My Lord Duke,
Temple, 3rd July 1859
I have the honor to lay the following statement before your Grace, upon your resumption of the office of Secretary of State for the Colonies.
It embraces the leading points, in the cases of my suspension, from the duties of Attorney General for Hong Kong, and of the confirmation of that suspension by the Home Government. I have never yet had the opportunity of replying to the charges involved in it - be they what they may - and which, when I know them (for as yet I know them not), I will demonstrate to be frivolous and absurd.
But there are also questions involved in my own case which are of great public importance. For, besides the question of the justice due from Her Majesty's Government to its officers, there are those of the dignity of the Crown itself - the reputation of England abroad, and the safety and advancement of British commerce. For any vindication of those great interests, I have been suspended by Sir John Bowring from the office conferred by Her Majesty.
Nor have the consequences been otherwise than disastrous to these interests and so regarded by ...
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... all most fatal to these interests and so regarded by Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies & Colonial Office
C.D.M.