worse. An order was also issued (May 10 , 1843) that no boat
on the harbour should leave its moorings after 9 p.m. and
that, on shore, Chinese should carry lanterns after dark and
not stir out of their houses after 10 p.m. Incendiarism ,
robberies, murders, piratical exploits on land and sea were in
no way diminished by the foregoing measures. The nursery
of crime was a heavily armed contraband trade in salt, sulphur
and opium, established and vigorously developed by the lowest
classes of Chinese residents in the Colony, doing as much injury
to the best interests of Hongkong commerce as to the revenues
of the Chinese Government.
No wonder that Hongkong was in bad odour among the
Cantonese officials and people, that Chinese trading junks now
commenced to give the harbour of Hongkong a wide berth and
that the Chinese mercantile community, which had just begun
to develop, disappeared even more rapidly than it had come.
But what a depressing effect all this had on the mercantile
prospects of the Colony may easily be imagined. English
merchants now began to fear that the Colony was an egregious
failure. Chusan was freely spoken of as being after all vastly
preferable to Hongkong on sanitary and commercial grounds.
Among the merchants, regrets were heard on all sides over the
amount of money sunk in investments in land and buildings.
A summary of the complaints which the mercantile commu-
nity gave expression to on sundry occasions, may be of interest .
The allegations made against Sir H. Pottinger at the close of
his administration were as follow : ( 1 ) that, relying upon the
validity of Elliot's and Johnston's land-sales and expecting
perpetuity of tenure, British merchants spent from $25,000 to
$200,000 each, in buildings and improvements, but that Sir
Henry advised the Home Government, ignorant of these facts,
to grant them only leases of 75 years ; ( 2) that he thus broke
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR H. POTTINGER. 205
faith with the mercantile community after he had, from 1841 to
1843 , used every endeavour, both by facilities temporarily offered
to early occupants of land, and by the threat of the penalty
of forfeiting their purchases to all who did not commence
building, to induce British merchants of Macao and Canton
to remove to Hongkong ; ( 3) that, in negotiating the Nanking
Treaty, he studiously neglected to provide for any extension
of the ground allotted to the foreign community in Canton,
or indeed for adequate facilities for building on the space they
formerly occupied in Canton, and this with a view (at one time
openly avowed) of forcing the British merchants at Cantou to
settle in Hongkong ; (4) that, with a view to make the Colony
pay its own expenses, he imposed on the colonists all sorts of
financial and commercial restrictions and taxation, whilst giving
the British community no municipal powers nor any representa-
tion in Council ; (5) that, in the case of the Supplementary
Treaty, acting as Plenipotentiary, he signed away the freedom
of the port and betrayed the commercial and maritime interests
of the Colony by giving the Canton Mandarins every facility
to strangle the young commerce of Hongkong ; (6 ) that, acting
as Governor, he may have sought to further the interests of
the Crown but failed to identify himself with the interests of
British trade in Hongkong, being too proud to consult the
views of the leading merchants, deaf to the voice of the press
and callous to the wants of the people ; ( 7 ) that, influenced
by prejudices against the opium traffic and ignorant of the
complexity of the commercial problem involved in it, he was
in a fog as to the real requirements of the commerce of
Hongkong and mistakenly assumed the rôle of a coast -guard
officer of Chinese revenue, counteracting in every respect those
free trade principles on which the commercial prosperity of the
Colony in reality depended ; (8 ) that, whilst doing everything
to foster the illusion that Hongkong would immediately become
a vast emporium of commerce and lavishly spending money
on official salaries and buildings, he neglected the commonest
sanitary measures and, instead of increasing the force of 28 police
206 CHAPTER XIII.
constables so as to provide at least a night patrol for Queen's
Road, appointed a ridiculous corps of 44 Magistrates ; ( 9 )
that, by irregularities connected with the Survey Department,
which he placed under the charge of a relative of his own,
and by looseness in the management of land-sales, as well as by
granting Crown -lots to officials, he furthered the growth of a
regular gamble in land and house property ; (10) that he
unduly postponed the organization of civil jurisdiction, left the
Magistracy for years in the hands of a military officer having
no legal knowledge or instinct whatever, whilst the Criminal
Sessions, presided over on one occasion (March 8, 1844) by him-
self, were a solemn farce, and his final measure of handing over
all civil suits to arbitration by Justices of the Peace was a
reckless measure unsuited and injurious to the Colony ; ( 11 )
that socially he isolated himself to such an extent that he never
was in touch with any section of the community, whilst he,
and the civilians nearest to him in office, thinking that the
community were but opium dealers and smugglers intent only
upon robbing the Government, acted throughout on the principle.
of not granting anything that could possibly be withheld .
It remains to sketch briefly the social life of this period.
After the departure of the fleet and of the troops of the
expedition, in the winter of 1842, the social life of the
Colony underwent, as above stated, a sudden revolution.
Previous to that time the head centre of social entertainments
was formed by the head-quarters, where diplomatists, military
and naval officers and local Government officers, domineered ,
and the leading merchants were but condescendingly admitted .
With the commencement of the year 1843, the mercantile
community had the preponderance, the Governor and his
favourite officials insulated themselves at Government House,
whilst the principal merchants kept open table for military and
naval officers and visitors, gaining for themselves by their bound-
less hospitality the title of merchant princes. The European
mercantile community (prevailingly British, but interspersed
with a few German, American, Dutch, French and Italian
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR H. POTTINGER. 207
merchants), now became the pivot of the social life of the
Colony, and the more the Governor became estranged to them ,
the closer were drawn the bonds of social intercourse between
the merchants and the officers of Her Majesty's Army and
Navy. Major-General Lord Saltoun (since November 3, 1842)
made himself popular as President of the local Madrigal Society.
Major-General D'Aguilar and his staff rapidly became and
continued to be (for a short time) the favourites of the whole
community. Even Commodore Parker (since June 22 , 1843) , of
the U.S. Frigate Brandywine, and his officers (in 1843 and 1844)
vied with Rear-Admiral Sir Th. Cochrane (since June 19, 1842)
and the officers of H.M.S. Agincourt in reciprocating the social
entente cordiale which reigned everywhere in the Colony, outside
of Government House and Government Offices. A theatrical
company from Australia enlivened the winter evenings of 1842 .
