the Netherlands by L. Beyer (June 4, 1870); Portugal by J. J. dos Remedios (January 10, 1872); Russia by J. Heard (April 16, 1862); Siam by J. Fraser (May 26, 1868); Spain by F. Ortuño (February 11, 1867); the United States by Lieutenant-Colonel Moulding, succeeded by D. H. Bailey (October 21, 1870).
As regards public calamities, the period of Sir Richard's administration is characterized by an extraordinary frequency of serious typhoons. On 30th June, 1865, a typhoon, which did comparatively little damage in the Colony, engulfed two Hongkong steamers, Corea and Chanticleer, which had left Swatow on that day for Hongkong in company and disappeared, leaving no trace behind. The edge of a typhoon touched Hongkong on 7th July, 1866, and did considerable damage. During the next year (1867), three successive typhoons (8th August, 8th September, and 1st October) caused serious disasters both ashore and afloat, particularly the first of them, by which four large vessels in harbour were driven on shore, two sunk, and innumerable junks wrecked. On 26th September, 1870, great damage to life and property was occasioned by a typhoon, the Praya Wall was broken up in places, the S.S. Walter and a yacht were sunk, and on board the junks whose wrecks covered the Praya hundreds of lives were lost. The same scenes were enacted on 2nd September, 1871, when, beside the injuries caused to houses in town, many vessels in harbour were damaged or stranded, and the French barque Nancy and the German barque Hans became total wrecks. Few conflagrations occurred during this period, but one of them (November 28, 1867) was of extraordinary magnitude, as nearly 500 houses were destroyed. The year (1867) in which this disaster occurred, and which is also marked by the occurrence of three serious typhoons, is further distinguished by a gunpowder explosion and by two serious landslips. On 17th January, 1867, the barque Themis was lying near Stonecutters' Island alongside the powder-hulk Zephyr, which had 200,000 pounds of gunpowder on board, and a gang of coolies was at work moving barrels of powder, when suddenly an explosion occurred which blew both vessels to pieces, caused the death
