§ MR. BAUMANNI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can state in what month of 1885 Sahmadoo's messenger made the statement to Major Festing, asking, on his master's behalf, that the Queen should take his territories under Her protection; whether Major Festing, in his private Report, alluded to this offer; and when this Report was received in London?
§ THE UNDER SECRETAEY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Baron H. de WORMS,) Liverpool, East ToxtethThe statement was made to Major Testing on 25th August, 1885, at Freetown. I do not know to what Report my hon. Friend refers in the second paragraph of his question; but, as I stated yesterday in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for the Abercromby Division, the statement was not reported to Her Majesty's Government by Sir S. Rowe until June, 1886.
§ COMMANDER BETHELL (York, E.R., Holderness)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in any official Papers accessible to the public, there is any account of the late Major Festing's journey or journeys to the interior of the Sierra Leone district; what are the dates of Major Festing's departure or conclusion of his Mission or Missions; and whether the time has arrived when his Report may be published; and, if not, whether the Foreign Office will permit of the publication of such parts of his itinerary as are of general interest?
§ BARON H. DE WORMSThe reply to the first paragraph of the question is in the negative. Major Festing left Freetown on his first Mission on 8th March, 1887, and arrived there on his return on 22nd April. On the second occasion he left Freetown on 18th January, 1888, and died at Sininkoro in the Sangara country on 17th August. There will be no objection to present to Parliament extracts from his Report on his first journey. Major Festing died before making a Report on his second journey.