COPY of my MEMORIAL, forwarded to the Colonial Office in obedience to instructions from the Secretary of State to the Colonies.
No 91, Financial.
Sir,
Government Offices, Victoria, Hong Kong, May 20, 1859.
In obedience to the instructions contained in your Despatch, No. 22, of the 26th March last, I have the honour to enclose a list of my services, military and civil, with the usual document required by colonial regulations in cases of application for pension or superannuation allowance.
I entered the military service in November, 1813, and the civil service of this colony on 1st May, 1841; my first appointment was that of Chief Magistrate. In 1843 I was nominated a member of both the Executive and the Legislative Councils. In 1846 I became Colonial Secretary and Auditor-General, and in April, 1854, Lieutenant-Governor. My age is now sixty.
In entering upon the following details I feel, Sir, that I have to bespeak your most indulgent forbearance. The exposition of personal services, and of claims founded upon them, is a graceless task, and one that involves an almost prejudicial egotism. But, Sir, how can I possibly avoid it? For unless I exhibit special services which cannot be shown in a schedule, and legitimate grounds to justify the benevolent consideration I am about to claim, it would be a presumption upon my part to entreat the aid of Her Majesty's Government towards extricating me from those difficulties in which my desire to maintain the dignity of Her Majesty's service has unhappily involved me.
When it pleased my most gracious Sovereign to entrust to me the Government of this settlement in the spring of 1854, the normal position of affairs in the south of China was undisturbed, and had that condition of things continued, I should have been spared the necessity of the present appeal.
It happened, however, that at the very period, we were just entering upon a series of events, which, while they served prodigiously to aggrandize the interests of the colony itself, had a precisely opposite effect upon those of the public servants of every grade, from the head of the Government down to the meanest porter in the local service. I should indeed, Sir, hold myself unworthy of the high favour I have received at the hands of the Imperial Government, if I did not feel proud of and profoundly grateful for my promotion
Page 43
in 1854 to the office of Lieutenant-Governor charged with this Government; and all the more so, as it was unsolicited by me. But still it is a fact that my promotion from the unostentatious office of Colonial Secretary at £1,800 a-year to that of Lieutenant-Governor administering the Government, at £2,250 was in a pecuniary point of view, a heavy loss to me. It so happened that I had no sooner assumed the Government, than the approach of the rebel forces to Canton, caused such an Exodus of the wealthy population of that city, down to this island as a point of refuge, as to make the poorest bungalows on this barren hill side worth a rent that would command a mansion in London.
The necessaries of life, at all times high in our bazaars, rose still higher, under that pressure, and so continued until they reached famine prices, under the prolonged operations against Canton from 1856 to 1859. Such was the crisis at which I was called upon to undertake the responsibilities and of course the hospitalities of this Government upon an advance of salary of not more than £450 a-year above my previous pay as Colonial Secretary and Auditor-General, no table allowance being attached to this Governorship, and by a singular and most injurious arrangement in my case (though not so intended by the Colonial Office), Government House being allotted to the Superintendent of Trade, and not to the Governor de facto, and this at a time when house property was at a fabulous value, and the necessaries of life stood at cent. per cent. upon the prices of ordinary times. It is true, that the War Department have been paying for an indifferent house in Gough Street, the enormous sum of 7,200 dollars per annum to give accommodation to a few subaltern officers, the rent of which formerly was only 600 dollars per annum.
It did not, Sir, consist with my notions of what was due to the high office thus entrusted to me, to hoard the salary attached to it, if indeed, I could have done so, even in the most easy times. No, I expended a considerable portion in what I venture to designate a dignified and discriminating official hospitality, not confined merely to all branches of our own service, and to the heads of this great mercantile community, but to the representatives of foreign governments en route through our waters.
You will thus perceive, Sir, and I would beg with all respect to impress the fact upon your consideration, that the inevitable hospitalities of this Government during fifteen months of the years 1854 and 55 devolved upon me as the Governor de facto, and that the experiment of 1854, of conferring the title of the Governorship upon one functionary
61
42
COPY of my MEMORIAL, forwarded to the Colonial Office in obedience to instructions from the Secretary of State to the Colonies.
