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This is the principal condition laid down by Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., (then H.B.M.'s Envoy Extraordinary, Minister Plenipotentiary, and Chief Superintendent of Trade in China) in his Circular N°10 of the 7th October, 1868, under which British Subjects may reside or travel in China under British protection.
9. This stringent condition practically militates against whatever benefit your Petitioners would otherwise enjoy as British Subjects by virtue of the Duke of Newcastle's Circular Despatch dated 25th August, 1862.
10. The fact of the Certificate being granted, under the hand and seal of the Governor of a British Colony after the usual formalities have been observed, should in itself, as your Petitioners submit, be sufficient guarantee against all frauds and abuses which might otherwise be practised.
11. Your Petitioners humbly submit that although Sir Rutherford Alcock's regulation insisting on a certain style of dress might have been deemed necessary at the time it was framed (over thirty years ago), present conditions and circumstances no longer demand the operation of an Order so distinctly opposed to the liberal views of the British nation as regards established custom and prejudices. The application and enforcement of this Order at the present time is felt to be a great and unnecessary hardship by your Petitioners.
12. Your Petitioners therefore pray that you might be pleased to move Her Majesty's Government for a revocation of the Order in question, or, at any rate, for a modification thereof which might tend to relieve or mitigate the hardship to which they are at present exposed, and to substitute therefor some other Order or Regulation (with ample safeguards against errors and possible abuses) less irksome in its appliance and not directly opposed to the exterior observance of long-established custom. And your Petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.