I was specially instructed and ordered to do the work and specially the Coroner to call upon me to do it.
I served with the comprehension that His Excellency should call for explanations to be submitted to Executive Council, and then without waiting for either explanations or decision, decide it himself and give order accordingly.
The verdict of the Conseil may have been a foregone conclusion in the mind of His Excellency, but simple justice to me demanded that the verdict should be delivered before it was acted upon.
Again, the novel war and the creation of the precipitate, and the further charge formulated in the Government Order of 20th is perfectly untenable. So much I have to say concerning the charge themselves.
My extra reason for declining the responsibility is, as I have before stated, simple inability. For 144 years past I have been working at high pressure, the medical staff having always been short-handed, and I am not now able to volunteer for extra duties, as in days gone by.
It may sound like a jest to say, that the sole charge of a General Hospital with 98 beds and over 1,500 admissions annually, as well as a Smallpox Hospital, is a burden I can attend to in my present enfeebled condition.
The Executive Council are now called upon to consider in all seriousness whether, with this burden already upon me, physical exhaustion is not sufficient reason for not undertaking almost constant work at the Magistracy and Supreme Court, a long way to the west, with consequent attendance in the other direction.
If His Excellency, with the advice...