BRAZIL.—RESOLUTION.

HC Deb 06 March 1863 vol 169 cc1130-207

MR. BRAMLEY-MOORE

rose to call the attention of the House to the Papers and Correspondence laid upon the table with reference to Brazil, and to move the following Resolution:— That this House has learned with regret the interruption of amicable relations between this country and Brazil; and this House expresses the desire that Her Majesty's Government may take such measures to restore a cordial understanding between the two countries as may be consistent with the character and honour of this country, having at the same time a just regard to the dignity and honour of a friendly and independent power. The hon. Member said, he addressed the House on this occasion with great diffidence, but in the hope that he should receive the indulgence which was always extended to hon. Members under similar circumstances. The subject was one materially affecting the commercial interests and honour of this country, and the honour and dignity of an independent Power. The Empire of Brazil had been an independent State for forty years, and during that period, with very few interruptions, the most amicable relations had prevailed, and an extensive trade had been carried on, between the two countries. The only interruption to the harmony between the two nations had been on the passing of the Bill called Lord Aberdeen's Act, which had produced great excitement and an expression of feeling which he might say had not been got over to this day. That Act affected the very foundations of the independence of this Empire, for it assumed a power which had never been exercised, and which could never be justified even in our own courts. Brazil was governed by a constitutional Government, consisting of an Emperor, Lords, and Commons, on the model of the constitutional Government of England, the only difference being that in Brazil the peerage was not hereditary. No one had exerted himself more successfully to promote the permanent interests and happiness of Brazil than the present Emperor. He was advised by his Constitutional Ministers like the Sovereign of this country, and they were responsible for their acts to the Houses of Parliament. Our foreign trade with Brazil was of great importance, for it was well known to rank third in the order of extent and importance. The value of British property in Brazil probably amounted to £20,000,000 sterling, besides valuable lives, which had been jeopardized and endangered by the recent occurrences. The recent misunderstanding between this country and Brazil arose out of the wreck of a vessel called the Prince of Wales, in June, 1861. He-ports were rife that the wreck was plundered, and that the crew were murdered. A demand was in consequence made upon the Brazilian Government for compensation, on the ground that they had not used due diligence in procuring justice to be done. Any one, however, who would read the correspondence between the British Minister at Rio Janeiro and the Brazilian Government would see that steps had been taken, not only to protect pro- perty, but to recover the bodies. The vessel was wrecked on a low shore, where breakers were found for three or four miles in extent, rendering it impossible for any ship to be saved in a south-east gale. Several vessels were wrecked on that occasion, but it was only with respect to the Prince of Wales that any unpleasantness had arisen between the two Governments. It was alleged that sailors belonging to this vessel had been murdered; but of this there was no proof whatever; there was merely suspicion; and according to English law, until you prove a man guilty, you are bound to assume he is innocent. On this occasion the Consul, accompanied by a body of men from Rio Grande, went down to a place called Albardao, to look after the wreck and the bodies. As the word Albardao implies a city or village, it might be well to state that in the present instance it is the name of a district so thinly inhabited that a hut could be found only here and there, perhaps twenty miles apart from its nearest neighbour. It was reported that ten bodies had been washed ashore, and that only four were produced for interment. These four he believed were seen by the Consul, but there was no trace of the others. It had been said that they were buried on the shore; but if so, it would be impossible to find the place, be rapidly does the surface of the shore change. It was stated by Mr. Consul Vereker that he expressed surprise that all the bodies were not found in the locality. But it was a well-known fact, that when a wreck took place, the bodies of the crew might be washed to the most distant and extraordinary places imaginable. For instance, after the wreck of the Royal Charter, the body of one lady was found washed on shore at Belfast. Mr. Consul Vereker examined the four bodies, and there were no traces, as far as he could find, of any murder having been committed; on the contrary, he asserted the probability, from the appearance of the skull, of death having been caused in one instance by the falling of a mast or spar. The question was then referred to Admiral Warren, who gave his opinion upon the circumstances as they were laid before him by Mr. Consul Vereker. But Mr. Vereker took his own view of everything, nor would he admit the facts laid before him by the Brazilian authorities—in short, he would believe nothing that did not suit the purpose he had in view, to vindicate himself and pick a quarrel with the authorities of the country. Complaints were made of the dilatoriness of the Brazilian Government, but the fault really rested with the British authorities for allowing a matter to which they attached so much importance to sleep for such a length of time. When the wreck was first heard of, immediate steps were taken to recover the cargo and the bodies, and things went on in that way month after month, until, about seven or eight months after the occurrence, the British authorities applied for a further investigation, and asked that a naval officer should accompany those who were to conduct the inquiry. But the Governor General, while making no objection to the officer in his private character, very properly refused to allow him to accompany in an official capacity the persons who were to make the inquiry. With regard to the wreck, it was admitted that a portion of the cargo had been plundered. But when they came to analyse the nature of the cargo, they would find that the plunder must have been very trifling, and wholly inadequate to justify the measures that had been taken by Her Majesty's Minister in Rio. There was no doubt whatever, that if due diligence had been used by Mr. Consul Vereker, he could have traced the plunder, and found out the persons who were guilty. Mr. Vereker went down with an armed force, examined the few houses that were scattered about, and found no plunder whatever; and he then attempted to get out of the difficulty by saying that the people had removed the plunder into the thicket. But if so, why not have gone into the thicket, as he was accompanied by an armed force, and there was no reason for not following up the search? But it was attempted to fasten a stigma upon the inhabitants of that part of Brazil, to make it appear that they were wreckers and assassins; whereas he could assure the House that this was a libel on the inhabitants of Rio Grande, who were a brave and independent people, well known for their hospitality and generosity—so much so, that a man might travel through the whole of that country without a dollar in his pocket. He might give instances of the Rival in 1841, the Pym in 1848, the Ada in 1856, and several other vessels, to show that on every occasion the Brazilian authorities had done everything in their power to protect wrecks and save lives. In 1850, in the case of the Charles Buchan, the Brazilian steamer of war Amelia was placed at the disposal of Mr. Consul Morgan, and not only saved the cargo, but the whole of the crew; and in 1861, at the same time that the wreck of the Prince of Wales occurred, the William Peel was saved by the Brazilian authorities. No doubt an erroneous impression on the subject had been produced in the public mind, partly in consequence of the reiterated assertions that had been made throughout the correspondence, and partly in consequence of auxiliary statements made principally by a merchant of Glasgow named Stephens, who wrote some very strong letters alleging that the crew of the Prince of Wales had been murdered and the cargo plundered. Mr. Stephens, in a letter addressed to Lord Russell, dated January 7, 1862, stated that he had ascertained that the captain, his wife, and crew, had landed safely with his boats on the Brazil-inn territory, with his flag, chronometer, logbook, &c., with provisions and all other necessaries, except fire-arms or weapons of defence. Persons reading such a letter, would suppose that this man had the most authentic evidence that the crew had been murdered; but, when applied to by the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary (Mr. Layard) for his authority, he simply gave that of the Master of the Hound, a vessel which had been wrecked in the same gale as the Prince of Wales, but which, with its crew, had been saved by the Brazilian authorities. Now, this man put in a claim for compensation for the ship, cargo, and freight—freight which he had not earned; but in a subsequent letter he said, if Lord Russell would oblige the Brazilian Government to pay, he would at once bury in oblivion everything he had said respecting the murders—he would not make it public, nor say a word about it. It was perfectly clear, therefore, that the motive that had influenced Mr. Stephens in bringing this charge against the Brazilian people was to get money for his cargo, ship, and freight. With respect to the plunder alleged to have taken place, he had taken the trouble to send to Glasgow for a list of the cargo; and from its character it appeared impossible that any but a very small portion could ever have reached the shore. The cargo consisted of forty cases of merchandise, and some other things which would be rendered valueless as soon as they touched water; as, for instance, there were 150 tons of coal, 20 cases of nails, 12 cases of sewing cotton, 9 cases of paint colours, 100 cases of soda ash, 253 barrels of beer, 33 cases of glass, and 20 bales of canvas. Of a cargo of this nature it was not probable that any large portion would over reach the shore. Consul Vereker stated that from the things washed ashore it was clearly proved that the vessel was fitted up with great luxury. This was another of Consul Vereker's exaggerations, for which there appeared no foundation whatever. The vessel was only 315 tons register, and twenty-two years old, having been built in 1840, at Sunderland, where they were not in the habit, especially at that date, either of building very smart vessels, or of fitting them up with very great luxury. In the first instance, the demand for compensation amounted to £6,525, the cargo and stores being valued at £5,500, and the freight put down at £1,025. The value of the total entries as declared at Glasgow was only £3,500. But he saw no reason why even this sum should be demanded, as the utmost claim on the Brazilian Government ought to be for the portion supposed to be stolen.

He would now pass to another part of the subject. He desired to call particular attention to the despatch of Earl Russell, dated February 28th 1863, wherein the noble Earl observed to M. Moreira, that had a Brazilian ship been wrecked on the coast of Cornwall, and dead bodies been afterwards found on the shore, the coroner of the district would at once have had the dead bodies produced, and would have held an inquest on them; that had any magistrate appeared with an armed force to prevent this being done, twenty-four hours would not have elapsed before the magistrate would have been dismissed, and a military force would have been sent to protect the judicial proceedings of the coroner. He wondered how the noble Earl could have drawn a comparison between cases so dissimilar. There was no justice in comparing the coast of Great Britain with that of Brazil. The province of Rio Grande was as large as this country, and had only a population of 340,000 inhabitants. Nevertheless, he accepted the challenge of the noble Earl, and he would maintain that there were proceedings on our own coasts quite as bad as anything complained of on the coasts of Brazil. During the year before last, the wrecks on the coast of Great Britain amounted in number to 1,494, and out of these 210 were wrecks of foreign vessels, and he need not tell the House that many of them were plundered, and in no case could he find that any compensation was ever made or had been claimed by any foreign Government. There might possibly be some exceptional case, in which compensation was obtained, but he had been unable to discover it, and therefore he must take it as the rule that compensation had neither been demanded nor paid. In reference to the state of things on the coast of Cornwall, he would read to the House an extract (Haydn, p. 559) in which it was stated, that— When a wreck took place, thousands of the inhabitants of the coast assembled with axes, hatchets, crowbars, and other instruments; men, women, and children fought by habit for plunder, utterly regardless of the sufferers. That description was written about six years ago. It was well known that there was a time when it had been, and even now was, occasionally the practice, not only in Cornwall, but on other parts of the coast of this country, to use stalking horses to lure vessels on shore, in order that the wrecks might be plundered. The same, or worse, had been the case in the colonies. It was notorious that in the Bahama Islands a great many men lived by the plunder alone of wrecks, and he was not aware that any compensation had ever been obtained by the losers. On the St. Lawrence wrecks took place every year; and in one locality the party receiving the plunder actually turned the wrecked ship into a store, and sold portions of the wrecked cargo to passers-by.

He would now pass to the important subject of the negotiations at Rio. By reference to the Correspondence he found that great delays had occurred, more on the part of the British than the Brazilian authorities, in bringing the matter to a conclusion; and at last, when all might have been settled, the British Minister at Rio brought on by a precipitate proceeding most disastrous consequences. Great excitement existed there; and, finally, instructions were sent out by Earl Russell to Mr. Christie to make an offer of arbitration with respect to the case of the Prince of Wales. The instructions of Earl Russell would be found at page 95 of the Correspondence, but unfortunately the offer of arbitration was accompanied by conditions which the Brazilian Government could not accept; for one of these conditions was, that they must first acknowledge that they were in the wrong. After this, the extreme measure of reprisals was taken; but Mr. Christie, becoming alarmed at what he had done, and at the excitement which it had caused in Rio Janeiro, declared his willingness to consider the propriety of referring the matters in dispute to impartial arbitration. That concession, however, should have been made earlier. Had it been made in the first instance, on the receipt of Earl Russell's despatch, there could be no doubt that it would have been accepted on the other side, and that the disastrous consequences which had since arisen might have been avoided. On the 30th of December Mr. Christie ordered reprisals. On the 31st he proposed arbitration, and on the 3rd of January the memorandum of arbitration was agreed to. Had there only been a prudent and cautious man on the spot as the representative of the British Government, the matter might have been at once amicably arranged, and the lives and property of Englishmen would never have been endangered. He would not go further into details; he would only observe that it might be years before the consequences of the uncalled-for interference of Mr. Christie were obliterated from the minds of the Brazilians. There was no other country in the world with which we ought more anxiously to cultivate intimate relations than Brazil. It was the only country in South America which had a monarchical Government, and which had kept faith in its foreign engagements. This had attracted British capital to Brazil, which had obtained its loans on better terms than other countries from European states. Much British capital had been invested in Brazilian railways, and almost all Brazilian stocks were at a premium, which showed the confidence entertained in the loyalty and honesty of the Brazilian Government.

He had now to touch on a delicate subject; but when he considered the magnitude of the interests at stake, he felt he must not shrink from exposing the true state of the case. The whole of the mischief in Brazil had arisen from the conduct of Mr. Consul Vereker, who had distorted almost everything he had written home about. This would be shown by reference to page 202, where Mr. Christie, in a despatch to Earl Russell, states that Mr. Vereker, when he came from Rio Grande on his way home, was in a state of nervous excitement, with a delusion about attempts to assassinate him. Now, it was beyond a question that that excitement was not due to the visit to the wreck, but had existed for a long period; and he would ask his hon. Friend (Mr. Layard) whether he did not know that Mr. Vereker had been taken by Mr. Christie himself to a medical man in Rio Janeiro, in order to ascertain the state of his mind, and whether he was not sent away from Rio Janeiro on that account, landed at Bahia, returned to Rio, and sent away a second time? Yet it was upon the assertions of a man of disordered mind, who could not go from one place to another without dread of assassination, that the British Government had made reprisals upon Brazil. He learned from a letter which he had that day received from Rio Janeiro, that a very unpleasant feeling still existed there, and that a very unpleasant correspondence was going on between the Governments of Brazil and Great Britain. He would not say that Mr. Christie had wilfully exaggerated or misrepresented what had occurred; but his behaviour certainly gave some colour to General Webb's charges against him. In a letter to Earl Russell, General Webb the American Minister, said that Mr. Christie had quarrelled with the Envoys of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, and with the Pope's Nuncio; and that, lastly, he had had himself to interfere in order to protect one of Mr. Christie's own attachés. "All the circumstances," added the General, "go to prove a reckless disregard of truth on the part of Air. Christie, which is not characteristic of a gentleman, and certainly not commendable in a representative of the English nation." That was not the way in which they were accustomed to hear a British representative described.

He hoped that the noble Lord at the head of the Government would adopt such a course as would restore the cordial feeling which formerly existed in Brazil towards Great Britain, among all classes, from the Emperor downwards. He trusted that instructions would be sent out by the mail to-morrow calculated to conciliate Brazil and re-establish cordial relations between the two countries. Brazil would be happy to receive friendly advances on our part, for she was comparatively helpless in our hands; but as we were great and powerful, we ought also to be just and generous. He disclaimed all party feeling—he was acting quite independently in bringing the matter forward—and he had endeavoured to frame his Resolution in such terms as might make it acceptable to Her Majesty's Government. In conclusion, he had only to express his hope that the next mail would not be allowed to depart without some step being taken on the part of Her Majesty's Ministers to reconcile the interests which were now jeopardized between the two countries. In conclusion, thanking the House for its attention, he would now move formally the Resolution.

LORD ROBERT MONTAGU

seconded the Motion.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House has learned with regret the interruption of amicable relations between this Country and Brazil; and this House expresses the desire that Majesty's Government may take such measures to restore a cordial understanding between the two Countries as may be consistent with the character and honour of this Country, having, at the same time, a just regard to the dignity and honour of a friendly and independent Power, —instead thereof.

MR. COLLIER

said, that when the hon. Member first put his Resolution on the paper he gave notice of an Amendment which, he thought, would better express the sense of the House. The question now came before them in another form. In the ordinary course of business they should now go into Committee of Supply; but the hon. Member interposed and said in effect that they ought not to go into Committee until they had passed his Resolution. It was incumbent upon the hon. Gentleman to show some strong reason why the House should depart from the usual order of business. He confessed, for his own part, that having read the Resolution, he had great difficulty in understanding it. He could not make up his mind whether or not the hon. Member meant to censure the Government for the course they had adopted. If the Resolution was intended as one of censure, he should contend that the censure was undeserved; if it was not a Motion of censure, he saw no reason why the House should pass it; while, in either event, there was no good ground for the House abstaining from resolving itself into Committee of Supply.

