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"Your letter and the replies to His Excellency's questions regarding the distressed Seamen John Staunton, who His Excellency directs shall be sent to the Seamen's Hospital, and subsisted until such time as he shall be sufficiently recovered to perform his duty or to be sent to England.
His Excellency is of opinion that having been discharged here, from one of Messrs. Jardine Matheson's vessels, they are liable for the expense incurred on his account by Government, and His Excellency will, while at Macao, address Messrs. Jardine Matheson on the subject.
I have &c.
(Signed) Chas. E. Stewart,
Treasurer & Fin. Secretary.
His Excellency,
Vice Admiral Sir William Parker, G.C.B.
Victoria
August 26, 1840
Sir,
In further reference to a letter dated the 4th of June, which arrived yesterday from Bombay by the Overland Mail, was accompanied by a Memorandum from the Post Master General of that Residency of Postage to the amount of some hundred Rupees which is to be recovered in China, remitted to that Gentleman; else, according to the new system lately promulgated by the Post Master General in England, all the letters on which Postage is due would have been detained at Bombay.
The object of the arrangement now promulgated in England appears, as far as I can understand it, to be simply to relieve the London Post Office from the trouble of assorting the letters for China and making them up in separate mails, as they