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as to his discharge of the duties of Emigration Officer in the case of the Dayspring.2. Your Lordship expresses regret at observing that Mr Thomsett does not appear to be alive to the responsibility on him in a matter affecting the lives of numerous persons and that he must be prepared to find that in any case of similar negligence very severe notice will be taken of it.
3. Looking to the habitual guarded language, in which comments on the conduct of Public Officers are generally conveyed officially, the above strong expression of Your Lordship's censure on Mr Thomsett amounts to a direct and severe censure. Nevertheless, the Report of the Emigration Commissioners on which that censure is founded proceeds on many assumptions so obviously erroneous that I am certain they will themselves be glad to be set right, as it must be unpleasant to draw down a rebuke on a conscientious and deserving Public Servant.
Having submitted Mr Murdoch's letter to Mr Thomsett, I enclose the latter's observations thereon. And though it is represented as "a fact indeed unquestionable" that the Dayspring's having been without due observance of the provisions of the Chinese Passengers Act is a fact, Mr Murdoch's principal reasons for that assertion will themselves be found...