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for the support and maintenance, as well as eventual transmission to England elsewhere, of such seamen, and that in any case when Vessels may clandestinely depart, the Consignees responsible for all expenses incurred in supporting such seamen, and likewise in sending them either to England,

or Owners should be held

Port at which they

or to the

of

were shipped by the Vessel that brought them to China.

6 That if any master or Commander of a British Merchant Vessel, that brings any British Merchant Seamen to China, on any pretext or pretence, but without entering him on board such Vessel, the Master or Commander, or Owner or Consignee, shall be held responsible in the same degree as if this said British Seamen had been regularly

the Vessel's Books. Shipped and entered in the Vessel's

7. That all the preceding rules, and

this

be established on

such others as

may subject should be, as

far

are concerned, enforced by

as Merchant Seamen

summary

preceding before any British Justice of Peace, whether such Justice of the Peace shall be in St. John's Service

or not

St.

1

33

: this letter will understand from the preceding suggestions, that my plan is to altogether prevent seamen from being discharged in China, and the nature of relations with this port appears to me to demand that such should be the Law. The necessity for the Rules being made applicable to all persons serving in ships of War, has from a variety of cases, occurred to me, and has been more particularly

forced on my

attention

by

the recent discharge

at this place of the whole of the crew of H. M's Surveying Vessel "Starling" which Vessel has just been condemned & sold.

As that part of this despatch regarding the establishment of a Seamen's Hospital in this Island is necessarily in some degree connected with the Colonial dept I shall be much obliged by your Lordship directing that a copy of it may be forwarded to

Capt. Sir Edward Stanley,

whom

I am about to address

regarding an extension of the advantages

of the Hospital to all British subjects.

(Signed) Harry Parkes

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