§ MR. RYLANDSasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If the Foreign Office will ascertain from Her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople, whether there is any foundation for the statement contained in a letter published in the "Times" of June 15, and alleged to be written by a person of rank in the Turkish capital, dated "Constantinople, May 29, 1877," in which, after detailing the representations made to the Sultan by his brother Nourredeen Effendi, as to the negligence of the Sultan's Ministers in conducting the war, the writer asserts that—
The next day your Ambassador, Mr. Layard, went to the Sultan and spoke much in the same sense, mentioning, too, the fleet remaining at anchor, and Hobart Pasha being here. His Majesty appeared astonished at learning that the Admiral was still here, and said he thought he was gone long since. He immediately called his Aide-de-Camp, Mehemet Pasha, and sent him with orders that the Admiral should take the fleet at once to sea?
§ MR. BOURKE, in reply, said, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs did not think there was any necessity for making the letter in question the subject of a special communication to Mr. Layard.