Care of Messrs Henry Ellis & Sons
4443 14 Gracechurch St.
6.0
November 29th 1866.
159
To the Right Honourable
The President of the Board of Trade.
Honourable Sir,
Suspectfully beg to bring under your notice the treatment I received from the authorities at Hong Kong relative to the passage of a distressed seaman by the "Western Chief" under my command from that port to London.
In May last I received notice from the Harbor Master that passages would be required for two distressed men, you being on the point of getting under weigh. They were placed on board direct from the Hospital. I found to my great astonishment, that one of these, was in the most diseased state, being covered from head to foot with secondary syphilitic sores. That the only clothes they had were those upon them, & that no additional medicines or necessaries were supplied, although the man was an incurable from the Hospital under the treatment of the medical officers there.
The man was in such a filthy condition, & smelt to such an extent, that my crew at first declined to go in the ship, but as the Harbor Master threatened to put them in jail they consented, but they would not consent to sleep in the Forecastle; I was therefore compelled for the comfort of the crew to fit up a place apart specially for this man, very much to the loss of the ship, & inconvenience to those on board.
I first remonstrated with the Harbor Master on such a course, with the view of the man's removal.