§ MR. EDWARD M'HUGH (Armagh, S.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the Irish College, Paris, about the year 1818, made claims upon the British Government, in virtue of Treaties with France, for large losses and injuries received at the hands of the French Government; that the French Government acknowledged its obligation to make such restitution, and placed the requisite funds in the hands of the British Government; did the British Government withhold payment; and that the claim of the college in 1830 amounted in 23 separate items to a total of £103,604; was this claim ever discharged; and, if not, what has become of the money and its accumulations since the year 1830; and, is there any hope that this claim will ultimately be paid over to the college?
§ MR. HANBURYI can find no authority for the statement that the French Government acknowledged its obligation to make restitution to the Irish College, Paris, for losses and injuries received at the hands of that Government, and placed the requisite funds for that purpose in the hands of the British Government. The fact appears to be that by 1346 two separate Conventions, in 1815 and 1818, the French Government assigned annuities of three and a half million and three million francs respectively to a Commission appointed to adjudicate on the claims of British subjects for losses sustained in the French Revolution. The Irish College presented a claim for an annuity of £3,398 15s. 2d., which was rejected by the Commissioners. They then appealed to the Privy Council, who endorsed the Commissioners' refusal in 1832. In 1871 the Roman Catholic Bishops and Archbishops of Ireland appealed to Mr. Gladstone as Prime Minister to appoint a Select Committee inquire into the claims of the college and the state of the Indemnity Fund, and he declined on the ground that full information as to the state of the fund had been given in a Parliamentary Return of that year, that all the alleged diversions of the fund to public objects had been disproved, and that with the exception of £900, the fund was exhausted. This £900 and more was, however, due for various admitted claims. Parliamentary Papers C. 376 of 1871 and 239 of 1872 give full information as to the expenditure of the fund.