Before dealing with the facts of the case, it might be convenient that he should state the principles of international law which appeared to him to apply to it. Vattel said, under the head of "Reprisals," that a Sovereign demanded justice or made reprisals, not only for his own concerns, but also for those of his subjects, whom he was bound to protect, and whose cause was the cause of the nation. The cause of reprisals, he added, ought to be just—they ought to be founded on either an actual denial of justice, or one which there was good reason to apprehend. Vattel subsequently stated that reprisals might be resorted to if justice were denied or unreasonably delayed, or if the decisions of the tribunals were manifestly unjust. When a claim was made by one country against another on account of an injury sustained by citizens of the first, it was no answer to say—"Our population are lawless, and we cannot restrain them. Our tribunals are incompetent, and they have not the means of enforcing the attendance of witnesses, of punishing the guilty, or of restoring the goods which have been stolen." The reply was this— "You are bound to maintain an effective police and an effective magistracy; and if, on account of default in your duty, our subjects have sustained injury without redress, we have a claim upon you." The imperfection of international law consisted in the fact that when one nation had a claim against another there was no tribunal to enforce it. The injured nation, therefore, must take the law into its own hands; and it did so cither by reprisals, which was the recognised mode by which a nation righted itself, or by resorting to the dread alternative of war. It appeared to him that the case against Brazil might be thus summarized—"An English, vessel was wrecked upon your coast. All on board her perished. Probably some of the crew were murdered. It is certain that their bodies were stripped and plundered. It is admitted by yourselves that wholesale robbery took place upon the cargo and the effects of the passengers. Those functionaries in the locality to whom you intrust the the administration of justice, for whose conduct you are responsible, whose duty it was immediately to repair to the spot to succour the survivors, if any, and to protect the cargo, or at least to take prompt measures for the apprehension of the offenders and the restitution of the stolen goods, and to hold an immediate inquest on the dead bodies, were in all probability accomplices in the atrocious crimes which they were bound to investigate and punish. It is certain that they failed in their duty." ["No!"] Yes; he would prove it by the facts stated in the correspondence. "For fourteen months we waited, during which time we exhausted every form of remonstrance, application, and intreaty. In the result we have not obtained justice, and we therefore make a claim against you." That was our case against the Brazilian Government, and he undertook to prove it by the correspondence, and even by the admissions of the Brazilian Government themselves.

The Prince of Wales was wrecked on the coast of Albardao. The hon. Member for Lincoln, like the agents of the Brazilian Government, had described the inhabitants of that coast as a simple, primitive, inoffensive, and hospitable race. Was that, indeed, their real character? He held in his hand a newspaper, The Echo do Sul, published in Rio Grande, which gave a rather different account of them. It described Albardao as "that classical district: of depredations, robberies, assassinations, and stranglings." Such was the character of the people as drawn by one of their own newspapers. Gentlemen connected with insurance offices had told him that the character of this coast was notorious, so much so, indeed, that if a vessel were lost upon it, small hopes were entertained of seeing any thing more of either crew or cargo. He would prove, from the statements of the Brazilian authorities themselves, that such was the character of the inhabitants of Albardao; and if the fact were so, then he contended that if the Brazilian authorities had not instituted an efficient magistracy and police long before this, it showed a recklessness and disregard of human life and property little creditable to them. The Prince of Wales was wrecked on the 9th of June, 1861. There were three functionaries in the immediate neighbourhood, to whom was intrusted the administration of justice, and for whose conduct the Brazilian Government was responsible. The first was Senhor Scares, who was described as a justice of the peace and a man of great property and influence, exercising an extensive sway over the inhabitants of the coast, who were represented as being his dependents and retainers. He appeared to have occupied the position of a feudal chieftain in the olden time. The next was Faustino, a son-in-law of Soares; he was called the inspector of the district. The third was Gonçalves, the sub-delegate of police at a town six leagues distant from the scene of the wreck. It was manifestly the duty of these three functionaries immediately to repair to the spot to succour the survivors, if any, to hold an inquest on the bodies of the dead, to protect the cargo, or, if that were impossible, to take prompt measures for the apprehension of the thieves and the restitution of the stolen property. On the most favourable supposition they did nothing; but that supposition was far too favourable. Let the House see what they did. The information of the wreck was given at the house of Soares, who lived four miles from the spot, on the 9th. What did Soares do? He absented himself, and was found at Rio Grande on the 12th. He let out casually in conversation that some English bodies had been washed ashore. That was brought to the ears of our Consul, Mr. Vereker, who immediately supposed that there had been a wreck. Soares was questioned, but he denied all knowledge of the circumstance. The hon. Gentleman opposite had been ill-advised in the comments he had made upon the conduct of English magistrates. There was not a Cornish magistrate to be found who, on receiving information of a wreck and of dead bodies being washed on shore, would absent himself from his duty and deny all knowledge of the wreck. A most unfair attack had been made upon Consul Vereker. On the same principle as the Brazilian Government had whitewashed the innocent inhabitants of the coast, they had thought it necessary to blacken the English Consul, because he had performed his duty zealously but inconveniently. Was it fair to blame that gentleman because, on hearing of the circumstances, he immediately proceeded to the spot and made every inquiry into them? The hon. Member said that Mr. Vereker laboured under delusions; and it appeared that some months afterwards he had an attack of brain fever, which for a time, no doubt, affected his intellect to a certain degree, but he had since recovered. That attack was produced, in a great measure, by the excitement which this occurrence caused him. He was deeply affected, as it was probable he would be, by the murder of his fellow-countrymen, and by the apathy and indifference—to say nothing more— of the Brazilian authorities. He used his utmost endeavours, but in vain, to goad them to exertion. Throughout his correspondence, however, there was not a single expression betraying the least symptom of mental aberration; and it was not creditable to impugn his character because he had endeavoured to dis- charge his duty. Mr. Vereker obtained the assistance of the municipal judge; they went to the scene of the wreck, and proceeded to the house of Scares, the justice of the peace, who had then absconded. He found the daughter of Scares there, (the wife of Faustino, the inspector of police), who gave him an inhospitable reception. The Consul was evidently regarded as a most inconvenient visitor— and why? Because he found stolen goods in the house of Soares. He found two bran-new Bibles there, which certainly belonged to the crew, if not to the captain, and which were entirely undamaged by sea water. He also found there two empty crates for Manchester manufactured goods, which had recently been broken open. He went next morning to the shore, which he discovered to be strewed, for a great distance, with boxes and bales and fragments of the wreck. Some had been broken open by being dashed against the rocks, others bore traces of having been broken open a few hours before, the marks of the tools used for the purpose and the smell of turpentine being both fresh upon them. Faustino professed to have kept guard over them; but if Mr. Vereker was right, his guard must have been like that of the wolf over the sheep. The Consul also described the state of two boats, the long-boat and the gig, lying on the shore. They were near together, their prows being towards the shore. The long boat was but a little damaged at the bow, as if it had struck hard against the sand, and the gig was altogether undamaged. The oars of the boats were uninjured. Either in or close to the boats Mr. Vereker found certain trunks and boxes belonging to the crew lying broken open, and with the paper linings of the inside quite dry. If they had been washed ashore, it was not likely the linings would have remained dry. They must manifestly have been brought ashore in the boats, in which also it was almost certain that many of the unhappy crew had reached the shore alive. But the evidence did not stop there. Mr. Vereker was told that ten bodies in all were washed on shore, and that fact was admitted by the Brazilian authorities, He applied to the inspector Faustino to be allowed to see the bodies; but that official objected. When Mr. Vereker pointed out to Faustino the marks of instruments upon the opened cases, showing that they had been forcibly broken open, he did not answer him. The municipal judge promised an immediate examination of the bodies. Faustino was then present, but he quickly joined his followers, and after appearing to be engaged in earnest conversation for a time, he returned, saying it was impossible to go to the place where the bodies were that night. The municipal judge then declared that he had no power to do what the Consul required. Faustino, the inspector of the district, whose duty it was admitted to have been to hold an inquest on the bodies, not only omitted to hold one, but concealed from our Consul the locality in which the bodies lay. Nor was that all. On our Consul asking to see the bodies, and requesting the municipal judge to hold an inquest, Faustino interfered by armed force to prevent its being held. No doubt, in a despatch from M, Moreira, containing more special pleading than he had known of at the Temple for some time, it was said that Faustino did not prevent the inquest being held by armed force, because the force of the municipal judge was as strong as his; yet at all events, between those two functionaries, the inquest was not held, but was postponed till it was wholly useless. He would refer to one or two of the Brazilian despatches, in order to give the Brazilian account of the way in which justice was administered. Mr. Vereker, being unable to obtain a sight of the bodies, returned to Rio Grande, and very properly required the authorities to direct the bodies to be brought there, and an inquest to be held upon them. He had applied first to the municipal judge to order such an inquest; that officer said it was not his business, but the business of the delegate of police to do so; the delegate of police replied, that it was the business of the municipal judge; and thus the matter was bandied between them. The result of these disputes was, that the offenders remained unpunished, and gained time to conceal the product of their criminality. Well, an inquest was held on four bodies—only on four. There were two inquests alluded to in the papers; but hon. Members would find if they examined them carefully, that there were two inquests held at different places on the same four bodies. Now, nothing could be more unsatisfactory than those inquests. In the first place, one of those who held the inquiry was a brother-in-law of Soares. The result was this: — They said that death was caused by drowning; but they also stated that the bodies were in such a state; of decomposition that it was almost impossible to ascertain the cause of death; and when the House recollected that more than a fortnight had elapsed in a tropical climate, they would be able to see that the inquest could not have been satisfactory. But a few awkward facts transpired. Faustino had said that all the bodies had been buried, and yet it turned out that of these four bodies three were unburied at a distance from the shore. How came they there? It was possible to conceive, that if a dead body had been washed on shore, it might have been drawn inland for the purpose of burial; but it was difficult to suppose that a body could be drawn in shore for any other purpose than burial. There were three unburied bodies, stripped of nearly all their clothes, no watches, rings, trinkets, or papers— they were stripped and plundered. He was afraid the inference was too strong that these four bodies were a portion of the crew who possibly had escaped the slaughter of their fellow-countrymen, and who, having got a certain distance inland, were overtaken and murdered. An inquest was held on these four bodies, and one or two awkward facts transpired. It turned out that the skulls of one or two were fractured. It was true that the injury might have arisen from the head coming in collision with a rock—but that was merely a supposition; while, on the other hand, the injury was quite consistent, at all events, with murder. There was also an expression used on the inquest to the effect that the bodies presented signs of strangulation. It was quite true that they subsequently explained strangulation to mean something else quite different; but the Brazilians had a way of explaining away every fact which turned out awkward. Now, so much for the inquest on these bodies, which at that time was a mere mockery, the delay having rendered the mischief irreparable.

If the House would permit him, he would now call their attention to one or two extracts from the papers, which showed the way in which justice proceeded. Mr. Vereker, after the first inquest, requested that a further inquiry might be held. In page 16 would be found a letter from Senhor Garcez, the delegate of police, in which he states he had done everything possible for the advancement of the process—they always said that. It was necessary, however, he stated, to have the deposition of the witnesses, and this could not be obtained, because it was necessary that various persons of Albardao and the neighbourhood should be notified to appear in his city (Rio Grande do Sul), and they all refused to attend. What was this but an admission that the tribunal was incompetent to procure the attendance of the witnesses? He did not care whether this was true or not; for whether the Brazilian tribunals were corrupt or incompetent, there was their own admission that justice could not be done, and in that case the State became liable for any claim that might be made by a foreign Government. Senhor Garcez also admitted that "the cargo of the barque was all sacked." Senhor Callado, secretary of the police in Porto Alegre, writing to Senhor Garcez, used this language— If the witnesses should refuse to swear the truth against the wealthy inhabitants of the district, who, according to your opinions, are the principal criminals, they ought to be processed. The only offender who had been caught was Mariano Pinto, a small criminal, and he had not been tried to this day. ["No, no!"] Yes. If hon. Members read the despatch from Mr. Christie, dated September 18, 1862, they would find, that although the Brazilian authorities talked of eleven men as being in custody, they all ran away on processes being issued against them. Mariano Pinto was in truth the small minnow who had alone been landed; the sharks had all broken through the rotten net of Brazilian justice. In the only examination of Scares, on the authority of Mr. Bailey, the predecessor of Mr. Christie, and a gentleman against whom the Brazilians made no imputation, we were told that Consul Vereker had not the opportunity of being present. It was now pretended that no evidence could be obtained against Scares, but they conducted the only examination of him in the absence of Mr. Vereker, he being the man that could have deposed that he found stolen goods in the house of Soares. That was the way in which they conducted criminal justice in Brazil, so that, as Mr. Bailey further on said— It is much to be hoped that the Government will punish some of the local authorities, who have been clearly guilty of most culpable negligence. He added that— The administration of justice is extremely faulty, and that an acquittal is almost invariably granted to those who can pay for it. Another despatch from the delegate of police, dated December 19, contained a clear admission of the incompetency of the Brazilian tribunals— I used every diligence," he wrote, "to know of some other persons who may have robbed the cargo of the English barque; but all was unsuccessful; it resulting thence that the real robbers will remain, perhaps, unpunished, without justice having means to discover and process them. The same document dwelt upon the difficulty of making the witnesses resident at Albardao attend and give evidence; their repugnance to appear before judicial authority, and the want of resources to compel their attendance—the first and most necessary function of all tribunals. Practically, nothing was done until the arrival of the gunboat. The Marquis Abrantes made a great parade of the constant endeavours which the central Government had made to induce the local Government to do its duty; but from an interview which took place with Senhor Rocha, the President of the province, on the 6th of April, it appeared that "no communication had reached him from the Brazilian Government" up to that time. The next day the President, having become apparently better informed of the circumstances, declared that he would direct the chief of police to undertake a searching inquiry, but that it would be difficult to find proofs, in consequence of the time that had elapsed. Of course it would he, and that was what they had all along complained of. However, another inquiry was ordered; but there being an objection to recognise Captain Saumarez as appearing in an official capacity, that officer consented to be present as a private individual. Captain Saumarez waited two or three weeks, but no investigation was entered upon; and, being then obliged to leave, it was admitted that the investigation had been purposely delayed till his departure. Well, another inquiry was instituted; but Consul Vereker complained, that the inquiry which was so entered upon, was held, not by the chief of police, as promised, but intrusted to a delegate with no powers, who might easily be frightened by the magistrates and powerful delinquents upon the spot. The irresistible impression left on the mind of the Consul was, that the proceedings were not undertaken for the purpose of discovering the truth, but rather of satisfying the Brazilian and British Governments by hushing up, through a mock inquiry, that part of the question which related to violence supposed to have been offered to the crew. The chief commissioner of police next appeared upon the scene himself—and this was one of the clearest and most manifest shams of the whole. His proceedings were thus described in the Echo do Sul— The chief of police, accompanied by the ensign and two or three police soldiers, went yesterday morning, and with luggage, outside the town. We believe that his Excellency proceeded to Albardao, the classical district of depredations, robberies, assassinations, and stranglings. The paper proceeded to say— The distinguished chief of police goes very late in search of the criminals; Adding the significant expression— We believe, however, that if his Excellency should so desire, he will still meet with many vestiges of the crime. Instead of going to Albardao, the chief of police only proceeded one-third of the way, and returned to town the following day. But the Consul, whom it was his object to deceive, found out the circumstances. The chief of police went away again, and after his departure Dr. Canarim, the delegate of police, informed Mr. Vereker that proofs had been obtained against six or seven individuals for plundering the cargo, but that no arrest had taken place, as others of greater influence were involved, and it was feared that the principals would escape if those of less note were prosecuted. This was reversing the course adopted in England, where it was always sought to reach the principals through the agents, the latter being frequently induced to give evidence for the prosecution. Dr. Canarim, who was the only one of the authorities that had shown the slightest desire to do justice, and who might possibly have done justice if he had not been thwarted by other authorities, persons in high positions, added, that the sub-delegate, Gonçalves, had been dismissed in consequence of not having performed his duties in connection with the wreck of the Prince of Wales, and that Faustino da Silveira, the inspector, who had been nominated to the same office, had been removed and prosecuted for his proceedings. Up to that moment, it had been contended that these officers had acted in the most exemplary manner. For a long time the Marquis of Abrantes would not admit that the officers had been dismissed for culpable conduct, because he knew that in that case the Government would by the law of nations be bound to make reparation; he said that the sub-delegate had been slightly negligent, had lost the prestige necessary for the discharge of his duty, and had therefore been dismissed. With regard to Faustino, he (Mr. Collier) was sorry to say that the Marquis knew very well, when he stated that the inspector had been dismissed for a slight negligence, that he had really been dismissed because he had not arrested a person who had been found with stolen property in his possession. That fact oozed out subsequently, for it appeared from the report of the chief of police, that Faustino had been dismissed for having thought he might let go one of the implicated persons, who afterwards escaped. Was it not manifest, then, that the Brazilian authorities had delayed the inquest till it was too late, that they had abstained from affording the protection which they were bound to afford, and that they had taken no real steps to apprehend the guilty persons and bring them to justice? For fourteen months only one man was arrested, and that man to this moment had not been tried; the great offenders had been suffered to escape. It was true, they had dismissed the inspector and the sub-delegate, but the main offender, Scares, in whose house the stolen property was found, who denied all knowledge of the wreck, and who had absconded when it was his duty to be present, was not only not prosecuted, but he was not accused; he still retained his office of justice of the peace, still represented the Brazilian Crown in that quarter, still exercised sway upon the coast; and those unfortunate persons who might be afterwards wrecked there, were to be still left to the tender mercies of that robber chieftain and his retainers.

