Copy letter from M. Kingsmill -
"Late deling Actorney General
BMW. Stichson -
My dear Sir.
205
Hongkong.
Feb. 19.1857.
many
difficulties
your.
arrival in this Colony-
the
very
anxieties you have laboured under since.
with very great regret have I remarked the
difficulties under which you have suffered from being unable to obtain, in time, sufficient or reliable information as to the duties of your appointment or the circumstances of the Colony to which you were about to come, In the first place the salary attached to your post was barely sufficient for your decent support.
From an experience of two years spent in this Colony on this matter, and an opinion I feel myself competent to form I can say that the expenses of living in Hongkong far exceed any that I had formed on the subject, although before leaving home I was warned that I should not find it a cheap place: The fact is the place is dearer even than Calcutta, and as expensive as London. I have one more comfort, substance, and enjoyment than £350 could give. To meet lesser expenses there was on you the hope of private practice, that, which is at best but a matter of speculation was in your case quite out of the question as the multiplicity of duties thrown upon your shoulders were so far from allowing time for your attention to private practice, that they really did not afford you the ordinary relaxations of time. Indeed having hired for some time to perform all the duties in your own person you found it absolutely impossible (and so would any one) to proceed without assistance, the cost of which was a necessary consequence. It would be that you would continue in the face of your very limited income, thereby reducing it to a scale at which it was impossible you could pay your way. every day you have been getting deeper into debt. and I am perfectly satisfied that the only cause which lay open to you was to resign at once. I am aware that you had to put up with personal discomforts (to a degree that no gentleman could debar, but put in term) which no, these aside & form my deliberate opinion of the propriety of the step you have taken on the broad grounds I have stated. I remain My Dear Sir, yours faithfully Harry Kingsmill"