He replies ow which is signed
lies as follows, in a letter to
Engineer,
Whe
may
be
also
by
the Chief and the officer on watch,
add that if confirmation
necessary
ie in our
the chief Afficer's Loy
• possession, and the Official.
deposited with the
Log, which was def
Starbour Master, can
can be inspected on application.
"The
explanation given by the French Authorities of the action
" of
the French War Vessel "Forfait “
"Firing hoo in the direction of "The S. S. "Faiquan", at sea on the
* 20th October 1894, I consider sufficient and unsatisfactory
"You
are
very
iw.
already in possession
" of the facts of the case as reported
" by
me to
you, by letter. It will
be wea
" therefore only be
now to
ww
necessary for
points of the
to over sove
go
:xplanation:
"Farquan
carried chinese
"characters
166
" characters on her sides! This is not "the case,
there are not, and never have
been,
any
chinese characters on
ow any
part of the hull of the Facquan:
" They could not see her name
" astern. Ihis is
very singular, and to show the legibility of the name, I can, from the deck of the "Fariguan, where she is at present
present moored to " the Coy's Eastern bung in Hongkong "Harbour, read the name of the
"
vessel
"Changpha" (a cister verval to mine / " moored to the O. S. S. Cops Rastern=
"buy, with an
an order.
ordinary ship's telescope, "the letters of the "ch
"Changshas
size
be those of the and the distance between.
" being the same "Tariquan";
" these buoys, being greaks, or at any rate, certainly not less, than that "between the "Forfait and Taciquan",
at the time.
of
the incident.
The name
"Faiquan "on
the port side of the flat of the stern,
" and
I