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their natural protector here from whence they embarked. Moreover as they only went to Canton, they were in the understanding that I was quite justified in taking all the precautions I could to reassure them; and although as Consul Robertson remarked I might have been satisfied on other occasions to have sent them in charge of an ordinary Police Constable I felt that this was a case in which the Colony was too deeply interested to omit the least precaution which it was possible to take.
5. Your Lordship will notice that Mr Lister has proved a copy of the Customs Proclamation intended forcibly to turn the trade to Canton, or more probably to give occasion for squeezing and extortion. No notice of any such proclamation, though in its purport so seriously affecting the trade of this place, had reached me so far as I know on any one else in Hong Kong. I therefore presume it is now only brought forth as a pretext to give a color to acts which can scarcely be viewed as other than gross and unfriendly attacks on the Commerce of this Colony.
I have drawn the Consul's attention to the fact that I never received any copy of the Proclamation referred to and I understood verbally from him during his late visit which he paid to Hong Kong that he was very busily engaged in ...