Sessional_Paper_1884-1885 — Page 168

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I have therefore to request that your Excellency will be pleased to take our case into your consideration and either to grant us such incorporation as was granted in Trinidad to the Archbishop of Port Louis by Ordinance No. 16 of 1870, or, as this will take considerable time, to introduce and pass a special Ordinance reciting the circumstances especially authorizing the sale of Lot No. 50.

I have the honour to be,

Your Excellency's

(Signed),

Most obedient Servant,

JOHN T. RAIMONDI,

Bishop of Acantho and Vicar Apostolic of Hongkong.

SIR,

Enclosure 3.

Bishop Raimondi to Colonial Secretary.

ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSION HOUSE,

HONGKONG, 15th April, 1884.

With reference to my letter of the 28th February last to His Excellency the Governor, and to the letter which I wrote to you on the 21st March last in answer to your letter of the 7th March, I beg to inform you that by the direction of the Attorney General a Draft Bill was drawn up which was published in the Govern- ment Gazette of the 12th April according to the Standing Orders.

I have the honour to send you herewith 16 Copies Draft Bill.'

We trust, the Government will not shrink from favouring us and have the Bill passed in the Council at the earliest convenience, in consideration of the very awkward position, in which we have been placed without any fault of ours by some doubts raised for the first time after 39 years of our being in possession of the Inland Lot 50, as to whether we are entitled to mortgage and sell the said land and premises, of which embarrassment we gave notice to the Government by our letter of the 28th February last.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your very obedient Servant,

(Signed),

The Honourable THE COLONIAL SECRETARY.

JOHN T. RAIMONDI, Bishop, Vicar Apostolic.

Enclosure 4.

Report by the Attorney General.

The application of. Bishop RAIMONDI contained in his first letter of February 27th 1884, was "to grant us such incorporation as was granted in Trinidad to the "Archbishop of Port Louis by Ordinance No. 16 of 1870, or, as this will take "considerable time, to introduce and pass a special Ordinance reciting the circum- "stances especially authorizing the sale of Lot No. 50."