38.
"If only chance is that troubles might arise at Canton, and the commerce be carried on here for security's sake; local advantages that can in the smallest degree compete with Chusan, Hongkong does not possess.
"If the climate continues as it has hitherto been, the sacrifice of human life will be enormous and the public expenditure in the same proportion without any solid advantage."
庸
Mr. Martin goes on to develop this theme, and his whole section on Hongkong is one of pessimism.
When we look at the Colony's position some years later, we find, true enough, that the tea trade was diminishing (nowadays it is practically dead), but throughout the years British trade has grown enormously. The climatic handicaps have been overcome, the security offered has been appreciated, and with one of the finest harbours in the world, the place has developed beyond the dreams even of the most sanguine old-timers.
Yet we must remember that Mr. Martin (as well as Dr. Gutzlaff and others) wrote at a time when disease was rampant, proper malaria control had not been discovered, and all looked black. The reference to abandonment of dwellings and so forth is also historically important, as proving the critical state of affairs within the first decade of the Colony's existence, and the gloom which for some years must have prevailed and hung like a cloud over this outpost of the British domains.
However, both Sir John Davis and Sir Henry Pottinger had faith in Hongkong, which proved well founded: Chusan (advocated by Mr. Martin in place of this Colony) was given back to China, and enterprise and doggedness have built up from unpromising beginnings the Colony as we know it to-day.
It would seem that in its early days Hongkong claimed a great deal of attention in England, mainly because it was a doorway to old Cathay, at that time still a land of mystery. The result was that quite a number of people out here who could sketch, made drawings which were published in London: some of them beautiful productions like those of Bruce, already reproduced in this series, others not quite so good, and several unfortunately false in perspective, particularly where landscape was concerned, thus making identification of localities difficult to-day. Between 1841 and 1848, a number of books appeared with descriptions of Hongkong and China, and several of these were illustrated. Apparently the Colony retained its popularity with the reading public at Home until the late Fifties, when the second China War saw the papers, like the Illustrated London News, giving up considerable space to items about this part of the world, as well as illustrations, some of which were of much interest, and will be reproduced in due course, a number having come into my possession.
After that period, however, interest in Hongkong lapsed to some extent, and we are not able to find many illustrations emanating from the Sixties onward: fortunately (or unfortunately, having regard to quality and keeping power) photography came in during the hiatus, and such pictorial records as we have left of the last quarter of the century are in the form of photographs. But the art of photography, becoming universal