§ LORD WILLIAM GRAHAMsaid, he wished to ask the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a question respecting the present state of affairs in Mexico. The House was aware that General Miramon had committed all kinds of excesses, raised forced loans on Her Majesty's subjects, hutchered his fellow countrymen in cold blood, and completed the catalogue of his crimes by breaking into and violating the sanctity of the British Legation in Mexico, and stealing from thence the sum of 600,000 dollars, the property of British bondholders. For this gross breach of international law his punishment had been demanded by the British Government; but his escape had been permitted by the French Minister; he had been allowed to assume and to desecrate the French uniform, and in that disguise he reached the French ship of war Le Mercure, commanded by Captain Le Roy. Captain Aldham, the commander of Her Majesty's brig Valorous, on hearing of this, addressed a letter to Captain Le Roy, informing him
That General Miramon had been guilty of a gross violation of international law in having authorized and caused the house of the British Legation to be broken into, and a large sum of money to be seized belonging to British subjects; and trusting that, if any who may be implicated in so grave an offence should be on board, or under the protection of the French flag, Captain Le Roy would see the imperative necessity of their being handed over to the authorities at Vera Cruz for the purpose of their being brought to trial.After receipt of this letter, General Miramon was transferred to a Spanish ship, and the French captain sent a short and not very courteous answer, justifying his conduct on the ground of giving protection to a political refugee. To this Captain Aldham sent a reply, in which he stated—The undersigned would remark that no allusion whatever was made in his letter to the political acts of General Miramon; but, as a British officer, he would have been highly wanting in his duty had he not notified to Captain Le Roy what he probably was not aware of, the flagrant viola tion and spoliation of the British Legation by General Miramon, an outrage that was most indignantly protested against by the Spanish Ambassador. Such outrages against legation rights and international law the undersigned submits all nations are equally interested in repressing. 250 Captain Le Roy is well aware that British ships have ever been an asylum for purely political refugees, and a British officer would be unworthy of his position should he suggest anything at variance with the principle so well recognized; the present case is of a widely different nature, and it was in this light that the undersigned submitted it to the notice of Captain Le Roy.To this Captain Le Roy returned a more courteous answer, but still eluded the question whether General Miramon had been received on board the French vessel or not. He quite agreed with Captain Aldham that General Miramon could by no means he regarded as a mere political refugee; he might be designated a robber and a burglar who had broken into a house and stolen money and was out of the pale of international law. If the privileges conferred by the assumption of the French uniform, the protection of the French Minister, and the sanctity of a French ship of war were thus abased and prostituted, international law would become a farce. Believing that the French captain had exceeded his orders, he begged to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he has received any information respecting the proceedings of the French Minister in Mexico, and Captain Le Roy, commanding the French brig of war Le Mercure, in assisting the escape of General Miramon from Mexico; and if so, whether he has applied to the French Government for any explanation of such proceeding?