§ SIR THOMAS BATESONsaid, he rose to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether Captain Mackey, the Fenian convict, who is reported in the Freeman's Journal, the organ of the Government in Ireland, to have received an unconditional pardon from Her Majesty's present Advisers, is the same individual who last year killed a police-constable at Cork, who attacked and set fire to a police barrack at Ballyknockbane 954 and seized the arms of the constabulary belonging to that station, who also attacked and rifled the Martello Tower at Fota in December 1867, and who was implicated in other outrages at Castle Martyr, Knockadoon, Kilmallock, Kilcooley Wood, and elsewhere; whether the said Captain Mackey had, in 1866, been arrested by order of Lord Kimberley, under a Lord Lieutenant's warrant, and had been discharged in the month of April following on his solemnly pledging himself in writing not to return to the United Kingdom; and, finally, whether this man is the criminal who, for these repeated outrages, was, on the 20th of March last, sentenced by the present Lord Chancellor to twelve years' penal servitude—a sentence which the convict admitted to be a most just and lenient one?
§ MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUESir, I am not aware that the Government has any organ, as the hon. Member has stated, in the Irish Press; but with regard to the Question of the hon. Baronet I can only say that the statements contained in it are substantially correct, with one exception, and that is the assumption that the prisoner Mackey has been discharged. The fact is that there has not been the slightest intention of remitting the punishment inflicted on Mackey, and the hon. Baronet will not find his name in the Return which has been already presented to the House.
§ MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, he hoped it would be in a few days.