These facts were conclusive against the Brazilian Government. It had been shown that justice had been denied, that it had been unreasonably delayed, and in either event, according to the principles of international law, a just claim arose against the Brazilian Government. He would not discuss the amount of the claim—it was enough to say, that Her Majesty's Government had always been willing to refer that point to arbitration. Her Majesty's Government would have been wanting in their duty if they any longer delayed to obtain by force that which had been denied to justice. He could not help thinking, if Government had quietly acquiesced in this denial of justice, there were many hon. Members opposite who would accuse them of indifference to British interests. He could quite suppose an hon. Gentleman opposite leading the attack, and asking, "Why we send our Consuls and Ministers abroad; why maintain fleets in all parts of the world; is it not to protect the lives, property, and liberties of Englishmen?" But what was the use of Consuls, Ministers, and fleets, if, when a great wrong had been committed upon British subjects, instead of demanding justice and insisting upon it, we allowed ourselves to be put off by words, subterfuge, and evasion? It appeared to him that Her Majesty's Government had acted in accordance with the principles of international law, and in accordance with the policy which the greatest statesmen of this country had pursued. It was upon this policy that Cromwell had acted, who, whatever his crimes, had almost redeemed them and rendered his usurpation illustrious by his resolution to enforce the just rights of Englishmen in every part of the world. Such was the policy of all our leading statesmen—of the noble Lord at the head of the Government —a policy which had been approved by the House thirteen years ago, when the noble Lord insisted upon redress from the Government of Greece in the case of Mr. Finlay and Don Pacifico. But the case against the Brazilian Government was much stronger, the outrage was of greater magnitude, and the tribunals of the country had been appealed to in vain. In the course of a long debate no one could be found to maintain that if recourse had been had to the ordinary tribunals and the appeal had failed, a conclusive case would not have been made out against the Government of Greece. It was only in the last resort that we had appealed to physical force to induce the Brazilian Government to do their duty. It was sometimes said, "Show forbearance to weak States." But weak States must learn not to presume too much upon their weakness. There were limits to the aggressions of the weak and to the forbearance of the strong. It was almost impossible to suppose that a case of this kind could have arisen with a strong or a highly-civilized Government. Did any one suppose that on the coast of France or America a justice of the peace could be found who was the possessor of stolen goods, and another who would resist by armed force the holding of an inquest? Had we such a strong case against France or America, he would venture to say, public opinion would scarcely brook the delay or the forbearance which had been shown to the Government of Brazil, and that hon. Gentlemen opposite would take Her Majesty's Government to task for having shown it. The interruption of friendly relations was an evil to be regretted, but it was an evil which, he believed, was past. Still, the evil of submitting to such treatment would be far greater, because such a course would permanently affect the security and comfort of every British resident in Brazil. He could not conceive a greater evil than that which would result if the House, by affirming the Resolution of the hon. Gentleman, should allow the intelligence to go out to British residents in foreign countries, and especially in countries half civilized, that the redress which they had a right to expect from England was now rendered precarious by the House of Commons. In a spirit friendly to the Brazilians, he trusted that this lesson would not be lost on them. If they aspired to take a place among civilized nations, they must no longer intrust such men as Soares, Faustino, and Gonçalves with the administration of justice, nor plead to other nations that their tribunals are incompetent. If the noble Secretary for Foreign Affairs should, by the course he has pursued, have induced the Brazilian authorities to take measures to protect shipwrecked mariners and merchandise on the coast of Albardao, he would have done a service not only to this country but to humanity.

LORD ROBERT CECIL

said, the question was not whether the inhabitants of Albardao were robbers—not whether the barque Prince of Wales was plundered— nor even whether or not the tribunals of Brazil were or were not beyond our reach —the question simply was, whether the Brazilian Government had done anything which justified this country in adopting against that Government a measure of force, which, if resisted, would have occasioned war. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Collier) had made a great deal of a supposed fact, that the tribunals of Brazil were incompetent to render justice; but the hon. and learned Gentleman would scarcely have ventured to dwell so long on that point if he had been a responsible supporter of the Government. Did the hon. and learned Gentleman mean to make war on every country where the tribunals were unable to afford redress to English citizens? The hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of the bribery of Brazil. Was there bribery nowhere else? Was there not bribery in Russia; and yet would the hon. and learned Gentleman propose to go to war with Russia if any Englishman failed to obtain justice in a Russian court of law? Was Brazil, the only power that could not enforce its criminal laws? Look at the present state of the South of Italy. Suppose that in the South of Italy an Englishman were carried by brigands into the mountains, and the Neapolitan authorities were unable to rescue the captive, did the hon. and learned Gentleman mean to say that England should seize a number of Italian ships in retaliation? Albardao was a strip of land on the southern extremity of the huge empire of Brazil and where in consequence the administration of justice was attended with extreme difficulty. As always happened in frontier districts, where two jurisdictions clashed, criminal classes congregated, as they could in such places more easily escape from the penalty of crime. The same was the case on the border of our own English counties. He believed that there was a great number of wreckers among that population, but the moment there appeared a chance of investigation the offenders crossed the frontier into the republic of Uruguay, and prosecution then became impossible. The wreck which gave rise to the present debate having occurred on a thinly - populated coast twenty miles from the nearest town, the police authorities, whose duty it was to investigate and report on such matters, did not arrive on the spot until two days after; and it would then have been impossible to recover the stolen property or arrest the offenders, as no doubt, they had fled over the border. All that took place after was perfectly immaterial. Consul Vereker, who went down to the coast, complained that the Brazilian authorities were slow in their proceedings; but that surely, could not be said to constitute a case of war. Consul Vereker demanded an inquest, and after some delay, in conformity with Brazilian law, the inquest was held; but of course it was perfectly useless, as far as the punishment of the wreckers or murderers was concerned, as they were far away over the frontier. This was the broad outline of the whole case, with the exception of Consul Vereker's impalpable suggestions and suspicions. The Consul had been defended by the hon. and learned Gentleman, and it was said that the Brazilian Government descended to run Consul Vereker down, describing him as mad; but there was the testimony of Consul Vereker's superior, Mr. Christie, in connection with that point. Mr. Christie wrote to Earl Russell— Your Lordship will understand the allusion made to Mr. Vereker's fallibility on questions of assassination. It is, of course, known to the Brazilian Government, as it is known to your Lordship, that Mr. Vereker, when he lately came to Rio from Rio Grande, on his way home, was in a state of nervous excitement with a delusion about attempts to assassinate him. If, therefore, the British Government had been betrayed into the commission of an act of violence, it was because they had acted on the testimony of a man who was described by his own superior as being subject to delusion. Take the case of Soares. Consul Vereker stated that he found in his house a Bible which had evidently been taken from the wreck, not wetted and in a good condition, and upon this the accusation against Scares was founded. Now, did wreckers steal Bibles? Was that the kind of plunder about which they were most anxious? Why, it would be obvious, that when a wreck took place on a coast like that, an article such as a Bible might be carried to the chief family in the place without implying the least criminality. In this matter of reprisals the House must be guided by the masters of international law. Wheaton, the American jurist, said that reprisals could only be made in a case if clear and obvious; and Dr. Phillimore said— Letters of reprisal are not to be granted without a full knowledge of the causes that justify them. Moreover, it must be res minime dubia in which justice has been denied; and it must have been absolutely denied by all the tribunals of the country before which the cause could be brought. An erroneous sentence conscientiously given by free judges, unbiassed and unintimidated by any judicial authority, affords no just ground for reprisals. The fact of finding the Bible Consul Vereker kept to himself, and there was no evidence in the papers that it was ever mentioned to the Brazilian authorities; therefore it could not be said that there had been a denial of justice. As to the packing-cases, they were never mentioned at the time, nor until some months afterwards, when these delusions were creeping upon the mind of Mr. Vereker, when he remembered that nine months before he had seen some empty packing-cases in the house of Senhor Soares. Was that evidence on which you could go to war? Then they were told that Soares had absconded, but where did he abscond to? Why, to the capital of the province, Rio Grande, where all the authorities, judicial and military resided, and he was himself the first person to inform Mr. Consul Vereker of the wreck. The hon. and learned Gentleman tried to persuade the House that because Senhor Soares was at Rio Grande on the 12th, the wreck having taken place on the 8th, all inquiry was delayed by those four days. But the inspector whose business it was to deal with the matter had received the intelligence, had gone down to the coast, and was riding the eighty miles which were necessary to bring him to Rio Grande. After the principal offenders had escaped across the frontier, a delay of three months, six months, or eighteen months was of no consequence, because all subsequent proceedings were useless. There was, undoubtedly, a little delay. The inspector heard of the wreck on the 10th, and be did not reach Rio Grande until the 14th, and it was admitted by the Brazilians themselves, that if he had ridden faster, he might have been there a day earlier. It was true, that if that delay had been avoided, there might have been a better chance of catching the offenders; but before the House decided that on that account the conduct of the Brazilian Government justified a war, let them consider the length to which such a doctrine would carry them. There was no doubt, that owing to some delay on the part of the Foreign Office in applying to the Alabama the English law, the United States had suffered severely; but would they not have thought it the extremity of madness if on that account the United States had made reprisals upon our vessels? The difference was, that in the one case a strong Power was dealing with a weak one; and in the other, two strong Powers were dealing with each other.

But the act of violence which had been committed at Rio Janeiro was not founded solely upon the affair of the Prince of Wales. There was another case to which the hon. and learned Gentleman had thought it expedient not to allude, but about which a few words must be said. There was now before the King of the Belgians, for his arbitration, the most ridiculous case that had ever appeared in an English blue-bonk. Three young gentlemen, one of them a chaplain from the ship Forte, went upon an "outing" on the Brazilian territory. They were in plain clothes; and as they were going a long distance, he might assume that they were shooting jackets, or something analogous. They went to a public house, and drank half a bottle of brandy and two bottles of wine. There was a good deal of dispute as to whether the wine was light claret or heavy burgundy, and the King of the Belgians would have to inquire into that question. If it was claret, such as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been good enough to give the country, no impeachment could be made upon the sobriety of these gallant sailors; but on the other hand, if it was heavy wine, remembering that they had taken a long walk, and that the sun was hot, he thought that he might assume that their hearts were merry within them. The matter did not, however, rest upon à priori probabilities; an Englishman, named Robert Bennett, who kept a public-house, had made a deposition, which appeared at page 66 of the blue-book, in which he stated that these three gentlemen, when returning from their hotel, passed his house, and that they were then singing merrily. The Brazilian authorities asserted that they knocked the passengers about, and interfered with an old woman upon a horse. He did not think that there was any proof of that; and they themselves said that they were in an amiable frame of mind, and were distributing coppers to Blacks. That was evidence, not that they were drunk—no British sailor ever was— but that they were in a merry and generous humour. When they arrived at the post of a sentry, they went up to him, and one of them addressed him in bad Spanish. The sentry did not understand bad Spanish, and took it for a bit of Portuguese chaff, which was supposed, he could not see why, to be insulting to sentries. The sentry marched up to them in a very warlike attitude; and then began the conflict of testimony which was usual in the case of all encounters between the police and persons whom they arrested. The sentry declared that the three young gentlemen flourished their sticks; this they denied, stating that they had no sticks, although the chaplain had an umbrella; but they did not deny that the chaplain might have flourished his umbrella. They were arrested and taken to the watch-house; and if they had been ordinary travellers, he did not suppose that the greatest stickler for the doctrine of Civis Romanus sum would have thought that there was much cause of complaint; but they were officers of the ship Forte, and, as representing the Majesty of England, were entitled to more consideration at the hands of the authorities. The officials, however, said that they did not know that they were officers of that ship; and although the gentlemen said that they repeatedly gave their names and addresses, yet it appeared that they could speak no Portuguese, and the police could understand nothing else. It was true that an interpreter was sent for, but he did not mend matters much, for he was a German, and could speak nothing but German. Mr. Pringle declared that he knew German; but if he spoke with the Hanoverian pronunciation taught in this country, it was probable that be would not be understood by men accustomed only to the vernacular German spoken in Austria. Müller, the interpreter, said that he did not understand the gentlemen; they declared that he did; but in this conflict of evidence probably hon. Members would think that Müller was the best judge. It further appeared that of the whole party the chaplain was the most disorderly and unreasonable. But, be that as it might, none of them could speak Portuguese, nor did they succeed much better with German. The consequence was that they were obliged to have recourse to gesticulations; one of them, a midshipman, who were a naval waistcoat, pointing in an especial manner to his buttons. Now, be would ask the House whether, if a case of an analogous character had taken place in England, and three foreigners in dirty shooting-jackets were taken up for striking the police, and, having been brought before an inspector began, after jabbering a good deal in a language which no one could understand, to point violently to their stomachs, any great breach of international law would have been committed if the inspector did not well know what they were about? He was, of course, perfectly alive to the value of the Civis Romanus doctrine, but he at the same time was altogether opposed to our going to war because the authorities of a foreign country did not comprehend what a midshipman meant by an appeal to his buttons. Such, then, was the case of the Forte, one of the most disgraceful transactions by which the diplomatic proceedings of this country had been distinguished. The House would, perhaps, be glad to know what satisfaction Earl Russell under those circumstances de- manded. He insisted that the guard should be dismissed the Brazilian service, that an apology should be made by the Government of Brazil for the outrage offered to British officers, and that a public censure should be passed on certain officials. Now, it appeared to him as if Earl Russell adopted a sort of tariff of insolence in his correspondence with foreign Powers. When he had to deal with a first-rate Power, nothing could be softer or more honey-like than the language which he used. Towards America, which was not only a first-rate but also a warlike Power, the tone in which he expressed himself was of that character; but he sometimes happened to be dealing with a nation which, although it stood in the first rank, did not happen to be fond of going to war; and even then, as was illustrated by the case of Captain M'Donald, who had been kept three days by the Prussian authorities in a filthy prison for no sufficient cause, the despatch in which our remonstrance with the Prussian Government was conveyed was of the most mild description, it being merely stated that the treament of Captain M'Donald was not as friendly as it might be towards an English subject. On that occasion we ventured on no reprisals, nor were any Prussian vessels seized by an English admiral. In short, the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs pocketed the insult inflicted on a British subject. But then he came to deal with secondary Powers, and the House would not fail to remember the despatch which he had written to the Government of Denmark in the autumn—a document couched in terms which an imperious man might indulge in towards his bailiff, but in which few gentlemen ever addressed each other. Whether the noble Lord intended it as a fitting prelude to the auspicious event which was to take place to-morrow he could not say. But, going a step lower in the scale of foreign Powers, the noble Lord lighted on Brazil, a young country, newly escaped from the throes of revolution, which had established order within her limits with the greatest difficulty and praiseworthy energy, and which had done more than any other State to diminish the atrocious traffic in slaves, while she had cultivated the most friendly relations with England, and had given to us the utmost commercial advantages, and which therefore deserved the utmost consideration at our hands. Yet upon such a country it was that the noble Lord had thought proper to make the demands which he had enforced upon her by seizing her property at sea, because of a trumpery charge which rested on the testimony of a mad Consul and three tipsy sailors. ["Hear!" and "Oh, oh!"] He was aware that, whatever folly or madness an English Government might commit, the appeal to the Civis Romanus doctrine was rarely without its effect upon an English audience. He should not on the present occasion attempt to combat its weight, but would remind the House that in these days, when moral influence counted for so much among nations, we should lose that influence if we were thought to cringe to the strong and bully the weak. He was anxious to wipe this stain from our escutcheon. He knew it might not be a popular task, and it might not succeed on a division of the House; but those who thought it a stigma greater than would be entailed by any disaster in arms were bound to importune the House on every occasion, till they had induced their countrymen to look at the matter in a more reasonable light. He, for one, thought the greatest glory of the country would be to treat all Powers weak and strong, with the same justice and the same courtesy, and not to take advantage of accidental strength, which existed to-day and might pass away to-morrow, to commit an outrage upon a friendly Power which she might never forget.

