command of the garrison, was a sort of public festival of reconciliation in which the leading merchants took an active part by presenting to General D'Aguilar a laudatory address of farewell. Next week the community enthusiastically took the General to its bosom again, by a stately banquet given in his honour (February 24, 1848). The day before the great reconciliation scene, the leading merchants presented also a public address to the Senior Naval Officer, Captain MacQuhae, on his departure from the station. What gave a piquant zest to these demonstrations of popular affection for the departing commanding officers of the Army and Navy, was the underlying thought of the difference with which the Governor's impending departure was to be treated by the community.
When the time came for Sir J. Davis to embark (March 30, 1848) on his homeward voyage, the community, with stolid apathy, watched from a distance the salutes fired, the faint cheer of a few devoted friends, the yards manned by the mail steamer. But there was no public address, no banquet, no popular farewell. The leading paper of the Colony gave voice to the feelings of the public by stating that Sir John 'was not only unpopular from his official acts but unfit for a Colonial Government by his personal demeanour and disposition,' and, with sarcastic allusion to the Governor's fondness for the Latin tongue, closed its valedictory oration with this caustic farewell, 'Exi, mi fili, et vide quam minima sapientia mundus hic regitur'!
Conscious, no doubt, of having manfully and patiently done his duty, according to his lights, by his God and his country, and viewing the mercantile community as blinded by prejudice and passion, Sir J. Davis could well afford to smile at all this badinage. But he had suffered the mortification, nearly a year before his return to England, of seeing the whole of his administrative policy inquired into, held up to the public gaze, and solemnly condemned by higher authorities than the Hongkong merchants.
A Parliamentary Committee was appointed (in March, 1847) to inquire into British commercial relations with China. Mr.
