European Constables patrol the Town nightly, in addition to the regular sentries at the usual night ports. The number of burglaries is (I think consequently) on the decrease, and a feeling of security still continues to prevail.
I have already mentioned disturbances on the Kowloon Peninsula (see my Despatch N.134 of 4th instant), but there are merely faction fights and have no political significance.
At Canton, I have reason to believe that while the present season's teas are in course of shipment, things will be kept quiet, for the Chinese Officers, who secure the export duties to be collected, are most anxious to do so. But, this done, it is my belief that troubles in the Kwantung Province will commence, and these will seriously affect our position here.
Entertaining, therefore, this belief, I take the opportunity, the last that will fall to me, of calling your Grace's attention to the weak state in which this Garrison has for years been persistently kept, and to the opinions long expressed by Sir George Braham and myself on the numerical strength to be maintained here.
I beg to refer to Sir George Bonham's despatches N. 10, 17, 25 of January 1849, and N. 53 of 23rd May 1849, and to mine N. 2/17, 5 June 1854.