§ MR. MACFIEasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, If the satisfactory intelligence from the Gambia to which he referred in his answer given last Thursday, is not of a later date than that communicated to the public through the press on the day previous; and, if so, of what date?
§ MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN,in reply, said, on the 15th of February Messrs. Quin and Chown, Gambia merchants, stated that they had learnt by the French mail that the Mahomedans of Combo, having beaten the Pagans, meditated an attack on the Gambia settlement, in which many of the latter had taken refuge. Those gentlemen had also heard that a French gunboat had been sent from Goree to protect French interests. On the 19th Mr. Pope Hennessy's despatch arrived from which he quoted on Thursday last, giving a fuller and apparently a later account of the transaction. But Mr. Hennessy added, what Messrs. Quin and Chown did not know, that he was just starting for the Gambia, that Her Majesty's ship Rattlesnake was on her way there, and that Her Majesty's ship Decoy was actually 898 at Bathurst. Captain Vallière, Governor of Senegal, had also, unsolicited, placed the French man-of-war Curieuse at the disposal of the Administrator of the Gambia, Captain Cooper. That officer had utilized the police and volunteers at Bathurst, and Mr. Hennessy did not deem it necessary to send troops for Sierra Leone, although they were in readiness if required.