28.
85
in error
20%
was
As Sir Rutherford Alcock finally argues himself into the belief and at last boldly asserts that "no" proof produced of the "Prince Albert" having gone where she did for any but an unlawful purpose, I felt it was quite "unlawful" to continue the correspondence. I accordingly contented myself with sending him the enclosed reply, expressing the concurrence of myself and the Attorney General in his statement of the Law, and my confirmed belief in the wrong done to the Prince Albert.
28.
There is only one step that can now be taken in the matter, namely that which I am adopting, to transmit all the documents to Your Grace, as the opinion of the Attorney General and indeed of Sir Rutherford Alcock himself as to the law greatly strengthens Kwok-a-Cheong's position. Having done this, I must leave it to Your Grace to decide how far it be expedient to bring the matter to the notice of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, as a question in which members here take special interest, the general belief being that a great wrong has been done, and that what may have been a mistake inadvertently committed has grown to something more by the pertinacity with which it has been maintained.
July 1867.