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separate location, namely Taipingshan, for the main part of the Chinese town. This town was apparently to become separate in a way not altogether intended by its creators.
The question of the Upper Bazaar came to a head towards the end of 1843 when A. T. Gordon, the land officer, decided to meet the demands for building land (and, thereby, augment Government revenue from Crown Rents) by putting up to auction an area which extended from Wyndham Street to Gough Street, thus including the whole of the Upper Bazaar.
Gordon informed Pottinger of the land which had been marked out for sale on 22 January 1844 and told him that he intended to remove altogether "that part of the town known as the Upper Bazaar" and had marked it out into 27 lots, "suitable for shops and dwellings either for Europeans or respectable Chinese". This accorded with the views which Pottinger was persuaded to hold that, as Governor Davis later put it, “it would be very advisable for the interests of the community that the Chinese should be removed, so as to prevent as much as possible their being mixed up with the Europeans." Pottinger replied to Gordon that the inhabitants of the Upper Bazaar would be given six months, from 15 January 1844, to remove their houses, the only question remaining being one of compensation.
Though this correspondence was not, of course, public it would have become obvious what was to happen when the Land Sale was held on 22 January, 1844, as many persons bid for lots which then formed part of the Upper Bazaar and on which buildings were standing. The European residents made no comment on the proceedings until it appeared to them that they could use the plight of the bazaar lot-holders as part of the fight against Government on account of the treatment of their own land claims. The Chinese lot-holders themselves were apparently kept in ignorance and claim to have learnt only after the event that their lots had been sold over their heads.
Thus, some time after the lots had actually been sold, Pottinger appointed a committee consisting of Major Caine, Chief Magistrate, Gutzlaff, Chinese Secretary to Government, and Gordon, the Land Officer, to consider where the bazaar lots should be relocated and on what terms the lot-holders should be dealt with.