Page:Crime and government at Hong Kong.pdf/118

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

114

pose at all, made out, against Mah-Chow Wong and his gang, one of the cases of extortion narrated by Mr. May, J.P., and myself, before the Caldwell Commission,—and against Mrs. Caldwell a participation in the same—and it cast upon Mr. Caldwell (who gave his evidence most unsatisfactorily) a very strong suspicion of having been engaged, so lately as the autumn of 1857, in an attempt to defraud.

In other cases, yet more recent—for which I must refer to the correspondence asked for by Mr. James—his conduct in obstructing the due administration of justice, has led to results, which have received public animadversion, both from the Supreme Court and from the Magistracy.

And still he remains the Chinese Registrar-General, Protector, and Brothels' Licenser, and one of Her Majesty's Justices of the Peace for Hong Kong.

I left that colony, upon sick certificate, on the 30th January last; exactly three years, to an hour, from my first arrival on its shores.

On my return hither, I find myself no longer Attorney-General;—my suspension having been confirmed, on grounds not yet stated, but which, I am happy to learn, are not those alleged by Sir John Bowring—whatever those may be, for I have not seen his despatches—nor such as are not reconcileable with personal appreciation and respect.

Once, during my Parliamentary career, it fell to my lot to vindicate a public servant who had, in like manner, deserved the anger and hatred of a corrupt East Indian Proconsulate:—and I did it unsolicited, and without consulting him, and yet with entire success.

The absence of imputation makes it unnecessary