CO129-072 - Indviduals - 1858 — Page 225

My dear Sir,

Hong Kong, 17 February 1857.

I believe there can be but one opinion as to the course that was left open to you. The salary allowed was quite out of the question as your duties were so numerous as to leave you no time to attend to private practice; my residence here, of between ten and eleven years, has shown me that the Colony is a most expensive one, and my profession enables me to express an opinion of the amount of Official duty you had to perform. I consider £300 a year too little for you to maintain yourself upon in this place, leaving office rent and Clerks (no small items) entirely out of the question.

Wishing you a pleasant passage home, and different success for the future than had attended your visit here,

Believe me, your very truly,

W. J. Janant.

Hong Kong, 17 February 1857.

I exceedingly regret that we are so soon to lose you from amongst our limited society in this Colony, however sincerely I trust that the change will operate for your welfare and future prospects in a very different manner to what your advent here has turned out; with the salary and such emoluments as might arise to you from the several situations that were conferred upon you, some of them free from official duty, I am certain that you would not have been able to support yourself in this expensive place on the most economical scale of living.

Scamens Hospital, February 11, 1857.

My dear Mr. Hickson,

In writing to you, I must express my regret at your early departure, which deprives the Colony of your services and myself of a friend. I cannot help feeling that the arduous and conflicting duties heaped upon you have been totally inadequate to your efforts as a Government official. As a Medical adviser, however, I must view your retirement with satisfaction, during the last six weeks while under my treatment, I have seen you suffer much from the effect of climate & exertion, increased as to render and when the summer comes these sufferings will be so much increased as to render your stay here impossible. I do not hesitate to recommend you to take the earliest opportunity that offers itself to leave.

And wishing you a favourable voyage,

[...]

And from the fact of no Clerks or assistants being allowed you, I have continued to feel that it was morally impossible for you to perform your duties, especially during the heat of the summer months, even if your health had continued robust. I feel also that not a cent less than £600 per annum would have enabled you to support your position with comfort and any thing like ease to yourself. I have been a resident here for eleven years.

Page 224

` tags for paragraphs. Spelling errors have been corrected (e.g., "Comise" to "Course", "precting" to no correction as it seems to be "regret at your early departure" and "precting" is not there, "detand" to "deprives", "marcz" seems to be an incomplete or incorrect word and is left as is due to lack of context, "exturn" to "earliest", "nues" to "continued", "Robust" to "robust"). Spacing issues have been fixed, and broken sentences have been rejoined where necessary. The original text's structure and content have been preserved as much as possible, with minimal reordering or addition of words. Markdown formatting has not been used as per the output requirement. File references and page numbering have been handled according to the rules. However, upon closer inspection, it appears the input text is a jumbled collection of letters from different individuals to Mr. Hickson, discussing his role as Crown Solicitor and Deputy Sheriff in Hong Kong, the challenges he faced, and the reasons for his resignation. The letters highlight the high cost of living in Hong Kong, the inadequate salary for the position, and the heavy workload. The output provided is a direct conversion and correction of the input text. Some parts of the original text were not clearly legible or were fragmented, making it challenging to correct or interpret them accurately. The transformation aimed to adhere to the given instructions while maintaining the original content's integrity. To improve, a more detailed analysis of the context and the specific challenges faced by Mr. Hickson during his tenure in Hong Kong could be conducted. However, this would require a deeper understanding of the historical context and the specific issues related to his role, which is beyond the scope of the provided instructions. The final output is in HTML format as requested, using `

` tags for paragraphs.