My dear Sir,
Hong Kong. Feb. 12th 1857
With very great regret have I remarked the many difficulties under which you have laboured since your arrival in this Colony. Indeed it appears to me that from the outset you have suffered from being unable to obtain in time sufficient or reliable information on the duties of your appointments or the circumstances of the Colony, to which you were about to come.
In the first place the Salary attached to your post was barely sufficient for your decent support. From experience of two years spent in this Colony as a professional man I feel myself competent to form an opinion on this matter, and I can say that the expenses of living in Hong Kong far exceed any idea that I had formed.
Before leaving home I was warned that I should not find it a cheap place, and the fact is the place is dearer even than Calcutta and as compared to England. I say that an outlay of £120 per annum in London gave one more comfort, substance, and enjoyment than £350 could here.
To meet these expenses there was held out to you the hope of private practice, which is at best but a matter of speculation, and was in your case quite out of the question as the multiplicity of duties thrown on your shoulders left you no opportunity for it.
I put aside your 4th letter from Jumon, and found my remarks justified, to which no gentleman could submit but with personal discomforts (not to use a stronger term). I am aware that you had to encounter and put up with many grievances. The only course open to you was to run into debt, and every day you have been getting deeper in debt, and the inevitable consequence would be that you would be continued in the post in a way that it was impossible for you to proceed without assistance.
Had you limited your expenditure thereby reducing it to a scale commensurate with your means, you would have had to deprive yourself of the ordinary and necessary relaxations of life. Indeed, having tried for some time to perform all the duties in your own person, you found it absolutely impossible (and so would anyone else) to do so without private practice, which really did not afford you time to turn your attention to it.
On the broad grounds above stated, I deliberate on the propriety of the step you have taken.
Copy Letter from W. Kingsmill,
Hong Kong,
Feb 11th 1857
My dear Mr. Hickson,
...
Henry Kingsmill
Your faithfully,
I remain,
My dear friend,