No 91, Financial.
Sir,
Government Offices, Victoria, Hong Kong, May 20, 1859.
In obedience to the Lonstructions contained in your Des- patch, No. 22, of the 26th March last, I have the honour to enclose a list of my services, military and civil, with the usual document required by colonial regulations in cases of application for pension or superannuation allowance.
I entered the military service in November, 1813, and the civil service of this colony on 1st May, 1841; my first appoint- ment was that of Chief Magistrate. In 1843 I was nominated a meuiber of both the Executive and the Legislative Councils. In 1846 I became Colonial Secretary and Auditor-General, and in April, 1854, Lieutenant-Governor. My age is now sixty.
Ju entering upon the following details I feel, Sir, that I have to bespeak your most indulgent forbearance. The ex position of personal services, and of claims founded upon them, is a graceless task, and one that involves an almost prejudicial egotism. But, Sir, how can I possibly avoid it? For unless I exhibit special services which cannot be shown in a schedule, and legitimate grounds to justify the benevo lent consideration I am about to claim, it would be a pre- sumption upon my part to entreat the aid of Her Majesty's Government towards extricating me from those difficulties in which my desire to maintain the dignity of Her Majesty's service has unhappily involved me.
When it pleased my most gracious Sovereign to entrust to me the Government of this settlement in the spring of 1854, the normal position of affairs in the south of China was undisturbed, and had that condition of things continued, I should have been spared the necessity of the present appeal.
It happened, however, that at the very period, we were just entering upon a series of events, which, while they served prodigiously to aggrandize the interests of the colony itself, had a precisely opposite effect upon those of the public servants of every grade, from the head of the Government down to the meanest porter in the local service. I should indeed, Sir, hold myself unworthy of the high favour I have received at the hands of the Imperial Government, if I did not feel proud of and profoundly grateful for my promotion
43
in 1854 to the office of Lieutenant-Governor charged with this Government; and all the more so, as it was unsolicited by me. But still it is a fact that my promotion from the un- ostentations office of Colonial Secretary at 1,8007, a-year to that of Lieutenant-Governor administering the Government, at 2,2501 was in a pecumiary point of view, a heavy loss to me. It so happened that I had no sooner assumed the Governinent, than the approach of the rebel forces to Canton, caused such an Exodus of the wealthy population of that city, down to this island as a point of refuge, as to make the poorest bungalows on this barren hill side worth a rent that would command a mansion in London.
The necessaries of life, at all times high in our bazaars, rose still higher, under that pressure, and so continued until they reached famine prices, under the prolonged operations against Canton from 1856 to 1859. Such was the crisis at which I was called upon to undertake the responsibilities and of course the hospitalities of this Government upon ab advance of salary of not more than 4501. a-year above my previous pay as Colonial Secretary and Auditor-General, no table allowance being attached to this Governorship, and by a singular and most injurious arrangement in my case (though not so intended by the Colonial Office), Government House being allotted to the Superintendent of Trade, and not to the Governor de facto, and this at a time when house pro- perty was at a fabulous value, and the necessaries of life stood at cent. per cent. upon the prices of ordinary times. It is true, that the War Department have been paying for an indifferent house in Gough Street, the enormous sum of 7,200 dollars per annum to give accommodation to a few subaltern officers, the rent of which formerly was only 600 dollars per
annum.
It did not, Sir, consist with my notions of what was due to the high office thus entrusted to me, to hoard the salary attached to it, if indeed, I could have done so, even in the most easy times. No, I expended a considerable portion in what I venture to designate a dignified and discriminating official hospitality, not confined merely to all branches of our own service, and to the heads of this great mercantile com- munity, but to the representatives of foreign governments en route through our waters.
You will thus perceive, Sir, and I would beg with all respect to impress the fact upon your consideration, that the inevitable hospitalities of this Governinent during fifteen months of the years 1854 and 55 devolved upon me as the Governor de facto, and that the experiment of 1854, of con- ferring the title of the Governorship upon one functionary
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