§ LORD BEAUMONT, seeing the noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in his place, wished to call his attention to a subject in relation to which he had presented a petition to their Lordships in the course of last week. The petition was from Mr. H. Graham, who complained that while travelling in Italy, after having had his passport properly visé at Marseilles, he was nevertheless compulsorily detained by the police of the Sardinian Government at Nice; that he was detained there twenty-four hours; and when his passport was returned no explanation was given further than that his name was Graham. Since that period he had received neither apology nor indemnification for the loss he had sustained by his detention: and the only reason for it which was known to him was, that he bore the odious name of Graham—odious, he meant, in Sardinia. As he understood the noble Earl had thought it his duty to correspond with the Sardinian Government upon the subject, he begged to ask him whether there was any prospect of Mr. Graham being indemnified for his detention, or of any apology being made for it?
§ The EARL of ABERDEEN, in reply, said he had had some correspondence with the Sardinian Government upon this subject, and also with the gentleman to whom the noble Lord alluded. It was perfectly true that it was in consequence of his name that this gentleman had been subjected to the inconvenience which had been described. There was no better name in Britain than that which this gentleman had the good fortune to bear; at the same time no name was so good as necessarily to preserve those who bore it from occasionally disgracing it. In the present case it appeared that some person of the name of Graham had been guilty of a very extensive system of forgery and swindling in Belgium, and that the Belgian Government considered it their duty to follow him over different parts of Europe. The Sardinian Government was desired by the Belgian Government to take care of persons of this name. At Nice this gentleman appeared with a regular passport he (the Earl of Aberdeen) believed; but the commissary of police detained him for twenty-four hours in his hotel. Afterwards, when 509 the mistake was discovered, the gentleman's carriage-money was paid, in order to make amends for the loss he had sustained—the only loss he (the Earl of Aberdeen) had heard of—the loss of his carriage-money, from Nice to Genoa. He was only detained twenty-four hours. The gentleman so detained, in consequence of the mistake in the name of Graham, had claimed a pecuniary indemnity for the insult; but he (the Earl of Aberdeen) confessed it did not appear to him that he should be justified, under the circumstances, in making any claim on the Sardinian Government for pecuniary indemnification. Had Mr. Graham been a mechanic or an artisan, possibly something of the kind might have been done; but as the mistake had been so perfectly explained, and as no intention whatever existed of inflicting any injury or insult upon him, he (the Earl of Aberdeen) thought there was no reason to make a claim for pecuniary indemnification. Under these circumstances, and with this explanation, he had informed Mr. Graham that he could make no such effort.
§ LORD BEAUMONTbegged to ask the noble Earl whether the Sardinian Government had tendered any apology?
§ The EARL of ABERDEENreplied in the negative. An explanation had been received, but no direct apology, the omission of which he regretted, for he thought an apology was due. At the same time, judging from the style of this gentleman's letters, he could readily believe that the personal communication which had taken place between him (Mr. Graham) and the Sardinian authorities, did not tend much to render them very ready to make an apology, which under other circumstances he supposed they would have done.