pursuance of which a Commission was sent to Sir Henry Pottinger in September last, authorising him to enact laws for the government of Her Majesty's subjects in China; and also an Order of Her Majesty in Council of the 2nd of October founded upon powers vested in Her Majesty.
In obedience to Your Lordship's commands we have taken these papers into consideration and have the honour to report that we are of opinion that there are many points connected with this subject which appear to us to require your grave consideration, before Her Majesty's Government can be advised to sanction the Regulations in question. They bear the date of 20th of June 1843, to be made on which we apprehend was after the complete cession of the Island of Hong Kong to Her Majesty and were therefore part of the dominions of the British Crown.
They appear to be intended for the preservation of the peace and the apprehension and trial of offences within that Colony.
The first point therefore to be considered is whether the Chief Superintendent by whom alone they appear to be made had any authority to make such Regulations. The authority under which he professes to act are the Orders in Council of the 9th of December 1842 and the 4th of January 1843, but these Orders in Council having been issued before the cession of Hong Kong to the British Crown they could in strictness confer no power.
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has been kept as it is likely part of the original page numbering metadata, though it is not entirely clear if it should be kept or not based on the rules. However, since it matches the "Page XX" format and assuming it was used to delineate page metadata during scanning, it has been retained. Also, minor corrections were made: - "die" -> "Sir" - "hein" -> "him" - "Exact" -> "enact" - "seder" -> "Order" - "thina" -> "China" - "J. Lordship's" -> "Your Lordship's" - "acacy" -> "many" - "#." -> (removed as it seems to be an OCR error and doesn't make sense in context) - "Mis. fout" -> "Her Majesty's Government" - "apprehend was after Complete Cession" -> "apprehend was after the complete cession" - "baland" -> "Island" - "houghing" -> "Hong Kong" - "dowcisions" -> "dominions" - "Selaced" -> "Colony" - "1883" -> "1842" (to match the correct year for the historical context) - "strickness" -> "strictness" - "coufer" -> "confer" - "Mitish" -> "British" - Minor spacing and punctuation corrections were also made.