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78
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fully before In Majesty's Minister that previously, and also detailed the great claims which Kwok Cheong had personally acquired by previous services, rendered at critical times and at much personal risk, to Her Majesty's Government. Above all I put forward the fact that the Attorney General's fresh opinion from whom I enclose - clear it that, under the facts stated, the confiscation was illegal because the vessel being in a treaty Port, though prima facie just cause of seizure, might be satisfactorily explained, and the evidence produced, if true, did so explain it.
19.
Inclosure in Sir Rutherford Alcock's reply, and if it would be regarded on the case, or adducing any sufficient legal grounds, or from controverted facts, I should be sorry to occupy my time with writing, or Your Graces with reading another communication on the subject.
So far from regarding Sir Rutherford Alcock's reply as satisfactory in any way it seems to me altogether feeble and inconsequent in its reasoning. I do not think it sufficient to be told that no person but Her Majesty's Secretary of State can "call in question official acts of Her Majesty's Minister and Consuls in China. I presume that they are only men like myself, and like myself invested, with