"The Committee recommend that such Lords | should come to the House at Ten o'clock, as the Steamboat must leave the Esplanade at half-past Ten o'clock precisely. Arrangements have been made with the City Police to keep the Passage clear from Paul's Wharf to Paul's Chain; the Lords to enter at the Southern Door of the West Front of the Cathedral. The Steamboat will be in attendance at the Close of the Ceremony, and every Facility will be afforded to enable the Lords availing themselves of that means of Return to leave the Cathedral early.

"The Lords who desire to come to the House in their Carriages will proceed by Stanhope Street Gate, or Gates North of it, into Hyde Park, through Albert Gate and by Belgrave Square and Victoria Street, to the House of Lords. Lords on Foot will have every Facility afforded them by the Police in approaching the House on producing their Tickets.

"The Committee recommend that Seats in the

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squadron on the west coast of Africa, from July, 1851, to June, 1852, the ratio of mortality from disease has been 16.2 per 1,000 of the mean force employed, an average which, judging from previous years, is below what we might have anticipated, particularly when we consider the arduous nature of the service performed on the station for the twelve months embraced in the return. cannot help thinking that the fortunate result is, under Providence, in some measure owing to my having made it a rule to change the stations of the ships whose crews were subject to any extraordinary exposure, but more particularly is it attributable to the use of quinine wine, the skill of the medical officers, and the careful attention of the commanders to the general sanitary condition of their respective ships."

MR. VILLIERS' MOTION.

MR. WILSON said, he had been re

back Row of the Lords Gallery be reserved for quested by his hon. Friend the Member

Peers eldest Sons."

Ordered to be printed.

Moved to resolve

"That the Lord Chancellor, as representing this House, do attend in his Parliament Robes."

On Question, agreed to.

Then it was moved to resolve, "That Seats in the back Row of the Lords Gallery be reserved for Peers eldest Sons." On Question, agreed to.

House adjourned to Friday next.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.
Wednesday, November 17, 1852.

MORTALITY ON THE COAST OF AFRICA.

MR. H. HERBERT said, that a report had appeared in a newspaper stating that all the officers on board the ship Dover on the African station had been carried off by disease. He wished to know whether the Admiralty had received any intelligence on the subject?

MR. STAFFORD said, he was happy

for Wolverhampton (Mr. C. Villiers) to lay before the House the precise terms of the Motion which he intended to make on the 23rd instant. The Motion would be as follows:

"That it is the opinion of this House that the improved condition of the Country, and particularly of the Industrious Classes, is mainly the result of recent Commercial Legislation, and especially of the Act of 1846, which established the free admission of Foreign Corn; and that that Act was a wise, just, and beneficial measure:

"That it is the opinion of this House that the maintenance and further extension of the policy of Free Trade, as opposed to that of Protection, will best enable the property and industry of the Nation to bear the burthens to which they are exposed, and will most contribute to the general prosperity, welfare, and contentment of the people:

"That this House is ready to take into its consideration any measures consistent with the principles of these Resolutions which may be laid before it by Her Majesty's Ministers."

CORONERS' INQUESTS (IRELAND). SIR JOHN YOUNG said, he begged to address a question to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland. In the course of his observahon. and learned Gentleman had made tions on the previous evening, that right some remarks upon the course of public there was a general opinion abroad and in justice. Now, he (Sir J. Young) believed that House that the office of Coroner in Ireland required an entire remodelling,

to state to the House that no confirmation of the report in question had reached the Admiralty, and, indeed, the advices which had been received from the African station would lead to the belief that the rate of mortality was below the average. Admiral Bruce had sent a report to the Admiralty tended to put this office upon a new footon the mortality prevailing on the African ing? station from the 1st of July, 1851, to the 30th of June, 1852, from which he would take the liberty of reading the following

and he wished to ask whether it was in

MR. NAPIER: Sir, with regard to the subject matter of this question, and with regard to other matters also, I may state passage:that at the request of the Lord Lieutenant of "Their Lordships will observe, that among the Ireland I have had under my consideration

there would be a naval man in each class, they would represent the Order of the Bath, and not the Navy. Considering that much of the military proceedings of the great man whose memory they were about to honour were conducted in conjunction with the Navy, he thought that there ought to be a distinct deputation to represent that branch of the service in the procession; and, as a hasty mode of remedying the defect, he would suggest that the THE SANITARY CONFERENCE-QUARANBoard of Admiralty, being composed entirely of naval men, should be a deputation to represent the Navy.

