§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR (Donegal, E.)asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Foreign Office is yet in possession of the facts of the case of the sailor Carrol, as to which 472 inquiry was promised last Session; whether this man was arrested and imprisoned at Punta Arenas from the 3rd to the 10th June last, without being brought to trial or told of what he was accused; whether he was on the 6th June flogged; whether he was for several days kept in irons in a damp cell; whether Captain Anderson, of the Rippling Wave, saw him marched in irons across the plaza; whether on representations being made by a Mr. Edward Stanton Yonge, proposals were privately made to that Gentleman that if he would allow the case to drop Carrol would be set at liberty, and his passage paid to some other place; whether before his release Carrol was compelled to sign a paper (in Spanish, a language which he cannot read), in which he is made to exonerate the local authorities; and, whether the Government will order an inquiry to be made into all the circumstances of the case?
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON) (Manchester, N.E.)Since the hon. Member asked a Question about this case on the 3rd of September, Mr. Fraser, Her Majesty's Minister at Santiago, has reported as to the alleged ill-treatment of Carrol. He is stated to have come as cook, in a British ship, from the Falkland Islands to Punta Arenas, and shortly after his arrival there he was arrested for drunkenness and other offences; an attempted rape being among the charges brought against him. He escaped from gaol with some prisoners accused of asassination, whom he helped to free from their chains, and wandered about the country with them for some days. He was subsequently re-arrested, and it was after this that the flogging is alleged to have occurred; though the Governor of Punta Arenas assured the Vice Consul that nothing of the kind had taken place by his order or with his knowledge. Mr. Fraser learnt that the Chilian authorities were willing to release Carrol if Mr. Yonge, a merchant residing in Punta Arenas, who had taken an interest in Carrol, would engage to convey him out of the country, and recommended that this course should be adopted. No other particulars have reached Her Majesty's Government, and the case, as far as it has been brought under their notice, does not seem to call for interference.