§ EARL DE LA WARRI beg to ask the noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a Question of which I have given him private Notice—Whether there is any truth in the report of the occupation of Maruchak by the Russians, and also of a further advance towards Herat?
§ EARL GRANVILLEMy Lords, Sir Peter Lumsden, on the 23rd of April telegraphed—
Just received from Governor of Herat intelligence that Russians have advanced a post 30 miles south of Pul-i-Khisti to Maruchak, on the Murghab.On the 25th Sir Peter Lumsden merely alludes to the recent occupation of Maruchak. Her Majesty's Government are averse to giving publicity to mere reports; but the matter was so important that an answer was given yesterday in the House of Commons with regard to the information which had thus been received, and on which we had thought it right to make inquiries at St. Petersburg. The Russian Ambassador informed me that his Government knew nothing of the Russian advance to Maruchak. Sir Edward Thornton, to whom I had addressed inquiries, replied on the 29th that the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs said that he could state positively that no Russian troops had advanced to Maruchak. Sir Peter Lumsden, in a telegram which arrived late yesterday evening, said that an Afghan express just in declared the report of a Russian occupation of Maruchak to be quite unfounded.