A slightly better company ( Signor Delle Casse) visited the Colony
in winter 1843 and continued to occupy the Royal Theatre till
1844. But the annual races and regatta were, during this
administration, still held in Macao, for which purposes a general
pilgrimage to Macao occupied the latter half of the month of
February in 1842 and 1843. The sympathies of the community
were powerfully aroused at the news of the Cabul disasters, and
a public subscription was immediately raised (October 13 , 1842)
for the relief of sufferers in Afghanistan. The whole community
was in mourning when one of the heroes of Cabul, Lieutenant
Eldred Pottinger, the brother and expected successor of the
Governor, died at Hongkong, particularly as his death happened
so soon after the decease of the Hon. J. R. Morrison (August 29 ,
1843 ) whose death was viewed as a national calamity ' and was
followed three weeks later by the death of Lieutenant-Colonel
Knowles (November 7 , 1843 ) . The birthof the first British
subject ushered into the world in Hongkong (January 20, 1843)
was the occasion of much social humour ; whilst, a year later,
the rumour that the Governor, in view of the insufficiency of
house accommodation procurable in the Colony, meditated
billetting all military officers upon the European inhabitants
208 CHAPTER XIII.
(January 13, 1844) , aroused an extraordinary amount of sarcasm .
Between the public press and the Governors of Macao and
Hongkong there arose (since January, 1844) a good deal of
acrimonious discussion , which led to historical inquiries as to
the exact title under which the Portuguese held their Colony.
The cause of the misunderstanding was the fact that the original
draft of an Ordinance published by Sir Henry, on January 26,
1844, to extend the law of England to all British subjects in
China, particularized Macao as situate within the dominions.
of the Emperor of China, ' and that this was viewed by the
Governor and loyal Senate of Macao as a gross violation of
international law and comity. Between the Canton and Macao
communities on the one hand and the European community of
Hongkong on the other hand, there was constant and intimate
social intercourse . Though every commercial house readily
accommodated visitors, there were several flourishing hotels ,
first Lane's Hotel ' ( 1841 to 1843 ) and then (since May 1 ,
1844) the Waterloo ' (Lopes) and the Commercial Inn'
(Maclehose) .
With the commencement of the year 1844, the foreign
community of Hongkong began to be divided between friends
and enemies of the Colony. Sir H. Pottinger, whose health
was undermined by the strain of his diplomatic worries and by
the influence of the climate, and who had never courted friendly
relations with the leading British merchants, now began to show
more plainly than ever that he held no higher opinion of the
typical British Colonial trader than that which the Duke of
Wellington held in the days of Lord Napier. And the British
merchants, feeling themselves classed by the Governor with
smugglers and pirates, and resenting the mismanagement of the
Supplementary Treaty, were not slow in attributing to Sir H.
Pottinger a considerable share in the supposed ruin of Hongkong
commerce. The officials and the community were thoroughly
out of touch with each other ; the newspapers freely libelled
the Surveyor General, the Chief Magistrate, the Postmaster
and other officials, whilst the official reports sent to Downing
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR H. POTTINGER. 209
Street were believed to paint the iniquities of the merchants in
glowing colours. In short the Colony of Hongkong earned in
these early days the soubriquet, which it sustained for several
decades later, of being both the land of libel and the haunt
of fever.'
Such was the state of affairs when, to the astonishment
of the colonists, Sir John Davis, the former successor of Lord
Napier in the Superintendency of Trade, arrived with his suite
in Hongkong ( May 13 , 1844 ) to relieve Sir H. Pottinger. The
latter, it appeared, had been promised the next vacancy of the
Governorship of the Presidency of Madras, which settlement,
though nearer to the Equator, was then justly considered to
be not by any means so hot a place for a British official
as Hongkong had by this time become. Three years previous
the editor of the Canton Register had assumed the role of
the prophet and uttered the following diresome vaticination,
6
Hongkong,' we read in the Canton Register of February 23,
1841. will be the resort and rendezvous of all the Chinese
smugglers ; opium smoking shops and gambling houses will
soon spread ; to those haunts will flock all the discontented and
bad spirits of the Empire ; the Island will be surrounded by
floating Shameens (haunts of vice) and become a gehenna of
the waters.' Such was the voice of Hongkong's Cassandra in
1841 , and by the time that Sir H. Pottinger's administration
closed, this prophecy seemed well nigh fulfilment . It may be
doubted if Sir Henry returned to England in a much happier
frame of mind than Captain Elliot whom he had superseded
but hardly excelled.
When Sir H. Pottinger, after another visit to the Bogue
for the vain purpose of patching up the Supplementary Treaty,
left the Colony (June 12 , 1844) , the leading local newspaper,
expressing the harsh views entertained at the time by the
residents, spoke of him as a man who, with all his brilliant
talents, appears either to have been utterly devoid of a sense
of the moral obligations imposed upon him, his heart being
perfectly seared to the impression of suffering humanity, or
14
210 CHAPTER XIII.
deliberately living in seclusion among a few adoring parasites
whose limited intellects were devoted to pander to the great
man's vanity. ' Exaggerative as this statement appears, the general
verdict of the mercantile community on Sir H. Pottinger's regime
certainly was, that the deserved fame of the Plenipotentiary
had been seriously tarnished by the acts of the Governor.
Upon his return to England he was sworn in as a Member
of the Privy Council and the House of Commons voted him a
pension of £ 1,500 per annum . He did not immediately take
up the Madras appointment but went first to the Cape Colony
( 1846 to 1847 ) as Governor, and then held the governorship
and command-in-chief of Madras Presidency till 1854. Born
in 1789, he died in 1856, but 67 years old, at Malta.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR JOHN F. DAVIS .
May 8, 1844, to March 18, 1848.
