CO129-003 - Foreign Office - 1843 — Page 214

to submit to tt. Major..

pu.

In this case, he

1

has further desired me to add, that the

the

use

of the Troops ground in question was expressly granted on the usual conditions to Captain Meik to build shops upon for the troops stationed in Cantonment. It was stated that the said shops were,

by

the recorded agreements, to be finished in four weeks,

Excellency

and that it was represented to this Government that the distance the men had to go to buy their Provisions was one cause

or at least was a

ready excuse for their absence from the Barracks, owing to sickness.

It now appears that Captain Meik took no sufficient steps to fulfil his part of the Agreements, that the ground lay vacant until

after

the news of the Treaty was received at Hong Kong, that Captain Meik

some time

himself left the settlement, giving the New Mr. Shuck his pretended authority to dispose of the ground, which the latter Gentleman offered to do, and that it was eventually disposed of to the Gentlemen in whose hands it now is, for a considerable sum of money.

It further appears, that the Gentlemen who bought the ground obtained permission from Mr. Johnston, Deputy Superintendent, to add to the size of the original plot, in direct Contravention of the repeated orders and Proclamations against granting Licenses, which had been issued before his Excellency Pottinger left Hong Kong to rejoin the Expedition.

It is needless here to point out, that Capt. Meik's claim to the ground had become perfectly surreptitious from his neglect, and that if any advantage is to be gained from its eventual re-sale, that advantage

belongs