the Governor in Council to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of yesterday's date and to acquaint you that His Excellency considers that the plan proposed by the Honorable the Major General for valuing the three private Houses situated within the Cantonment is equally just and liberal.
I am further directed to observe that it is very true that houses do at this moment let for rents far beyond what they would probably bring under ordinary circumstances, but to admit such a principle in appraising the houses in question would be, as it were, perpetuating that state of things; and it is also to be recollected that in these cases the individuals to whom the houses belong have neither any claim to the ground on which the houses stand, nor are they subjected to the smallest personal inconvenience by the stop that has become necessary.
Under these circumstances His Excellency the Governor in Council requests that the principle pointed out in your letter may be acted upon, and that should any of the owners of the Houses decline to be guided by it, they may be informed that they must forthwith pull down their Houses and remove the materials within a given time (say one month).
I have &c.
(Signed) Richard Cauldwell.
No: 94
Captain D'Aguilar,
Assistant Military Secretary,
Victoria,
Hongkong
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