🚀 go-pugleaf

Whatever
    the law of China may be, the law of England must prevail here. If
    Chinamen are willing to submit to the law, they may remain, but
    on condition of obeying the law, whether it accords with their
    notions of right or wrong or not; and if remaining they act
    contrary to the law, they must take the consequences."

Sir John Smale's utterance created intense feeling among these Chinese
merchants, who at once called upon the Governor to represent their
views and to protest. The Governor informed them that "slavery in any
form could not be allowed in the Colony." They protested that their
system of adoption and of obtaining girls for domestic purposes was
not slavery; "and they referred to the more immoral practice of buying
girls for the Hong Kong brothels, which, they alleged, Government
departments had connived at, though it was a practice most hateful to
the respectable Chinese." The Governor then asked them for their views
in writing, and they sent them to him in the form of a memorial,
containing the following words:

    "Your petitioners are informed that his Lordship, the Chief
    Justice, after the trial of a case of purchasing free persons for
    prostitution, said, in the course of his judgment, that buying
    and selling of girls for domestic servitude was an indictable
    offense;--which put all native residents of Hong Kong in a state
    of extreme terror; all g