10
126
advised, is the legal and equitable bearing of the case, but to be further assured of my views.
I have profited by the opportunity to visit here to confer with the late Judge Sir Edmund Hornby in whose hands I placed the whole correspondence, and I am authorized to say that in these views I am fully borne out by his opinion.
I may add that I quite agree with the Attorney General at Hong Kong that affirming the correctness of the facts connected with the voyage of the "Prince Albert" as detailed by the master of the vessel, there was no case for confiscating the ship.
Authorities, both Chinese as well as Her Majesty's Consul on the spot, did not assume this correctness but, on the contrary, gravely doubted it. And if no proof was forthcoming of the charter, if the Charterer himself was not brought forward, and no proof of the original existence and supposed loss of the Junk in search of which the "Prince Albert" is stated to have been sent, I confess I should have deemed the Chinese Authorities either very credulous or otherwise utterly unfit for the efficient discharge of their duties in connection with the care of the Revenue if they had accepted the simple statement of the Master or his crew as sufficient evidence.
And I am bound also to say that I should have held Her Majesty's Consul open to grave censure had he, upon the faith of such an untrustworthy statement, entirely...
#1