MR. BUXTON

said, that Brazil had singularly strong claims to be treated with the utmost consideration by England. Even were that not so, it surely was one of the first and foremost principles of statesmanship that in our dealings with foreign nations we should not be quick and violent in taking offence, and in avenging provocation by force; but that when disputes arose we should display self-control, and, all the more because of our irresistible power, should treat them with tenderness for their feelings, generosity for their weaknesses, and reverence for their rights. No question of home politics, nor even any question as to which party would be in power, could vie in real moment with the maintenance by England of a gentle and generous policy towards foreign nations. So deeply did he feel this, that before he began to study this question, he resolved that however painful the mortification to himself might be of such a course, he would not shrink from giving his vote against the Government if it proved that Lord Russell had broken through that great principle. And although he had come decidedly to the conclusion to support the Government, he should not feel easy to do so without discriminating between parts of the affair, and raising his humble voice in protest against the tone by which one portion of our proceedings was marked. It was fortunate that the two cases of the officers of the Forte and of the Prince of Wales stood quite apart. Into the case of the officers he would not enter; but he wished to make some comments on the other affair. At the outset, he thought the ground might be cleared of the allegations with regard to the murder of some of the crew. There were serious grounds for suspecting that they hail been murdered, but of proof there was not a particle; and the blame for the obscurity in which that part of the matter lay rested in fact on Consul Vereker himself. He visited the scene of the wreck, and finding, to use his own phrase, some unwillingness on the part of the authorities to show him where the corpses were buried, he actually pressed them no further, and went away. Had he shown the least force of will, and insisted on seeing the bodies himself, it would have been impossible for them to refuse. However, he (Mr. Buxton) would not dwell on this, because in fact the British Government, though often referring to these suspicions, did not base any demands upon them. He would pass on, therefore, to the question of the plunder of the cargo and of the dead bodies. Lord Russell's demand for compensation was based on the ground that "the Brazilian Government was responsible for the losses occasioned by the culpable proceedings of the authorities;" and this culpability seemed to have consisted mainly in the long delays before the wreckers were prosecuted, and then that after all the justice of the peace of the district had not been even put on his trial on the charge of participating in the crime. Taking the last point first, the hon. Gentleman showed that the main ground for that charge was that two Bibles from the wreck were found in his house. But surely the fact that a gentleman of the neighbourhood should have received two hooks that had come ashore, and which he made no attempt to conceal from the British Consul, was very slender ground for accusing him of being a wrecker. The Brazilian Government would not, in his opinion, have been justified in putting the principal inhabitant of that district—the justice of the peace— upon his trial on such trifling grounds of accusation. But, after all, the main charge against the Brazilian Government was that of extreme slowness and ill-success in proceeding against the wreckers. With regard to this they must examine what had actually been done. The Brazilian Minister heard of the incident at the end of July. On August 10 he despatched—to use his own words—"most positive and stringent orders to the President of the province for a zealous and careful inquiry." He repeated these orders in October and in December, and on four occasions in the following year. The Imperial Government, then, had not treated the matter with indifference. It seemed that the President of the Province and the chief of police had also given immediate and peremptory orders, and that Consul Vereker himself declared that the delegate of police had acted with prompt energy. The result was that in about four months one man was arrested and two more had fled the country. This might seem a small result to an Englishman accustomed to the lightning speed of the Court of Chancery and of our other courts of justice. The differences, however, were very great: the scene of the wreck was 1,000 miles from the seat of Government; the local authorities complained that they had no force with which to compel the attendance of witnesses, and that from the strong feeling of the people against the inquiry no one would come forward of himself. Ultimately, however, two of the district officials were dismissed, eleven other men were prosecuted, and steps were taken to apprehend those who had fled to Montevideo. These circumstances hardly seemed to justifiy Lord Russell in making such vehement complaints, and basing on them a claim for compensation, and using violence to enforce that claim. It was also to be regretted that Mr. Christie should have written such insulting despatches. Upon the whole, up to this point, he thought that Brazil had scarcely been treated with the forbearance and magnanimity which always ought to mark the foreign policy of England. But at this point a step was taken by Lord Russel which seemed to him (Mr. Buxton) to make the most vital difference in the whole affair. He expressed to Brazil his readiness to entertain "any proposal for arbitration on the questions at issue." That suggestion was one of the highest importance. It had, indeed, been said that in the case of the Prince, of Wales Lord Russell only offered arbitration as to the amount to be paid, but not as to the principle of the claim. In a previous despatch this was all that was offered; but in the one of November 4 Lord Russell distinctly offered to entertain any proposal for arbitration, without drawing any distinctions whatever. And Mr. Christie, on January 1, expressly wrote to the Brazilian Prime Minister— I declare my readiness to entertain, for the consideration of Her Majesty's Government, any reasonable proposal, as, for example, a reference of all the questions in dispute to arbitration. This obviously included every part of each dispute. By this offer Lord Russell had, he thought, atoned for all his previous severity. They must bear in mind the immense value of such a precedent. Few were the examples—if, indeed, any could be found—of a powerful nation, which thought itself aggrieved, of its own will offering to refer the whole case in dispute to the judgment of an independent arbiter. If it once became the custom among civilized nations, instead of judging in their own quarrels, and enforcing their claims by violence, to refer them, wherever it was possible, to an impartial bystander, this would be a vast stride towards a reign of peace among the nations of the world. In the protocols of Paris that principle had been expressly laid down and agreed to by all the great Powers, but had hitherto been left in neglect. The precedent, however, now afforded would tend to give that principle practical sway over international policy. Seeing that amid all the irritation which the affair had excited, and in the plenitude of his power, Lord Russell had stayed his hand and offered to let all the questions in dispute be settled by an impartial arbiter, he had set an example of surpassing value to those who wielded the destinies of mankind.

MR. C. BENTINCK

said, it was contrary to the principles, of international law, as well as unreasonable, to ask a country, in a case of this kind, to do more than its own laws directed or permitted it to do. It was enough if the country appealed to acted in good faith; and if in this case Brazil had acted bonâ fide, we had no right to complain. Each State had its own form of procedure, and a foreigner might, perhaps, object to the English principle of not allowing an accused person to be examined. As to reprisals, it had been justly said that they were not allowable save in the case of res minimè dubiæ, and hence they were very rare. There were only two occasions in the recent history of this country when reprisals were enforced. One was against Naples. The noble Lord now at the head of the Government, who was then Foreign Secretary, complained of a gross infraction of a treaty. Upon that allegation ships were seized, and, from an entertaining chapter by M. Guizot, they learnt that the noble Lord was advised by counsel against the course which he had pursued. The French Government interfered in the matter, and the noble Lord was extricated from a disagreeable position in which he had placed himself by his own rashness. The other case was against Greece. Mr. Pacifico's claim was for £21,000; and after reprisals had been made and the matter referred to arbitration he was awarded only £150. When the circumstances were known, it became clear that the noble Lord was wrong. Since, therefore, the noble Lord was wrong in resorting to reprisals in both these cases, he should not be surprised if the same conclusion followed ultimately in the present case. There was very little positive evidence that the Brazilian authorities were at all in fault; the only evidence in fact was that of Mr. Consul Vereker. Mr. Consul Vereker was not a very trustworthy witness, and a great deal of what he said was neither positive nor direct. As to the Bibles, he thought it most unlikely they would have been produced had they been stolen; and as to the empty packing-cases, they were only mentioned after many months had elapsed. In fact, no answer had been given to the statement of his hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr. Bramley-Moore), that the cargo was of such a nature that the greater portion of it must have inevitably gone to the bottom. The real question was whether the Government of Brazil had acted fairly and bonâ fide, and whether they had done all for the owners of the Prince of Wales which they would have done had the owners been their own countrymen. The despatches of Lord Russell were inconsistent, the first limiting the amount to be demanded as compensation to the value of the cargo, the last demanding compensation for the cargo and also for the negligence of the Brazilian authorities. He did not know how compensation could be demanded for negligence of authorities, or what part of the sum demanded was for the negligence, or to whom it was to be paid if recovered. As to the failure of justice, there was no evidence that the armed force outnumbered that which accompanied the municipal judge, and it seemed to be unfairly assumed that the municipal judge had the power of a coroner to hold an inquest. A justice of the peace had no such power in this country, and there was no evidence that a similar officer in Brazil possessed it. The noble Lord made an unfortunate reference to Cornwall in his despatch. But, even admitting the analogy, did the House know who was the coroner for the Scilly Islands? It was the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Augustus Smith) who, not being present, might be holding an inquest. Supposing a foreign ship were wrecked and plundered on the Scilly Islands when that hon. Member was attending, as he did with admirable diligence, to his duties in Parliament, would it be a casus belli or a case for reprisals by a foreign Power because the hon. Member or his deputy did not hold an inquest? Another very important matter to be considered was that in this country it was the custom in the case of wrecks for the coroner to hold an inquest upon only one body, if there were no primâ facie evidence to show it to be desirable that more inquests should be held. He thought the less said about the wreck the better, seeing that the Brazilian Government guarded themselves over and over again by saying (and Consul Vereker confirmed them) that there was no political authority nearer than Rio Grande —a distance of eighty miles. They all knew that there had been frequently wrecks in this country, and no one had ever heard of a single instance of a demand being made against the Government or of reprisals being endeavoured to be enforced. As the noble Lord the Member for Stamford (Lord Robert Cecil) had alluded to cases of violent despatches, written against weak and second-rate Powers, he would refer to the case of Mr. Watson Taylor, which he brought under the attention of the House last year. There was a close analogy between that case and the present. There was a denial of justice, and a plunder of property. Mr. Taylor was to inhabit an island under the protection of the Italian Government, and the Government, in breach of faith, withdrew that protection. The most trumpery and ridiculous charges were made against Mr. Taylor, who was cited to appear before a distant tribunal; and when he consulted our diplomatic agent, he was advised to absent himself. The Turin Government refused to stop the prosecution, and, instead of urging the claims of his countryman, Sir James Hudson wrote home to the Government that it was not possible to stop the prosecution, and Mr. Taylor was convicted. Upon the allegation that there was no power to stop the prosecution, backed by the opinion of a Turin advocate, the Government here determined that Mr. Taylor had no claim for relief. When he brought the case under the attention of the House there were no bounds to the indignation of the Treasury bench. It was said to be unjust and ungenerous to dispute the high authority and solemn verdict of Sir James Hudson; and the Solicitor General, one of the greatest ornaments of the profession to which he also had the honour to belong, gravely argued the untenable proposition that the Piedmontese Government had no power to stop a public prosecution. The eloquence of the Solicitor General had scarcely ceased to flow, when there occurred the outbreak at Sarnico; many persons were arrested, imprisoned, and prosecuted, when all of a sudden the prosecution was dismissed and the whole of the prisoners were set at liberty, with the exception of one Garibaldian colonel, who was committed for trial on a charge of burglary. Nor was that all. The same farce was played over again after the action of Aspromonte, when Garibaldi and his friends were set at liberty under an amnesty. It was plain that the Italian Government had the same power to stop the prosecution against Mr. Taylor, and what he wanted to know was, why Her Majesty's Government did not insist upon the withdrawal of the charge in that case? Why was undue favour to be shown to the Italian Government? Brazil had at least as many claims upon England as Italy. She had never humiliated us, she had always fulfilled her obligations, and her credit was better than that of Italy, for while the Brazilian Five per Cents were at par, at the present moment the Italian Five per Cents were only at 70. Could it be that the noble Lord at the head of the Government was still resting on the popularity of what he called his Italian policy? He hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not changed his opinions upon these questions of reprisals. The right hon. Gentleman sat on the same bench with the noble Lord whose Pacifico policy he attacked with so much success; but he trusted the right hon. Gentleman still thought, as he thought then, that there should not be one rule for the weak, and another for the strong, and that we ought not to enforce against a small Power like Brazil, a claim which we ourselves would not concede to any other nation in existence.

MR. SEYMOUR FITZGERALD

said, surely the Government would not allow such a case as this—a case involving the honour and justice of England—to pass without a single word of explanation or remark from the Treasury Bench. He had not intended to address the House until he had heard the views of the Government; but as no Member of the Government had risen, he now felt called upon to offer a few observations. He could not help saying that he had never listened to a more able and astute, and yet, at the same time, a more unfair or more untenable speech than that of the hon. and learned Member for Plymouth (Mr. Collier). In this Brazilian case the position of our Government was a very curious one, because they had founded their claim to compensation on the ground of the neglect of the Brazilian authorities to render them justice. He would first deal with the question of delay, and here it was necessary that we should consider the peculiar circumstances of Brazil. Brazil had been established only about forty years. During that period, by the ability of those at the head of affairs, and by the entire good faith always shown by the Brazilian Government, they had succeeded in converting that which was only a province of one of the smallest kingdoms in Europe into a flourishing empire, with a credit, a reputation, and a power which those who contemplated their prospects forty years ago would have deemed impossible. Moreover, the Brazilian Government had been obliged to attempt to establish civilized rule, order, municipal institutions, judicial tribunals, and commercial relations over a coast exceeding those of Spain, France, and England together. Hence, it was not fair to institute a comparison between the circumstances of a country such as Brazil, and those of a country like England or France, which had for centuries enjoyed a regular and established Government, such as Brazil was only endeavouring to attain to. He could not admit, with the noble Lord the Member for Stamford (Lord Robert Cecil), that there had been something in the nature of neglect on the part of the local authorities in Brazil which might fairly be made a subject of complaint by Her Majesty's Government. The wreck took place on the 8th or 9th of June, at a spot seventy-eight miles distant from Rio Grande do Sul. It appeared that the district between the two places was a very difficult one, that to traverse it required a fatiguing journey of more than two days, notwithstanding Mr. Vereker's enthusiasm and zeal, which induced him to ride until late at night; and he arrived so exhausted that he and those with him could not go four miles further. The wreck was reported by the sub-delegate of police, who lived twenty-four miles further from Rio than the scene of the wreck, on the 12th, and our Consul started from Rio Grande on the 13th, arrived in the district on the 15th, and reached the wreck on the 16th. He immediately returned to Rio Grande, where he arrived on the 18th, after a journey of two days. Immediately the delegate sent his orders to the police in a letter, dated the 19th. The delegate also referred the Consul to the municipal judge, as the proper authority to institute inquiries. This he did on the 22nd. The papers were received in England on the 2nd of September, and on the 5th of the same month what was the course pursued by our Foreign Office? With nothing before them but the ex parte statements of Mr. Consul Vercker—with the proceedings of the Brazilian Government before them—with, as it appeared to him, not one single hour lost on the part of the Brazilian authorities, the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State wrote thus to Mr. Vereker, on the 5th of September— It is evident from your despatches that there has been gross negligence, if not misconduct, on the part of the Brazilian local authorities, and that there is even reason to suspect that the plunder of the cargo and of the effects of the passengers, and even the murder of some of the survivors from the wreck, have been the result of that negligence. Lord Russell has instructed Her Majesty's Chargé d' Affaires at Rio, to whom you will doubtless have forwarded copies of your despatches on this subject, to lose no time in calling the attention of the Brazilian Government to this case, and to request that a searching inquiry may be instituted, with a view to the punishment of the parties convicted of negligence, or of being concerned in the plunder of the vessel, and that those who may be convicted of outrages upon those who survived the wreck may be brought to justice, Now, proceeding step by step in this mat- ter, he would first ask the House, whether, bearing in mind the facts he had stated, there was any ground whatever for this allegation by our Government that there had been gross negligence on the part of the local authorities of Brazil as far as establishing a judicial investigation was concerned? Without charging his hon. Friend the Under Secretary with anything like negligence, it was nevertheless true that greater delay took place in writing his own letter, just quoted, on this important case, than had occurred on the part of any single one of the Brazilian authorities. Up to that time there was nothing on earth to justify that accusation of negligence, and yet at that date Her Majesty's Government adopted this arbitrary and offensive tone towards a Government which had the greatest claims upon their friendship and consideration.

He would, before proceeding, say a word as to the conduct of the Government in relation to Brazil. There was no country on the face of the globe that ought to be treated with so much friendly consideration as the empire of Brazil. From the very first moment after the Brazilian Government was established, it had manifested a desire to conciliate English good feeling, to protect English commerce, to promote the introduction of English capital, and had exerted itself in every possible form to make its good intentions well understood by the people of this country. Therefore Brazil was the State towards which, of all others, the British Government ought to have exercised all due forbearance. But he was bound to say that for many years past the very reverse of that had been the fact, and that the very case now under consideration was only one of a long series of indignities which had been offered to the Brazilian Government by the Government of England; and that principally during the time when the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) had had the greatest influence over our foreign affairs. He would nut now speak of an outrage greater than was ever committed against international law, and in respect to which, when their acts were called in question, the English Government was afraid to justify them before an independent tribunal; but even within a recent period Her Majesty's Government had acted towards the Brazilian Government in a manner which they would not have dared to follow towards any other Government on the face of the globe. He alluded to their conduct in regard to the Mixed Commission at Rio. We established a few cases against the Brazilian Government before the Mixed Commission; and when that Government succeeded, by the unanimous decision of the Commissioners on both sides, in establishing some few cases against us, Her Majesty's Government stopped all further proceedings, tore up the convention, and refused to have anything more to do with it. The present case, therefore, was only another exemplification of the arbitrary spirit in which the British Government had dealt with the Brazilian Government for years past.

