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of 29th of April, 1881, as follows:-
"I submitted the Plans and Estimates of the Typhoon breakwater to Her Majesty's Government in November, 1877. Sir Michael Hicks Beach authorized me to begin the work in 1878, but the Survey Department having avowed its inability to undertake any special work of this kind until the repairs of the Praya Wall were finished, it was only this year that the work was taken in hand by the Acting Surveyor General. The Breakwater is now being constructed in Causeway Bay, a part of the Harbour selected for the purpose by a joint Committee of Naval and Colonial Officers!
Sir Michael Hicks Beach's despatch of the 12th of April, 1878, was given to Mr. Price to act upon in June, 1878, but it was not found in his papers until two years and a half afterwards with two brief pencil notes in his handwriting on the margin.
When Mr. Bowdler found the despatch amongst Mr. Price's papers, undealt with, he returned it to the Colonial Secretary and, looking to the passage in which Sir Michael Hicks Beach says "I should have no objection to the work being proceeded with...