The Supreme Court Hong Kong
28 March 1881
I have the honour to refer to my two Letters to you viz
— firstly a Letter dated August 26th 1880 being my reply to your Letter 10724 with remarks on official Despatches from the Governor of Hong Kong to the Earl of Kimberley dated May 22nd 1880 respecting "Domestic Slavery."
— secondly a supplementary Letter dated November 24th 1880 containing further Observations on kidnapping, suspected Slavery and "extra" Judicial declaration thereon with inclosure of a memorandum dated December 1st 1880 by Mr. H. Francis Barrister at Law on Slavery in Hong Kong and on the state of the Law as applicable to it.
I had hoped that these Letters would have been forwarded last year in the belief that they ought to have induced a favourable view by Lord Kimberley of my judicial Action as to these matters and furthered the preventing what appears to me to be the great evil of the Colony.
Ladies may be brought under the Law to it now, or if on the contrary it is held that the present Law is ineffectual then under some law to be enacted to meet the mischief.
I am informed that His Excellency the Governor has been consulting Colonial Office authorities.