But to return to the facts of this question. Her Majesty's Government some time afterwards changed their ground. And when they spoke of the delay of the Brazilian Government, he would venture to notice the extraordinary delay on their part in presenting their view of the case to the Court of Brazil. The wreck occurred on the 8th of June; the various proceedings were instituted; and it was not till the 8th of February following that Lord Russell made the slightest allusion to any question of compensation. Up to that period our Government had confined their complaint to an allegation of the want of due diligence shown by the Brazilian authorities, and to a demand for an investigation, with a view to the punishment of the guilty persons. But on the 8th of February Lord Russell wrote to Mr. Baillie, insisting, in addition to these things, upon adequate compensation to the owners of the vessel. Thus, out of the whole fourteen months' delay, eight months were due to the delay of Her Majesty's Government in putting forth their claim, which claim they put forth in the most arbitrary manner, and which he would show was dealt with in the most energetic and straightforward spirit by the authorities at Rio, before whom it was then for the first time placed. That letter of the 8th of February was not presented to the Court of Brazil till the 17th of March. On that day Mr. Christie wrote to the Brazilian Minister, claiming compensation in the terms of Earl Russell's despatch. Taking a fortnight to consider a demand put forward by the British Government, and which that Government was going to enforce with all the power at its command, the Brazilian Government replied that no Government was responsible for outrages committed without its concurrence or instigation by its sub- jects upon foreigners, and that in such case it was only bound to use every available means for preventing and punishing them. The learned Solicitor General would scarcely deny that that was an accurate statement of international law. It was not till very nearly the end of May that the real issue was ascertained between the Brazilian and English Governments, and as soon as it was ascertained it was at once met by the Brazilian Government with a clear declaration that they were then willing and had long been anxious to fulfil the obligations imposed upon them by international law. It was worth while considering on what grounds compensation could be claimed. Clearly no claim for compensation could be put forward by the English Government upon the ground that the local authorities had been remiss in setting on foot and prosecuting a judicial investigation. That might be a question for diplomatic communication between the two Governments; and if those communications were not successful, it might be a ground for coolness between them, for the suspension of diplomatic relations, or even for ulterior measures; but it was no ground for a demand for compensation. The only ground for that must be that the authorities on the Brazilian coast were not there to protect the parties, or that they were responsible almost as insurers for the safety of property which the wind and the waves might wash on their shores. The hon. and learned Gentleman would scarcely assert that. The hon. and learned Gentleman might say that the Brazilian Government was liable for the negligence of their officers in not protecting property; but it could not lie in the mouth of the Government to make such an assertion. For from the beginning to the end of the correspondence, they had never taken that ground. The only ground they had taken was that the Brazilian Government had been remiss in prosecuting the offenders after the wreck had been plundered; or, as the hon. and learned Member for Plymouth (Mr. Collier) had asserted on his own authority, after the British subjects had been murdered. For that assertion, however, there was not the slightest justification in the papers. The British Government claimed £3,200 from the Brazilian Government because British subjects had been injured by their negligence to that amount; but there was nothing whatever in the papers to show the slightest negligence on the part of the Brazilian Government contributing to that injury. The only thing was this, that there had been some slight negligence in communicating the facts from one officer to another; but that did not contribute in the slightest degree to the plunder of the wreck, for which compensation was claimed. The hon. and learned Member for Plymouth had asserted many things in a manner which might lead persons who had not read the papers to think that they really were positive facts which had happened, and which were stated in the papers; but the truth was, that he had asserted as facts circumstances which were nothing more than inferences drawn by himself. For instance, the hon. and learned Gentleman positively asserted that Senhor Soares was concerned in the plunder of the wreck, and he treated him as one of the parties implicated in the outrages which occurred at Albardao. The fact was that the only evidence against Senhor Soares was, that two Bibles were found in his house long after, and something was said about one or two cases being seen in his yard. But from one end of the papers to the other it was never shown that Senhor Soares was even there at the time. The only evidence was that three days after he was at a place seventy miles off, and he mentioned there—not as a thing he had himself seen at all—that some bodies had been washed ashore near his house. When he was asked about the wreck, he said he knew nothing; of it. From this fact the hon. and learned Gentleman asserted as a thing that was certain, that Senhor Scares was there at the time of the wreck, and that he knew of it; and he almost went the length of saying that be must have been present at the rifling of the trunks, and must have taken the Bibles which were afterwards found in his house. He took not the slightest notice of the statement in the papers that the articles found in Soares' house had been taken there by some of his servants, who might have been present at the wreck, and who, having picked them up, carried them home without him having the slightest knowledge of it. The hon. and learned Member led the House to believe that the Brazilian Government, knowing Scares' guilt, had done all they could to protect him, and had refused to dismiss him from his post. What the Brazilian Government had done was simply what the Home Secretary or any other English Minister would do. They had not taken the allegations of officials like Consul Vereker; they had not taken rumours and reports; but they had instituted a judicial investigation; and the Marquis D'Abrantes, when asked to put Soares on his trial, said, "I cannot do it, because we have had an investigation which has satisfied us that there is no ground for a prosecution, and we refuse to do what the laws of Brazil will not allow us." That is an instance of the manner in which the hon. and learned Gentleman has misled Gentlemen who have not read the evidence through. Again, the hon. and learned Member said it was the duty of the Brazilian officials who were on the spot to institute an inquest immediately on the bodies; but was he aware of what the law of Brazil was on this point? Was he able to state that the Brazilian law prescribed, that whenever a wreck occurred on the coast, any and every authority who happened to be on the spot should institute an inquiry? Suppose a wreck were to happen on the coast of Cornwall, would it be the duty of all the magistrates resident on the spot to institute an inquiry? The hon. and learned Member had never shown, nor was there the slightest proof in the papers, that the two magistrates referred to had in the slightest degree transgressed their duty, or that they neglected to do anything which the Brazilian law prescribed. In the same manner he said it was Senhor Soares' duty to send a message seventy-eight miles to get an inquest held. Speaking from his own feelings as a magistrate — whatever he might do in his private capacity from the promptings of humanity —in his magisterial functions he should hesitate some time before be expressed seventy-eight miles to apprise the coroner of any wreck which might happen in his neighbourhood. He contended that in this case the communication was made as speedily as it could be made, that as soon as the authorities could be called on to act they did act, and beyond that there was nothing in the papers to show that there was negligence.

The next point to be considered was the conduct of the authorities at Rio Janeiro: and here, so far from taking the view of the hon. and learned Gentleman, he thought that the conduct of the Brazilian Government, under circumstances almost approaching to intentional provocation, had been considerate and dignified. His hon. and learned Friend said that nothing could be more reasonable than the proposition made by Her Majesty's Ministers, and that the Brazilian Government showed their mala fides by refusing it. Now, that was not the position of the Brazilian Government. To show that it was not, he would refer the House to the following, which were the concluding passages in the despatch of the noble Earl at the head of the Foreign Office, dated October 8: — But the time is come when Her Majesty's Government must ask compensation for the plundering of the wreck and of the bodies, and they must look for this compensation to the Brazilian Government, as being responsible for the losses occasioned by the culpable proceedings of their authorities, whoso guilt they have at length discovered and admitted. I have therefore to instruct you to demand from the Brazilian Government compensation for the losses that have been occasioned to the owner of the Prince of Wales by the wholesale plunder of the wreck and crew. Mr. Stephens claims for cargo and stores, £5,500; for freight, £1,025 19s.; in all, £6,525 19s. But this claim is not at present sustained by any sufficient evidence; and it would be incumbent on Mr. Stephens to produce a properly certified estimate of the value of the cargo and stores; and if any demand is to be made for personal property belonging to any passenger on board, proper evidence on this point must be adduced. But on the Brazilian Government admitting the principle, Her Majesty's Government are prepared to accept a fair arbitration on the question as to the actual amount of compensation to be made, and they will leave the same arbiter or arbiters to determine the amount of the compensation to be made to relatives of the people on board whose bodies were stripped and plundered. At the same time Her Majesty's Government, having regard to the extraordinary delay and procrastination of the Brazilian authorities in the investigation of this grave matter, must insist that any such arbitration shall be set on foot without loss of time, and shall be conducted with all possible speed to an issue. That despatch sought to make the Brazilian Government responsible for violence committed by persons over whom it had no control. He did not use the term in an offensive sense when he said that a more untruthful statement of a case than that contained in the passage he had quoted could not be made. He meant that the statement was utterly inaccurate. Then the offered arbitration was made on these terms— But on the Brazilian Government admitting the principle, Her Majesty's Government are prepared to accept a fair arbitration on the question as to actual amount;" and so on. That was not the kind of offer stated by his hon. and learned Friend.

MR. COLLIER

wished to explain that what he had said was, the British Govern- ment had offered to refer the amount to arbitration, the principle being admitted.

MR. SEYMOUR FITZGERALD

was glad of the correction. What he had to deal with now was not the arguments of his hon. and learned Friend, but the position of Her Majesty's Government. It was utterly impossible for the Brazilian Government to assent to such a species of arbitration as that. It did not make any difference whether they might have to pay 3,200 pence or 3,200 pounds. The question was whether they were responsible for losses by winds or waves, or by the violence of subjects of their own over whose proceedings they had no control, but whom they had done their best to prosecute, and whom they had pursued with all the energy in their power. It was quite impossible they could admit a principle which was entirely new in international law. The question really was, whether the Brazilian Government had done their best to pursue the guilty parties—had used all the means in their power to secure the administration of justice. They might judge of that from results. Two of their officials had been dismissed, and up to the present time eleven persons had been prosecuted and convicted. It was perfectly true that some of the parties concerned in those occurrences had escaped over the boundary before the authorities had been able to apprehend them; but there was a law in Brazil under which persons who were summoned and did not appear might be adjudged contumacious, and though such persons could not be put in prison, they would never dare to return to the country from which they had escaped. The Government of the country had done their best to enforce the law against those who had escaped for the moment. He thought, therefore, that he had now shown that neither as regarded the local authorities or the Central Government at Rio Janeiro was there the slightest ground for saying that there had been that failure of justice on which alone, according to international law, any claim for compensation could be grounded. His noble Friend (Lord R. Cecil) had pointed to another grave objection to the course taken by Her Majesty's Government. It was laid down, not only in one book, but in all the books to which he had been able to refer, that reprisals were not to be taken except where there was the clearest case of a failure of justice. His hon. and learned Friend (the Solicitor General, would say that such was the case in this instance; but he begged to submit that where there was a conflict of testimony, where many of the circumstances had not yet been ascertained, and where, at most, the ground of action was not a denial of justice in any way, but a certain omission or neglect of duty—for that was the furthest Her Majesty's Government could go—there was no ground for reprisals according to the best authorities on international law.

A good deal had been said regarding the relative positions of Brazil and this country; and he must confess that, as an Englishman, he did fool is was a painful thing that year after year cases should be brought under the notice of the public, showing that, without exception, the rights of British subjects were enforced in an arbitrary manner where the Powers against whom those proceedings were taken were weak, and that almost at the same moment there occurred the most flagrant instances of British interests being neglected and trampled upon where the guilty parties were subjects or officials of a strong Power. What was at present going on between this country and the Federal States of America? Within the last few months there had occurred a case of a British vessel peacefully navigating the waters between Matamoras and the Havannah; she was chased by a Federal cruiser, and took refuge in Spanish waters, into which she was followed by the cruiser, chased ashore, and burnt. Had we heard of any reprisals in the case of that transaction. Take the case of the Adèle. She was earring the British Mails between one port and another; she was seized by a Federal cruiser and carried into Key West, where the seals of the mail bags were broken. Had reprisals been ordered for that transaction? There was a third case, that of the Pearl, which had some bales of cloth on board. She was on her voyage from a neutral to a British port, when she was seized and carried into a Federal port to await a trial. We had not heard of any reprisals there. In those cases we were told that Her Majesty's Government could not interfere with the judicial authorities of the United States—that they must abide the decision of those authorities. The reason might be a very good one for not interfering; but when the Government paid that deference to the judicial authority of one Government, why did they refuse to pay it to that of another? They could not draw a distinction between the courts of the Federal States of America and those of Brazil. The Government were not entitled to more than this in the case of the Brazilian or any other authorities—that as far as courts had been established, as far as judicial proceedings had been taken, they should be impartial— that the courts of the country should proceed according to its laws. A great deal had been said about the position of the Brazilian Government, and the utter want of power they had shown in obtaining evidence against the guilty parties. That was a very uncertain and dangerous argument to use, and depended for its applicability upon the feeling of the people in the particular district where the crime occurred, and upon many other circumstances, which rendered it impossible to say that, because a Government found it difficult to obtain evidence, they therefore had shown no eagerness in bringing the offender to justice. What had happened within a very short time in Ireland? A French gentleman was murdered in Tipperary. Why did the prosecution fail against his supposed murderer? Because the attendance of witnesses could not be enforced, though some persons had absolutely been present at the moment the murder was committed. His hon. and learned Friend said it was another mark of the impotence of the Brazilian Government that they could not arrest the defendants, and therefore were responsible for these outrages. Now, suppose that Hayes, instead of murdering an Irish landlord, had murdered a French or German gentleman. Would a foreign Government believe that the English authorities had used every means in their power to arrest that man, backed as they were by a force of constabulary more like an army than a body of police, and scouring the whole country far and wide? It would probably be difficult in such a case to convince a foreigner that the British Government were earnest and zealous; and yet they all knew that the Government exerted every effort in vain to arrest this criminal. Under these circumstances, it was not for us, looking at the particular circumstances of Brazil, and at the difficulties with which a Government had to contend in a country so extensive, to institute comparisons between such a nation and the more civilized countries of Europe as to the administration of justice and the safety of life and property.

Apart, however, from the merits of the case, he could not disguise his feelings of regret and almost of humiliation at the tone and temper in which these despatches were written. Take even the last two letters. The Brazilian Government announced their intention of submitting to force, and said they would pay the money; but their Minister in London was instructed to protest against the violence put upon his Government. Accordingly, in energetic language, the Brazilian Minister protested. What was the language which the Foreign Minister of England addressed to a Government with whom for the future he himself said he was anxious to cultivate the most friendly relations? Why, he told them that they had been guilty of equivocation, of subterfuges, and of mean delay. If language like this were used by the Foreign Minister of this country, though we might be on what might be called friendly terms with other Powers, we should never have friends. Nor was this the only case. The same thing had happened with regard to France. In the most sarcastic letter that was ever written, Earl Russell as much as told the French Government that they connived at assassination and plunder in Southern Italy; and M. Drouyn do Lhuys, in his letter to the Due do Montebello, expressly pointed out that the English Minister accused the Imperial Government of connivance at the horrors resulting from the brigandage there. His noble Friend (Lord Robert Cecil) had referred to the noble Earl's despatch to the Danish Government; and with the Russian Government the same irritating communication had been going on. Now, he thought that, quite apart from the question of right in this case, the expressions so employed by the noble Earl would not add in the slightest degree to his influence as a Minister, and would not add in any way to the dignity of the country which he represented.

MR. LAYARD

said, that after the very able speech of the hon. and learned Member for Plymouth (Mr. Collier) he should be intruding upon the House if he went over the ground which that hon. and learned Gentleman had so well trodden. He should endeavour to confine himself to the diplomatic action of the Government in the case of the Prince of Wales, and should seek to show that that action had been neither hasty nor unjust. Before proceeding to that part of the Question he must recall the attention of the House to a few facts which had either been forgotten or misstated by those who had followed his hon. and learned Friend. It would be remembered that the wreck of the Prince of Wales was believed to have taken place, not as the hon. Gentleman who last spoke had said, about the 8th or 9th, but between the 7th and 8th, upon the occasion of a gale which raged upon the coast. It was not until some days afterwards that any notice of the fact was brought to the knowledge of the English Consul at Rio Grande do Sul, Mr. Vereker, and it came to him then by mere chance. It was not, as had been stated, reported to him, but the fact of the bodies having been washed on shore, was casually mentioned by Senhor Soares, and on the following day the wreck itself was known in the house of the delegate, but the fact came to Mr. Vereker as a mere rumour. One thing was undeniable, that it was the duty of the authorities to give the earliest information of a wreck to the Consul of the country to which the owners of the vessel belonged. No such step was taken in this case. It might be asked, was there any proof that the vessel belonged to British owners? There was such proof, because a portion of the vessel's papers, which proved the fact, were actually found in the possession of the delegate, No notice was given, as it should have been; but when information did reach Mr. Vereker, he applied to the municipal judge, who accompanied him to Albardao. That officer behaved well, and went with the Consul to the coast—the distance not being so very great, for the bodies were afterwards brought to Rio Grande do Sul in two clays. Mr. Vereker and the municipal judge preceded to the house of Senhor Soares, a man of large fortune, upon whose land the wreck took place, and the bodies were found. It was believed in the country, although he could not say with what amount of accuracy, that Senhor Soares owed his wealth in a great measure to sharing in the plunder of wrecks upon the coast. ["Oh!" and "Hear!"] Well, hon. Gentlemen might know Senhor Soares better than he did, but he could only repeat what had been told him by those best acquainted with that country. In the house of Senhor Scares were found, not one Bible but two Bibles and a Commentary; and besides there were certain cases which had contained English goods. Senhor Soares, as the noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil) had suggested, might have had a desire to collect English Bibles, but a desire to collect cases of English goods was not so laudable. Senhor Soares had absented himself from the place. The hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Seymour FitzGerald) said he had only gone to Rio Grande do Sul; but the fact was, that although he had passed through Rio Grande, he had gone to a distant place called Pelotas. Upon the morning after his arrival at Albardao, Mr. Vereker went to the coast, and endeavoured to find some traces of the crew and to take a list of the property saved. He found the cargo scattered over the shore, boxes recently broken open, and the very significant fact which had been stated by his hon. and learned Friend, and which must be regarded as conclusive by those who viewed the facts in a calm and impartial spirit—two of the vessels' boats with their oars. Again, some miles to the northward another boat was found on the coast, uninjured, which was a further strong proof of the crew having landed. Now, although ten bodies only were mentioned, there were fourteen or fifteen persons on board to be accounted for. Mr. Vereker heard that bodies had been washed ashore, and he understood from something he over-heard that those bodies were in the neighbourhood, and he asked to see them. Why was he not allowed to see the bodies? It was never denied that the bodies were there, and four of them were afterwards brought to Rio Grande; but why did not the municipal judge do his duty and insist upon seeing them then? The hon. Gentleman said that in this country it was the duty of a coroner to examine bodies of persons found dead. In Brazil, however, there appears to be no such officer. Mr. Vereker, who was acquainted with the laws of the country, said, that it was the duty of the municipal judge to make the examination, and of the delegate, when he heard of the wreck, to visit the spot, to take a catalogue of the cargo cast on shore, to secure what papers he could find, and to furnish all the evidence he could procure concerning the wreck to the Consul. This officer failed in his duty; in fact, all the constituted authorities had failed in their duties; and he contended that the Brazilian Government, by dismissing two of those officers, although afterwards explaining away the reasons for such dismissal, had admitted them to be culpable. Until the 22nd no inquest was held, and then an inquiry was held at Albardao upon four of the bodies, and two days later at Rio Grande upon the same bodies. There was a remarkable fact connected with that examination which to his mind carried great weight; the secretary and witnesses who signed the report as having been present at the examination, were not present; and Mr. Vereker signed the report under protest that he did so merely "as having been present," and not as admitting the truth of the report. The next step would naturally have been to have given Mr. Vereker a copy of the report; but although he applied for it over and over again, it was not until the year following — twelve months after the event—that he succeeded in obtaining a copy. No one, who calmly read Admiral Warren's able summary of the evidence furnished to him by Mr. Vereker, and by the report of Captain Saumarez, could avoid the moral conviction that the men had been murdered. If they had not been murdered, why were not the other bodies produced? Where had they been buried? Some vague excuses were made about the drifting of the sand and the erasure of all traces; but how was it that three of the bodies were found unburied a considerable distance from the shore? He thought that no impartial mind could resist the conviction that the crew had been murdered. He must say that Consul Vereker had been dealt with most unfairly in this debate. He regretted to hear what fell from the noble Lord the member for Stamford in reference to that honourable public servant, who had done everything in his power to discharge his duty, and who, in consequence of his great exertions and exposure, several months afterwards suffered severe illness, which for a time led to a nervous excitement. And after what had been stated by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bramley-Moore) as to the lives of British merchants being placed in jeopardy in the city of Rio itself, it was not wonderful that he should have been under considerable apprehensions.

