CO129-018 - Others - 1846 — Page 535

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CORRESPONDENCE

they have money lent on mortgage, or they traffic in building land; or they say,

let things alone, they will last our time; if the Government at home choose to spend money here, what have we to do with it ?"

I am injured and misrepresented for entertaining a different feeling; and every effort has been made by departing from the Treasury instruc- tions, and by various annoyances, to derange and delay my accounts; and by petty devices and subterfuges to create an unfavourable impres- sion against me at home. However, by hiring clerks myself, and refusing at last to pay any more money without proper vouchers, I succeeded in compelling some attention to forms.

My offer to submit the subject to Commissary-General Coffin and Deputy Commissary-General Miller, was rejected. Both these gentle- men said they did not see how accounts could be rendered from the manner in which money was drawn. My quarterly accounts were, con- sidering their nature, completed as early as those of any other depart- ment in China. Mr. Miller who has examined them, thinks they are "done in a masterly manner," although for a long time I had but one working clerk—a mere copyist and an Anglo-Indian; and at pre- sent my three clerks-head, second, and third-a

-are all ill and absent, yet I am ready to produce all my books, and to show them made up and balanced, daily, at 3 o'clock. I have announced this to the Governor, the Colonial Secretary, and to the Auditor, to prevent con- tinned misrepresentations.

I have not yet been able to obtain all the Consular accounts* com- plete for the past year, although a letter which I inclosed to you in a

* "To A. W. Elmslie, Esq., Officiating Secretary to his Excellency the Chief Superintendent of Trade.

«Sir,

Colonial Treasury, Hong Kong, April 18, 1845. "I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this date, in which I am informed, by the command of his Excellency Her Majesty's plenipo- tentiary, in reply to my request that proper vouchers and accounts be rendered to this department, for 20,1867. 14s. 11d., advanced to the different Consuls from 8th May to 31st December, 1844, that they are deposited in the safe keeping of the auditor,' and that if I want them with a view to the recovery of the superannua tion and income tax dues, I have only to apply to the proper quarter, and the auditor will give me immediate access to them.' I would again respectfully solicit the attention of his Excellency to the request and statement contained in my letter of yesterday's date. By the instructions from the Earl of Aberdeen, I apprehend it will be found that the Consular accounts, after being passed by the auditor and returned to you certified as to their correctness, are to be transmitted to me, to be appended as a sub-account to my quarterly account. For the past six months I have repeatedly applied to you for these accounts, and my applications being

F

WITH THE TREASURY.

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former communication stated, by the command of the Governor, that they were "all passed and found correct to December, 1844, and deposited in the safe keeping of the auditor." I have reason to know, that at the time this letter was written the Consular accounts were not and never had been in the auditor's possession; and that Mr. Elmslie, the officiating secretary to the Chief Superintendent, was the only person who had examined the Consular accounts. This has been communi- cated to me also by Mr. Elmslie, who states that the auditor had refused to examine or have anything to do with the Consular accounts; and it is confirmed by the auditor refusing even to retain in his office the Consular vouchers duplicates transmitted with my quarterly accounts. To this moment I have not received the Consular accounts for Shanghai and for Ningpo, for the year ending 31st December, 1844, and 1 am informed, on application to Mr. Elmslie, that he has not received them from Shanghai and Ningpo in a fit state to send them to me. I have not been able to obtain one of the Consular accounts for the present year.

I am still unable to induce the auditor to carry into effect the instructions from the Lords of the Treasury. Some of the departments draw their money whenever they like, on what are called "imprest warrants;" others draw it monthly, on salary abstracts and final war- rants; and instead of the quarterly payments not being made until after the termination of the quarter, the Governor has ordered me to pay all the departments before even the termination of the quarter for which the salaries and wages are due.

I beg that these facts may be communicated to the Colonial Office and Audit Board, in order that I may not suffer from misrepresentations and official letters containing insinuations and inuendoes, which are kept secret from me.

Nothing but an anxious desire to fulfil the duty entrusted to me has enabled me to remain at my post, under the daily suffering of a linger-

fruitless, I was compelled to address his Excellency yesterday on the subject. But, independent of these instructions from the Foreign Office, a mere access to the receipts granted by the Consulates for the full amount of their salaries, while they have only drawn bills on me, under your directions, for the net amount of their salaries, would not, as I have long ago acquainted you, enable me to recover the sums due for income-tax and superannuation fund, and give them credit for the amounts in my books.

"I have the honour, therefore, to request that his Excellency will be pleased to reconsider my letter.

I have, &c.,

"R. M. MARTIN."

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