(Private)
My dear Lin,
470
18th Nov 1880
Hong Kong
Dear Sir,
I am very unwilling to trouble you with my grievances, but it is now absolutely necessary that something should be done to avoid a public scandal. From the moment of my arrival in the Colony, the Chief Justice showed a feeling which made it evident to me that he regarded my appointment as a grievance and was not willing to do anything to assist me. But as I was prepared to find him crotchety, I did not think much of his demeanour.
I found the office in a state of confusion, impossible to describe. Sir Planket was too ill to afford any explanation, and none of the subordinates, except a Portuguese clerk named Barros, offered any aid. They all evidently regarded me as an interloper, who had come to oust them from something to which they were entitled. However, I set their doubts at rest and established fairly firm relations, so that we now work as harmoniously as I could wish, and I am gradually getting things into tolerable order, and establishing a system by which they can be worked for the future, that is, if I can only get the Chief Justice to remain quiescent, or act reasonably.
Rowden agrees entirely with me on the views I have taken, and so does the Attorney General, and I think there is not a man in the Colony who does not approve of what I am known to have done already.
Thus much in my own justification. I now come to my grievance, which is rapidly becoming intolerable, and the cause of it is...