spect of their being soon laid upon the commended the adoption of the most strintable? He next wished to know whether gent measures for the prevention of the the convention by which it was intended to spread of cholera, and even went to the excarry into effect a portion at least of the tent of proposing to isolate infected districts recommendations of the Conference had of the country, yet, in 1848, declared their been ratified, and, if not, what were the conviction that all attempts to prevent the obstacles which prevented such ratification? spread of cholera by means of cordons or He believed that he was justified in saying quarantine regulations had utterly failed. that for the last sixteen years such a mea- On what medical or scientific authority, sure had been strongly desired by the noble then, did the noble Earl rely when he isEarl's predecessors in office-not only by sued these instructions? He wished next the noble Earl's immediate predecessor to ask the noble Earl what was the mean(Earl Granville), but by the noble Viscount ing of that passage in the letter which who had presided over the Foreign Office for related to " persons on board in the enjoyso many years (Viscount Palmerston), and ment of good health?" His want of apalso by that noble Viscount's predecessor prehension of the meaning of that passage (the Earl of Aberdeen); and it would be a might arise from his own incapacity, but, matter of great regret to the country at large at any rate, he found his doubts shared by if his noble Friend could not hold out to a very intelligent body of men; for shortly them some hope of the ratification of the after that letter appeared, a memorial was Convention at an early day. An impression addressed to the Lords of the Treasury by (which, indeed, he sincerely believed to be the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, erroneous) prevailed abroad that persons putting the very same question which he interested personally in the retention of was now asking. Whether the Treasury the quarantine system had prevailed upon had replied to that memorial he did not Her Majesty's Government to recede from know, but certainly no reply had been the position occupied by their predecessors; published. He wished to know whether, and that, instead of aiding that onward by the "free communication with the movement which would have swept away shore," which it was stated would be althose vexatious restrictions, they had been lowed to persons in the enjoyment of good induced to incline towards their retention. health, it was intended that they should be He did not himself believe this to be the allowed to leave the vessel, or whether it case; but he thought it would be satisfac- was intended that they should be detained tory to the public to hear an assurance to on board, and merely permitted to have that effect from the noble Earl. His next intercourse with those on shore? Whatquestion would be addressed to his noble ever might be the meaning of this passage, Friend the President of the Council. On it altogether abandoned and relinquished the 2nd of September last, a letter was the only principle upon which the quarauaddressed by order of the Privy Council tine system could be maintained; because to the Commissioners of Customs directing if persons in good health having come to that all vessels arriving from foreign coun- England with a vessel having cholera patries having persons on board "actually tients on board were permitted either to suffering from cholera, or who had been land or even to have free intercourse with suffering from that disease within five days the shore, it proclaimed to the world at previous to the arrival of the vessel in port, once that we had no faith in the princishould be detained under a precautionary ple of contagion upon which we acted; quarantine for such period as might be and, therefore, this arrangement of the deemed necessary." Now he wished to noble Earl was altogether inconsistent with ask the noble Earl (the Earl of Lonsdale) the view which those must be supposed to on whose advice and authority that letter entertain who enforced even a precautionwas written? It was well known that the ary quarantine. The last question he had Board of Health, the tribunal specially to ask was, whether any measures had charged by Parliament with the adminis- been taken to ensure proper medical attration of the laws for the prevention of tendance being given to the persons who disease, not only utterly disbelieved in the might be attacked with disease while they efficacy of the system of quarantine regu- were detained in quarantine? We had lations, but believed, on the other hand, not in this country, as was the case in the that they were productive of serious evil in maritime States of Italy, lazarettos or hosa sanitary point of view. The College of pitals for the reception of the persons on Physicians, also, although in 1831 they re-board ships declared in quarantine; but all VOL. CXXIII. [THIRD SERIES.]