T has been pointed out above what a serious error it was that
was committed when the British Cabinet , sending out Lord
Napier as the King's representative at Canton, associated him
in office with men who had been trained in the East India
Company's Canton school of truculent submission to Chinese
mandarindom and who were looked upon by Chinese officials as
contemptible traders. A similar mistake was made when Her
Majesty's Government, looking out for a successor of Sir
H. Pottinger, in that game of diplomacy with Chinese statesmen
in which he had been so smartly duped, and in the government
of a Colony established on the express principles of free trade,
selected for this difficult post a gentleman who, as a former
member of the East India Company's Select Committee at Macao
and Canton, was altogether identified with the ideas of mingled
servility, autocracy and monopoly as exemplified in the history of
that Company. Mr. (subsequently, since July, 1845 , Sir) John
Francis Davis, Baronet, had indeed great experience of Chinese
affairs. In his youth ( 1816 to 1817 ) he had served on the staff
of Lord Amherst's mission to China. He had spent the best
part of his life in the service of the Company in South China,
bowing to Chinese officials and frowning upon European free
traders, till he retired ( January 21 , 1835 ) in all the glory of a
Chief Superintendent of Trade. He had meanwhile composed
and published a work on China, ' in two volumes, which is still
recognized as one of the best descriptions of the Celestial Empire,
and he posed now as a great sinologue and scholar. No doubt
he knew the Chinese character and naturally he thought also he
212 CHAPTER XIV.
knew the typical British free trader, despoiled and despondent as
the latter was (at the close of Sir H. Pottinger's administration) ,
under the conviction that the free port of Hongkong had proved
a commercial failure. If Sir Henry had been duped by the
Chinese Mandarins in connection with his Supplementary Com-
mercial Treaty, it was no doubt because he knew nothing of
commerce and even less of Chinese. But here was Sir John, a
China merchant and Chinese sinologue rolled in one. Who
could be a better successor for Sir Henry ? And as to the puzzle
of Hongkong's commercial decay, why Sir John Davis understood
it perfectly the China Trade had reached its zenith under the
regime of the East India Company, and where the Company
could do no more, free trade was naturally bound to bring about
a gradual diminution of the volume of trade. He understood it
all protection and monopoly was the remedy, and free traders
must simply draw in their horns and learn to eat humble pie.
His mission was to teach them to do that. And he did it — with
what result, we shall see. But one thing more I have to add
to these introductory remarks. Sir John Davis was not merely
a scion in Chinese diplomacy and an exponent of British
protectionism , but above all he was a scholar and a philanthropist :
in this British Colony, placed at the very gates of China's
antiquated semi-barbarism, he would demonstrate the kindlier
humanities of British law and government and illustrate by
the example of his administration the superiority of European
learning and civilization.
Before Sir H. Pottinger left China, Sir John Davis, having
entered ( May 8 , 1844) upon the duties of Superintendent of
Trade under the Foreign Office, as well as upon those of Governor
and Commander- in- Chief of Hongkong under the Colonial Office,
had an opportunity to show off his diplomatic prowess by
assisting his predecessor, at a meeting with Kiying (June 13 , 1844) ,
to try and persuade the latter to surrender, or make amends
for, some of the advantages he had gained by his trickery
in connection with the Supplementary Treaty of October 8 , 1843.
Two of the newly-arrived Colonial officials, the Hon. F. Bruce
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. DAVIS. 213
(Colonial Secretary) and M. Martin (Colonial Treasurer ) assisted
at the memorable interview. But Kiying was a match for them
all, blandly explained away everything that seemed shady and
-conceded nothing . The fact was, the Pottinger Treaties had, as
Sir John Bowring once put it ( April 19 , 1852 ) , inflicted a
deep wound upon the pride, but by no means altered the policy, of
the Chinese Government.' The Treaty remained as it was, and
our two diplomatists were reluctantly compelled to try and gloss
things over by publishing a garbled account by a proclamation
(July 10, 1844) and an imperfect translation (July 16, 1844) ,
leaving it to the public to find out the mischievous provisions
of the Treaty for themselves in course of time. An illustrative
case soon occurred. On August 10 , 1844, a Chinese junk,
heavily armed and manned by a crew of 70 ruffians, but
having no clearance papers as required by Article XIV of the
Supplementary Treaty, ventured to drop anchor in Hongkong
harbour. The junk had really come to frighten away or report
upon any Chinese trading junks that might be in harbour. But
the harbour police mistakenly suspecting her to be a piratical
vessel, arrested her, and as there were doubts whether she was
a trader without papers or a pirate, Sir John Davis ordered
her to be delivered to the Kowloon Mandarin as having come
into harbour without the clearance papers required by Treaty.
This was the first and only case when the foolish concessions
of the Supplementary Treaty, constituting the harbour police
of Hongkong as underlings of the Chinese revenue preventive
service, were acted upon by a benighted Hongkong governor.
The denouement was too ridiculous : the junk turned out to be
neither a trading nor a piratical craft but a Chinese revenue
farmer's guardboat. However, the news got abroad that every
Chinese trading junk, visiting Hongkong without those precious
clearance papers , which no Chinese customs office would grant,
was to be handed over by the British harbour police to the
tender mercies of the Kowloon Mandarin . This contributed
materially to injure the native commerce of the Colony and to
keep away the junk trade for some time to come.
214 CHAPTER XIV.
As Superintendent of Trade and Head of the Consular
Service in China, Sir John Davis had to visit all the Treaty
ports once a year, in order to inspect the Consulates and give
the necessary directions. During his periodical absence from
the Colony in connection with these duties, Major-General
D'Aguilar used to administer the government of the Colony
as Lieutenant - Governor. In the matter of the Supplementary
Treaty, the mischievous provisions of which were condemned
by Her Majesty's Government as much as by the community,
Sir John had another interview with Kiying at the Bogue (April,
1846 ) but failed again to get any concession in favour of the
Chinese trade of Hongkong. Nor did he succeed to wring
from that astute diplomatist anything but vague promises as
to granting British merchants in Canton the rights secured by
the Nanking Treaty with reference to protection from mob
violence, freedom of building residences on a separate concession,
liberty to enter the city of Canton, or to make excursions inland.
