ALABAMA CLAIMS. 173 
dismissed, yet it does not appear that any of the 
guilty parties, sugh as Laird, Miller, Thomas, Prioleau, 
the 23d and 25th or 26th of July, was on the evening of Mon- 
day, the 28th of July, when he was summoned by the Attor- 
ney-General, Sir W. Atherton, to consider them in consultation, 
and when the advice to be given to the Government was agreed 
upon.” Sir R. Palmer thinks it his duty to add, that ‘no Gov- 
ernment ever had a more diligent, conscientious, and laborious 
servant than Sir W. Atherton; and that it is in the last degree 
unlikely that he would have been guilty of any negligence or 
unnecessary delay in the consideration of papers of such im- 
portance,” 
We thus learn that in the latter part of June, as the Amer- 
ican Counsel had supposed, Sir John Harding was unable to 
attend to the business of the Government. Next, we are in- 
formed that the papers might have been sent to his private 
house, to remain there unattended to; but é¢ is not asserted that 
they were so sent in fact. Nay, we are left to conjecture that 
they might have been sent to the house of Sir William Ather- 
ton; but it is not asserted that they were. Indeed, Sir Roundell 
Palmer speaks of “the delivery at their private house,” mean- 
ing apparently “houses.” Next, we are asked to believe that, 
because of the death of “Sir J. Harding and his wife,” and that 
of “Sir W. Atherton and his wife,” no means exist to explain 
the fatal delay in this case, by reason of which so much loss 
and shame have been brought on Great Britain. 
Was it ever before imagined that the death of an Advocate- 
General or an Attorney-General, and their wives, should leave 
a Government wholly without means of knowledge on such a 
subject, or should be put forward to explain such delay of ac- 
tion on the part of Ministers ? 
Who carried the papers to the house either of Sir John 
Harding or Sir William Atherton, or both? Why did Lord 
Russell permit six days to elapse without inquiring for the an- 
swer to his reference when every hour was pressing for action ? 
Who brought the papers away from the place in which they 
were, whether the house of Sir J. Harding, or the house of Sir 
