§ THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYMy Lords, seeing my noble Friend the Foreign Secretary in his place, I take the opportunity of putting the Question to him of which I have given him notice. In The Globe of last night there appeared a telegram to this effect—"On a partial clearance of the battle-field yesterday 400 Swedish volunteers were discovered, to whom no quarter was given." What we have to gather from this telegram is, that 400 wounded men lying on the battle-field were bayonetted in their helplessness by the Prussian soldiers. I wish to know from the noble Lord whether he can give us any information on this matter; and if he cannot do so at present, whether he will be good enough to make inquiries and to give to the House and the country the benefit of the information which he succeeds in eliciting. I myself will go the length of saying that I believe every syllable of this statement, and I will tell the House my reason for doing so. I think the conduct of the Prussian troops in the bombardment of Sonderborg and in massacring helpless women and children is in itself a proof of the capability of these troops to perform such an act of cowardly violence as is here ascribed to them. This very morning I heard a story strongly corroborative of the disposition of the Prussian troops to perpetrate such enormities. At the siege of Duppel a Swedish officer, seriously wounded, was left upon the field, and the Prussian soldiers coming up and seeing that he 821 was alive bayonetted him three times upon the ground and left him for dead. By the blessing of God, life was not extinct; he lived to recover and to tell the story to his brother, who is a meritorious officer in Her Majesty's service. In the interests of civilization and Christianity it is very desirable that the story told in this telegram should be disproved. I therefore hope that the noble Lord will be able to obtain from the Prussian Government information not only that the statement in question is untrue, but that the authorities in that country view with as complete abhorrence as our-selves acts of such atrocity.
§ EARL RUSSELLI can only say that no notice is taken of such an occurrence in any of the despatches received by Her Majesty's Government. I shall, of course, make the requisite inquiries.
THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEre-minded his noble Friend and the House that the barbarous act alleged to have taken place, but which until it was con-firmed he should not implicitly believe, was by no means isolated in its character. On former occasions similar atrocities had been among the strongest inducements to this country to embark in war, especially at the time of the French Revolution. He I trusted his noble Friend would take care to ascertain from good authority the facts as they really had occurred.