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the business of the Registrar General and Starboard Master's departments under the new Ordinances, 6+7 I alluded in that of 1866. despatch to rumors desertion of of 6+7 intended the Town by Resident Chinese, and of our Starboard by native Craft. Unfortunately the paper which has most circulation here published several articles, which, whether intentionally or not, were calculated to lead the Chinese to suppose they could inflict disastrous consequences on the Colony by passive resistance to the Law.
At the same time the conduct of the Executive was studiously misrepresented from the beginning, and every relaxation of the stringent provisions of the Ordinances treated as reluctantly extorted though certain provisions of the Ordinances had from the first been carefully framed by the Attorney General and myself to meet the very contingencies, which subsequently arose.
Notwithstanding these unfavourable circumstances it is very gratifying to me now to report that although