Again and again British subjects were assaulted at Canton and
all he could get from Kiying was a series of specious pretexts
for blaming British merchants for being so insolent as to ask for
their rights or to expect exemption from molestation by mob
violence. Sir John Davis used the hints of Kiying freely and,
without rhyme or reason, accused the merchants of being the prime
movers in all disturbances and made himself as much hated by
the British community at Canton as he made himself, by his
gullibility, ridiculous to Kiying, who, however, played the role
of Sir John's very good friend and even came to visit him in
Hongkong (November 22 to 25, 1845) , when the compliment
could be turned to good account . One thing, however, Sir John
did succeed in obtaining from the Canton Authorities and that
was the publication of a dispatch by the Provincial Treasurer
of Canton, addressed (December 26, 1844) to the Hongkong
Government, in which the former magnanimously renounced
all claims to the land-tax of Hongkong and virtually admitted
the sovereignty of Her Majesty over the whole Island . It was
worth something, to be sure, to have this not merely stated
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. DAVIS. 215
in a Treaty, which most Chinese now regarded as waste paper,
but actually acknowledged by a subordinate Chinese official.
It was indeed a great deviation from the practice hitherto
adopted by Chinese officers. For instance, on November
23, 1844, it was accidentally discovered that officers of the
San-on District Magistrate openly collected at Stanley, as they
had all along been accustomed to do, the annual fishing tax of
400 cash per boat for the privilege ( granted to 150 junks) of
fishing in Hongkong waters. This was merely one of many
cases shewing that the San-on Magistrate still considered
Hongkong to be part and parcel of the Chinese dominions and
all further doubts on the subject were removed by a case
(November 14, 1846 ) in which Chinese officers boldly arrested
some Chinese- British subjects within the Colony and carried
them off by force .
Meanwhile the complaints of the Canton merchants as to
the utter insecurity of life and property in Canton and as to
the striking want of sympathy and energy displayed on their
behalf by Sir John Davis, made themselves heard in England
and as usual stirred Lord Palmerston's spirit. Two sailors of
a British ship at Canton , strolling into the city, had been
frightfully illtreatel by a Canton mob in October, 1846. Sir
John, as usual, instead of claiming redress at the hands of the
Cantonese Anthorities, ordered the Consul to fine the captain
for turning the two seamen loose upon the populace and thereby
causing a disturbance. In a dispatch to Lord Palmerston he
casually alluded to the case as one of no importance, asking
for no powers at all to proceed in the matter, but in reply
he received the following stunning instructions. I have to
instruct you,' wrote Lord Palmerston (January 12 , 1847 ) , ' to
demand the punishment of the parties guilty of this outrage,
and you will moreover inform the Chinese Authorities, in plain
and distinct terms, that the British Government will not tolerate
that a Chinese mob shall with impunity maltreat British subjects
whenever they get them into their power, and that , if the Chinese
Authorities will not by the exercise of their own authority punish
216 CHAPTER XIV.
and prevent such outrages, the British Government will be
obliged to take the matter into their own hands .'
.
On receipt of this dispatch Sir John Davis lost his head
completely. He thought he had an opportunity now to steal
a march upon the Chinese Authorities, to take them by surprise,
to occupy Canton city by a sudden descent upon it with au
armed force, and then to dictate his own terms as a triumphant
conqueror. He consulted Major-General G. D'Aguilar, who
reluctantly yielded to the Quixotic plan . An engineer officer
went secretly to reconnoitre the Bogue Forts and reported them
to be practically untenanted. So a force of 1,000 men was
quietly mobilized, part of Lord Palmerston's dispatch was
published on fools ' day, and next morning (April 2 , 1847 ) the
expedition started with three men-of-war ( H.M.S. Vulture, Pluto
and Espiègle) and a chartered steamer ( Corsair) , the latter
having on board Sir John, the Major-General with his staff
and the Senior Naval Officer, Captain Macdougall. In the course
of 36 hours this redoubtable force, waging a private war of
Sir John's upon a defenceless and unwarned foe, captured all
the principal forts in the Canton River without the loss of a man
and, in spite of the fire of several batteries, spiked 879 guns.
On April 3, 1847, the expedition dropped anchor at Canton
abreast of the factories, and disembarked the troops, to the
utter amazement of Kiying and the British community. The
British Chamber of Commerce sent a deputation to Sir John
to inquire what it all meant, but they were told by Consul
Macgregor that Sir John had expressed no wish to see them.
Kiying was blandly informed (April 4, 1847 ) of Sir John's
demands and next day informed by an ultimatum that, unless
these were granted at the interview for which he fixed the
6th April, the city of Canton would be bombarded and taken by
assault. After some hesitation , Kiying at last consented to meet
Sir John Davis (April 6 ) , and, as usual, satisfied him with
empty promises. He offered to let the British community buy
or rent 50 acres on Honam island if the individual owners should
be willing to sell. He further offered to open Canton city to
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. DAVIS. 217
foreigners on or about April 6 , 1849, if it were practicable by
that time, and to allow excursions into the country, also to let
Europeans build a church near the factories and bury their dead
at Whampoa. Meanwhile he secretly made his arrangements
for an attack. But Sir John at once accepted the terms, though
they virtually were below the level of what the Nanking Treaty
had granted in 1842 , and on April 8, 1847 , the British expedition
returned to Hongkong triumphantly, leaving Kiying to report
to the Emperor that he detained Sir John in parleys whilst
collecting and bringing up his army, but that Sir John preci-
pitately fled to Hongkong as soon as he found himself threatened
by the Chinese troops. The British communities at Canton
and Hongkong were indignant at this wanton and bootless
bucaneering expedition ' which merely served to cause a sudden
stagnation of the Canton trade, to render the lives and property
of foreigners in Canton even less secure than before, and to
make European views of state policy and international law
ridiculous in the eyes of the Chinese. It seemed clear to them
that Sir John Davis was even a worse failure as a diplomatist
than Sir Henry Pottinger had been. Lord Palmerston, however,
approved of Sir John's proceedings and so the matter rested
for the time, the more so as Kiying treated Sir John's warlike
frolic with silent contempt .
A few months afterwards, however, a new disturbance arose
in Canton, and when Sir John Davis, none the wiser for his
past experiences, me litated another military expedition against
Canton, and induced Major- General D'Aguilar to write to Ceylon
for re-inforcements, Sir G. Grey, delighted to have an opportunity
of subverting Lord Palmerston's policy, peremptorily prohibited
any further offensive operations to be undertaken against
the Chinese without the previous sanction of Her Majesty's
Government. At the same time Earl Grey censured the April
6
expedition in plain terms. Although the late operations, ' he
"
wrote (September 22, 1847 ) , were attended with immediate
success, the risk of a second attempt of the same kind would
far overbalance any advantage to be derived from such a step.
