§ MR. MACFIEasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, If he can give the House any information confirmatory or contradictory of the report that one of the British Settlements on the Gambia has been lately attacked; if he has reason to believe our countrymen at Bathurst are adequately protected or organised to resist the attack alleged to be threatened; and, if so, how and to what extent; and, if the Government has sent or contemplates sending any assistance for the security of life and property?
§ MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN,in reply, said, that despatches were yesterday received from Mr. Pope Hennessey, the Administrator-in-Chief of the West African Settlements, stating that no attack had been made on any portion of those settlements, but that an attack had been threatened by the Mahomedans, who having defeated the Pagans, with whom they had for some time been fighting, many of the vanquished had taken refuge on British territory. The administrator was about to proceed to the Gambia with H.M.S. Rattlesnake, but proposed to take no more re-inforcements, especially as H.M.S. Decoy was already at Bathurst. As to defence, arms had been sent out last year, steps had been taken to organize a militia, and a small steamer was about to be sent out to the Gambia to patrol the river, which the Government believed would prove a most effectual defence. The French Governor of Senegal had most handsomely, unsolicited, also sent a ship of war to the Gambia.