LORD BURGHLEYsaid, he rose to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether his attention has been drawn to the accounts which have appeared in the public journals of the horrible atrocities alleged to have been perpetrated by the Chinese upon the Taeping prisoners who had been given up for execution into the hands of the Mandarins by the English and French authorities; and whether the Government has received any official intelligence on the subject?
§ MR. LAYARDin reply said, his attention had been called by his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Aberdeen (Colonel Sykes) to a letter, without date, which appeared in an Indian newspaper, and which did not state where the alleged events took place. The letter was anonymous, nor was there any clue whatever to its writer. The letter appeared to him to bear internal evidence of being untrue, or, at all events, to have grossly exaggerated the facts. That part of the letter which 241 referred to the English prisoners who fell into the hands of the Chinese was entirely untrue, and he trusted that the rest was equally false. He felt confident that no Englishman would be a party in any way to the barbarous executions which were alleged to have taken place. The letter appeared to be a reply to certain statements in the Saturday Review. He had written to China for all the explanations that could be obtained on the subject, but he had a strong conviction that the letter was a series of gross exaggerations.