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the Chinese character is at all times naturally suspicions of everything unusual and new. Not merely was the recent legislation of a novel character, and feelings of the European Community against the Stamp Ordinance - which in Chinese opinion was mixed up with all the other novel laws - and also the gloomy forebodings of the effects of the Stamp duty, a portion of the Press did indulge in, did create an uneasy feeling in the Chinese portion of the Community.
I fear that some, who ought to have pursued a very different course, were not ashamed to lend to create in the Chinese who consulted them - and altogether I felt called on to take some step to allay the surrounding apprehension of the Chinese, however puerile and unfounded that apprehension might in some respects be.
I therefore caused their original Memorial to be translated, and drew up a reply, which was printed in Chinese and read to a deputation on Saturday the 7th Instant. I have directed some thousand copies of that reply to be printed with a view to leaving one copy in every house inhabited by Chinese - and already I receive accounts of the good effect produced by this full and direct personal explanation.
At the same time I admit that some did not scruple thoughtlessly to mislead many