218 CHAPTER XIV.
If the conduct of the Chinese Authorities should unfortunately
render another appeal to arms inevitable, it will be necessary
that it should be made after due preparation and with the
employment of such an amount of force as may afford just
grounds for expecting that the objects which may be purposed
by such a measure will be effectually accomplished without
unnecessary loss. ' It has been alleged that Sir John was so
taken aback by this censure, that he forthwith resigned, but at
the time when this dispatch was penned, Sir John Davis had
already sent in his resignation which was unhesitatingly accepted
( November 18 , 1847 ) . Sir John's term of the Superintendency
of Trade closed with another sad outbreak of popular temper
at Canton. Six young foreigners, visiting a village some three
miles above Canton (December 5, 1847 ) were set upon by a
mob, tortured and murdered in cold blood . When Kiying
delayed punishment of the guilty, Sir J. Davis pluckily prepared
for another armed demonstration (January 5 , 1848 ) . But as
soon as Kiying found that Sir John had a squadron ready for
action (February 17, 1848 ) , he yielded and had some of the
guilty parties executed near the village in question (Wongchukee)
in the presence of a company of the 95th Regiment, sent up
for the purpose, from Hongkong, in H.M.S. Pluto.
Sir John Davis had an opportunity to distinguish himself
as a diplomatist in another field. He was directed to arrange
a commercial treaty with Annam. Had he been furnished with
proper information, and especially with capable interpreters ,
there would have been a chance for him to do a great work
for the expansion of British trade, opening new markets , new
trade routes, tapping Yunnan and Kwangsi, and keeping the
French out of Annam and Tungking. But being without any
diplomatic link of connection whatever and having neither agent
nor friend at the Annamese Court, where French influence was
already at work to keep off British intervention, nor even a
capable interpreter, he naturally failed as signally with the
Annamese officials as he had failed with Chinese diplomatists.
Leaving Hongkong on October 6 , 1847 , he in vain attempted to
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. DAVIS. 219
open up negotiations with the officials on the coast near Huéh .
Every Annamese officer appealed to refused to take any message.
Leaving a letter addressed to the sovereign of Annam deposited
on the beach, he at last received a message by subordinate
officials, declining all negotiation and refusing admittance to
Huch . Sir John gave up any further attempt to thwart French
influence in Cochin-China and returned to Hongkong (October
30, 1847 ) disappointed .
Sir John's relations with the neighbouring Colony of Macao
were peaceful but by no means of the happiest sort. As the
fortunes of the Colony of Hongkong were visibly declining, the
Macao Government thought there was a chance of retrieving
the mistakes of the past and bringing back to Macao the
discontented free traders of Hongkong as well as the American,
Dutch, French and Parsee merchants established at Canton.
Accordingly a decree was obtained at Lisbon (November 20 ,
1845 ) which, though far from being a complete free trade
measure, reduced the harbour dues and custom house exactions
to the lowest possible minimum and virtually made trade at
Macao less cumbersome and more propitious than it was at
Hongkong. The measure failed to re-establish the former for-
tunes of Macao : it came too late for that. But it contributed
its quota towards a further diminution of the commerce of
Hongkong and a considerable increase of the discontent felt by
Hongkong merchants. An assault that was committed on Sir
John Davis (April 11 , 1845 ) , whilst on a visit to Macao, was
without any political significance, but indicative of that turbulent
character of the Macao Chinese which was so fatally to manifest
itself against the next Governor of Macao (Senhor Amaral)
who, within a year after his arrival (April 18, 1846 ), ordering
a road to be cut through the Campo and interfering thereby
with Chinese graves, had subsequently to pay with his life for
this disregard of Chinese religious superstition. In March, 1847 ,
the prospects of Macao were as discouraging as those of
Hongkong and a cession of Macao to France was talked of, but
the movement, if it ever had any reality, came to nothing.
220 CHAPTER XIV.
Turning now to Sir J. Davis' gubernatorial measures, we
find that the expansion of the Civil Service and reforms in
the constitution of the Councils occupied much of his time. He
brought with him, on his arrival (May 7 , 1844) a Colonial
Secretary (Hon . F. Bruce) , a Colonial Treasurer ( M. Montgomery
Martin) , a Court Registrar ( R. D. Cay) , a Private Secretary
(W. T. Mercer) , an Auditor General (A. E. Shelley) , a Civil
Engineer (J. Pope, to whom we owe the designs of Government
House, Colonial Offices, and Cathedral) and a warrant appointing
Major Caine (the Chief Magistrate) as Sheriff and Provost
Marshal of the Supreme Court. The Chief Justice (J. W. Hulme)
came a month later (June 9, 1844) and the first Hongkong
Barrister (H. Ch . Sirr) arrived on July 1 , 1844, but as the
Colonial Office postponed the appointment of an Attorney
General (P. I. Stirling ) till August 5 and made some other
important omissions, the Supreme Court could not be opened
until October 1 , 1844. Two years later (November 18, 1847)
the present Court House was obtained by purchasing from
Dent & Co. the so-called Exchange Building. The working
of the Supreme Court, which held its first criminal sessions on
October 2, 1844, was gradually perfected by a series of legislative
enactments, dealing with the constitution of the Court (No. 6
of 1845 and 2 of 1846 ) , trial by jury (No. 7 of 1845 ) , criminal
procedure ( No. 8 of 1845 and 6 of 1846 ) , summary jurisdiction
(No. 9 of 1845 ) , insolvency ( No. 3 and 5 of 1846 ) and coroner's
juries (No, 5 of 1847 ) . A Vice- Admiralty Court was established
(March 4 , 1846 ) and held its first session on January 14, 1847 .
The division of the town into the present three districts
(Sheungwan, Chungwan, Hawan), the lines of demarcation being
Aberdeen Street in the West and Elliot's Vale (the present
Glenealy ravine) in the East, dates from July 24, 1844, when
the previously existing popular terms were officially adopted .
