h wp 458
214
To The Right Honble the Henry Labouchere MP, Her Majesty's Chief Secretary of State for the Colonies.
The Memorial of James John Hickson lately Crown Solicitor, Deputy Sheriff & Coroner at Hong Kong - Most Respectfully Showeth.
That it having come to your Memorialist's knowledge, about the month of September in the last year, that Her Majesty's Government were about to appoint a Crown Solicitor to the Colony of Hong Kong, your Memorialist made application to be appointed to such Office, and forwarded with his application several Testimonials as to Character and Capacity, which Testimonials still remain in the Colonial Office and to which your Memorialist begs leave to refer:
That you were pleased, upon perusal of such Testimonials, to appoint your Memorialist to the joint offices of Crown Solicitor, Deputy Sheriff and Coroner at an annual salary of £300. Causing it to be intimated to your Memorialist at the same time that he would be allowed the privilege of private professional practice as a Solicitor, the opportunities for which in the Colony he was informed, and believed, would be considerable;
That your Memorialist proceeded upon the 4th of October 1856 to undertake the duties of his appointment at Hong Kong, but very soon after his arrival in the Colony found that not only were the duties of the several offices to which he had been appointed extremely onerous and of a nature as wholly occupying your Memorialist's time and utterly precluding all possibility of any private professional practice - but that they were of such a nature as to conflict much with each other, rendering their due performance a matter of impossibility for any one person unaided by Clerks or Assistants;
Your Memorialist begs leave to enumerate here some of the duties required from him as Crown Solicitor, Deputy Sheriff and Coroner with the view of placing you in possession of some of the difficulties...