§ LORD LYTTELTONsaid, he had not been in the House the other evening when the noble Duke on the cross-benches (the Duke of Richmond) had adverted to the recent despatch of Lord Cathcart, and to the answer to that despatch from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies, both of which documents had been laid on the Table of the House; but, according to the report of what had passed on that occasion, the noble Duke said that if he were Lord Cathcart, he should have been very indignant if the first notice he had of that answer was seeing it in the columns of a newspaper. He Lord Lyttelton) did not know if the noble Duke meant to imply by that expression, that his right hon. Friend the Secretary for the Colonies had had anything to do with the insertion of that document in the newspapers; but whether or not, his right hon. Friend wished him to deny in the most explicit manner that he knew anything whatever of the matter. Indeed, the Papers had been laid on the Table on the 4th instant, and appeared in the Times on the 9th, so that there had been time enough to procure them in the interval. He denied in the strongest possible manner, on behalf of his 669 right hon. Friend, that he had anything to do with their insertion in the newspaper.
§ The DUKE of RICHMONDreally did not see how the case was altered by what they had heard. All that he had stated had been that he should have felt very indignant, were he Lord Cathcart, had he seen the despatch from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies, in answer to his own, in the columns of a newspaper before he had received the original. That such had been actually the case was more than probable; and he meant to say that this despatch would not have been laid on the Table if the Secretary for the Colonies had been in the House of Commons. He believed it to be quite unusual to lay the copy of a despatch on the Table under the circumstances, and had it happened in his case he should have been very indignant.
§ LORD LYTTELTONadmitted that the case of laying the despatch on the Table in the present instance had been perfectly unusual; but then the very day before which it had been so laid before the House, the noble Lord moved for a copy of Lord Cathcart's despatch, and the Government did not wish to give it to him without producing the answer at the same time.