This document is in the possession of Mr. J. K. Gubbins of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and a photocopy has recently been acquired by the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. It is unique in the history of Urdu prose, being the earliest known farewell address written in Urdu. The language is simple and idiomatic and the style is free from affectation and turgidity—defects from which documents of this type are not free even to-day. Though some commonplace adjectives have been used, it on the whole satisfactorily brings out the main contributions of John Panton Gubbins to the social and cultural life of the Delhi of the mid-nineteenth century.

The Su-pao case which was tried in the Shanghai Settlement in the summer of 1903, was one of the many clashes between the Ch'ing government and the illegal opposition during the last decade of the old régime. But because it took place in the Settlement, it was an exceptionally illuminating incident. The central government was attempting to curb the revolt against the old system which was beginning to flare up in the south, but in using its arbitrary methods against the offenders in the international zone it came up against the foreign apparatus of power. The weaknesses of both central government and the nationalist movement in its earliest stages were shown up pitilessly in face of the imperialist powers. These weaknesses were characteristic of the general crisis of the late Ch'ing period and of the problems which were to be carried on into the Republic.