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Rh subsequently succeeded by Captain A. Coxon, under whom Mr. W. Danby served as Lieutenant. By 1st June, 1878, the names of 142 gentlemen, who had been enrolled in the Volunteer Force, were published in the Government Gazette. Torpedoes were constructed at the Naval Yard and torpedo practices were held in the Lyeemoon. The batteries also were put in a temporary state of defence and guns were mounted in some. In January, 1879, the Governor received instructions to proceed with the necessary works in order to place several batteries, thrown up during the preceding year, in a condition of permanent defence, and operations were immediately commenced at North Point. The Home Government, having at last woke up to a recognition of the need of a comprehensive system of Colonial defence, appointed (September 8, 1879) a Royal Commission, headed by the Earl of Carnarvon, to inquire into the state of the defences of the Colonies. The instructions of this Commission were published in Hongkong (December 17, 1879) and, at the request of the Commission, a local Committee set at once to work to report on questions connected with the defences, armament and provisioning of Hongkong. The rumours of an impending war between Russia and China gained in probability in spring 1880 and thus kept up public interest in the matter of Colonial defences. In summer, General Gordon, known as Gordon Pasha, spent a week in Hongkong and Canton (3rd to 9th July, 1880) and made various suggestions as to the defences of Hongkong, advising especially the removal of the Naval Yard, Barracks and Military Stores, to Causeway Bay. On his return from a visit to Li Hung-chang in Tientsin, he published in the China Mail the main part of the advice he had given to the Chinese Government, and made a brief, but fruitless, attempt to interest the leading Chinese merchants of Hongkong in a proposal to concert measures towards the expulsion from China of the Manchus and the restoration of a Chinese Dynasty. The war fever was now dying out and dissensions arose in the Volunteer Corps. The Commandant, Captain A. Coxon, and Lieutenant W. Danby resigned (July