to inform their Lordships whether
the Governor of Hong Kong has refuted the circumstances under which the amount voted for the special services of erecting Gaol and Hospital but £7,000 had been drawn from the Treasury Chest, whereas no expenses appear to have been incurred on that account.
I am,
Your obedient servant,
M. Martin
A search has been made to fix the producer to this. I see nothing for it except to write to Sir J. Bowring here, or the Governor.
There is no use in sending this to Sir John Bowring in London.
Send it to the Governor of Hong Kong with reference to this despatch No 9 of the 25th.
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Page 393
of March 1858 and should demand an explanation of the circumstances to which attention is drawn in the report of the Board of Audit, remarking that unless satisfactory reasons can be assigned for the course which was pursued, it would appear that the Supplementary Grant in 1858 was obtained with no sufficient necessity and that it could have been more prudent and correct not to draw the money when it was found that the events did not correspond with the representations which had elicited consent to grant this assistance.
M. Forth, the Colonial Treasurer at Hongkong, never lost an opportunity of extracting British money under very imperfect or incorrect account of the state of the Colonial finance.
This appears in very reprehensible action.
26 July (44)