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CARL SMITH
British Plenipotentiary, informed them that missionaries would not be welcomed at the Treaty Ports. British officials felt missionary efforts to convert Chinese would provoke the hostility of the mandarins and hinder the proper development of commerce and trade with foreigners.
Sir Henry maintained that the treaty extended only to commercial relations between Great Britain and China and not to religious activities.
During the discussion about the Anglo Chinese College some of the missionaries were rather critical of Dr. Morrison and his work. This deeply hurt his son, John Robert Morrison, who had been invited to attend the Hongkong meeting by the Mission Society's directors in London. This did not please some of the missionaries in the field, for the young Mr. Morrison was not a missionary but had the office of Chinese Secretary in the Government. A disinterested observer who attended the meetings remarked: "Indeed it seemed to be the studied purpose of some of them to cast discredit on Dr. Morrison by all means. John Morrison was affected to tears on learning of the way in which some of them spoke of his father."
Fortunately there was a peacemaker present, W.H. Medhurst, the observer remarked. “If it had not been for him, I fear there would have been unpleasant consequences.”
The outcome of all the troubled waters was that Dr. Legge was authorised to reopen the school in Hongkong, with four pupils in temporary quarters.
FINDING A HOME FOR A COLLEGE
It was no easy task reestablishing the Anglo-Chinese College in Hongkong. A new student body had to be gathered, a site for a building obtained, the building erected, the new financial support arranged.
The Rev. James Legge, Principal of the school, had brought with him from Malacca only one student, an orphan boy he had taken into his family. Mrs. Legge had under her care a Chinese girl