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shoes find nothing that Mr Mongan had not found.
However, for Security's sake, I kept the baskets seated and corded in my bedroom and the Memoranda in the lid of my despatch box, and seeing at length, on the eve of my departure, that I did not have leisure to examine them I had the baskets carried to the Chinese Secretary's office there to abide the orders of the Governor. The place of the Memoranda (which must have been all the while in my dispatch box) I had forgotten, and was obliged to inform the Acting Colonial Secretary at the last moment that I had mislaid them. I must since have had them in my hands more than once but did not notice them, to the best of my recollection, until some time in November or December last, when going over the Yang-tze-Kiang papers.
On my return to Shanghai, last January, I happened to observe my name in a report of one of the cases connected with these papers tried before the Supreme Court made to the missing Memoranda, and found reference to them. I at once communicated to you in a private note the fact that the Memoranda were in my possession and should have forwarded to you the letters of Explanation, which, as I then stated, I had drafted to cover the Memoranda now enclosed.
Circumstances prevented its transmission
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