16. On the whole I am enabled at this date to condorse and confirm the various Reports made by Me on the Annual Blue Book of Hongkong for some years past, especially that which accompanies the Book for 1858.
17. Year by year the Colony continues to improve its political and its Commercial Status, while its position as a port of General Convenience is as now as heretofore.
18. Something of this prosperity is readily admitted to be due to geographical location, something to accidental circumstances, and a considerable part to the British and Foreign enterprise of Merchants.
19. But there is one thing behind these; had the Chinese themselves kept aloof, commercial enterprise would have effected little; but the natives of the Mainland flocked to Hongkong in crowds after some few years' experience of it.
20. Doubtless they did so because they saw here a difference in Government and consequently ...