289
the Civil Power and
This will save trouble, and I wish
you
and Gordon
would.
out
the first day, and have the limits marked out;
"to prevent any insinuation, or hindrance; that the Barracks
"have been delayed by us. I need hardly repeat,
"that houses must not be interfered with - Ground, "though cultivated, may be appropriated, because
we can pay a fair value for it. I intended to
have told you
this last night, but had no
"opportunity. I hope to be back here in a week,
"at the outside."
Malcolm
Partly owing to a vast influx of
business, consequent on the return of Colonel Malcolm from England, and partly owing to serious indisposition, I was detained at Macao, till the 15th of April, on which day I returned here.
I then found, that the
Limits of the Chu-Kong Cantonment had
been
finally defined and marked off by Major Gordon, the Land Officer, and Captain Edwards,
the
Assistant Quarter Master General on the 15th February.
That is, within
a
very few days of six months
ago.
My share in the matter was thus completed, and as I had plenty of business to occupy my time,
and
over
what had been thought, without going done, after much trouble and correspondence, I was induced, partly on that account and partly (I might declare chiefly) from a feeling of delicacy
as
to not interfering with Your Lordship's peculiar province, to refrain from further inquiry. Since the interim I may add however, that I paid a large sum of money out of the Civil Treasury,
and
on
my
own sole responsibility for two cargoes of Manilla Timber, which had been selected and
purchased at that place by Lieut. Buchertiny, whom Your Lordship had deputed
on
this
Military.