3
234
some
2
of the Cadets appointed to the Civil Service of Hong Kong to learn Chinese at Peking instead of, heretofore, at Canton.
In common with my predecessors in this Government, I have found great inconvenience from not having at my command a single person at Hongkong, who can speak or understand the Chinese language as spoken by the educated and official classes in China. For instance, when Admiral Ting recently entertained me at the Government House, I invited Mr. Justice Russell and Mr. Stewart (the late and present Registrars-General, and Protectors of Chinese), to meet him at table, when I found that they were unable to understand him, or he them; so that we should have been without the power of conversing together, had not the Admiral brought with him his Flag-Captain (Fong teh Kien) who had been trained in the English Navy and is well acquainted with our language. So also Mr. Lister, Mr. Deane, and Mr. Lockhart, the former Cadets