m 



A VISIT TO THE INDIAN A14CH1PELAG0, 



ni, — In vthnt way sliould thh lie done ? 



1. The first question is decided in a few worda. 



The GoTeraar of Hacao, on liis own statement of the 

 case, tempted, as it seemed to me, to sliew off before the 

 representative of France — i^laimed for himself an auto- 

 cratical importance, which, had its victmi l>een a 

 Fi'enehmau, would hfivo been as promptly repudiated by 

 M. le Baron de Forth Eouen, as it was by myself. My 

 addi-ess on catering ought to have satisfied hia vanity ; 

 for I then told hiin that I had come to ask a favour ; 

 and he ought the rather to have yielded with a good 

 grace at once, as knowing that he had no acknowledged 

 power to extort from foreigners, of other religions, any act 

 of observance tow^ds liis own. He might have felt also 

 that a' " Protestant Missionary/* liad a claim to some 

 forbearance at his hands. The course pursued by him, 

 disregarding even the formalities xvhich liis own laws 

 prescribed — not to mention the special provisions of our 

 treaties with Portugjii — could only be considered as 

 lawless and arbitrary : Mr. Summers, then, the subject of 

 it, wm entitled to the earliest practicable redress. 



2, With whom did it rest to vindicate iiis cause? 

 Certainlyj with the senior officer on the spot. At Lisbon 

 it might have been a job for tlie ambassador : at Macao 

 it devolved on me^ as 11 er Tiritanmc IVlajesty's repre- 

 sentative then and there. It was not a case which could 

 with any propriety be rcfeiTed to the civil uuthoritieH at 

 Hong Kong. First, because T liad no right, nor any 



