MR. BENNETT-STANFORDasked, If the Government would give the House the contents of the telegram which they had received from the Cape, and which had occasioned much anxiety?
§ MR. PULESTONalso inquired, What information the Government had received with reference to a report which had occasioned great anxiety to the Members who had heard of it?
§ COLONEL STANLEYSir, with your permission, and with feelings of very deep regret, which I am sure will be shared by the House, I will read the telegram just received from General Lord Chelmsford, telegraphed from Madeira to-day—
Camp, seven miles beyond Blood River, under Itellezi Mountain, 2nd June."Prince Imperial, acting under orders of the Assistant Quartermaster General, reconnoitered on the 1st of June. Rode to camping ground on June 2, accompanied by Lieutenant Carey, 98th, Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General, and six white men and friendly Zulus, all mounted. Party halted and off-saddled off the road about ten miles from this camp. Just as the Prince gave orders to mount a volley was fired from the long grass around the kraals. The Prince Imperial and two troopers are reported missing by Lieutenant Carey, who escaped and reached the camp at dark. On the evidence taken there can be no doubt of the Prince being killed. Some 17th Lancers and 284 ambulances are now starting to recover the body, but I send this off at once hoping to catch the mail. I myself was unaware that the Prince Imperial had been detailed for this duty.I have the melancholy satisfaction, such as it is, to add that a telegram has been received by my right hon. Friend (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), stating that the body of the late Prince Imperial has since been recovered. I think, Sir, it is hardly necessary for me to express here in this House what, I am sure, is felt by all of us in this House, of whatever Party, that a young Prince who, we are proud to think, had derived some portion at least of his military education in our own Military Academy, and who, united by the tenderest bonds of comradeship, had volunteered gallantly to go out and assist his former comrades at a time of difficulty and danger, should have met with a fate which, though it well becomes a soldier, still is one which has cut him off prematurely. I am sure we must all feel the deepest sympathy with that gracious lady who is thus deprived of the only prop to which she might have justly looked forward in after-life.