CO129-066 - Public Offices - 1857 — Page 470

Among the Troops sent on to China to conduct the last War, was AM's regiment of infantry called Cameronians. This regiment had been a rumber of years previously stationed in India There was a

a Captain belonging to it named

· Caine, who was remarkable for nothing but his spinthrift habits, & the mystery of his parentage. He must have had great expectancies from some quarter, or he never would have been able to have involved himself in debt to the extent he had done. He seemed from the first to have considered China his land of Promise, and so did his creditors. The result proved that both he and they had something as reliable as mysterious to go upon. This man was made Chirf Magistrate of Wong rong upon the Briksh taking possession of the Island. He had a military coadjutor named Sergeant Collins. No European who witneped the doings of these worthies, can think of them and at the same time control his risible faculties There was. Dogberry without the real and Falstaff without the wit_ but there was the ignorance of the one with the ruthlessness of the other, whilst the speed with which their sentences were carried out, threw all their other qualities into the shade The member for Portsmouth can, the

› Chooses give Your Lordship a most amusing history of these times. In the Chaoke state that affairs must naturally be under the circumstance of the experimental & military occupancy of this Island, Cheap summary toharp Justice was essential, and as the Chinese locating here were little if any better than Camp followers, their Jails were of small value and their backs were capable of standing a deal of scratching without injury

to their finer feelings. But my Lord, when the Colony had been ceded by the provisions of the Treaty, and its permanent occupancy had been decided upon _ when the time had arrived that British Laws and Institutions, had to stand the that of comparison with the despotic tarbitrary laws of China, these were not the men to extrust with their administration The office of Chirt magistrate should above all others have engrossed the attention of the British Government, because that officer must necesarily and inevitably come more in contact with the mass of the people in the advainistration of law & justice, than all the other officers of the Crown put together. The contrary Course was adopted. The Captain's mysterion connections, seem to have had power potential

the : The laws and institutions of Great Britain, the boast of her sons, and

Bride

now on his way home & ship Hanover, is cogruzant Norfle lower, chup-clerk in the land offere

169

an

prede of her statesmen, were to be developed to the Celestial Empire the unscrupulous spenthrift Captain in the army, and a smart obsequious Sergeant The Captain was made a Brevet Major - the Serjeant was made

te

Such

the Sailer. both carried on their prank unchecked, but the evil did not and there. The major's necessities reduced him to the habit of borrowing money from any one who would lend it to him. The Chinese as your Lordship may readily suppose, are not the people to regleet turning a propensity to account. The most scandalous reports became current, and -13 altho I do not believe all that was said, still there cannot be a doubt

that the major did strain a point occasionally to serve those who had obliged him. This bad as it was did not limit the evil. Crtain Chinese, I in the employ or in the confidence of the Major, pursued with succes an extensive system of extortion in the Major's name, on all classes of

Chinese residing here. He Compradore was the principal actor in these operations. It could not for a moment be imagined that the Mayor either connived at, or was cognizant of such refarious practices, but the Chinese being under the conviction that he was the principle in the matter, the effect, as far as British institution were concerned, was the same precisely as this he had been. Doubtless the Mayor was surrounded by a coterie of villains, who had his car and his confidence, if not his promissory Notes that they resorted to a system of false witnesse to fortep, themedves from representation of those whom they oppressed, there cannot be a doubt, and that they, succeeded in fortifying themselves, there can be as little.___ I do not believe the Major was Cognizant of half what was done, putting participation out of the question, but the system pursued by those about him in his rame, so precisely coincided with the Mandarin style of squeezing, that his name was, is, and ever will be execrated and abhorred by the Chinese Trading Community, until this generation

shell have passed away. That he had a guilty knowledge of some of these refarious procedings, is notorious. Something glaringly irregular came before one of the Government Clerks in the prosecution of his duty, the

the alarm. The man's mouth could not be shut, but the Major's

Mysterious

the

gave