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I wish also to emphasise this point, that the Marquis of Salisbury, Prime Minister of England, has allowed Hi Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief to receive in silence my letter of the 28th February, 1888, with the contents of which I had made Lord Salisbury familiar in my letter to him of the 28th February, 1891.
How comes it that His Royal Highness's acute anxiety about my letters to him so suddenly subsided, after he had brought to a close the private correspondence which he himself had begun with me, some months after the failure of the blundering attempts to get me to withdraw my letters to him? (See page 2 of Brochure 15.)
Those who know how I have been treated, and who have read what Sir John Pope Hennessy stated on the 2nd March last, may have thought that I was the General referred to. Sir John said, to the amusement of his hearers in the House of Commons, that when he was Governor of Hong Kong during the Russian scare, the Admiral left Hong Kong with his men-of-war, upon which the General at once sent home a very alarming telegram," saying "Hong Kong was absolutely defenceless." The Members laughed.
All who know that I was commanding at Hong Kong when a scare occurred, and that the Admiral with his ships was away from Hong Kong, might jump to the conclusion that I was the man to whom Sir John Pope Hennessy referred; and the shameful way in which I have been treated would certainly lend some colour to their supposi- tion. I should therefore like to mention the manner in which I acted when a similar thing occurred during my command.
When the next seare happened at Hong Kong I was the General, and, as fate would have it, the Admiral with his
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vessels was again absent in the north. On this occasion (nuch more emphasis was given to his absence than on the former one, for the public apprehension was aroused and a meeting of the mercantile community was held to draw up a representation to the Admiral appealing to him to send some men-of-war for the protection of the harbour. I took no part whatever in any representations respecting the navy either to the Admiral or anybody else, but continued making my own preparations for the defence of the colony. When I was spoken to about the absence of the navy I langhingly said that in the event of a fight all the bonour and glory would be with the soldiers." My preparations kept in view the most extreme contingencies, as the arrange- ments I made for the defence show.
I, like other good soldiers, have always felt that to die in a glorious defence brings to the flag prestige akin to a victory on a battle-field. The following words written by me on the 17th November, 1884, to the Governor of Hong Kong in roply to a letter from him are evidence of my determina- tion to hold out to the last:-"I told you months ago that I had made all arrangements for holding out to the last, no matter what the odds might be against us, and that I will die al my post rather than surrender it." The only time I appealed to the Navy for help was when I determined to send assistance entirely on my own responsibility to the Europeans at Canton during the anti-foreign riots. (See pp. 138-135 of Brochure 18.)
Sir John Pope Hennessy, in the same speech from which I have already quoted, alleged that the marines and sailors were more popular than the soldiers. No one excols me in admiration for our sailors and marines, but it is only simple justice to the garrison of Hong Kong and to myself to say that it is absolutely impossible for any body of men to be
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