This is the first time
I have heard it stated that
I was obliged to leave Singapore for a crime. I think throughout the Caldwell Commission Enquiry the only statements made on
the subject of my career in Singapore were (according to those made by "Messrs Anstey and May) that I had been a member of a Secret Society there, and that I was an outcast from my family. With respect to these two charges I would beg to refer His Excellency The Governor to the evidence taken on the Commission
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wherein it was clearly shown that at the time I left Singapore I was ignorant of the Chinese language and could not therefore have belonged to the Society in question. And with respect to the other charge I proved that so far from being outcast from my family, I was sent on by them with letters of introduction from Merchants in Singapore to Messrs Jardine Matheson & Co., and this fact I submit would go also to show that when I left the settlement I could