942
HONGKONG
On the 20th January, 1841, H.M.'s Plenipotentiary issued a circular to British su jects announcing the conclusion of preliminary arrangements between the Imper Commissioner, Ke-shen, and himself. One of the terms was stated in the circular follows:-
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1.-The cession of the island and harbour of Hongkong to the British Crown. just charges and duties to the Empire upon the commerce carried on there to be paid if the trade were conducted at Whampoa." On the 26th January, the island w accordingly taken formal possession of in the name of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. T treaty was subsequently repudiated by both parties, and it was not until the conclusi of the Nanking Treaty in 1842 that the Chinese Government formally recognised t cession of the island. In the meantime it was held by the British-who had come to sta --and on the 1st May, 1841, the Public Notice and Declaration regarding the occupati of Hongkong was promulgated. On the 7th May of the same year, 1841, the first numb of the Hongkong Gazette was published, printed at the American Mission Pres Macao. This first number contained the notification of the appointment (dated 30% April) of Captain
Captain William Caine, of the 26th (Cameronian) Regiment Infantry, as Chief Magistrate, the warrant being under the hand of Charles Ellic Esquire, Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary, etc., etc., "charged with the Government the Island of Hongkong." Captain Elliot's idea was that the island should be he on similar terms to those on which Macao was at that time held by tlie Portugues and the Chief Magistrate, instead of being charged to administer British law, wa authorised and required to exercise authority, according to the laws, customs, an usages of China, as near as may be (every description of torture excepted), for tl; preservation of the peace and the protection of life and property, over all the nati inhabitants in the said island and the harbours thereof"; and over other person according to British police law. The first land sale took place on the 14th June, an building thereafter proceeded rapidly, the population of the new town at the end d the year being estimated at 15,000. On the 6th February, 1842, Hongkong wa formally declared a free port by Sir Henry Pottinger, who had succeeded Captai Elliot as Plenipotentiary. Until the signing of the treaty, however, the ultimate fatt of the new settlement remained in doubt. "Sir Robert Peel, when asked in the Hous of Commons whether it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government properly t colonise the place or give it up, declined to answer what he deemed an unparliamentar question during a period of open war with the country by whom the cession of the islan was both made and repudiated. The Treaty of Nanking, however, settled all doubts On the 23rd June, 1843, Ke-ying, the Chinese Imperial Commissioner, arrived in Hongkon for the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty, and the ceremony took place it the Council Room on the 26th of that month, and immediately afterwards the Roya Charter, dated 5th April, 1843, erecting the island into a separate Colony, was read, and Sir Henry Pottinger took the oaths of office as Governor. At first progress was rapid The Queen's Road was laid out for a length of between three and four miles, and buildings rose rapidly. But a check was received owing to the unhealthy condition which were developed by the breaking of the "malarious" soil, and in 1844, soon afte the arrival of Sir John Davis, who assumed the government in June, the advisability of abandoning the island altogether as a colony was seriously discussed. Mr Montgomery Martin, H.M.'s Treasurer, drew up a long report, in which he earnestly recommended the abandonment of a place which, he believed, would never be habitable for Europeans, instancing the case of the 98th Regiment, which lost 257 men by death in twenty-one months, and of the Royal Artillery, which in two years lost 51 out of a strength of 135, and gave it as his opinion that it was a delusion to hope that Hongkong could ever become a commercial cmporium like Singapore. Sir John Davis, in a despatch dated April, 1845, strongly combatted Mr. Martin's pessimistic conclusions and expressed a firm belief that time alone was required for the develop ment of the colony and for the correction of some of the evils which hindered its early progress. Sir John (who died in November, 1890, in his ninety-sixth year) lived to see his predictions most amply verified, and in after years must have reflected with satisfaction on the fact that his views had prevailed in Downing Street. On the 26th May, 1846, the Hongkong Club house, situated in Queen's Road Central, at its junction with Wyndham Street, was opened with a ball, and was occupied by the Club for over fifty years, being vacated in July, 1897, when the Club moved into new and more commodious premises on the New Praya. Sir John Davis resigned in January, 1848, and left the colony on the 30th March of that year, Major-General Stavely Administering the Government until the arrival, a few weeks later, of Sir George (then Mr.) Bonham. During Sir George Bonham's administration, which