"of my suspension, until the pleasure of Her Majesty's Government be known! That letter of the 18th inst. from Her Majesty's Imperial Government, until it is too late to make enquiries into its statements will, like the late proceedings in the Executive Council, be exparte, and without the means of my being informed by myself, the party solely interested in their result.
I confidently ask you to permit your perusal of the Duplicate (p. 2.) and the enclosures of that letter (now to be intercepted by inclosing a single copy, as in its first Duplicate) that there is not a statement therein which has not been made the subject of previous consideration by the local authorities; - or that half-a-day of really diligent and honest investigation, - for I speak not of defences, - would not be more than enough to ascertain. You will therefore be able to conceive why a single Mail has been lost, by reason of these needful enquiries?
It is the fortune of a good cause, like mine, that delays of any kind, procured by contrivance of its enemies, do only bring its truth and honesty more and more into light.
If Sir John Bowring had complied fully & fairly with all and each of the Queen's Regulations, which prescribed the course to be taken in my case, I had not now the opportunity to address you, very respectfully, to direct your attention to a remarkable confirmation, which has, but two days since appeared, in part substantiation of my statement.
The China Mail is notoriously the channel through which Sir John Bowring and W. Bridges convey their unofficial despatches regarding the Hong Kong government as administered by themselves, and their criticisms of other public departments.
"The authorities who have the misfortune to displease the proprietor and manager of that paper, a man of imperfect education, named Dixson - once a principal witness against Caldwell & Co. (holding how the Government Contract for printing was obtained) - I have frequently had occasion to complain of the facilities afforded at the Colonial Secretary's Office and the Governor's Office for obtaining access to the secrets of official correspondence; to be afterwards used by the writer, a scurrilous man, to the vituperation of those who serve the Government, and to support it. I have made more than one allusion, in the course of the present correspondence, to what, in every private well-ordered community, would be esteemed the felicity of official correspondence.
I have now the honor to draw your attention to the China Mail of the 19th inst. in substantiation of remarks, which I shall not observe upon further than reminding you that the Dixson, the libel writer, is the same Jay Deason, who on the occasion of the Caldwell Inquiry, gave his evidence in a way that the secrets of the Executive Council itself have been communicated to some one, or to Wilson; that the reasons which pretended to have moved the minds of all (the Governor, Sir John Bowring, and W. Bridges) - some of which had not been known even to myself, are paraded, under an authority - [of the Governor, Sir C. P. Straubing, and of Bridges] – and that the sentence of suspension, as I also learn for the first time...