Then as to the action of the Government—what did they do on receiving a report of what had occurred? He was much surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman who spoke last (Mr. S. FitzGerald) say that those who taunted the Brazilian Government with negligence had themselves been guilty of it. But what did the British Government do? They wrote at once to Mr. Baillie, our Chargé d' Affaires, and expressed their conviction that the Brazilian Government would of themselves institute a proper inquiry. Nobody had been arrested but some miserable Indian, who was not even a Brazilian subject. The hon. Gentleman said compensation was not demanded till the 8th of February. If it had been asked for at an earlier period, the Government would have justly exposed themselves to the taunts of the hon. Gentleman. They did not demand compensation till they had given the Brazilian Government an ample opportunity of doing justice. The hon. Gentleman was not particularly happy in his speech. He said we did not understand how justice was administered in Brazil any more than Brazilians knew how justice was administered in this country. Then he alluded to the escape of the murderer Hayes in Ireland, and asked whether foreigners would believe that there was a due administration of justice when they were told that the whole country had been scoured, and that the criminal had nevertheless escaped. But the case of the Brazilian Government was very different. Had they done all they could to arrest the guilty parties? If they had scoured the country after Scares, and if the Government had been convinced that a fair investigation and trial had taken place, he did not believe they would have insisted on the reparation they now thought it their duty to ask for. Why did not the Brazilian Government send a vessel of war to the coast of Albardao, which the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Bramley-Moore) stated was so wild, and an exception to every other part of Brazil? One of two things were to be expected—either that the Brazilian Government would assert their authority, or if they were unable to protect foreigners whose vessels had been wrecked on their coast, the British Government must protect their own subjects. What was the use of our fleet and our consuls if not to protect British subjects and property, in such a case as this? The action of Her Majesty's Government had been strictly within diplomatic usage. The Brazilian Government stated that eleven persons had been condemned and punished; but it turned out that such was not the case, and that proceedings only had been instituted against them. We had therefore had a right to demand compensation for the loss sustained. His hon. Friend had endeavoured to prove that we demanded compensation for the murder of this crew. Now, we might have been morally convinced that murder did take place, but we carefully avoided mixing up that with the demand for compensation. The hon. Gentleman had adverted to M. Moreira's notes. M. Moreira assumed somewhat offensively, after a distinct disclaimer on our part, that the British Government had demanded compensation for the vessel and freight. We did no such thing. Compensation was demanded for the cargo which had been plundered, and the property of the persons whose bodies had been washed ashore, founded on the negligence of the Brazilian authorities in instituting proper inquiries, and administering justice according to their own laws. It was contended that there was no proof of any property belonging to the crew having come on shore. How was it that the persons on the coast spoke of the body of the captain; and how could they have identified his body without some distinguishing dress? It was said we had left no opening for arbitration; but if hon. Gentlemen would turn to page 99 of the printed papers, they would find from Earl Russell's despatch to Mr. Christie that an opening for that arbitration was distinctly left; and again, on the 4th of November, it was stated that Her Majesty's Government were very reluctant to proceed to extremes, except as a last resource, and to the offer of arbitration no condition whatever was then attached. Mr. Christie, in his despatch, spoke of arbitration as an amicable solution of the question. It was not for the party who demanded redress, but for the party of whom it was asked to offer arbitration; and Mr. Christie was authorized to accept the offer.

Now, as to the question of reprisals, he would leave it to be dealt with by those who were more competent than he was to deal with legal points; but he might call the attention of the hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Seymour FitzGerald), to the action of the Government of which he had been a Member on a question of reprisals. There was a case in which his hon. Friend had more than once justly claimed some credit—the case of the Cagliari, which was seized by the Neapolitan Government. Lord Malmesbury gave that Government ten days' notice within which he required they should give up the British engineers, with an intimation that if the Neapolitan Government still persisted in refusing reparation, the British Government would be entitled to have recourse to reprisals. If hon. Members would refer to Hansard, they would find that Lord George Bentinck in 1847 brought forward a Motion in which he pressed on the noble Lord now at the head of the Government, that unless the claims of the Spanish bondholders were paid, the British Government should have recourse to reprisals; and his noble Friend on that occasion made an admirable speech, in which he showed that the doctrine of reprisals was not applicable to the circumstances. It was said the action taken by the present Government was an unheard-of proceeding; he hoped to show that there were good precedents for what they had done.

The noble Lord the Member for Stamford (Lord Robert Cecil) asked somewhat querulously why nothing was said about the case of the officers of the Forte. The hon. Member for Lincoln, who brought forward this Motion with good taste and good feeling, which he should have been glad if the noble Lord the Member for Stamford had imitated, omitted all reference to this question, because it had been submitted to the arbitration of the King of the Belgians. Her Majesty's Government had entire reliance on the wisdom and justice of that monarch, and therefore it would ill become him to say a word upon a question which was still under consideration. But anything more unfair than the statement made by the noble Lord he had never heard. The noble Lord, of course, might put the honour and veracity of English officers and an English clergyman as low as he thought proper; but for him only to state a fragment of their case, and to conceal the whole of that part of it on which the British Government had taken action, was unfair alike to those officers, to the Government, and to the House. It was not for their arrest at the guard-house that reparation had been demanded. They might have been arrested under a misapprehension. The Government did not assume that English gentlemen necessarily got drunk after dinner; and when three English gentlemen solemnly declared that they did not get drunk, and did not assault the guard, they took their evidence in preference to the swearing of an hotel-keeper and a common soldier. But why did the English Government demand redress? Because these English officers, after their rank had been known, were confined in a common prison, marched, as if they had been manacled felons, through the town, refused a conveyance, and detained as prisoners for two days. It was for these indignities, and not for the arrest, which might have been a mistake, that the British Government demanded reparation. The policy of Her Majesty's Government had been very much condemned by Gentlemen on the other side, but he had not heard from them any alternative. Was there any proof of undue haste and undue pressure upon the Brazilian Government? Eighteen months had been given to the Government of Brazil. Suppose Her Majesty's Government had not adopted the course which was taken; suppose they had not answered those energetic letters of Mr. Stephens, who, like a thorough Briton, believed it was only the duty of the Government to look after his property—what would that Gentleman have done? He would certainly have gone to his hon. Friend opposite, and his hon. Friend—assuming that tone of solemn reproof which he could put on so well when occasion required—would as certainly have charged the Government with apathy, have dwelt upon the facts of British subjects murdered, and British property plundered, and held that the Government which suffered such wrongs deserved the reprobation of the House and the country. It had been said that there was much British property in Brazil, in banks, mines, railways, and public works. But his experience of foreign affairs had satisfied him that it was exceedingly easy to get British capital into the South American States, but it was exceedingly difficult to get it out again. His hon. Friend's acquaintance with the Foreign Office would doubtless enable him to corroborate the statement that the most troublesome business of that Department arose from claims of British subjects upon the Governments of the Southern States of America. [Mr. SEYMOUR FITZGERALD: Not Brazil.] Hon. Gentlemen were always coming to the Foreign Office and asking how the claims of their clients were progressing, and all the reply the Department were able to give was, "We have written again;" "We have given instructions;" and that sort of thing went on year after year. And what description of claims were those so constantly urged? Denial of justice. Seizure of British property. Repudiation of debts to British subjects. Outrages on the person, and infraction of treaties. [Mr. SEYMOUR FITZGERALD: Not in Brazil.] He was sorry to differ from his hon. Friend, but he would point out two or three matters, even as regarded Brazil, which led him to form the opinion he had expressed. We had unsatisfied claims upon Brazil amounting nearly to the sum of £350,000. His hon. Friend just now said that the present Government had broken up the Commission that was to inquire into those claims; but his hon. Friend must have certainly known the true history of that transaction. The Brazilian Government brought forward claims before that Commission which had already been settled by Courts competent to deal with them. The Brazilian Government were well aware that the British Government had stated their determination not to allow the discussion of these claims to be reopened, as they were considered to have been finally disposed of. As the Brazilian Government nevertheless persisted in bringing these claims again forward, the British Government had no other alternative but to break up the Commission. The English Government would have been well pleased to have settled the vast amount of claims, many of which had been hanging over for the last forty years. What happened only four or five years ago, and still formed the subject of correspondence between the two Governments? Without rhyme or reason a triple tax was imposed on all British commerce in Bahia; that enactment was still in existence, and though it had not been acted on, calls were constantly being made upon the Brazilian Government to repeal this unjust and iniquitous law. In the papers on the subject of the Prince of Wales reference was made by Mr. Christie to intimidation and to the purchase of justice. That allusion referred to a letter which had fallen into Mr. Christie's hands from an influential officer employed in the Department of Justice, and written to a judge who had to decide in a suit in which Mr. Reeve, an English subject, was concerned, and calling upon the judge to decide against Mr. Reeve. A distinguished member of the Brazilian Legislature had denounced the venality and corruption of the judge in the chambers. The hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. Buxton) eulogized the Brazilian Government for having done much to put an end to the slave trade. He did not want to go into a history of that question; but if credit was to be taken for that measure, it was due, not to the Brazilian Government, but to the noble Lord now at the head of the Government, who had put down the slave trade there, as he had put it down elsewhere. What were the actual facts at this moment? The Brazilian Government, had entered into a distinct agreement with this country, that the negroes now in Brazil should be liberated at the end of a certain period of apprenticeship. That period had elapsed some years since, and, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the British Government, those negroes were still used as slaves; it was impossible to obtain a list of them, or to trace what had become of them. These were some of the onuses of complaint existing against Brazil. Were the British Government to stand with their arms folded? Were they to rest satisfied with the plausible and, he must add, disingenuous notes of the Brazilian Minister? Would those who had been robbed, and the relatives of those who had been murdered, rest satisfied with such explanations? He ventured to say that no Government could have acted otherwise than Her Majesty's Government had done. The noble Lord opposite (Lord Robert Cecil) had quoted the opinion of a well-known legal authority, Dr. Phillimore. Now, it was no secret that Dr. Phillimore was the legal adviser of the Government, and that the Government, in deciding upon making reprisals, must have acted upon his opinion. It has been said that this was one of those cases in which a strong Power had taken advantage of a weak one. Nothing could be more reprehensible than for a strong Government unnecessarily to use its strength against a weak state, and according to the noble Lord we had the reputation from one end of the world to the other of bullying small Governments. But was it not astounding to hear, on the other hand, from his hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Seymour FitzGerald), that there was not a great Power in Europe which we had not insulted and bullied within the last eighteen months. We had written threateningly to France, insultingly to Denmark, offensively to Russia; in fact, according to the hon. Gentleman, there was not a great State which we had not insulted and bullied in turn. [Mr. SEYMOUR FITZGERALD: Insulted?] Well, to which we had not used strong language. The noble Lord opposite said we would not have acted similarly to the United States. But he appeared to forgot what had taken place not very long ago. He did not wish to travel over the face of the globe, like hon. Gentlemen opposite, but any reproach with regard to the attitude of this country towards the United States certainly did not fall justly on the present Government. It was a misfortune to have to deal with a weak State, because a weak State, relying on its weakness, in some cases exacted undue forbearance on the part of a strong Power; and in other cases —and perhaps the present was one of them —there existed a morbid sensitiveness on the score of dignity, and a forgetfulness that, after all, true dignity lay in doing what was right and just. If the Brazilian Minister, instead of writing all the notes which he had done, and carping at all the little mistakes and errors that might have crept into Mr. Christie's statements, had boldly done what he possibly could towards effecting justice, he fully believed the Government would have accepted his endeavours, and would have been spared taking the step they had been forced to take.

It had been asked, what would have been the conduct of the British Government if a similar occurrence had taken place in England? In 1850 an Austrian vessel, called the Sollicito Bocchese, was wrecked in Cloggen Bay on the coast of Galway, and plundered by the inhabitants of Buffin island, who, he believed, enjoyed rather a bad reputation for such acts. Every measure was taken by the Government to punish these persons. They were brought to trial; a considerable expense was incurred in procurring interpreters who spoke the language of those who had been wrecked, and everything was done to bring the culprits to justice. But the grand jury threw out the bill, on the ground of want of jurisdiction of the Court. His noble Friend now at the head of the Government, who was then Foreign Minister, thereupon immediately sent the Austrian Ambassador a cheque for £540, the amount demanded for compensation. In that case everything had been done that could be done according to our laws, and the responsibility of the British Government consequently ceased; and the case, therefore, was not to be compared to the one under discussion. But suppose that in the case of this Austrian vessel the stipendiary magistrate had plundered the wreck, and the coroner with an armed escort had resisted all attempt at inquiry, what would then have been the responsibility of the British Government? He declared, that if the facts stated in the papers were proved, the responsibility of the Brazilian Government was fully established. The hon. Member had cited the seizure by the Government of the United States on insufficient grounds of the Blanche, the Pearl, and other vessels that had attempted to run the blockade, and had asked why the Government had not interfered in those cases? Because there were legal Prize Courts in the United States before which these cases would be brought. Their decisions were given upon known and accepted principles of law, and were consequently respected as just decisions by other nations. There were fair trials, and that is all we ask of any nation. Did the Motion of the hon. Gentleman mean anything or nothing? If it were a reflection on the Government, he should be sorry to see it carried; and he believed that if the Motion were pressed to a division, it would be successfully opposed. If, on the other hand, the mail of which the hon. Gentleman spoke should carry out to South America the decision of that House in favour of the Motion, whatever might be its real meaning, a shout of triumph would be heard from Panama to Cape Horn; every debtor would hail with joy the establishment of n, principle which seemed to be a vital one, to be struggled for to the very death, in South America—the privilege of not paying debts; and every creditor would sit in sackcloth and ashes. Such a decision would exercise the most fatal influence on British interests. Her Majesty's Government regretted with the hon. Gentleman that a misunderstanding had occurred between the two Governments, and they were equally desirous with him that friendly relations should prevail between Great Britain and a Power which had, from its peculiar form of government, special claims upon our respect, and which, from its great wealth, the magnitude of its resources, and the intelligence of its inhabitants, was well entitled to hold a great and independent position among the nations of the work. But Her Majesty's Government had a great, solemn, and peremptory duty to perform—namely, to protect the property and lives of Her Majesty's subjects. He believed that the country would support the Government in performing that duty. It wag with the conviction, that if this Motion were carried, British property would be sacrificed, and even British lives imperilled throughout the world, that he called upon the House to reject the Motion of the hon. Member for Lincoln.