By the opening of a new market (July 25, 1844) at Taipingshan,
the congested state of the Chungwan and Sheungwan markets
was considerably relieved. Owing to the dearth and high rents
of houses suitable for Civil Servants, the Government provided
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. DAVIS . 221
(August 16 , 1844) special Civil Service Buildings (now known
as Albany ) which were, however, later on ( May 15 , 1847 )
transferred to the Military Authorities. Two new offices were
established by Sir J. Davis, viz. the office of Registrar General
and Collector of the land-tax (S. Fearon) who commenced his
duties on January, 1845 , and the office of Marine Magistrate
(March 15 , 1845) the duties of which were, however, during
Mr. W. Pedder's absence on leave, temporarily discharged by
Mr. S. Fearon, whilst Mr. A. Lena acted as Harbour Master.
A paid Coroner (Ch. G. Holdforth was substituted (October 11 ,
1845) for the popular voluntary Coroner ( E. Farncomb) who
had joined the opposition against certain Government measures.
After various changes in the constitution of the Councils, and
in spite of the continuous demands of the British community
for adequate representation in the Legislative Council, at least
through the nomination by the Crown of an equal number of
official and unofficial Members, this burning question was
temporarily decided by Sir John Davis refusing all popular
representation. Warrants were issued (December 1 , 1845 ) for the
Lieutenant -Governor, Colonial Secretary and Police Magistrate
to be Members of Executive Council, and for the Lieutenant-
Governor, the Chief Justice and Attorney General to constitute,
with the Governor, the Legislative Council of the Colony. For
some inscrutable reason the Surveyor General's title was reduced
to that of Colonial Surveyor (August 8 , 1846 ) on the occassion
of the abolition of the office of Assistant Surveyor General, and
by the amalgamation of the duties of Auditor and Colonial
Secretary (September 15 , 1846 ) the audit of local official accounts
was reduced to a mere formality. These two measures were but
equalled in want of foresight by the decision of the Military
Authorities (March 8, 1847) to erect defensible barracks-
' soldiers' grave-yards ' they ought to have been called - at
Stanley.
The legislative labours of Sir John Davis commenced with
the knotty problem of regulating the Chinese population . The
humble attempt to control the Chinese in Hongkong quietly
222 CHAPTER XIV.
by means of their own elders on the basis of the Pocheung and
Pokap system (Ordinance 13 to May 31 , 1844) was one of the
legacies handed over to Sir John Davis by his predecessor. Sir
John Davis, however, disliked such a non-autocratic measure,
having his own ideas on the subject . Although he got that
Ordinance passed by the Council, he practically disregarded it
and set to work to devise a measure of his own which, by means
of registration, should immediately purge the Colony of the
bad blood imported into it by the continuous influx of criminals
from the neighbouring districts, as if registration would keep
them away or reveal their habits. The care proved to be worse
than the evil.
On August 21 , 1844 , the Legislative Council, intending to
check the indiscriminate influx into Hongkong of the scum of
the population of the neighbouring mainland and at the same
time anxious to avoid class legislation, passed a Bill to establish
a registry of all the inhabitants of Hongkong without distinction
of nationality. Neither the European nor the Chinese mercantile
communities were consulted in the matter, nor was anything
done, after passing the Bill, until Sir J. Davis returned
( October 18 , 1844 ) from a visit to the Consular ports, when the
Ordinance was made public and it was notified that it was to come
into force on 1st November. Then the European community
woke up to the startling discovery that a poll-tax was to be
levied not only on Chinese vagabonds but on all the inhabitants
without exception, that all British residents, as well as Chinese,
were to appear once every year before the Registrar General,
answer questions as to birth, parentage, age, income and so forth,
being liable to be deported if the answers were not satisfactory,
and that the only distinction between a British merchant and a
Chinese coolie was the enactment that the former should pay
five dollars and the latter one dollar a year for his registration
ticket. The reception by the British residents of such an
Ordinance may well be imagined . They rose up like one man
in wrathful indignation, feeling their personal self- respect, their
national honour, the liberty of the subject trampled under foot
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. DAVIS. 223
even more ruthlessly than in the days of the Co- Hong bondage
at Canton. Accordingly, the first Public Meeting of Hongkong
was held (October 28 , 1844 ) at the residence of Mr. A. Carter.
This meeting, after unanimously condemning the Bill as
iniquitous, unconstitutional and un - English in principle, appointed
a Committee (J. D. Gibb, D) . Matheson , S. Rawson, Pat. Dudgeon
and A Carter) to memorialize the Government accordingly.
On the same day the Government published an obscurely-worded
Chinese translation of the Ordinance which only added to the
excitement and misunderstanding that prevailed among the
Chinese, giving them the impression that the poll-tax to be levied
from 1st November was monthly and not annual. 'The
Celestials,' said the Friend of China a few days later, are a
passive race and will bear squeezing to any ordinary extent,
but when this blundering translation would squeeze one half
of their monthly wages out of them, then they thought it was
time to return to their own country, nor would we blame them
had they left in a body.' On the 30th October there was a
universal suspension of all forms of Chinese labour. The shops
and markets were shut, cargo boats, coolies , domestic servants,
all went on strike simultaneously and all business was at a
standstill. The Chinese made preparations to desert Hongkong
en masse on the next day, if the Government should enforce this
law, but there was no rioting of any sort . At 4 p.m. the
deputation of the European community waited on the Governor
to present a Memorial dated October 30 and signed by 107
British subjects. This Memorial stated that the principles of the
Ordinance were as unjust as they were arbitrary and unconstitu-
tional, because taxing unrepresented British subjects in the most
iniquitous of forms ; that the provisions of the Ordinance violated
the Treaty with China ; that they interfered with labour and
consequently with the prosperity of the Colony and that it would
be found impracticable to work this Ordinance. Unaware at
the time of the strong language of the Memorial, which was
handed by the deputation to the Clerk of Councils, the Governor
told them that the Ordinance would not be enforced for two
224 CHAPTER XIV.
or more months to come and that it would then be carried out
but partially. Subsequently, however, the Memorial was returned
to the Committee by the Clerk of Councils, as disapproved on
the ground that the language of the Memorial was of a character
directly opposed to respect for the constituted authorities of the
Colony and it was requested that the document be properly
worded. But before this message could be delivered , the
Committee, observing the alarming state of affairs in town,
had drafted a second Memorial, dated October 31 , 1844, drawing
attention to the suspension of all business and the stoppage of
provisions, and begging that some official notification be
immediately promulgated to allay the excitement prevailing
among all classes. After forwarding this second Memorial, the
Committee wrote to the Clerk of Councils, saying that the
language of the first Memorial, though strong, represented their
sentiments and was imperatively called for by the urgency of
the occasion, but at the same time they disavowed the remotest
intention of addressing the Governor in Council in any other
than the most respectful terms. But this letter did not reach
the Governor till 1st November . Meanwhile, in reply to the
second Memorial, the Clerk of Councils informed the Committee
(October 31 ) that, whereas all seditious rioting on the part of
the Chinese had been easily suppressed, the Governor and
Council were now prepared to receive properly-worded suggestions.
