§ MR. O'DOWD (Sligo, S.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in 1818, the Government of England collected an indemnity from France on account of the destruction of the Irish College in Paris during the Reign of Terror; and, if so, can he say whether the sum so collected has ever since been paid over to the college authorities by the British authorities.
§ SIR EDWARD GREYThe arrangement to which the hon. Member refers is presumably that embodied in the Convention of 1818, whereby a sum of money was assigned by the French Government to a Commission appointed to adjudicate on the claims of British subjects for losses sustained during the French Revolution. Full information was furnished as to the expenditure of this fund in the Papers laid before the House in 1871 and 1872. The claims advanced by the Irish College in this connection were not admitted by the Commissioners, and rejected, on appeal, by the Privy Council. It would be impossible now to take any further action in the matter, and I can only adhere to the Answer given on 3rd August, 1896.