187
Dr. Pitel to the Private Secretary.
Copy
Hongkong 7th January 1882.
I write to acknowledge receipt of your letter of yesterday's date, in which you state, by the Governor's direction, that my memory had betrayed me into so many inaccuracies respecting my oral communications with His Excellency that he finds himself compelled, with extreme regret, to avoid any further oral communications with me.
With reference to this part of your letter I request you to point out to His Excellency that the oral communications to which he refers, and which from first to last related to His Excellency's private and domestic affairs, were never solicited by me, nor did they originate with me, but were forced upon me by His Excellency in violation of the expressed understanding under which I had accepted the office of Private Secretary viz. that those affairs should not be mentioned to me.
And I beg you to remind His Excellency also that on more than one occasion he expressed to me...