between Japan, Malacca, Portuguese India and Europe. The British did not come to these waters until the early XVII century when the East India Company from its easternmost station at Bantam in Java attempted to edge in on the Japanese trade and for some years established a small trading post near Nagasaki. The first ship, however, to anchor at a port on the China coast was the "London" which came into Macao in 1635 and was followed two years later by a small fleet commanded by Captain John Weddell who unsuccessfully tried to open trade with Canton. The failure of the British trading post in Japan and the restrictions which from 1637 onwards the Japanese placed on all foreigners visiting their country made the East India Company's directors lose interest in extending their activities in the Far East. Isolated attempts were made to trade in the Pearl River but it was not until the voyage of the "Macclesfield", which anchored in Macao in 1700, that any appreciable trade was done. From this time onwards a regular seasonal trade started, the Company maintaining a shore staff first in Macao, and later in Canton also, to look after its affairs during the off-seasons. The French, Dutch and Americans were not long in following the Company's lead and by the end of the XVIII century there were a number of Englishmen trading in Canton on their own account, defying the orders of the Company that all Britons should leave Canton during the winter by arranging to have themselves appointed as honorary consuls for various European continental countries over which of course the Company had no control.
From one such arrangement the famous firm of Jardine, Matheson and Co. later came into being.
Two attempts had been made to establish normal official relations with China, by Lord Macartney in 1793 and by Lord Amherst in 1816; but these were rebuffed by the Manchu Court at Peking. The separate trends which British intercourse with China had hitherto taken the activity of the East India Company, whose monopoly expired in 1831, and the unsuccessful official missions-were united in 1834 by the arrival of Lord Napier in Canton as His Majesty's Chief Superintendent of Trade. Lord Napier's efforts at improving relations with the Chinese authorities failed and he died in Macao in October 1834. Captain Charles Elliot, R.N., succeeded him as Chief Superintendent and for five years negotiations were inter- mittently continued while the position of the British merchants became more and more difficult.
On January 20th 1841 Captain Elliot announced "the conclusion of preliminary arrangements between the Imperial commissioner and himself involving the cession of the island and harbour of Hong Kong to the British Crown." Hong Kong Island was then inhabited by a few fishermen, stonecutters and farmers and provided a notorious
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