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exercise any civil jurisdiction north of the river, As to the question of boundary, in my opinion the river boundary, as adopted tentatively by the Commissioners appointed was a fairly satisfactory boundary. But it has been demonstrated that numbers of people can collect in the populous line of villages immediately north of the river and proceed to make incursions into our territory and in consequence of such an incursion, unchecked by the Chinese authorities, we have pushed beyond the river, occupied Sham-Chün and Sha-tao and hoisted the flag at the former place. Having done so it will be difficult to retire as such a course would possibly invite attack in the future, and would certainly be put down to weakness by the Chinese. On the other hand if we determine to remain at Sham-Chun I fear that it will be necessary to occupy the valley and up to the summit of the hills as proposed by Mr. Stewart Lockhart for the small river running west of Sham-Chün is not a practical boundary. I attach Major-General Gascoigne's report of the proceedings, with a correspondence bearing upon this subject of the boundary.
7.
As to the question of increasing the garrison, General Gascoigne is prepared to hold the Sham-Chun valley so long as there are no complications in Hong Kong, involving possible attack upon the garrison. In that event neither the hills nor the river would be made a line of defence and the garrison would be probably withdrawn to Victoria and Kowloon, with its outposts on the passes of the hills immediately
tely