# CORRESPONDENCE RELATIVE TO THE RESIGNATION OF MR. M. MARTIN, TREASURER OF HONG KONG.
No. 26
CORRESPONDENCE RELATIVE TO THE RESIGNATION laid before Parliament, and which may be necessary to a vindication of the line of procedure which I felt obliged to adopt in China.
I have to apologize to your Lordship for thus again trespassing on your time; but to me the question is one of vital importance, and I am anxious there should be no blame hereafter attached to my conduct, and no misconception on my part of Mr. Gladstone's intentions as to the extent of the concession which he has had the goodness to grant.
– No. 27. –
I have, &c.
(signed) R. M. Martin.
No. 27.
a crime. Petitioner has been deprived of his position in your Majesty's service; and all redress or inquiry has been denied him, while your Majesty's Government have derived the benefit of his information and experience.
6th. That petitioner respectfully declares he feels conscious this punishment is unmerited; he is most anxious to have the fullest scrutiny into every part of his conduct, and the most searching investigation into the truth of his statements; and looking to his Sovereign as the source of justice, petitioner earnestly prays the gracious interposition of your Majesty, to prevent the infliction of a wrong which does not alone affect an humble individual, but which, if sanctioned, destroys the moral and Christian responsibility of the servants of the Crown, especially when acting conscientiously in the distant provinces of this vast empire.
And your Majesty's Petitioner, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
London, May 1846.
487
No. 27. Lord Lyttelton to R. M. Martin, Esq. 30 April 1846.
COPY of a LETTER from Lord Lyttelton to R. Montgomery Martin, Esq.
Sir,
Downing-street, 30 April 1846.
I AM directed by Mr. Secretary Gladstone to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 21st instant, inquiring whether any objection would be made to the production to Parliament, among the papers connected with your resignation, of your Reports on Hong Kong and Chusan, or "any other documents which may not be really prejudicial to the public service."
In reply, I am to inform you, that my letter of the 20th instant referred exclusively to correspondence connected with your resignation, and that Mr. Gladstone cannot consider as coming within that description, your Reports on Hong Kong and Chusan, or on any other general question of policy. With respect to those Reports, I am directed to refer you to my letter of the 6th February last, in which you were informed that any motion for the production of your Reports to either House of Parliament would be resisted by the Ministers of the Crown.
I have, &c. (signed) Lyttelton.
– No. 29. –
COPY of a LETTER from Lord Lyttelton to R. Montgomery Martin, Esq.
Sir,
Downing-street, 12 May 1846.
No. 29.
I AM directed by Mr. Secretary Gladstone to inform you that the Queen has been pleased to refer to him the petition which you addressed to Her Majesty on the 1st instant, praying for an inquiry into your conduct, and into the truth of the several communications which you have addressed to Her Majesty's Government on the subject of Hong Kong.
I am to inform you, that for the reasons already explained to you in the correspondence in which you have been engaged with this office, Mr. Gladstone has been unable to advise Her Majesty to accede to the prayer of your petition.
I have &c. (signed) Lyttelton.
No. 28.
Petition of R. M. Martin, Esq. to the Queen,
– No. 28. –
To The QUEEN's most Excellent MAJESTY.
The humble Petition of Robert Montgomery Martin, late Her Majesty's Treasurer for the Colonial, Consular and Diplomatic Services in China, and a Member of Her Majesty's Legislative Council.
Humbly showeth,
1st. THAT your Majesty was graciously pleased to appoint petitioner Treasurer at Hong Kong, on 20 January 1844.
2d. That petitioner having devoted his life to an investigation of the British colonial possessions and commercial interests, deemed that he would be fulfilling his duty to your Majesty by examining, in all their relations, our position and prospects in China.
3d. That the accompanying public documents were therefore, from time to time transmitted to your Majesty's Ministers, and it is respectfully submitted, they testify that petitioner acted as a faithful, industrious, and useful servant of the Crown in China.
4th. That petitioner deeming an erroneous course of policy had been pursued, which, if not timely rectified, would be productive of great national injury, and being desirous of checking a wasteful expenditure of public money, which could only effectually be done by his immediate return to England, was most reluctantly compelled to tender the conditional resignation of the commission with which your Majesty was graciously pleased to invest him, in order that he might bring the whole state of our affairs in China under the early and serious consideration of your Majesty's Ministers, and be on the spot to explain personally the amendments and retrenchments which he was, and is prepared to prove, were imperatively required in China.
5th. That for thus acting in accordance with what he believed to be his duty as an honest steward of the trust reposed in him, and for refusing to remain silent and quiescent, when silence and quiescence would he thinks have been a crime.
– No. 30. –
Copy of a LETTER from R. Montgomery Martin, Esq. to Mr. Secretary Gladstone.
Sir,
29, Bloomsbury-square, 13 May 1846.
No. 30.
I REGRET to learn that you have not deemed it necessary "to advise Her Majesty to accede to the prayer of my petition for an inquiry into the truth of my several communications on the subject of Hong Kong."
I am unaware of any "reasons already explained" to me which ought to preclude the investigation sought.
The only reason ever given for refusing me inquiry was, that I had resigned my office; the truth or otherwise of my statements being deemed alike immaterial. I beg leave to observe, that I tried in vain every other mode of procuring investigation into the utter worthlessness of Hong Kong.
My faint hope that there was still some power in the Crown to grant that which is even conceded to a criminal-inquiry-is nullified by referring my petition to that department which, for six months, has rejected all appeals for investigation. I respectfully submit that this can scarcely be considered in accordance with justice, or with a desire to obtain truth.
I therefore venture to ask, even as a boon, that my petition be referred to the Privy Council, and that I be permitted, at my own expense, to substantiate by evidence the truth of my statements.
743.
I have, &c. (signed) R. M. Martin.
– No. 31. –
Gladstone.
13 May 1846.