sion
that Government might be displeased to find that the military
authorities at Secrora had become aware of Mr. Ravenscroft's
residence at Bhinga without reporting the circumstance to Government;
and still more so to find, that he had been there visited by a
British officer, when search was being made for him throughout India.

In acknowledging the receipt of the Resident's letter on the 23rd of
May, the Secretary, Mr. George Swinton, observes, that the Governor-
General in Council concludes, that he shall receive a more full and
satisfactory report on the subject from Colonel Patton than that to
which his letter had given cover, since he considered that report to
be very imperfect; that one of the narrators, Mosahib, states, that
he himself conducted Mrs. Ravenscroft and her child to a neighbouring
village, and yet he brought no message whatever from that lady to
Colonel Patton at Secrora; that none of the wounded people or
servants of the deceased, except Deena, appear to have found their
way to Sacrora, though four days had elapsed from the date of the
murder to that of the despatch of the report; that the body seemed to
have been hastily interred by the people of the village, without any
notice having been sent to the officer commanding the troops at
Secrora; that such an atrocious outrage as that described in these
narratives, on the person of a subject and servant of the British
Government, demanded the exertion of every effort to ascertain the
real facts of the case by local inquiry; yet it did not appear that
any person had been despatched to the spot to verify the evidence of
the two men examined by Colonel Patton, or to clear up the doubts to
which all these circumstances must naturally have given rise; nor did
it appear that the defects in Colonel Patton's report had occurred to
the Resident, or that he had directed any further inquiry to be made.

The Resident was, therefore, directed to instruct Colonel Patton, to
depute one or more officers to the place where the murder was said to
be perpetrated, with orders to hold an inquiry on the spot in
communication with the King of Oude's officers, to take the evidence
of the wounded men, and that of any other persons who might have been
witnesses to any part of the transaction, and to the burial of Mr.
Ravenscroft; and to examine the grave in which the body of the
deceased was said to have been deposited; and further, to call upon
Colonel Patton to state wheth