"Authorities have been both deceived and misled" here. I need scarcely say that I have not allowed myself to be made the medium for transmitting unbecoming and uncalled-for insults. The offence of this man and his daughter should be no crime in an English Colony, as far as I can ascertain, it amounted only to this that a woman of full age was allowed, with the aid of the Authorities here, to exercise her undoubted legal right and follow her inclination as to fulfilling a contract of marriage made without having obtained her grandmother's consent, and that she actually did decide the matter as a free agent.
That having been a great crime and a great indecorum on the adjoining Mainland, I am sorry, therefore, for the love of the Consul's reference to the subject. It is at least discouraging to this Government that he should fall so easily into the way of promoting, however unintentionally, usages entirely opposed to the sympathies of the nation which founded this Colony. It is, moreover, practically inconvenient, because I feel that representations of this Government have little chance against declarations of the "Chinese Authorities."
For example, as remarked by the Registrar General, when Salleeheen first appealed for protection against