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ships coming to our ports must perform | land, the ravages were frightful. These quarantine, with the crew and passengers were the questions which he had to ask; on board, at certain stations or grounds. and he would express his unfeigned hope The principal of our quarantine stations that the answers which he was about was that at the Motherbank; yet we to receive would give satisfaction to the were told by the superintendent-general of House and to the country, and would conquarantine that he ordered the Eclair to vince both that the Government was not Standgate Creek, because intercourse with clinging pertinaciously to a vexatious and the shore was absolutely impossible at expensive system, which experience and Motherbank in stormy weather. Stand- science had proved to be utterly worthless. gate Creek, on the other hand, had been pronounced by Sir William Burnett, director-general of the medical department of the Navy, to be the most unhealthy spot on our shores. Then again, at the mouth of the Humber, where the northern ships performed quarantine, the quarantine station was several miles distant from Hull, and if the weather was rough, or the wind and tide were unfavourable, it often required six or seven hours to communicate with that town. If hospitals and lazarettos, well aired and ventilated, were provided, persons who were attacked had a reasonable hope and chance of recovering; but let the House consider what was the position of an unfortunate man suffering from disease, and yet cribbed and cabined between the decks of a merchant vessel riding in one of these quarantine grounds, and without the reach of the medical care or nursing that a person in such a state required. Such were the questions of which he had given notice to his two noble Friends opposite; but he also wished to put another, of which he had not and could not give notice. Their Lordships would, he was sure, have seen with deep pain and sorrow the announcement in the papers of that morning of the arrival of one of Her Majesty's mail steamers from the West Indies with the yellow fever on board, several fatal cases having occurred in the course of the voyage. The question which he now wished to ask was, whether La Plata for that was the name of the steam-packet-had been relieved from quarantine; and if not, whether any accommodation had been provided, or any precautions taken, for the reception of the unfortunate men on board? Look at the case of the Eclair, which was long detained in quarantine, and in which disease prevailed and increased with the continuance of the quarantine, and contrast it with the case of the Arethusa in December last, which, having landed its crew at Plymouth attacked by smallpox, had no fresh instance of disease afterwards; while in the Eclair, from which no person was permitted to

The EARL of MALMESBURY said, that without subscribing entirely to the notion which his noble Friend seemed to entertain, that contagion was altogether impossible, he must assure him that Her Majesty's Government was not less anxious than its predecessors to bring the convention to which his noble Friend had referred to a satisfactory result. He was sorry to have to inform his noble Friend that at that moment the negotiations for the conclusion of the convention were not terminated; and, therefore, he was obliged to tell his noble Friend that he could not, with due regard to the public service, lay on the table of the House the papers respecting which he had asked. They were excessively voluminous, and he did not think that any extracts that could be given from them would give his noble Friend the satisfaction which he expected to derive from their perusal. Indeed, if he were to lay those papers on the table, he should only be delaying the progress of the convention. While he had to regret that the negotiations for the convention had not arrived at a successful result as yet, still, although they might not terminate, as he hoped at one time they would, in the general consent of the twelve Powers to one formal convention, he had a confident expectation that seven or eight of the principal maritime States would sign such a convention. It was naturally desirable that the principal Powers with ports in the Mediterranean should agree to such a measure: but at this moment some of the States of Italy, Spain, and Austria, either refused their signature to the convention, or else put forth such difficulties in the way of signing it as they had not been able to overcome; on the other hand, Portugal, Sardinia, France, England, and, he believed, he might say, Russia, did not object to sign such a convention as Her Majesty's Government had proposed. He hoped that before long it would be signed by some of the Powers of Europe, although he could hope to have it signed by all. When that event took place, he should have great sa