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that in the Government notification of 21st August, 1843, it is added that, "an inquiry "should be instituted into the equitable claims of all holders of land to a confirmation either permanent or temporary of their titles so far as they could be confirmed consistently with a just regard to the interests of briety at "large"
The Sales of Land under the authority of Captain Elliot, Her Majesty's then Plenipotentiary in China, were first held on 14th June 1841; and in the interval between that date and 26th June 1843, the date of the Exchange of the Ratification of the Treaty of Nanking, many of us had invested considerable sums in Buildings, on the faith that the acts of all Her Majesty's Authorities in China would be fully confirmed.
In this conviction we have been borne out by the decision of Her Majesty's Government above quoted, in which the principle of a complete confirmation is recognized with merely the qualification that it is to be granted with a just regard to the interests of Society at large.
As the local Government has in all cases resumed Land and altered Boundaries, wherever the general Interest of Society required such interference, we submit that the existing Holders of Land, for which Leases are now in course of preparation, are possessed of property of which it is admitted they are Proprietors without any injury to the Interests of Society, or the just Rights of the Crown; and we beg respectfully to observe that we cannot but consider that the spirit of the instructions from Her