22
report the Government of Ceylon was invited to communicate its views in regard to the project suggested by the Governor of the Straits Settlements in 1851 of making that Island a penal depot for Criminals transported from Hong Kong.
17
The Government of Ceylon has declined to receive these Criminals, and in the letter from that Government, dated the 4th August, communicating this decision, the grounds of objection to rendering Ceylon a permanent Depot for the Chinese Convicts transported from Hongkong are set forth in the following terms: "Assuming that there were no objections on general principles, to exposing Ceylon to a source of contamination which all the other Colonies of the Crown have successively repudiated, there are local grounds on which its introduction here would be peculiarly undesirable and unsafe."
17
352
23
In Majesty's dominions, no part of ...
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