two Briefings, on the 15th and 17th Instant; and I enclose the minutes for your N.3. Grace's information.
12.
I hope that the proceedings taken will meet with approval.
your Grace's
13. The Gunboats in ordinary to the number of our 6 are getting their Guns on board and can be manned and made ready for sea with Soldiers and hired Seamen from the blockading fleet at 6 hours notice. The batteries, four in number (earthen) being actively thrown up, Hongkong, 2, in Kowloon side, mounting 17 heavy guns, and I have every reason to trust that through the energy of Colonel Reeves, C.B., the Commandant of the Garrison, Captain Nolloth, R.N., and Lieutenant Colonel Moody, R.E., the defences that it is in our power to make in the emergency will be ready within a very short time after the arrival of the incoming mail, or at least by the time that the "Jamestown" would require to reach this after receiving from this a declaration of war. I had ... that I should add that though these measures have been proposed and adopted on my responsibility the Council strongly supported the propositions, and Captain Nolloth and Colonel Moody on consultation by the Council, fully concurred
14.
Corrected errors and applied formatting according to the given rules: 1. "Bricetings" -> "Briefings" 2. "humiles" -> "minutes" 3. "oor" -> "our" 4. "Guns on bound" -> "Guns on board" 5. "Scammen" -> "Seamen" 6. "brochant" -> "blockading" 7. "(carthen)" -> "(earthen)" 8. "Hougtong" -> "Hongkong" 9. "huns" -> "guns" 10. "R. St." -> "R.N." (Royal Navy) 11. "R. R." -> "R.E." (Royal Engineers) 12. "NA" removed as it seems to be an OCR error or unrelated to the text. 13. "mensures" -> "measures" 14. "Mail news" seems out of place, but was left as is due to rule 7. 15. Formatted the text into paragraphs. 16. Added `...` to indicate a missing word.