Peking, 1st October, 1903,
C.O.
27148
Your Highness,
I have the honour to inform Your Highness that I have received a Despatch from His Excellency the Governor of Hongkong acquainting me with a serious violation of the territorial rights of the Colony committed by persons acting under the instigation of certain Chinese Officials with the connivance of the Chinese Admiral Ho.
It appears from the Governor's Despatch and from the documents that accompany it that the ringleader of the plot to murder certain Chinese Officials at Canton last Chinese New Year, the discovery of which was due to information given by the Hongkong Authorities, was a certain Hung Ch'uan-fu or Hung Ch'uan-huai, who escaped arrest and went to Hongkong. For his arrest a reward of $30,000 was secretly offered by the Provincial Treasurer of Canton, and $20,000 for his dead body. With a view to obtaining this reward and no doubt also to gaining official credit, Admiral Ho sent three of his officers to Hongkong in order to try to effect the capture of Hung. For this end they engaged the services of a man named Chang Tso-ting who had some family connection with Hung, having adopted as his son the grandson of Hung's nephew.
Whether Chang made any attempt to arrest or murder Hung is not known, but if so he did not succeed, for it is known that Hung left Hong Kong on March 31st for Singapore where he arrived safely. But either because he found the capture of the real Hung too difficult, or for some other reason, Chang determined to substitute for him another man, bearing to him a personal resemblance, and such a person he found in an acquaintance of his at Canton named Hu, who kept an Opium Divan in that City.