That in consequence of the unsatisfactory state of the money market in the Colony, the Chinese merchants in the outports hesitate to come to trade, hence its trade is very dull now, and just your petitioners beg to lay the facts before Your Honor.
And pray your Honor to forward them to His Excellency The Administrator, for his favourable consideration, so that His Excellency may order a new usage to be uniformly adopted by the foreign and Chinese merchants in the future, and that with the exception of short and spurious dollars, or dollars hitherto not in the market, all currency, no matter whether they are new or old dollars, chopped or otherwise, be circulated and paid in weight.
This will be a boon to your petitioners, as the market will not then be reduced to an embarrassed position for want of funds, and the Chinese Merchants in the outports will not merely look on the trade of Hong Kong and sigh.
The Colony will be revived again in a short interval, and the trades of ...
Page 559
31 Mar 188?.