CO129-020 - Sir John Davis - 1847 [5-8] — Page 33

were so

In the early period of this Colony

the predatory attacks of the Chinese at night

something quite extinordinary. A month after my own

own arrival (see Despatch Nr. 26 of 1844) a band of 100 Perates landed at "West Point and made a systematic attack on some

warehouses, nor did they retire until some

had

been killed and wounded by repeated volleys of fire-arms. This event first drew.

my

attention

to the absolute necessity of an efficient Police, and I am happy to state that life and property are now so secure that it matters not who moves about the streets at night. The rise of hundreds of respectable Chinese shopkeepers and industrious tradesmen has assicted the Government in its municipal provitions.

I must observe however that Mr. Smith either ought to have known, or most singularly omitted to state, that Sir Henry Pottinger

merely adopted,

in the

cate

of the Chinese as

to lanterns, a rule which is notoriously universal

1

in all their great towns, and it is difficult to

31

imagine how a practice so familiar to them should influence them differently at Honghong

and

on

the main land, or prevent respectable

• here. It was adopted

individuals from coming

from coming here It.

here expressly in favour of the respectable, who slept at night, and against the ruffians who employed that season in plundering the respectable .

Mt. Smiths limited knowledge and

experience in matters unconnected with his

own

- profession was displayed just previously to his departure, by his inveighing in the pulpit against the salute of a foreign man-of-war

having been returned on a Lordship is well aware

Sunday. Your

that to omit or

delay

such a return would ;

I give high national offence, and that had I allowed myself to be e governed by Mr. Smith's wishes on such an occasion he might have proved anything but a minister of peace. The importance attached by European

N