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late an investigation, he published forthwith, in the Friend of China, a facsimile of those entries, with an English translation.
Colonel Caine held his peace.
Nine years later Mr. Tarrant again published them, and in the same newspaper.
Colonel Caine still held his peace.
His conduct was thereupon represented to the Secretary of State. But the result is still unknown.[1] The papers are included in Mr. James' notice of motion.
I ought here to add, that Mr. Tarrant's well meant interference, to prevent the lessees from paying more than their lawful Crown fees to the Colonial Secretary, was fatal to the interests of those immediately advised by him.
They had objected;—"If we do not pay this bribe, the Comprador says that we shall not have our leases after all; but somebody else will." With reluctant hesitation, however, they at last consented to be persuaded by Mr. Tarrant, that the Comprador lied; and they acted on that persuasion.
Two or three days afterwards, Mr. Tarrant was accosted by them in the street, with much violence of reproach.
"You bad man!" they said; "we told you so. Our leases are not to be made out. Another man has got them. All this comes of not paying the cum shaw, that Colonel Caine's Comprador told us to pay!"
I can give no opinion on the extent to which the Colonial Secretary of that day was culpable; or
- ↑ Correspondence, in the case of Mr. Tarrant and the Comprador of the Honourable Major Caine, from 3rd July, 1847, to 27th Dec., 1849.
