July 26th
To the Editor of the "CHINA MAIL."
July 26.
SIR,--I regret to see the following statement in your last evening's issue of the China Mail:-"His Excellency stands revealed as an Administrator who has stooped to publicly traduce the official character of his subordinate, and then to beseech from that ill-used gentleman, a personal favour, escape from the natural consequences of his acts."
As these remarks have reference to the action of H. E. the Governor towards myself, I think it right to inform you that they are incorrect.
I shall be obliged if you can publish this letter in the next issue of the China Mail.
Yours faithfully,
H. G. THOMSETT,
Harbour Master, &c.
[We accede with pleasure to the request made in the above communication. At the same time we cannot help thinking that it would have been far more satisfactory to the public, as well as better calculated to serve the purpose the writer seems to have in view, had Captain Thomsett pointed out the particular inaccuracies which he regrets to have seen in print. We distinctly stated that, "if what is now public talk comes at all near the truth," so and so was the case; and it seems to us that the public are entitled to something more than a mere general assertion that a certain passage quoted is "incorrect." Where and in what is it incorrect? Is it in some phrase, or in a certain turn of a sentence? or is the substance of the statement made entirely devoid of foundation? For the credit of the administration of this British Colony, we should be only too happy to state "on authority" that there is no truth in the allegation which we have stated is generally believed. Captain Thomsett's letter, however, fails to meet the case. We made no pretence to narrate what actually took place at the interview between His Excellency Governor Hennessy and Captain Thomsett, and it would be sufficient for us to show that the passage pronounced to be "incorrect" is a fair and reasonable statement. This could, we think, be done without any great difficulty. The very object of the interview must have been to obtain an informal promise from Captain Thomsett not to proceed with the action which he had requested permission officially to initiate. That, it seems, was obtained; and what we have consistently opposed in Governor Hennessy's administration for the last four years is this informal and unofficial mode of doing business. The great difficulty is, and always has been, to obtain, from the present Governor, straightforward official answers to official letters; and as we conceive it to be one of the duties of an honest journalist to expose such irregularities of administration, especially when they produce effects such as Governor Hennessy's system has continuously revealed, there is no special cause for regret in this case. For the phase of Sir John Hennessy's official conduct which was said to be revealed, that cannot well be gainsaid. Let all the documents, however, be treated with the same publicity as have the other papers out of which this difficulty first arose; and, as we have said, if they prove us to be wrong, it will be a relief for us to find that the public and ourselves had erroneously judged or been incorrectly informed as to Governor Hennessy.-- Ed. C. M.]
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