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sale or lease, the Colonial Government would gain considerably by the transaction, even after paying the interest for the proposed quarantined loan of £100,000.
3.
Under the circumstances stated, I believe that the Colonial Legislature would not be indisposed to agree to the Loan suggested by General Sargent, if Your Lordship were to authorize me to propose it on the conditions mentioned above.
It would be an additional inducement to the Colonists if the plan finally adopted should include a Fort, or Keep, (of the nature referred to by the late Lord Derby in his despatch of November 1843 to the first Governor of Hong Kong), which could be held even by our present small Garrison for a considerable period against a sudden attack by a very superior hostile force; and into which, in such event, the specie in the Banks (averaging in value about a million and a half of pounds sterling), could be removed for safety.
4.
St.