To trial (and with success), some prisoners, being diverted, were in the position - willing to be tried without the five days' notice. At the March Sessions, however, I was compelled to invoke my right by the Chief Justice, who refused in court to receive the signed Information I had sent up against nine prisoners for piracy, and the depositions in whose case I had only received that morning, of "Kwok in yuushee and others", already reported by me upon another pron... to your department. The witnesses were all Chinese people, resident on the Mainland, and, as I have already informed you, were all absent from Hong Kong. For the case, their absence was subsequently reported to the Chief Justice, owing to his refusal to hear the case on the day of the finding of the Information, the case stood adjourned. They were discharged by proclamation in the usual manner at Mr. Day's suggestion. The Crown witnesses were here on the day of the finding; and, if the Chief Justice had not prevented the trial, so much desired by the prisoners as by the prosecutor, from taking place, those witnesses would have been heard, and, if I may judge from the depositions which I enclose, a conviction must have followed.
Nor is this an exceptional case. The Chief Justice at the following Sessions - the April Sessions - applied the same rule to the case of "Lamarang ...".