CHAPTER XIX.
The Interregnum of the Hon. W. T. Mercer and the Administration of Sir Richard Graves MacDonnell.
March 15, 1865, to April 22, 1872.
fter the departure of Sir H. Robinson (March 15, 1865) there ensued an interregnum, the government of the Colony being administered for a whole year by the former Colonial Secretary, the Hon. W. T. Mercer, who continued, with fidelity and ability, the policy of Sir H. Robinson. The work and events of this year, which was commercially and financially marked by a rapidly growing stagnation and depression, have been summarized by Mr. Mercer (May 30, 1866) in a dispatch published by Parliament. He stated,—that the Companies' Ordinance (1 of 1895) was the principal legal enactment of the year (1865), next to the series of Ordinances consolidating the criminal law for which the Colony was indebted to Judge Ball and Mr. Alexander; that the summer of 1865 was a specially unhealthy season, distinguished by much sickness and serious mortality, so much so that it attracted the attention of Parliament and occasioned the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the mortality of troops in China; that the water supply of the Colony, though materially improved, remained manifestly inadequate, requiring further provision to be made; that piracy was, in 1865, as rife as ever and likely to continue so until the Chinese Maritime Customs Service (under Sir R. Hart) could be induced to co-operate with the British Authorities for the suppression of piracy in Chinese waters; that the Indian contingent of the Hongkong Police Force had proved a failure but that the Superintendent of Police (Ch. May), who condemned the proposal of trying once more the Chinese Force, thought
