[1] Due to his sound linguistic skills, in which he was fluent in several Chinese dialects as well as Malay, Hindustani and Portuguese, Caldwell served as an interpreter to the British during the First Opium War.
Caldwell was effective in clamping down on crime and piracy by using his network of informers, being head of detectives and guide to the Royal Navy in its expeditions against pirates.
[2] Soon after the battle, Caldwell resigned from the government due to low pay and purchased a merchant steamer, The Eaglet, which ran coastal trade and set up convoys escorting junks along the South China coast.
Attorney General Thomas Chisholm Anstey weighed in, by calling Caldwell a "brothel keeper and pirate" and referring to his wife, a Chinese woman named Mary Ayow, as "that harlot".
Even Caldwell's own racial identity was questioned, who had only a few years earlier been described as having "blue eyes and truly English countenance", was now described as a "man of mixed blood" and a "Singapore half-caste".
Anstey went on to wrote a 30,000-word letter to The Times detailing the corruption of the "reign of terror" in the Hong Kong government, which brought the scandals to the British press and parliament.
Caldwell claimed that the allegations against him were a conspiracy based on the grudges of Charles May, Anstey, and some newspaper editors jealous of his success and resentful of his protective attitude towards the Chinese.
Caldwell wrote that "of all places in the world perhaps there is not one where scandal and detraction are more rife, so readily invented, so industriously circulated and, I regret to add, so eagerly sought after, as at Hong Kong.
She sold the property located at the intersection of Hollywood Road and Aberdeen Street to the London Missionary Society at HK$35,000 which was half of its worth at the time.
On this site was later built Alice Memorial Hospital and the Hong Kong College of Medicine and To Tsai Church where Dr. Sun Yat-sen studied and worshiped in his early days.