Thereupon the Committee at once suggested (October 31 ) the
ultimate abrogation of the Ordinance, but, as meanwhile an
exodus of some 3,000 Chinese had taken place and business was
for several days at a complete standstill, the Committee summoned
another Public Meeting on Saturday, 2nd November. Before
that meeting, the Committee received a letter from the Clerk
of Councils (dated November 2, 1844) censuring the unbecoming
reiteration in their last letter of those disrespectful sentiments
and stating that, while the Committee continue to maintain
such views, all further communication between the Government
and the Committee must cease. At the same time an official
notification (November 2, 1844) was issued in which the
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. DAVIS. 225
Governor, on the ground that the comprador of a leading firm
was reported to have called a meeting of Chinese who used the
same disrespectful language, accused the British community of
having, by unworthy practices, tampered with an ignorant.
and unfortunate Chinese population by instigating them to
passive resistance.' An enthusiastic Public Meeting, however,
unanimously endorsed forthwith the procedure and the views
of the Committee, as all residents looked upon the ticketing and
labelling of British subjects as an inequitable if not iniquitous
procedure. The speakers congratulated each other upon their
escape from a system of petty tyranny which, however, they
admitted was not really contemplated by Government in passing
the objectionable Ordinance. A standing Committee was
appointed to co-operate with the Government in remodelling
the Ordinance, and the formation of a Chamber of Commerce
was suggested . But a threat was also expressel that British
merchants might return to Macao where, under a foreign
flag, they would not be subjected to laws repugnant to their
feelings and utterly opposed to the enjoyment of that personal
freedom which was their inalienable birthright. One of the
speakers quoted Blackstone's commentaries to prove that without
representation there can be no legal taxation of British subjects .
This made a great impression. Representative and municipal
government was thenceforth frequently but vainly demanded .
The Public Meeting having thus abstained from condemning the
registration of Chinese and confined itself to a protest against
the taxation connected with it and against the application of the
proposed Ordinance to British subjects, as putting Europeans
upon a par with the canaille of China,' there was a way open for
reconciliation with the Government. Accordingly, on November
4, 1844, the standing Committee (T. A. Gibb, Don. Matheson
and A. Carter) wrote to the Clerk of Councils expressing regret as
to the strong language use by them and disavowing any motive
of disrespect. Thereupon the Governor in Council, accepting
this declaration, made his peace with the community. But the
British residents of Canton (most of whom were representatives
15
226 CHAPTER XIV.
of firms established in Hongkong) sent to the Governor
(November 6, 1844 ) a stately remonstrance, signed by W. Leslie,
W. Bell and 38 other British subjects, recording ' their respectful
but firm remonstrance against a measure unexampled in modern
British legislation, fraught with great and certain mischief,
calculated in no ordinary degree to interfere with and restrict
the rights and liberties of Her Majesty's subjects, and utterly
subversive of that confidence, cordiality and co-operation which
ought to subsist between Governors and the Governed, and are
so essential to the tranquillity and prosperity of every Colony,
and which, if forced into operation, will reduce apparently the
Island of Hongkong to the level of a Penal Settlement .' It
was also proposed in Hongkong to memorialize Her Majesty's
Government to say that the Colonists had lost faith in the
local Government. However, after a few days, moderate
counsels prevailed , and the whole excitement gradually subsided .
On November 13 , 1844, the Legislative Council passed an
amended Registration Ordinance (16 of 1844) , applying
registration only to the lowest classes, abandoning the idea of
any poll-tax of Chinese residents, and exempting from registration
all civil, military and naval employees, all members of the learned
professions, merchants, shopkeepers , householders, tenants of
Crown property and persons having an income of $500 a year.
In fact, this Ordinance granted all that the British community
had contended for, and if the Governor had consulted the leading
merchants or allowed them representation in Council, the whole
conflict between the community and the Government, and the
defeat and consequent humiliation and degradation of the
Government, in the eyes of the astounded Chinese population,
would have been avoided . On January 1 , 1845 , this Ordinance
came into force and worked so smoothly that, on December 31 ,
1846 , it was possible to modify it (No. 7 of 1846 ) so as to
provide also for a periodical census of the whole population.
An outgrowth of the mistaken autocratic attitude which
Sir John Davis assumed towards the community was the severity
with which he enforced (since July 25, 1844 ) the ejectment
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. DAVIS. 227
of house owners to make room for new improvements, and
particularly his Martial Law Ordinance (20 of 1844) which he
passed through Legislative Council on November 20, 1844, in
order to give the Executive the power of declaring the Island
to be under martial law without the concurrence of that Council.
Never in the whole history of Hongkong was there, nor is
there ever likely to be, any need for such a drastic measure.
The characteristic attitude towards any enlightened and strong
government, which Chinese residing on British soil display in
every part of the world, gives a complete denial to the supposition
which called forth this enactment. Yet the accomplished
sinologue misread the character of the Chinese so completely
that he passed this Bill which, when it became known to the
Chinese that Her Majesty's Government curtly disallowed it,
only served to lower him in the eyes of the Chinese people as
a defeated would-be autocrat.
But there is worse to tell. Mandarin misrule of the
neighbouring provinces of China had at this time reached such
a pitch that throughout South China the population was honey-
combed with secret political societies, the principal of which was
called the Triad Society. The aim of these secret associations
was to act on the first suitable occasion upon the recognized
right of rebellion, a right plainly taught in the authorized
national school-books . To drive out the Manchas and to re-
establish a Chinese dynasty, was the secret desire of almost
every energetic Chinaman unconnected with mandarindom.
