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-Extract from the Daily lies of it 20th. then 1983
It has been my good fortune to serve under your Excellency now, and I hope it may be my better fortune to serve under you again. On behalf of the officers and men of the garrison I wish you and Lady Blake God-speed; I wish you may enjoy in that interesting and beautiful island to which you are now going many happy days. (Applause.)
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL-Your Excellen- cy,The official members of this Council and the public servants of the Colony generally feel the utmost regret and sorrow that the time bas come when you are about to relinquish the administration of the affairs of this Colony. It is tompered by the knowledge that you
administration leave the
Colony of the in the hands of an able and capable officer who has had the advantage of a long training (Ap- plause.) Still, sir, we have felt it to be a certainty for some time that your Excellency's services would be required by His Majesty the King elsewhere than in Hongkong,and we have felt the time had arrived in your Excollency's long and illustrious career in the public service of the Empire when you would achieve the bighest distinction-namely, the blue ribbon of the service in the Governorship of Ceylon. We hore congratulate the Civil servants of Ceylon and the Colony generally on the acquisition of yourself as its Governor, aud we in this Colony, knowing you so well, predict for you in the administration of the affairs of Ceylon the same conspicuous success that has marked your administration of the affairs of Hougkong. On behalf of the official members of this Council I bid you a respectful farewell. (Applause).
HIS EXCELLENCY-I thank you very much, gentlemen, for the kindness with which you have spoken. Ifeel it very deeply,and I assure you that I entirely concur in one remark that the hon. Attorney-General has made, and that is in the fact that the Colony is to be congratulated that when I leave its shores on Saturday I shall leave its administration in the hands of a man who has the confideuce of the whole commu- nity, who is well known to you all, who knows - this place thoroughly, and whose honesty and integrity are well known to you all. (Applause).
The Council adjourned.
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