§ MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM (Lanark, N.W.)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been directed to the 1263 inquiry held on Thursday, the 24th of April, into the circumstances attending the loss of the iron sailing-ship Rohilla, which foundered with all hands, and to the suppressing of certain letters at that inquiry; whether copies of those letters are in the possession of the officials of the Marine Department of the Board of Trade, written by Ned Butchers, sail-maker on board the Rohilla, from Pisagua, and dated 15th October, and what steps were taken to ascertain what credence ought to be placed in the serious charges of overloading contained in those letters; whether he was aware that Mr. D. W. M'Donald left the Rohilla at Valparaiso, and whether any attempt was made to communicate with him in order to ascertain whether his leaving was in consequence of his refusal to sanction the overloading of the vessel; whether it was mentioned to the Court of Inquiry that the owners of the Rohilla have lost six vessels during the last five years; and whether he has the power to annul the verdict of the Court and to grant another inquiry on the ground of insufficiency of the evidence laid before the Court?
§ *SIR M. HICKS BEACHThe Court found that the Rohilla was lost through striking on a shoal, and not from overloading. Copies of letters from Ned Butchers, sailmaker of the Rohilla, are in the possession of the Board of Trade. They contain allegations of overloading on previous voyages, and the Board would have endeavoured to test their truth, and to place the letters before the Court, had there been any ground for supposing that the loss of the Rohilla was due to overloading. The voyages referred to in the letters were made in safety, and upon the vessel's arrival at Falmouth after the last of these voyages, she was seen by one of the Board's Surveyors, who found she was not overladen. During the five days the vessel remained in Falmouth Harbour, no complaint was made by the sailmaker or any other of the crew. Mr. Fyfe, the gentleman who forwarded copies of Ned Butcher's letters to the Board of Trade, in addressing the Court, requested that these letters should be read, but the Magistrate held that they were not relevant, and could not be received in evidence. The Board of Trade made every effort to communicate with Mr. 1264 M'Donald, but his wife reported that he would not return to this country for three years. The Board were advised that there would have been no justification for calling the attention of the Court to the loss of other vessels belonging to the same owners. The Board of Trade had no power to annul the finding of the Court, but they could order a rehearing if satisfied that sufficient ground for such a course existed.