Directory_and_Chronicle_1896 — Page 633

HONGKONG

This, the most eastern of British possessions, is situate off the coast of the Kwangtung province, near the mouth of the Canton river. It is distant about 40 miles from Macao and 90 from Canton, and lies between 22 deg. 9 min. and 22 deg. 1 min. N. lat. and 114 deg. 5 min, and 114 deg. 18 min. E. long. The Chinese characters representing the name of the island (Heung Kong) may be read as signifying either Good Harbour or Fragrant Streams.

HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT.

Before the British ensign was hoisted on Possession Point the island can hardly be said to have had any history, and what little attaches to it is very obscure. Scantily peopled by fishermen and agriculturists, it was never the scene of stirring events, anil was little affected by dynastic or political changes. It is alleged, however, that after the fall of the Mings in 1628 some of the Emperor's followers found shelter in the forests of Hongkong from the fury of the Manchus. The peninsula of British Kowloon has more claim to association with Chinese history. In the year A.D. 1287 it is recorded that the last Emperor of the Sung dynasty when flying from Kublai Khan, the Mongol con- queror, took refuge in a cave in Kowloon, and an inscription on the rock above is said to record the fact. The rock is about a quarter-of-an-hour's walk from the frontier, near to a small temple on the right hand side of the path, and the inscription consists of the characters Sung Wong Toi, meaning the Sung Emperor's Pavilion. On the cession of the territory to Great Britain the natives petitioned the Hongkong Government that the rock might not be blasted or otherwise injured on account of the tradition connecting it with the Imperial personage above mentioned.

Hongkong is a Crown Colony and was ceded to Great Britain by the Chinese Government in 1841. In the troubles which preceded the first war with China the necessity of having some place on the const whence British trade might be protected and controlled, and where officials and merchants might be free from the insulting and humiliating requirements of the Chinese Authorities, became painfully evident. As early as 1834 Lord Napier, smarting under his insolent treatment by the Viceroy at Canton, urged the Home Government to send a force from India to support the dignity of his commission. "A little armament," he wrote, "should enter the China seas with the first of the south-west monsoon, and on arriving should take possession of the island of Hongkong, in the castern entrance of the Canton river, which is admirably adapted for every purpose." Two years later Sir George Robinson, endorsing the opinion of Lord Napier that nothing but force could better our position in China, advised, "the occupation of one of the islands in this neighbourhood, so singularly adapted by nature in every respect for commercial purposes." In the early part of 1839 affairs approached a crisis, and on the 22nd March Captain Elliot, the Chief Superintendent of Trade, required that all the ships of Her Majesty's subjects at the outer anchorages of Canton should pro- ceed forthwith to Hongkong, and, hoisting their national colours, be prepared to resist every act of aggression on the part of the Chinese Government. When the British com- munity left Canton, Macaoafforded them a temporary asylum, but their presence there was made the occasion by the Chinese Government of threatening demonstrations against that settlement. In a despatch dated 6th May, 1839, Captain Elliot wrote to Lord Falmers- ton:-"The safety of Macao is, in point of fact, an object of secondary moment to the Portuguese Government, but to that of Her Majesty it may be said to be of indispensable necessity, and most particularly at this moment ;" and he urged upon his Lordship "the strong necessity of concluding some immediate arrangement with the Government of His Most Faithful Majesty, either for the cession of the Portuguese rights at Macao, or for the effectual defence of the place, and its appropriation to British uses by means of a subsidiary Convention." Happily for the permanent interests of British trade in China this suggestion came to nothing, and Great Britain found a much superior lodgment at Hongkong.

ני