MR. COBDEN

Sir, I must say I scarcely remember ever to have listened to a debate in this House in which the speakers have wandered so far from the immediate question before it. I shall say but a very few words at this late hour, but what I will say shall be to the purpose. I have listened to the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Collier) who led off this discussion in defence of the Go- vernment. He stood behind me; I could not see him, but I could fancy he had his gown and wig on, and, in fact, on one or two occasions he seemed to have thought so himself, for he addressed us as though we were "Gentlemen of the jury." On the other hand, I view the speech of my hon. and learned Friend precisely as a practised juryman regards the speech of a counsel who opens a case in court. He knows that he is speaking from his brief, that he pledges himself to nothing, and that he does but follow his instructions. I am in this difficulty with regard to this case, that I cannot believe in the competency of the witnesses. We have, in fact, only one witness to the main point at issue. Mr. Christie, our Representative in Brazil, tells us, at page 71 of the Official Papers— All that is known as to the plunder, and all the circumstances suggesting suspicions of murder, are set forth in Mr. Vereker's despatches. Now, I take exception to Mr. Vereker as a witness in this case. I cannot accept him as such. I do not know whether hon. Gentlemen have read this book from the beginning with the attention that I have, but I was struck, from the very first despatch dated June, 1861, and signed H. B. Vereker, to the end of his correspondence, with this feature, that there is a morbid suspiciousness pervading it throughout. For instance, in announcing the receipt of the first intelligence of this disaster in his despatch to the Secretary of the Board of Trade, from the beginning to the end of that despatch, giving the description of the wreck, the mode in which he heard of the wreck, and what he was about to do in consequence of the wreck, every line of it is tinged with a degree of suspicion and excitement. It conveys the impression that he had actually viewed the wreck as a sort of conspiracy against himself. A magistrate who happened to visit Rio Grande, mentions in conversation that a wreck had taken place, Mr. Vereker takes exception to the way in which he related this rumour, as if a wreck was something that happened periodically in his district, as if it came within the ordinary functions of a magistrate to come to Rio Grande once a month or once a quarter to announce a wreck, and that he had come on this occasion and had not given all the information that was expected of him. Mr. Vereker sets about to find out evidence as to whether the vessel that had been wrecked was a British vessel; he finds papers, and imagines that somebody wanted to keep them from him. Immediately he obtains evidence that it is a British vessel, he applies to the municipal judge of the place to accompany him to the scene of the disaster; and here he is obliged candidly to admit that the municipal judge, with the utmost promptness and frankness, agreed to accompany him. They started forthwith with an escort of soldiers and an armed body of custom-house officers, proceeding forty miles the first day and thirty-eight miles the next day, through a desolate region. This armed body of men arrive at night at the house of the magistrate Soares, the very person who had been in Rio Grande and had reported the wreck. He arrives at the house in the evening, accompanied with an armed escort, and he there finds two young ladies, the daughters of this magistrate, who is himself from home. They receive this body of armed men coming in the evening with some reluctance, and appear disinclined to admit them into the house. That circumstance is immediately put down by Mr. Vereker as a confirmation of his suspicions that Soares had something to do with the robbery. Next morning he sallies out, and goes to see the scene of the wreck. He finds out that there are four bodies somewhere which he wants to have removed, and he inquires for the other bodies. He sees two officers talking together, and he immediately draws a conclusion as to what they are saying. He wants to have an inquest, but he says he has not an escort strong enough to compel the neighbourhood to agree to an inquest. Then it is suggested that they should search the houses, and he who was afraid of the power of the parties in the neighbourhood detaches himself with half of the escort, and proceeds to search a portion of the houses, while he despatches the other half of the escort to search the remainder. Nothing is discovered in the houses; and immediately Mr. Vereker declares that the plundered property is in the adjoining thickets. He returns to Rio Grande, and he demands that the four bodies which had been found should be sent on to Rio Grande in order that an inquest should be held on them. The bodies are in a state of decomposition, but an armed escort is immediately despatched to convey them to Rio Grande, and an inquest is held on them. There are competent medical men in attendance, who pronounce that these unfortunate persons had died of suffocation from drowning. This only confirms Mr. Vereker's suspicion that murder had been committed. Now, I mention this suspiciousness to show the mental condition of this gentleman, which is of importance in this case, and this state of his mind appears in all this correspondence. In a despatch to Earl Russell, at page 14 of the papers, and received February 3, 1862, Mr. Consul Vereker has occasion to speak of the sub-delegate of Tahim, and he says— The sub-delegate had to collect such goods as he could in benefit of the customs, and yet most of the goods which he delivered to me had been taken out of their cases, and there is no real doubt but that those cases were broken by his order, and the goods of least value given up. In making this statement according to my conviction, I feel it right to say I cannot legally prove it. That is the tone that pervades the whole of this correspondence. Now, in the account given of the inquest there seems to be a little misunderstanding respecting the Portuguese word which has been translated as "strangled," when it is said it meant "suffocated." Mr. Consul Vereker, in writing to Earl Russell on the 20th March, has occasion to allude to the examination of the bodies, and he says at page 20 of the papers— In the report of the examination of the bodies on the coast, among other allegations not creditable to the local residents, it is stated by those appointed to examine the body of one of the unfortunate persons from the wreck that he was strangled. Such statements may account for the unwillingness of the authorities to give the required information, and possibly for the limited nature of the inquiry instituted, as there seems to exist a fear that under a more searching investigation disclosures might be made which would throw discredit on the country. Having formed this supposition, he builds an hypothesis upon it, for he continues— If this is so (I put the suggestion forward only hypothetically, it shows on the part of the local authorities either a culpable sympathy with evildoers or a want of moral courage which is highly reprehensible. Now, I will not read more than one more extract; but I say that if you follow up this correspondence, you will find the same tone pervading it throughout. In a despatch to Earl Russell, dated April 24th, at page 35, Mr. Consul Vereker, in referring to the inquiry which the President of the Province is about to institute into the circumstances of the shipwreck, says— Its necessity is alleged by his Excellency the President to arise from my having reported to Her Majesty's Government that the crew of the barque had been assasinated, and the delegate in his des patch invites me to be present, as it were, to sustain my suspicions; thus the inquiry comes to bear the character of an attempt to disprove those alleged statements, which, as your Lordship is aware, were never uttered; for though I have endeavoured most faithfully to report the facts, I have with equal caution avoided hitherto drawing any conclusion. In the same letter, a few lines farther on, he says— I feel it suitable at this time, and after mature consideration of the various bearings of the case, to declare my opinion that the deaths of some of those who composed the crew of the Prince of Wales cannot, in view of the facts and circumstances, and position of the bodies, be accounted for in any reasonable manner excepting on the suspicion that they were the result of assassination. So that in the very same despatch he states in one place that he refrained from drawing any conclusion, and in another that there was no reasonable way of accounting for all the circumstances but upon the supposition of assassination. Now, I take his unconciousness of the infirmity under which he was labouring to be a strong proof that the infirmity was of a very grave description, and this brings me to a matter which should be alluded to with great delicacy; but the facts and the causes remain. I am not going to speak of the causes—they are not such as have been volunteered by my hon. Friend (Mr. Layard). There are matters to which I might allude, there are other circumstances than those which have been mentioned to which I might refer; but I shall say no more than that the painful fact is disclosed in the despatches, that last year Mr. Consul Vereker had been seized with mental aberration, and symptoms of the malady under which he was labouring pervade the whole of his correspondence. He appears to have been seized with the delusion that he was himself going to be assassinated, and he took refuge in Rio Janeiro. He went to Mr. Christie, who appointed a medical man to examine him, and that Gentleman was obliged to say to the Marquis D'Abrantes that the whole was a delusion, and Mr. Vereker was then sent to England. Now, I say that such a person as Mr. Consul Vereker would be held in any court of justice an incompetent witness upon whose testimony the case should be decided. I would wish you to bear in mind that Mr. Consul Vereker's evidence is the only testimony we have to show that these minor and inferior agents had neglected their duty, or had been in any way compromised in this affair. The matter to which I desire to draw the attention of this House is, that we have the testimony of the highest class of witnesses in opposition to the statements which have been made, and I maintain that they are the parties by whose evidence we should be guided. We do not find it stated in the blue-books of the Government; but we have it from the highest authorities, persons who have been long resident in the country—that the present Emperor of Brazil is a Sovereign of the highest attainments—one who, in fact, if he were one of the potentates of Europe, would take a foremost rank among the monarchs of the old world. You find, in the correspondence of Mr. Christie, that he speaks very highly of the Brazilian Minister of Justice, and you find him also speaking highly of the President of the Province of Rio Grande. You will find, also, that Mr. Consul Vereker is obliged to admit that from the municipal judge and other authorities of the country he received the most prompt and generous attention. Now, these—the highest authorities—are those from whom we should expect, and do receive, the most satisfactory proofs of the policy which they desired to adopt towards another nation. I do not intend to enter into the jumble of details which have been laid before the House for the purpose of showing that property was stolen. I am perfectly satisfied that there was a wreck, and that the vessel experienced the same fate it would have done in other countries. No doubt some of the property was carried off, and that, as the district borders upon a neighbouring State, the parties implicated could not be secured when the Government wished to bring them to justice, I can also believe it possible that some of the men were even murdered when they came ashore. I do not believe it, but it may have been possible. All those circumstances, however, would not be sufficient to constitute a ground of claim against the Brazilian Government, unless you can find that them has been something like complicity in the proceedings on their part. Why, Sir, it would be a tremendous evil in the international relations of the world if a foreign State, one of whose citizens living abroad had suffered wrong, should claim to be the sole judge as to whether that citizen had been treated properly or not, and to assume for itself the functions of both judge and jury, and insist upon justice being done according to its own behests. Now, I apprehend there is one simple but invariable rule by which we should be guided in such cases, and that is, that if you go into a foreign country— except, perhaps, China or Turkey, into which countries you claim to carry your own laws, — you must be content if your countrymen receive the same treatment which the citizens of that country receive. You cannot claim more, and you have a right to receive that. Can any-body doubt that the Brazilian Government behaved just in the same manner and with the same good faith in their desire to bring the guilty to justice as if the vessel belonged to one of their own citizens? But what charge does Mr. Vereker, as a matter of fact, bring against the magistrate Scares? I suppose Scares is a gentleman, as he was appointed a magistrate. I was sorry, therefore, to hear my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Collier) speak of him as a brigand with his retainers. Now, what is proved against him? That two Bibles were found in his house. Does anybody suppose that in a Portuguese Catholic community any value was attached to an English edition of the Protestant Bible, or that these two volumes of the Sacred Scriptures were taken as plunder? Let us suppose that a Brazilian vessel was cast ashore on the coast of Cornwall—a district rather famous in connection with shipwrecks—and that a cross or a rosary of no intrinsic value was found in the house of a magistrate near the place; would it be taken as a proof of piractical robbery? I think that the case of Senhor Soares is just such a one as might have occurred in England. From the facts before us I contend that we have no proof of connivance on the part of the authorities of Brazil. But there is one point which I wish to bring out, which will have some weight with the noble Lord at the head of the Government. That noble Lord professes very great anxiety to protect the interests of Englishmen living abroad. Well, there is a body of English merchants living at Brazil, men of high respectability; and what would be the testimony of those men with respect to the conduct of the Brazilian Government? I will venture to say that the community of Englishmen in Brazil are treated with as much consideration and respect, and as much fostering patronage and protection, as it is possible for any country to show to foreigners residing within its boundary; and what is the opinion of that community of British merchants in Brazil on this very transaction? I say, on the authority of men connected with the Brazilian trade— and I beg the noble Lord at the head of the Government to bear this in mind—that the merchants at Rio and in Brazil generally are unanimous in disapproving the course taken by the English Government. ["Hear, hear!"] What I have just stated has been cheered by the hon. Gentleman who brought forward the present Motion, himself largely connected with the trade of that country. I go further, and say that the feeling of the British merchants there on this question arises mainly from the fact that they do not believe the evidence of Mr. Consul Vereker to be sufficient to prove that the Brazilian Government have sought to do any injury or to evade their responsibility to English merchants; and they bear testimony to the desire of the Brazilian Government to cultivate the most friendly relations with England and the English residents in Brazil. What is to become of the maritime States of a weaker order if the principle is established, that where a shipwreck occurs the country where it happens shall be held responsible? As the Brazilian authorities said in one of their despatches, the coast where this shipwreck occurred would become a favourite resort for a certain class of mariners if the country is to be made responsible for all shipwrecks there. We have lately had an exposure, which shows, I think, pretty conclusively, that a new kind of industry has been established in the world. It is a sinister kind of industry, that of making a profit by wrecking ships; and if the Brazilian Government are obliged to submit to the demand made on this occasion, then I say that the coast of Rio Grande will be a favourite resort of mariners of that odious description. Before I sit down I will say one word as to, perhaps, the only practical benefit to be derived from this unfortunate business. I want to draw public attention to the evils which arise from such secret diplomacy as has been practised in this matter. Here is a correspondence carried on for eighteen months upon a purely commercial question of the very smallest magnitude; vast interests in Brazil have been jeopardized, and yet we have been kept in complete ignorance of these secret proceedings. We have lately had a movement among a number of chambers of commerce, calling on the Foreign Office to put itself in greater communication with them in reference to commercial arrangements with other countries; and I think that they might take a hint from what has oc- curred on this simple matter. I have read these despatches with a greater distaste for diplomacy than I ever felt before. They exhibit such an amount of verbal criticism and special pleading, and the correspondence is altogether of such an order, that I was really ashamed when I perused it. I wish to make a suggestion with regard to all such correspondence as this, having simply no other than a commercial interest. I do not speak of diplomacy in Europe, having reference to State affairs, the balance of power, and old treaties, with respect to which, in deference to third parties, it is thought proper to keep the diplomacy secret; but I am referring to correspondence simply on a commercial question; and I think that it would be a very prudent course for that correspondence to be published before the proceedings are brought to a close. I venture to say, that if this correspondence had been published from the beginning, if it had been laid on the table of the House at the commencement of the last Session, and we had known what was going on in Brazil, the body of English merchants there, whoso public opinion would have been far more effectual to preserve peace than your diplomacy, would, if you had let in the wholesome light of publicity, have put an end to that envenomed style of diplomacy which has been going on for so many months, and which has hatched all this mischief. What has been the result of the course of proceeding adopted? Why, without even twenty-four hours' notice, the British merchants in Brazil found their country on the verge of a war with the Emperor of Brazil. The act of the Admiral in making reprisals on Brazilian vessels was taken in secret, and the consequence was such a perfect panic that great alarm was felt for the lives and property of English subjects in Rio. Your Minister barricaded himself in his house for protection. It should be mentioned, for the credit of the Brazilian Government, that, to allay the alarm, the Minister of Commerce went down to the Exchange and assured the English merchants there that they should have the whole power of the State exerted for their protection; and the Emperor went into the streets and harangued the populace with the object of calming their agitation. But, suppose the Emperor had taken another course—and I have heard from some shrewd men that he might probably have consulted his interest better if he had, for I am told that you have imperilled by your proceedings the existence of the only constitutional Monarchy in America, and given ascendancy to the Republican party—but suppose the Emperor had taken a different course when you seized his ships, and had made reprisals tending to war. See in what a predicament you place the vast interests of Englishmen in Brazil. The hon. Gentleman who brought forward the present Motion states that £20,000,000 of British property were at stake. In one hour the lives of British citizens might have been placed in danger, and their property rendered liable to confiscation, because of a state of war. This is a state of things which it behoves the commerce of the country to take steps to avert in future. Where we are connected with another nation only for the purpose of commerce, let the merchants and manufacturers of this country demand publicity in cases like this, so that public opinion may be brought to bear on them, and then we shall never have such a discreditable production as is the blue-book on this matter. I will not refer to that other topic dealt with by the noble Lord the member for Stamford (Lord Robert Cecil). I feel humiliated to see an aged Sovereign in infirm health like the King of the Belgians called upon with all his abilities to condescend to arbitrate on a question such as that of the three young officers who went from a ship of war to enjoy themselves in the country—at the Star and Garter of Rio—and who becoming merry committed the not very serious offence of mocking a sentry, who was perhaps half a sleep, and contrived to get themselves put into the guard-house. We should think that a venial offence here; but what invested it with real importance is the absurd manner in which the Foreign Office took up the subject. I say that diplomacy must he in its dotage, when it can find no better occupation than the case of these officers. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman the proposer of the present Motion will divide the House, or whether he will be content with having elicited opinion on the subject. If he will divide, I shall vote with him; but I. would not advise him to be in a minority on a division. I would rather advise him to be satisfied with being in a majority in the debate. I venture to say, unless it be my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Plymouth —who, I say, holds a brief, and is a kind of legal adviser to the Government in such matters—you will not find outside the ranks of the Government many men in this House distinguished for influence and independence who will take their stand with the Government in support of their measures on this occasion.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL

