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in our Courts is proceeding not likely to furnish a plausible pretext for the repudiation by China of other articles of the Treaties, some of which, I have good reason to believe, are sooner or later to be very keenly felt by the Chinese Government as a perpetual badge of degradation.
15. Such questions as these are, I venture to think, becoming specially serious at a time when China has become possessed of a fleet, which, if commanded with equal skill and manned with equal courage, I understand, is believed by experts to be more than a match for the fleets of all the European powers in these seas.
Your obedient Servant,
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Most Obedient Humble Servant,
Apvillian des Voeux