and Military authorities of the District, [in the immediate vicinity of Thongkong, the Magistrate of which had become, as Elfour Lordship will sec. below, complained of by me); enjoining them bevorforth to abide by the Treaty.
2.
I had had occasion in a correspondence upon the suppression of piracy in general, and in particular the capture of a notorious pirate, principal in the murder of Captain Da Costa, Naval Engineers, and Lieutenant Dwyer, Beylon Rifles, committed in March, to remark, upon an expression of the Commissioner's which seemed to be indicative of ignorance or disregard to the third or fourth repetition of my demand for the above-mentioned criminal, he replied, "that when taken, he should assuredly suffer the extreme penalty of the law, that an example might be made of him." I immediately quoted to him the language of the Treaties with reference to our tenure of the Island, and reminded him that our Government had always duly attended to the formal requisitions of that of China for criminals taking refuge here. He rejoined however that the criminal in question being a Chinese, we were bound to deliver him up, even if we took him prisoner: upon which, I explained to him at length our indisputable right to try any person of any nation, here residing, for faults, if guilty of any breach of our law at the time of his residence.
3.
Finding him thus tenacious of his point, he endeavoured to close the correspondence by declaring that the punishment of a robber and murderer seemed to him an object desirable in...