O
лич Мессь Crimson 40. september 1802
to
The Duke of Newcastle.
3 diclosures.
N33.
Received
Newenetle, and remarking
address of the duke of from Mr. Farrant to the
Forcoarding a Printed Setter
thereon.
L. Rogers.
very
Murrow are
conce puzo serp
Evident
72 hovs
of this I suppose should
observations
Uusit Mass"
v17
concert
Tarrant &
A copy
be sent for any
Si & Rolmcon may
have lo
offer, unless you should think that
he has disposed of the charges by the
explanation in the care
of Mr. Heureurs.
WR.
(
MY LORD DUKE,
Canton, 3rd September, 1862.
306
In the matter of the enquiry into the abuses in the Civil Service of the Hong- kong Government, on which a report has been published, I am reminded, by reading in the Hongkong Daily Press of the death in gaol of the Chinese Shum Abiug, who was examined by the Commission of enquiry, that a duty is incumbent on me to draw Your Grace's attention to the extraordinary conduct of Governor Sir Hercules Robinson in relation to the enquiry generally and as regards This Shun Ahing in particular.
In whatever form, secret or for the public cye, Your Grace's directions were conveyed, I am sure I am correct in concluding that what your department wanted was a scrutiny into the very root of those delinquencies, which, as remarked by the late Colonial Secretary Sir William Molesworth, caused the Colony of Hongkong to stink in official nostrils. Yet, ou receiving Your Grace's directions, what was Governor Suspect :--to Robinson's action? Why, to to limit all enquiry into the conduct of one close that enquiry before a third of the charges preferred were fairly investigated-to publish a report in which the convicted Caldwell was allowed to libel and insult honest men--and finally, when furnished with lucid particulars tending to show how wanton was the libel perpetrated on Your Grace's present correspondent, and prayed to punish or in some way regard the libellers Caldwell and his confederate Scott, Governor of Victoria Gaol-and further, in order to avert the evil consequences of the libel, to bind the particulars mentioned as a Supplement to the minutes of enquiry--to treat that appli- cation with supreme contempt!"
To this hour, excepting by the initials of the Acting Colonial Secretary on a slip of paper which went with it, I have not received a letter of acknowledgment, nor has the slightest notice been taken of the correspondence embodied in the Pamphlet of which 1 beg to enclose Your Grace a copy.
If Your Grace will do ine the favour to read this pamphlet, you will see from it, and the antecedent circumstances, that the conduct of Sir Hercules Robinson, in an undue regard for those whose corruption has made the character of the British Govern- ment in the East what it is, is open to grave suspicion. Caldwell, whose guilt as the partner of the convicted pirate Malchow Wang-as a felonious Servant of the Crown- was apparent to all impartial persons long before the last enquiry began, was allowed, in the first place, every facility in getting out of the way the man (Shum Ahing) most like- When proofs were given of Caldwell's guilt ly to give damaging evidence against him. in this matter (and nothing can be clearer or more convincing than the evidence obtain- ed by me at Macao) still no action was taken to bring the misereaut to justice;—but worse than that, the wrongfully convicted man was kept a prisoner in chains, and subjected to the torture of Victoria Gaol, until, worn out by harass of mind he died mise- rably ;-so kept a prisoner, and tortured to death, in the face of positive assurances to me by the Attorney General that if I would limit my purpose to an endeavour to procure the man's release he would do all in his power to help me.
Obstinacy in a good cause is admirable but there was something more than that in keeping that man a prisoner; and for my own part, I have no hesitation in declar- ing it to be my opinion that on whomsoever the responsibility of Shum Ahing's death may rest, he is guilty of murder!
I have remarked that the enquiry into abuses in the Civils ervice of the Hong- kong Government was determinately limited to the investigation of charges against one person :---that person. but an inferior agent- a tool in the hands of his superiors. Would Grace know the inducements for Caldwell's felonious conduct while a ser-
your vant of the Crown? If you would. the particulars can easily be referred to in the ar- chives of the Colonial office; and having reference to them I would draw Your Grace's attention specially to a letter which Your Grace has not condescended to acknowledge, written by me from Hongkong in the latter part of 1860. In that letter I made allusion to my recent discovery of the unprincipled conduct of one Mr. Molloy Campbell, in im- posing on the government an outrageons lie as the result of his investigation into cer- tain charges of extortion brought by me in 1847 against the servants of the then Co- At my trial for what-referring to lonial Secretary, the late Acting Governor Caine. those extortious was deemed a libel on the Acting Governor Caine, the minutes of the Chamber at which investigation was made into them were produced in Court, and then it~
His Grece The Take of Pewcastle
Jo. dr.
Fowsing
Piect