When the first mutterings of the coming storm of the Taiping
Rebellion, which in the providence of God was destined to
re-establish the waning fortunes of Hongkong, were observed
by the Cantonese Authorities, they shrewdly availed themselves
of the known fact, that the Chinese in Hongkong were as
much influenced by that secret political propaganda as those
in the interior of China, to strike another blow at the success
of Hongkong as a Colony for Chinese. So they persuaded Sir
J. Davis into passing an Ordinance (No. 1 of 1845 ) the effect
of which was that the Hongkong Police should search out and
228 CHAPTER XIV.
arrest political refugees as being members of the Triad and
other secret societies, who, after a term of imprisonment, should
be branded each on the cheek and then be deported to Chinese
territory where of course the Mandarins would forthwith arrest,
torture and execute them. That a British Governor should
ever have enacted such a monstrously barbaric and un-English
law is hardly credible . It is a strange fact that with all his
experience of Chinese, philanthropic Sir John Davis allowed
himself to be so duped by Chinese diplomatists as to become
the unconscious tool of Mandarin oppression in its worst form.
It was not merely an unwise disregard of the sound principle
6
formulated by Gladstone, that England never makes laws to
benefit the internal condition of any other State ' ; it was not
merely a drastic denial of the world-wide assumption that British
soil is a safe refuge from political tyranny and oppression ; but
it was also a positive assertion, in the face of all China, that
Hongkong Governors would pledge themselves to co-operate with
the Manchu conquerors of China in arresting, imprisoning,
branding on the cheek (as the life-long mark of the outlaw )
and delivering into the hands of Mandarins for execution any
hapless Chinese patriot that should be fool enough to put his
foot on British soil . By order of the Home Government this
barbaric Ordinance (No. 1 of 1845 ) was modified nine months
later (October 20, 1845 ) by substituting, in an amendment
(No. 12 of 1845) , branding under the arm for that mark on
the check which would have made reform even in the case of
a criminal absolutely impossible.
Not quite so bad, but based on an equal ignorance of the
utter inapplicability of European enactments to the peculiar
features of the social and political organism of China, was
the interference with local Chinese bond-servitude which Sir
H. Pottinger had attempted in his Slavery Ordinance (No. 1
of 1844) , the disallowance of which Sir John Davis had
now (January 24, 1845 ) to proclaim. He announced by a
proclamation that the said Ordinance was null and void, and
gave notice that the Acts of Parliament for the abolition of
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. DAVIS. 229
slave trade and slavery extend by their own proper force and
authority to Hongkong, and that these Acts will be enforced
by all Her Majesty's officers civil and military within the Colony.'
The secretly underlying insinuation that Hongkong bond-
servitude belongs to the category of slavery as defined by the
Slave-trade Acts was a pure fiction, put forward only to gloss
over the defeat of the Government in attempting to meddle
with Chinese national customs. The general question as to what
English laws were in force in Hongkong was dealt with by
Ordinance (August 19, 1845, and May 6, 1846 ) when it was
laid down somewhat vaguely that all laws of England that
existed when Hongkong first obtained a local legislature (April 5,
•
1843 ) should be deemed in force in the Colony when applicable.'
Unfortunate as the Governor was as a legislator, riding
rough-shod over the whole community, both European and
Chinese, he was even more unfortunate in his dealings with
the local representatives of British judicature. From the time
of the arrival of the Chief Justice (J. W. Hulme) and the
establishment of a Supreme Court, there was a standing feud
between the Governor and the Chief Justice. It arose first of
all out of the mistaken view of their position, adopted by the
local Police Magistrates (Major Caine and Mr. Hillier) who
supposed themselves to be rather executive officers under the
direct orders and control of the Governor, than independent
expositors of the law. The Chief Justice did not conceal from
the Governor his disapproval of this anomalous connection
existing between the Magistrates and the Head of the Executive.
The result was for the first few years merely a straining of the
relations between the Chief Justice on the one hand and the
Governor and the Magistrates on the other hand. Soon the
community began to take sides with the former against the latter.
Great indignation was expressed by the whole British community
when the Police Magistrates, at the order of the Governor who
appeared to be simply desirous of obliging the Macao Governor
by complying with an informal request of the latter, signed a
warrant (August 25, 1846 ) for the arrest and extradition,
230 CHAPTER XIV.
without any prima facie evidence, of three Portuguese gentlemen,-
who, after being sent to Macao as prisoners by a British gunboat
(H.M.S. Young Hebe) were, when tried at Macao, found not
guilty in the suit (a civil one) which they had sought to post-
pone by coming to Hongkong. A similar case occurred soon
after (October 23, 1846 ) , when some Portuguese slaves, vainly
supposing that British Slavery Acts were in force in Hongkong
(for others than Chinese), fled to the Colony. Their masters,
however, brought against them, in Macao, a charge of theft .
Although there was no extradition treaty to rely on, the Macao-
Governor forthwith requested Sir John Davis to extradite those
slaves, and as the Magistrates again complied, without the
formality of a trial, with the orders of the Governor, the latter
forthwith informed Senhor Amaral, that the slaves were in
custody and would be delivered on application. Soon after this,
the conflict between the Governor and the Chief Justice became
more pointed. A prominent British merchant at Canton ,
Mr. Ch . Sp. Compton, happened one day (July 4, 1846 ) to-
overturn a huckster's stall, obstructing one of the Factory lanes,
and two days afterwards he pushed a coolie out of his way,
telling Consul Macgregor, who was close by, that he had done.
so. On July 8 , 1846 , one of those periodical riots occurred for
which Canton mobs were notorious. Three months later,
the Consul informed Mr. Compton that Sir John Davis, as
Superintendent of Trade, had (without trial) fined him £ 45 for
upsetting a huckster's stall, intimating that this circumstance
had caused the riot of 8th July. Further, on November 12 ,
1846 , a local paper published a dispatch by Sir J. Davis to
Kiying, in which Mr. Compton was referred to as ' the exciter
of the riots. As the whole European community of Canton
supported Mr. Compton in his contention that the Canton riots
had no connection with his doings, Mr. Compton appealed to
the Supreme Court against Sir John Davis ' sentence. Chief