible for me to say what happened to those telegrams. All we know is that they were not received at Bombay in time, and it is very difficult now to ascertain their fate, because there is a fault somewhere in the telegraph line through the lied Sea, which prevents the transmission of messages by it. The Himalaya remained at Alexandria a certain time, after which, mainly owing to the activity of the Officer in command at Aden, another steamer was procured, that which had been sent by Lord Elphinstone having broken down on the passage between Bombay and Aden, and the batteries were sent on. The Himalaya did not return entirely empty, because she proceeded to Malta, and there embarked a battalion of infantry, which she conveyed to Barbadoes, to relieve a regiment which was about to come home. It is difficult to estimate the expense which has been caused by the delay at Alexandria. The Himalaya is a Queen's ship, and therefore there has been no question as to demurrage, but I must say that I do not see what precautions could have been taken beyond sending telegrams in duplicate by two different lines The letters which we wrote at the same time of course arrived much later, and, as our telegrams were not received, Lord Elphinstone despatched the 14th Light Dragoons by the long sea passage, instead of sending them, as he had originally proposed, to Suez.