Page:Crime and government at Hong Kong.pdf/44

 two preceding, whereby he had expressed his willingness to answer certain questions I had proposed to put, when called before the Council, on my defence. That note is now in Downing-street.

The enquiries, which this strange piece of information induced me at once to institute, enabled me to obtain the perusal of a number of old printed papers, consisting of newspaper articles, affidavits, depositions, and official and unofficial correspondences, including those with Downing-street; all published and commented on by the Hong Kong press, many years before my arrival; and none of which had ever elicited, from Colonel Caine, a prosecution for libel, a counter-statement, or even a contradiction.

The period of the case, to which I refer, commences with 1846, and ends with 1849. But the case itself is not yet ended; for it has not yet received the judicial investigation to which it ought to have been, in the first instance, submitted; but to which, at this late hour, it is not likely that it can be now submitted without a failure of justice, from the probable deaths of witnesses, and disappearance of documents.

Yet, in the faint hope of some better result, I will briefly state what is the result, to which the perusal has brought me, of such of the documents connected with it, at Downing-street, as have already, in the way described, been published and circulated in the colony of Hong Kong.

Mr. William Tarrant was Registrar of Deeds at the Land Office, Hong Kong, in the years 1846-7.

His diligence, ability, and trustworthiness in the discharge of the duties of that office, are attested by his official superior, the Honourable Mr. Cleverly, the present Surveyor-General.