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4. That this year the said ordinances have been renewed for another year, without regard to the protests of your Petitioners, or to the votes and opinions of the elected and other unofficial members of the Legislative Council, and simply in obedience to orders received from Your Majesty's said Secretary of State.
5. That these rights, immunities and privileges were first conferred on the steamers of the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes in supposed compliance with certain provisions of a Postal Convention, entered into by Your Most Gracious Majesty with the then Government of France in September, 1856, by which, as it has been erroneously supposed and believed, Your Majesty became bound to grant to all French Mail steamers, in all ports and places in your Majesty's Dominions, the said rights, privileges and immunities.
6. That the same privileges and immunities have been extended by your Majesty to the German Mail steamers out of friendship and comity, but are dependent upon the existence and continuance of the said Postal Convention and of the supposed rights and privileges of the French Mail steamers thereunder, as appears from a despatch of your Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs dated 26th April, 1886, to which Your Petitioners crave leave later on to refer.
7. Your Petitioners beg most humbly, and yet most forcibly, to represent to Your Most Gracious Majesty, that the said Postal Convention of September, 1856, does not bind Your Majesty's Government in any way to confer upon the steamers of the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes, although subsidized by the French Govern- ment for the carriage of mails, any such rights, privileges and immunities as have been claimed for them under the said Convention, and as have been conferred upon them in this Colony.
8. That Article I of the said Convention provides solely for the establishment of special lines of steamers between the two ports of Calais and Dover, and for the ex- change of mail matter between the Post Office of Great Britain, and the Post Office of France by means of such steamers.
9. That Article II of the said Convention provides for the transmission of mail matter between other British and French Ports, either in packets specially maintained or subsidized by either Government for the purpose, or, by merchant vessels plying between the British and the French Ports,
10. That Article III of the said Convention shews clearly that the provisions of Article II are strictly limited to the ports of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on the one side, and to the Ports of France and Algeria on the other, and do not extend, and were not intended to extend, to ports or places out of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or to any place in Your Majesty's Indian or Colonial Dominions.
11. That Article V of the said Convention of 1856, under which alone the rights, privileges and immunities of the French Mail steamers are claimed, is strictly limited by the express words of that article to "packets employed by the British Post Office or by the French Post Office in execution of Articles I and II of the Convention," that is to say to packets and national vessels the property of Government, "or vessels chartered or subsidized by Government," running between Dover and Calais, or between ports in France or Algeria on the one side, and the ports of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on the other, and does not include merchant vessels plying between these ports, although carrying mails, nor to packets, whether national vessels or vessels chartered or subsidized, running to other ports or places out of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
12. Your Petitioners most respectfully call Your Majesty's attention to Article VI of the said Convention, and point out to Your Majesty that the packets to be pri vileged under Article V were not intended to carry cargo but only mails, and that it was as a special privilege conferred by that article that they were permitted to take and carry specie, gold and silver bullion, and passengers with their wearing apparel and luggage, and then only upon certain conditions.
13. The steamers of the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes, upon which under peremptory instructions from Your Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Legislative Council of Hongkong have by the votes of the official members, conferred the rights, immunities and privileges of men-of-war, under the assumed authority of that Convention, are merchant steamers, the property of a private company, and not of the French Government; they are not 'packets' in the sense of the Convention; they are trading, not between ports in France or Algeria, and