§ Mr. BONAR LAWMay I ask the Foreign Secretary if he has any further information with regard to the fate of Mr. Benton and two other Englishmen?
§ Sir E. GREYI have no further information yet, but I will read to the House what has passed since yesterday. His Majesty's Ambassador at Washington was yesterday informed by telegraph of the feeling created by Benton's death and of the report that two other Englishmen are missing. He was instructed to inform the United States Government that His Majesty's Government consider it essential that a British Consul should visit the spot to supply the most adequate report possible-regarding Benton's death and the Englishmen missing, and to ask them, as His Majesty's Government have no means of communicating with Villa, to instruct their Consul to inform Villa and to request an assurance that the British Consul should not be interfered with. Sir C. Spring Rice reports that he has instructed Mr. Percival to proceed at once from Galveston to EI Paso to make inquiries, and has also telegraphed the text of a communication which he has received from the United States Government, and which runs as follows:—
State Department desire to advise the British Embassy that instructions have been sent heretofore to the American Consul at Juarez to make a most searching inquiry into the circumstances attending the death of Benton at that place. Consul has been directed to make every effort to secure exhumation and examination of the body of the deceased, to take statements of any and all witnesses whom he can find, and to employ in his investigation medical and legal assistance as far as may be desirable. He is to do everything in his power to elicit the facts.
§ Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSONThe right hon. Gentleman, I take it, does not know whether any reply to that last communication has yet been received by the United States Government?
§ Sir E. GREYNo, Sir; that is the very last information I have received.