18
19.
341
15.
I have thought it right in a matter of so much importance to enter fully into all the reasons which have influenced me in recommending a different mode of dealing with Cases of a certain class of this kind. In the future, piratical cases brought within the jurisdiction of the Colony, I have only to add that the Consul should be directed to stipulate that as regards persons handed over to the Chinese Government, torture should not be practiced, and he might be requested to report the conclusion arrived at in each case.
If after experience it is found that a larger number are acquitted than under existing circumstances, if in any other respect the system does not work satisfactorily, the present practice can at any time be reverted to; but the experiment is, I think, well deserving of a trial.
16.
I have not overlooked the fact that when in 1887 my Predecessor handed over to the Chinese Authorities 73 pirates and murderers captured by the officers of Her Majesty's Ships Niger and Auckland, his proceedings in the transaction were severely condemned by the Secretary of State, as per No 76 of 9th June 1887, to Sir John Bowring. But I venture to point out that the circumstances of that time, which no doubt influenced the Secretary of State in arriving at that Conclusion, were widely different from the present. We were then engaged in hostilities with Yeh, the Viceroy of the neighboring Provinces - Canton had been bombarded, and a blockade of the Canton...