156
being the gross amount of the sum named
The Commissioners of Audit.
by
8.
I have further to state that
on my arrival at Hongkong, I received from Mr Hyndman my locum tenens an erroneous statement of the specific distribution of the balance £7,876-3s-6d.
Mr Hyndman had informed me that £loss belonged to the Diplomatic and Consular services, whereas, as my letter and Financial Statement of the 18th March were forwarded by Mr Merivale to the Commissioners of Audit, it has been ascertained by the present Auditor General that in lieu of a balance of £800 in the Treasury to the credit of the Diplomatic and Consular services a larger amount had been advanced to Crown Departments from the Colonial Chest between the 1st January and the 12th May 1857 without any adequate sums being drawn at the time from the Commissariat Chest;
these errors, which did not originate with me, have since been rectified and I herewith enclose a revised statement of Cash Balances to the credit of the Hongkong Government on the 1st January 1858 exclusive of Diplomatic + Consular Service - together with the Auditor General's letter thereon of the 13th instant M23/1.
In closing this letter I have to express the pain Mr Merivale's letter caused me and regret it should have been viewed by the friends to whom I communicated its contents as liable to an unfavorable interpretation of its meaning or intent, and hope His Excellency Sir John Bowring will favor me by causing a copy of this letter to be transmitted to Sir E. K. Lytton with an expression of his sense of the manner in which I have conducted the duties of my Department since May 1857; I do so with the conviction that I have ever had the public Interest in view at the same time that the course of action adopted at the Treasury since my arrival here has afforded uniform satisfaction.