10.
11.
7 batches sent to Demerara, I believe there will scarcely be a limit to the supply of any labour which the West Indian Planters may obtain from hence, of a class too far more suited to their requirements than any they have hitherto obtained; for the Chinese Coolie is stronger and hardier than the Indian, and more steady, industrious, and frugal than the indolent and eccentric negro.
7. No means exist for obtaining precise information on the growth of trade. This being a free port, but as our interests are purely commercial, and as every one here, with the exception of public officers, is living either directly or indirectly upon the profits of trade, the increase of shipping, and of population, the growth of both the foreign and native quarters of the Town, and the enormous increase which has lately taken place in house rent, and the value of land, all afford abundant evidence of the extension of Commerce, and of the daily increasing importance of the place as an entrepôt for the trade of all nations.
8. As I only arrived in the Colony towards the close of last year, I have not felt called upon to do more than merely glance at some of the most striking features presented in the returns now transmitted. Indeed, Hong Kong is so totally unlike any British Dependency, and its position...