Gor 17463
3.
268
lov
in my despatches No.220 and 311 of Feb. 1853 (which should be read in connection with this despatch) the "late Lord Derby, when Secretary of State for the Colonies, informed the first Governor of Hongkong that the construction of a Fort of the kind referred to, was an essential part of the policy towards this Colony of Her Majesty's Government;
but his foreseeing views have never been carried out in this, "nor in other respects."
3.
* Lord Stanley to Sir H.G. Pottinger, No.2 of November 15,1843.
Hearing
In previous despatches I have shown that the Fortifications of Hongkong might have been completed before now without cost to the British taxpayer, if the Military Contribution then paid by the Colony had been expended on them, (as in the case of the Ionian Isles); and that all that the British subjects resident in this island ask is that:
(a) one of the several plans of Fortification proposed by the Royal Engineers should be definitively adopted by the War Office; and that
(b.)
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