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entertained, but I beg leave to state some facts relative to my former and present position by which His Excellency will perceive the peculiar circumstances under which I am placed.
Originally I accepted office on the understanding that I would be allowed the private practice of my profession, so long as it did not interfere with my public duty.
I am still liable to be superseded, and if so, my private practice being given up, and the connection with parties who would employ me severed, I should find myself alone, and without employment. I should have made an application before to be allowed either an increase to my salary as Assistant Surveyor, or to retain any private practice, but the former request having been denied to Gordon, I could not apply; nor to the latter until my appointment was acknowledged at Home; but the prospect of some higher preferment and the anxious desire to hold my appointment have been the constant inducement for me to retain it.
It is needless to mention the services I have striven to perform to the best of my ability and advantage to the Colony, almost unassisted, and in a climate such as China, in a sickly season, and where death is the frequent consequence of exposure to the sun, my duties as Surveyor requiring that I be continually liable to exposure; as well as the mental and bodily exertion necessary to perform the work; to rise before gun fire, to be at my post by daylight, to return home during the heat of the day, again to renew my work in the afternoon, and all the intermediate ...