§ COLONEL SYKESsaid, he wished to put a question to Mr. Attorney General, but in order to make it intelligible he would state the circumstances which had rendered it necessary. A mercantile house at Ningpo had long been in the habit of sending up the river a boat laden with dollars for the purchase of silk. During the occupancy of that region by the Taepings the boat had never been molested, but lately the boat was attacked and plundered by Europeans in the Imperial service. The men were traced—one to Shanghai and two to Hong Kong, where they were seized and committed to prison. Mr. Kent, the merchant, now informed his partner in this country that the Judge at Hong Kong had released the prisoners, upon the ground that there was no law to punish Europeans who committed crimes in the interior of China. He therefore wished to know from Mr. Attorney General, Whether it is true that the state of the Law is such that Europeans may with impunity commit robberies or murders in China?
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL,in reply, said, the only answer which he could give the hon. and gallant Member was, that under the present state of the law in China any European committing any act which would be a crime by the law of this country was amenable, if he could be caught and the facts proved against him, to the Consular authorities in China, and 783 also to the Criminal Court at Hong Kong. The difficulty in the case which the hon. and gallant Member had referred to was, he supposed, that of getting up the evidence, and without any evidence there could not in China, as in this country, be any conviction.