The Governor replied that I was not acquainted with Portuguese law. I said, “Very likely not, but I know what common justice is”; and, having bowed, retired. When I had got halfway down the steps, the Governor, calling me by name, asked if I came to demand Mr. Summers’s liberation as a right, or to ask it as a favour. I replied, that while I believed Mr. Summers had neglected to take off his hat, as was customary, on the passing of one of the religious ceremonies of the country, I had asked it as a personal favour; but since His Excellency had explained that Mr. Summers was confined for what I conceived to be no crime at all, I really could not, in the position I then occupied, ask for his liberation as a favour. After this unexpected termination to our interview, we retired to the residence of my friend, Mr. Patrick Stewart, situated within a few doors of Government House, to consider with Captain Troubridge what steps should next be taken. I felt it my duty to demand in writing the immediate release of Mr. Summers; considering, however, the warm temperament of Señor do Amaral, and the bearing towards me which he had already assumed, I could scarcely augur for the more formal application that success which had been denied to my friendly intercession. [Sidenote: June 8.] I thought it advisable, therefore, to make the necessary arrangements in anticipation of denial. Owing to the shoalness of the water, no ship of any size could anchor within three miles of the landing place. The boats of the squadron were preparing to pull at the regatta. I sent a gig off to the First Lieutenant of the _Mæander_, with an order to him to make the signal, “Prepare to land boats for service.” Captain Staveley, in the meantime, undertook to make himself acquainted, without exciting suspicion, with the position and state of the prison, the route to it, and how it was guarded, etc. To effect this he assumed a white jacket, the usual costume of mercantile gentlemen; and, taking with him a basket of fruit, he walked up and obtained an interview with the prisoner, returning with the information we required. I wrote and sent off by Captain Troubridge an official letter to the Governor, demanding, as senior naval officer, the immediate release of Summers. To which he replied, saying he considered himself within his right in ordering the man to take his hat off, and waiving the religious aspect of the offence. To dance attendance beyond this point on Portuguese justice at Macao seemed to me unworthy of my position and hopeless as to the object. I was referred to the Judge, who, in his turn, would have referred me back to the Governor, whose tool he was, and with whom alone I could properly hold official intercourse; in the meantime Mr. Summers must lie in prison awaiting the “course of law,” which had before now left British subjects to die incarcerated in this very prison. I decided on liberating him at once.