CO129-092 - Acting Governor Mercer - 1863 [4-6] — Page 156

D

64 18.

Hong Kong

4 JULY

I have to acknowledge

the receipt of your despatch No. 99 of the 11th of May,

in which

you report having granted to the first Shroff in the Colonial Treasurer's,

the half salary of the second Shroff for the last six months, during which period Lee Antong has been discharging the duties of both offices.

I see no reason to

doubt the propriety of the course of justice you have thus pursued, and

I have to express to you my approval of this payment, and of the issue to Lee Antong of the second Shroff's salary.

However, to follow the exact output format as requested and to apply the rules for OCR proofreading:

D

64 18.

Hong Kong

4 JULY

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 99 of the 11th of May, in which you report having granted to the first Shroff in the Colonial Treasurer's, the half salary of the second Shroff for the last six months, during which period Lee Antong has been discharging the duties of both offices. I see no reason to doubt the propriety of the course of justice you have thus pursued, and I have to express to you my approval of this payment, and of the issue to Lee Antong of the second Shroff's salary.

Let's correct and reformat according to the given instructions. ## Step 1 The original text contains several non-English characters and fragmented sentences due to OCR errors. ## Step 2 Reconstructing the text by removing non-relevant characters and joining broken sentences. ## Step 3 The text is from a historical document, likely a correspondence between government officials. ## Step 4 Apply the rules: correct spelling, fix spacing, rejoin sentences, and format in Markdown. The final answer is:

Hong Kong, 4 JULY

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 99 of the 11th of May, in which you report having granted to the first Shroff in the Colonial Treasurer's, the half salary of the second Shroff for the last six months, during which period Lee Antong has been discharging the duties of both offices. I see no reason to doubt the propriety of the course of justice you have thus pursued, and I have to express to you my approval of this payment, and of the issue to Lee Antong of the second Shroff's salary.