forming it out, which, however, were not accepted. Still, as Commandant at Hong Kong, where the headquarters of the tie-boats were, and as Commandant also of one of the gunboats stationed for the purpose of enforcing the tax bay at the Kap-shui-moon, Ping Shan was in constant and necessary communication with the officials directing the levy, who found his local knowledge exceedingly useful to them.
Almost immediately after the boy had been instituted Her Majesty's Consul was astonished to see in the Han Rong journals a statement to the effect that a branch office for the boy of the Opium ton (which undertaking had been vehemently denounced in the Colony generally) had been notoriously opened in Mangthong, and simultaneously it was reported by the Captain of one of the Chinese gunboats that an European, named James Webster, recently dismissed from the police force of Hong Kong, had been stationed at the tax-office inside the Lye moon pass, for the purpose of searching junks as they passed.
Her Majesty's Consul, who had time after time warned the Viceroy against coming into collision with the Hong Kong Authorities, sent me instantly to see the Viceroy.