3
Gunkles proceeding from Hongthong to Masao.
உ.
The levy, respecting which I asked for an enquiry at Canton, was a duty of twenty taels (each tael is now worth one dollar and forty cents) on a cargo of hardwood. The hardwood had originally been imported into Hongthong from Bangkok.
3.
Sir Brooke Robertson expressed the opinion that the Petition to raise was a well-advised attempt to the general question as to the sovereignty of Macao; and in alluding to this particular case in one of yesterday's Hongthong papers it is also spoken of as a test question of the sovereignty of Macao. I enclose the newspaper paragraph referring to this subject.
Having of course no desire to mix up the Government of Hongthong with that question, I withdrew from the proposal of enquiry into the whole case; and in writing again to Sir Brooke Robertson, I confined myself to asking that the amount of the levy might be brought to the Viceroy's notice with a view to have it reduced if excessive, or to ascertain if it should prove a substantial impediment to any trade.
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