General Commanding
in pursuance
of
The
Queen's Commissions
to be
an
Lieutenant
Governor, I consider
that it would be
convenient
that that Officer should be of the rank of Major General.
Copy
My Lord,
199
Houghtong, China, 25 September 1850,
I am most unwillingly obliged from the state of my health to ask your Lordship to request His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief to cause me to be relieved from this command early in the next year.
I have been without intermission 29 years in the Tropics, and the last three hot seasons in Houghtong have so impaired my health that I feel quite convinced I could not go through a fourth.
Under these circumstances, the duty I owe to the service as well as to my family
The Lord Fitzroy Somerset, K.C.B., Military Secretary