British Consulate
Shanghae. 24. July 1856.
As it is highly probable that this Port will become a place of shipment for coolies, and being impressed with the desirability of preventing the British Flag giving protection to a system of undoubted slavery, to say nothing of the horror of the middle passage, I would respectfully point out to Y.E. the inutility of the Ordinances passed to check the great evil, on the grounds, that the plan followed is to ship there poor people as passengers.
Sir John Bowring
Two Enclosures
No 244.
8.1856.
J. Bowring