HC Deb 24 April 1866 vol 182 c1990
LORD DUNKELLIN

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether Her Majesty's Government have received any intelligence of an attack made or threatened by the Fenians on any of our North American Colonies; and, if he will communicate the purport of it to the House?

MR. CARDWELL

said, in reply, that he had received no account of any attack made by the Fenians on any part of the British North American Provinces. With regard to attacks threatened, it had been known to the House and the country for some time past that rumours of such threatened attacks had given rise to a great manifestation of loyal feeling among the people of the Provinces, and that precautions against such attacks had been adopted both by the Imperial and Colonial authorities. He had received no further account of the proceedings to which the noble Lord, alluded, except that at the departure of the last mail from Halifax a body of Fenians was stated to be assembling on the eastern boundary of the United States, but he had the strongest expectation that the precautions taken would prevent any attack that might be contemplated.