Sir, nothing is more easy than to claim a majority in debate. Those who are not willing to take the sense of the House by a division may always applaud their own arguments, and say that they have the majority in point of reason; but I think we may safely conclude, that if hon. Members sitting on the opposite side of the House are not inclined to divide, they do not agree with the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken (Mr. Cobden) in thinking that they have the majority of arguments in the debate. Being a great admirer of the hon. Gentleman's undoubted abilities, and of his eminent services to the country, I always listen with interest to his speeches, and I hoped to have received some new light on this occasion; but I have been disappointed, for the hon. Member appears mainly to have addressed himself, though without success, to an object unworthy of his influence and abilities—to the object of throwing discredit on an honourable servant of the country, who, from motives most laudable, and in the discharge of an imperative duty, has endeavoured to see justice done in a case of crying wrong. The hon. Gentleman has devoted his energies on the present occasion to making a most feeble attack on a gentleman who, he says, is the sole witness for the Government. Now, I wish to show that we do not rest our case on the testimony of that gentleman. We may safely take our stand upon the Brazilian authorities themselves. I do not want to go out of their despatches to prove the case of the Government. The hon. Member has taken so strange a view of the principles involved in this discussion that he has said, "You are starting a new principle; you are making every nation responsible for every shipwreck that occurs on its coast." The hon. Gentleman has of late years given no small part of his attention to international law; he wishes to establish a general system of arbitration—although upon this occasion he is humiliated because the Government have recourse to it —in all such questions, and undoubtedly he is a great authority upon that subject; but certainly a more remarkable inadvertence as to the principles of international law it would be impossible to conceive. Now, what are the principles on which the Government has acted? I do not think that any one in this House who has given attention to the subject will challenge them. There may be those on the one side of the House or the other who may think that the facts did not call for the application of those principles, and there I am ready to meet them; but the principles themselves are not open to serious mistake or misunderstanding. It is the duty of those who, in any country, take upon themselves the responsibility of government to see that that government is efficient for the repression of outrage and wrong, especially of outrage and wrong against the citizens of other nations. It is a duty correlative to, and inseparable from, the territorial rights which they assume; because, if it were otherwise, of course foreign nations who suffered wrong-would be entitled to take the law into their own hands, and seek redress against those from whom the wrong has been received. But because the sovereign power is vested with responsible authority, and undertakes to see justice done to the subjects of other countries, for that reason it is that the Sovereigns of those other countries cannot execute justice in their own favour within the territory of the country the subjects of which have done the wrong, but must go to the Sovereign of that country, and require from him that justice should be done. And I say that it is a duty inseparable from sovereignty to provide the means of repressing outrage and wrong against foreign nations, and, having provided them, to see that they are honestly and effectively carried into effect and used. Now, that is no new doctrine, no strange doctrine. A great ornament of the jurisprudence of the northern part of this kingdom, one worthy to be ranked with the greatest jurists of Europe—the Lord President Stair—has laid down that doctrine in terms at once so forcible and so applicable to the present case that the House will, I have no doubt, excuse my reading an extract. He says— Reprisals are granted by princes or States to seize upon the goods of all persons under the dominion of such princes or people who have refused to make just reparation for the wrongs and damages done by any of their subjects, which the law of nations doth justly and necessarily allow for the common good of mankind. For, if private persons be injured by those who are not under one common authority with them, by piracy, pillage, or otherwise, ofttimes they cannot know the injurer; and, all force being vested in public authority, they cannot make use thereof to redress or avenge themselves; and therefore they can only make application to the sovereign authority, of that society of people whereof they are members, and represent and instruct the injury and damage sustained by them, by the subjects of those princes or States, and thereupon desire that a redress may be demanded, which is ordinarily done by ambassadors, or other Ministers of State; and, if redress be not so obtained, the sovereign authority of the persons injured may and ought to give commissions for seizing upon the goods of any of the people of the society whereof the injurers are members. There is no jurist who has not laid down the same doctrine. The alternative would be most monstrous. What is the alternative? If the Government of Brazil do not accept the responsibility for the piratical acts of a whole population living under their control—if they do not admit that they are bound to provide means of doing justice and repressing wrong, and to use those means honestly and efficiently—are we to say, that because a nominal sovereignty is established in Brazil, therefore wrong is to go on with impunity? There are no means in Brazil of redressing it; and then we are not to be at liberty to do it for ourselves, because, forsooth, we should be violating the territorial sovereignty of that nation. Suppose we had sent a ship-of-war to this coast, and our marines had gone to the house of the magistrate Soares, whom I, in common with my hon. Friend, believe to be the principal of this gang of plunderers, and had enforced redress from him and the other wealthy inhabitants, what would have been said? "You are violating the territory of Brazil." Then, of course, we go to the sovereignty of Brazil and say, "Do us that right which by the law of nations we are not at liberty to do directly for ourselves." But it is said by my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Seymour FitzGerald) that it is wrong to seek pecuniary compensation for a denial of justice, if justice would take the shape of punishment, if justice would not necessarily result in pecuniary reparation from those who have done the wrong. My hon. Friend is quite mistaken. I have here a short passage from Vattel which I will read. He says— The Sovereign who refuses to cause reparation to be made for the damage done by his subject, or to punish the offender, or, finally, to deliver him up, renders himself in some measure an accomplice in the injury, and becomes responsible for it. But if he deliver up either the property of the offender as an indemnification in cases that will admit of pecuniary compensation, or his person, in order that he may suffer the punish- ment due to his crime, the offended party has no further demand upon him." (Vattel, B. ii., chap, vi., sec. 77.) If he does any of these things—that is, if he executes justice to the utmost of his power, either by obtaining pecuniary compensation, or, if that cannot be done, by executing punishment upon the offender —it is enough; but he must do what is possible in those respects, and it is his duty to provide such means of administering justice in his country that it shall be possible. I do not mean of course in every individual case, but where a wrong is done on a great scale, as in this instance, by a combined population. It is said that we should only make reprisals upon just grounds; what is meant by that? Grounds which the nation making the reprisals is satisfied it can demonstrate to be just by good and sufficient reasons. Writers say this, "You are no doubt in the first place to do all you can, to use all peaceable means of getting justice done in the ordinary course in the country where the wrong has been done; you are not hastily to take the law into your own hands and assume that justice cannot be done." But some writers accompany that with this caution; Vattel following up the passage in which be lays down that doctrine with these words— But, in order perfectly to understand this article, it must be observed, that if in a disputable case our adversary either refuses to pursue or artfully evades the necessary steps for bringing the matter to the proof—if he does not candidly and sincerely accede to some pacific mode of terminating the dispute,… he gives justice to our cause, which before was problematical. Let us now come to the facts. I undertake to show that we have, upon the evidence of the Brazilian authorities themselves, all the circumstances necessary to make out the justice of our demand. In a despatch which is at page 16, written by Senhor Garces, who was, I think, delegate of police, to Senhor Callado, the chief of police—written among themselves, by one Brazilian authority to another—we have their own statement of the facts, which, although my hon. Friend read it, I will read it again, because it is short, and is evidence of the most important character. Senhor Garces says, "The cargo of the barque was all sacked." So that the main fact that the cargo was plundered is stated on their own authority— Mariano Pinto and Manuel Maria Rodrigues (who fled for the Oriental State) were not the only ones who robbed it; it is known that many of the inhabitants, perhaps the wealthiest of the place"—who was the wealthiest? Scares, the justice—"are devoted to this industry; but against these no proofs appear; there will be no witnesses who would depose against them. He then goes on— The inhabitants of the more neighbouring parts interested in concealing it, having robbed almost all,… as has been the custom to practise in other epochs and in identical circumstances. Showing that this is not an isolated act, but that it is the habit of the people of that coast. After passing over many similar statements, we come to one at page 39, where Mr. Vereker writes— Dr. Canarim, the delegate of police of this city, informed me this clay that they had obtained proofs against six or seven individuals for plundering the cargo, but that no arrest had taken place, as they were satisfied that others of greater influence were involved; and it was feared that the principals would escape if those of less note, with whom the others had combined, should be prosecuted; they wished to connect the proofs so as to reach the principals. The delegate added that almost all the inhabitants of the coast were implicated in the robberies. So that they might have arrested six or seven persons, whom they did not, because they wished to collect proofs to implicate the principals. And after the statement that almost all the inhabitants of the coast were implicated in the robberies, what becomes of the assertion that the perpetrators of this crime were a few persons who crossed the frontier the moment, it had been perpetrated, and that unless they had been discovered at the moment, it was utterly useless to attempt to prosecute them? We have the authority of the Brazilians themselves to the contrary. The whole fixed population of the place was known to be concerned in these transactions, but they omitted to prosecute these six or seven against whom they had obtained proofs—observe "obtained proofs" —because all the inhabitants were involved; by some very strange course of reasoning, they thought that they ought to complete the proof so as to include every one who was guilty, especially the principals, before they proceeded against the five or six against whom they had proofs. Was there ever plainer evidence of complicity, or a plainer confession that they did not do what they could? Then what happened besides? The House has heard the name of Faustino, the inspector of the district, son-in-law of Scares, who ought to have taken charge of the property, and who denied that the chests had been opened, although there was under his eyes the evidence that it had been done, and who was there with the force which overawed the judge who came with Mr. Vereker to see the wreck. Now, it is upon his statements that, according to that despatch to which Senhor Moreira refers as containing a satisfactory summary of the whole case, he and others are sought to be exculpated by the Brazilian Government. What do they admit about him? It came out in that very memorandum that he was dismissed for having intentionally allowed to escape persons who were in custody for complicity in this robbery. So here you have evidence of an inspector permitting the escape of prisoners under such circumstances. I would now ask the House to allow me to go back to what took place between Senhor Callado and Senhor Garces. At page 16 you will find the despatch from the latter to the former, in which he speaks of the wealthiest inhabitants being implicated. He goes on to say— It is my duty to assure you that I have adopted every measure, I have done everything possible, for the advancement of that process, which it is not possible to advance, seeing that if being necessary to have the depositions of witnesses to form the accusation against the only culprit who is in gaol, this cannot be obtained, because, having ordered three times that various persons of Albardao and the neighbourhood should be notified to appear in this city, they all refused; they did not appear before the officer of justice, pretending that they were sick. Here we have evidence that there were persons within the Brazilian territory who ought to have been produced to give evidence, and who, though not actually sick, but pretending to be so, were not compelled to appear. Now, does my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Seymour FitzGerald), or my noble Friend the Member for Stamford (Lord Robert Cecil), who seemed to be so enthusiastic on the side on which they spoke in this debate, seriously believe that the authority of the Emperor of Brazil was not such as to enable him to enforce the attendance of those men? And if there be anybody who imagines that a mere refusal on their part to come forward ought to constitute a sufficient obstruction to the course of justice, I can only say to him that Senhor Callado did not take that view of the matter, because in reply to Senhor Garces he uses the following words:— I have to point out to you that as that process should terminate, and the reluctance of the witnesses to come before Court cannot serve as a motive to delay it, you should make use of the re- sources of the law, ordering them to appear under the rod of justice. Again— Finally, if the witnesses should refuse to swear the truth against the wealthy inhabitants of the locality of the wreck, who, according to your opinion, are the principal criminals, shown guilty of perjury, they ought, as such, to be processed, it being necessary determinately to show ('determinar') to the sub-delegate of Tahim and to the inspector of the district that they should investigate where the articles robbed remain, and who detain them, in order that they may be brought to judgment. Thus, it appears that the chief of police, who seems to be an honest man, gives it as his opinion that the witnesses ought to be compelled to come forward. Is there, I would ask, any evidence in the papers before us to show that the officers of justice in Brazil used the means at their command to effect that object? None whatsoever. Now, in the last despatch of Senhor Mereira I find some facts and arguments which are not in the Brazil papers. It is said that five inquests were held by different authorities, and that Consul Vereker might have been present at all those investigations. Now, for that statement there is not a particle of foundation. So far as the earlier investigations were concerned, he was simply told that proceedings would be taken, and that he would be informed of the result. He never was, however, informed on the subject until after the proceedings had taken place, and during the most important part of them, when the truth might have most easily been discovered, he was furnished with no opportunity of being in attendance or making a statement. There is also another assertion with respect to the conviction of eleven prisoners, which my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham has adopted from the last despatch of Senhor Moreira, for which, except in that despatch, I have found no foundation. In page 77 there is a letter of the Marquis of Abrantes, dated the 16th of August, 1862, an extract from which I will read, and which is thus reported in the English translation— I think I have given as lucid an answer as possible to each of the propositions of Mr. Christie's note, thus having enabled him to furnish his Government with what explanations he wishes. I will not, however, conclude without informing Mr. Christie that on the day on which I received his note, to which this is an answer, I also received a despatch from the President of Rio Grande of the 31st of last month, from which it appears that the investigations and inquests to be held by the authorities have been concluded, resulting in the conviction of eleven persons for robbery. Now, any one who reads as far as that, and no further, might well suppose that that took place with respect to these eleven prisoners, which was reproduced in the last despatch of Senhor Moreira; but on looking to page 85, I find that Mr. Christie communicates a correction of that passage which he had received from the Marquis Abrantes, and which is as follows:— I will not conclude without informing Mr. Christie that on the same day on which I received his note I received also a despatch from the President of Rio Grande, dated the 31st of July, from which it appears that the examination and inquiries to which the proper authorities proceeded have been finished, the result being that eleven individuals are accused of the crime of robbery, and that the competent order of imprisonment has issued against them. That, the House will see, is a very different thing from the apprehension or conviction of these men. Again, at page 122, the following passage occurs:— The President finally made a communication that a fresh process had been instituted against eleven individuals, and that endeavours were being made to send descriptions of those supposed to have taken refuge in the Oriental State. At the commencement there were only three, but by means of the continued efforts of the authorities eight more had been discovered. Now, I do not suppose my hon. Friend will believe that since this blue-book was completed these eleven persons have been convicted. [Mr. SEYMOUR FITZGERALD; Yes.] Well, all I can say is, that I am led to make a totally different inference on the matter from that which my hon. Friend has drawn. I am persuaded that Senhor Moreira's last despatch is not founded on independent information received by him, because he would have said so if such had been the case. My conjecture is that the person who wrote that despatch had not read all the papers, and had been misled by the first mistranslation. I have now, I think, satisfied the House, not on the testimony of Mr. Vereker alone, but from the Brazilian authorities themselves, that the whole population of the district in question were accomplices in this outrage; and I contend that the Government ought to furnish the moans of redressing a crime of which the whole population were guilty. I add, that the Brazilian authorities did not, on their own showing, use all the means at their disposal to bring the offenders to justice; and if this be not a denial of justice, I know not what is to be regarded in that light. The facts connected with the bodies appear to me to be equally irresistible. I agree with those who contend that it would not be right to ask for compensation on the ground that murder was committed unless we had positive proof of the fact. We may, nevertheless, be morally convinced that murder was committed, and that the Brazilian Government did not take the proper means to investigate the matter. How does that case stand? It appears from the papers, and not simply on the evidence of Mr. Vereker, that he wrote to the proper authorities immediately after returning from the spot, and demanded that all the bodies should be disinterred and an inquest held. Now, it has not been denied that there were ten bodies in all—five were admitted to have been buried in one spot. But only four bodies were sent in answer to Mr. Vereker's demand. He immediately called attention to the deficiency, and asked why all the bodies had not been forwarded. The reply was, that orders had been given to have the matter strictly investigated; but nothing ever came of it. It was never alleged that the position of the bodies was not known till a long time afterwards, when it was suggested that the sands might have drifted so that the bodies could not be found. Is it unreasonable to suppose that Mr. Vereker has told the truth in regard to these things? What could be more extraordinary than the explanation which has been suggested of Mr. Vereker's condition? Is it to be said that because that gentleman was so zealous on behalf of his countrymen—because be was so eager to uphold the honour of his country—because he exerted himself so arduously to obtain redress that his mind for a time gave way—is it to be said that because this misfortune fell upon him through over-anxiety, therefore every statement he had previously made is to be discredited? I was surprised to hear such observations from the noble Lord the Member for Stamford (Lord Robert Cecil), of whom I expected better things. I think the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Cobden) would also have done more honour to his high character if he had abstained from such insinuations. These Gentlemen have no right or reason to assume that because Mr. Vereker became ill through the over-excitement of business, which is what might happen to any of us, and was temporarily subject to certain delusions, everything he had written before that concerning what he had seen with his own eyes and heard with his own ears was a mis- representation and a delusion, especially because it tended to criminate the Brazilian Government. It seems to me, Sir, that the Brazilian Government has sufficiently criminated itself. There is no trace of aberration in the statements of Mr. Vereker. They are perfectly rational and consistent. Does the hon. Member for Rochdale believe this is purely imagination? Mr. Vereker states— I also saw in Senhor Bento's house two cases belonging to the Prince of Wales empty, but dry and in perfect order. I noted the marks, and am informed from Glasgow by the shipowners that they had contained fine manufactured goods, yet no part of these goods was given up. If the hon. Member calls that an effort of fancy, it only shows into what sad delusions those sometimes fall who are so ready to think evil of the efforts of their countrymen in distant lands, when the wrongs of British subjects are in question. Some Gentlemen have talked as if Senhor Bento Soares had been charged with going to the ship expressly for the purpose of stealing the Bibles. He was suspected of having been concerned either personally or through his subordinates in the work of pillage, because these Bibles were found in his house, along with the cases, and these things constituted conclusive evidence of the corpus delicti. The Brazilian Government themselves did not dispute the connection between these articles and the robbery. On the contrary, they said that there was a certain carpenter who was implicated in the robbery, and who resided in Bento Soares' house, and suggested that that might account for some of the things from the wreck being found in the Senhor's house. And it is rather significant that all the people implicated appear to have been retainers or dependents of Soares', and at least one of them lived in his house. If they ventured to commit such acts, it might be supposed it was because they knew the Senhor would not object to them. It is important also to observe that the books and cases were dry, showing that they had not been cast ashore from the wreck, but had been deliberately stolen therefrom. According to Mr. Vereker, one of Scares' own hoys admitted that his father knew of the wreck on the 9th; yet Soares took no steps to preserve the property. He went to Rio Grande on the 12th, and knowing that the circumstance would soon be notorious, mentioned casually that some bodies had been cast ashore; but when questioned as to the wreck, he denied all knowledge of it. The admission of the Brazilian Government that wealthy persons were implicated in the outrage, the fact that the suspected delinquents were connected with Scares and his house, the release of one of the prisoners by his son-in-law Faustino — all these things pointed to Scares as a participator in the crime. Among other irrelevant episodes in this discussion, the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Cavendish Benthick) fought his battles over again, and once more slew the slain, in regard to the case of Mr. Watson Taylor. It is rather odd, that the hon. Member who was last Session so angry at our nonintervention, is this Session so indignant at our intervention. Whichever course we take we cannot please hon. Gentlemen opposite. I trust, however, the House is now satisfied that the action of the Government has been bonâ fide, and that their only object has been to prove that British subjects cannot be wronged with impunity, either by a weak or by a strong Government. If proof were wanting that the administration of justice in Brazil is by no means so pure as has been represented, it would be found in the fact to which my hon. Friend (Mr. Layard) has referred, that in the case of Mr. Reid a person high in office canvassed the judge for a decision against that gentleman without regard to the justice of the matter, and in the subsequent avowal of the Brazilian Government that there was nothing unusual in such a proceeding. Moreover, at the very time that the decided protest of the British Government led to Faustino's dismissal it appears that that officer was about to have been promoted. I think the House will have no doubt about the matter. I wish we were going to a division, but I trust, that although the House is unanimous, the effect of the discussion will not be less than if we had divided.

MR. BRAMLEY-MOORE

said, that after the expression of opinion by the House he begged to withdraw the Amendment.

Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Supply considered in Committee.

House resumed.

Committee report Progress; to sit again on Monday next.