Sir E. Watkin, in proposing the health of M. de Lesseps, remarked that there were those in our country who seemed to consider that the work of the company they had just inspected was a crime. He had just received a telegram informing him that he would have to answer on Wednesday next at the instigation of the President of the Board of Trade before a court of law for having committed the crime of carrying on these experiments. (Hisses and groans.) Somewhat revealingly, Sir Edward added, when the signs of indignation subsided, that For his own part, if he was to be committed by a court of law for contempt, he should have this consolation—that the proceedings which had been taken against him had been delayed sufficiently long to enable him with his colleagues to have the honor of entertaining M. de Lesseps, in whom he should have a witness, if he had to call one, to prove that they had been engaged in a work which had been as successful as he believed it would be ultimately useful. At long last, supported by all the might of the Crown, Colonel Yolland got to the tunnel on July 8 to make his inspection of the workings. But upon his arrival there he found, to his chagrin, that "I was not provided, at the time ... with all the necessary means for making the measurements, and taking the requisite bearings" in the tunnel, and he was obliged to put his inspection off once more. Properly equipped, he descended into the tunnel a week later, on Saturday, July 15, and inspected everything, including the boring apparatus that Sir Edward had insisted had to be used to ventilate the gallery and prevent loss of life. What Colonel Yolland found there caused the Board of Trade, five days later, to send a most severe letter to the tunnel proprietors. In it, the Board declared: 1. That the means of ventilating the tunnel could have been and be so readily disconnected from the boring machine (i.e., by the movement of a single lever that would pour a stream of compressed air coming from the supply pipe directly into the tunnel) that it has never been necessary that a single inch of cutting should have taken place in order to protect life or to secure ventilation, nor can such necessity arise in the future. 2. That in spite of the repeated orders of the Board of Trade, and the assurances of the Secretary of the Submarine Railway Company and Sir Edward Watkin himself that those orders were acquiesced in and submitted to, the substantial work of boring has nevertheless been carried to a distance of more than 600 yards from low-water mark (thus constituting a trespass on the property of the Crown).