CO129-109 - Public Offices - 1865 — Page 73

copies of the metructions

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Sir,

Copy of Despatch from Earl Russell to

Sir E. Hornby.

Foreign Office, May 16, 1865. HER Majesty having been graciously pleased to appoint you to the office of Judge of Her Supreme Court for China and Japan, I inclose the Order in Council regulating the jurisdiction of that Court, and the Rules of Procedure to be observed therein, which I have approved. Both the Order in Council and the Rules will be shortly communicated to Her Majesty's Representatives in China and Japan, as also to Her Majesty's Consular authorities in those countries.

As the Order in Council sufficiently explains the constitution of the Court-its jurisdiction, original and appellate-and the character of the duties you will have to perform, as well as the changes it effects in the system hitherto existing in China and Japan, it is needless for me to do more than refer you generally to the Order itself. Your experience of the working of a somewhat similar system in the Ottoman dominions, as also the part you have taken in preparing the drafts of the Order and of the Rules, will have enabled you to arrive at a full comprehension of its provisions.

The system of law you have had to administer in the Ottoman dominions, and that which you are now to administer in China and Japan, are both exceptional in their character. Both have their source in Treaties between Her Majesty or her predecessors and the Sovereign Powers of the respective countries. Thus, while the Emperor of China and the Tycoon of Japan respectively have ceded by Treaty the rights of territorial jurisdic-

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