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payment of so large a sum of money having no present means of doing and no prospect of obtaining it by loan since I have no property to offer as security for its repayment.
With a large family of a wife and three children to support here, and three children to maintain and two others at Singapore besides other calls upon my means, I have never been able to save any portion of my salary, or to acquire any property beyond two small Chinese houses near the Western Market which are mortgaged to Mr Stace for nearly their full value and two lots of ground at Shek Kei Wan worth about $175 which are free from incumbrance.
In addition to this, I have been and still am under engagement to pay to Messrs Siemsen and Company of this Colony the sum of $70 a month out of my salary in liquidation of an old debt incurred when I was engaged in trade operations previous to my re-entering the Colonial Service in 1856.
Under these circumstances I can only throw myself upon the clemency of His Excellency and earnestly beg that His Excellency will be pleased to grant me the indulgence of permitting me to liquidate the sum which it has been my misfortune to lose, by stoppages