26.
27
84
but I question if Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will be equally indifferent, if he thinks that an illegality and a hardship has been inflicted on a man who made many sacrifices for British interests, and that such illegality might have been easily avoided by more correct action on the part of the Diplomatic Staff here, and that the feeling of the Community towards that Staff is unpleasantly influenced chiefly. For my part I do not regard such a feeling, if well founded, as a small matter.
Indeed I observe that Sir Rutherford Alcock adds very true observations on the conduct of our relations with the Government of China and on shewing respect for Chinese Rights that we exact for ourselves now.
Nevertheless it does not follow, because that observation is wise and true, that it has also a bearing on this case, unless it be shown that it is disrespect of Chinese Rights to request that under a new treaty a vessel, whose presence in a Port, has been satisfactorily accounted for, shall not be confiscated. The Records of my Office contain ample proof of my own cordial co-operation with the Chinese Authorities, in which I have been greatly assisted by the able advice of Consul Robertson, but I am not therefore bound to support either the Chinaman or the Consul when I know them to be wrong.