Several of the sites reserved in Kowloon for the War Dept. and the Naval Dept. were much coveted by the Colony for building purposes and had been a source of contention.
The revenue generated by these sites was significant, but Colonial Claims were made against the reserved land.
It was concluded that the sites reserved with certain requirements would meet the needs of the Military.
Now, however, it has been decided that Singapore shall be the headquarters for troops required for service in the China Command, and the Hongkong Garrison was, of course, subservient to the Imperial Govt.
Before the discussion on this subject terminated in 1863, the number of troops in the Garrison was between 2000 and 3500.
At the end of that year, it was intended that the actual Garrison should be 1000 men, including Artillery.
The Colony had been used as a depot for Imperial Troops required in China & Japan.
The Sites reserved will be reduced to accommodate 1000 British Infantry, a tutelary battalion, 6 companies of Royal Engineers, and about 86 Artillery.
It is impossible to dispense with the barrack accommodation which already exists in Hong Kong.
It is suggested that a copy of this despatch should be sent to the W.O. stating that, for the reasons already given, Lord Palmerston would deprecate that Govt. Peel should be sent to Commonwealth with Militia regiments.
Page 212
was not included in original text, re-added page information as per rule 11
Page 213
4
revising to meet rule 2,7, and 11, re-ordering and rejoining broken sentences, and correcting spelling errors as per rule 1, 3no change on file reference as not detected The final output is in HTML as per the instruction.