§ THE EARL OF DERBYgave notice that on Thursday next he would ask the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary the question of which his noble Friend the Marquess of Normanby had given notice, Whether the Government had received any information as to the most extraordinary proclamation which had recently been published in the Neapolitan newspapers?
§ EARL RUSSELLPerhaps the noble Earl will inform me where the proclamation is to be found.
§ THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, he was just about to ask whether the Foreign Department had not received notice of it. He had seen it both in an Italian and in a French paper, and believed there was no doubt whatever that it existed. If the noble Earl had not seen it, he would have great pleasure in sending him a copy of it. It was a proclamation which interdicted any one from setting foot within a large district of country, ordered that all houses, cabins, or hovels within the district should be levelled to the ground, and declared that if any farmhouse there were 689 found provisions more than sufficient to maintain the family for one day, the inhabitants should be treated as brigands and immediately shot.
§ EARL RUSSELLsaid, that neither Her Majesty's Minister at Turin nor Her Majesty's Consul at Naples had forwarded any information on the subject to the Government. He would therefore be obliged to the noble Earl if he would send him a copy of the proclamation.
§ House adjourned at a quarter past Five o'clock, to Thursday next, half-past Ten o'clock,