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und of appointing him to any legal Office in the Colonies, the patronage of which belongs to Her Majesty of State. Janr Aunum; hr. 2840.
57 appointed in › Mr James Sohn Hickson, of Tralee, Co: Kerry, was appointed in September 1856 to the Offices of Crown Solicitor, Deputy Sheriff, and Coroner at Hongkong, at a salary of £300 per annum, with liberty to pursue private practice, and was required to proceed and undertake the duties at very short notice, which precluded the possibility of his obtaining as reliable information regarding the circumstances of that Colony and extent of his official duties as he might otherwise have done; and he was led to assume that, in suggesting the union of Offices and amount of Salary to the Home Government, Governor (Sir John Bowring) had due regard to both.
Arrived in the Colony, Mr. Hickson speedily found that the duties of the several Offices he had been appointed to (and to which were added by order of the Governor the duties of Queen's Advocate in Admiralty) were of the most onerous nature and conflicted greatly with each other, rendering their discharge - while unaided by a competent staff of Clerks and Bailiffs - a matter of complete impossibility, and entirely precluding all opportunity for augmenting income by the pursuit of private practice as a Solicitor.
Mr. Hickson likewise found that the expenses of House rent and living at Hongkong were beyond what he had been led to believe, and were in fact such as his entire salary would be insufficient to defray, without any reference to official outlay, which latter almost utterly absorbed it. Under these circumstances, Mr. Hickson applied more than once, by letter and interviews, strongly representing the position in which he was placed, and soliciting some alleviation of it by increase of Salary, or the provision of some aid towards discharging his excessive official work, and of an office in which to transact his public duties (the rent of which alone would subtract upwards of £60 from his income). But the Governor professed his inability to supply him with either, and generally discouraged any hope of the Home Government's sanctioning any alteration in Salary, duties, or of his recommending it.
Mr. Hickson – most unwilling to resign – endeavored for a time to contend against the extreme difficulties which beset him, but finding it impossible to overcome them, and being convinced that the attempt, if prolonged, would most inevitably end in total loss of health and the incurring of heavy debt