Directory_and_Chronicle_1905 — Page 1014

402

HONGKONG

Infantry, as Chief Magistrate, the warrant being under the hand of Charles Elliot, Esquire, Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary, etc., etc., "charged with the Government of the Island of Hongkong." Captain Elliot's idea was that the island should be held on similar terms to those on which Macao was at that time held by the Portuguese, and the Chief Magistrate, instead of being charged to administer British law, was authorised and required "to exercise authority, according to the laws, customs, and usages of China, as near as may be (every description of torture excepted), for the preservation of the peace and the protection of life and property, over all the native inhabitants in the said island and the harbours thereof"; and over other persons according to British police law. The first land sale took place on the 14th June, and building thereafter proceeded rapidly, the population of the new town at the end of the year being estimated at 15,000. On the 6th February, 1842, Hongkong was formally declared a free port by Sir Henry Pottinger, who had succeeded Captain Elliot as Plenipotentiary. Until the signing of the treaty, however, the ultimate fate of the new settlement remained in doubt. Sir Robert Peel, when asked in the House: of Commons whether it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to properly colonise the place or give it up, declined to answer what he deemed an unparliamentary question during a period of open war with the country by whom the cession of the island was both made and repudiated. The Treaty of Nanking, however, settled all doubts. On the 23rd June, 1843, Ke-ying, the Chinese Imperial Commissioner, arrived in Hongkong, for the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty, and the ceremony took place in the Council Room on the 26th of that month, and immediately afterwards the Royal Charter, dated 5th April, 1843, erecting the island into a separate colony, was read, and Sir Henry Pottinger took the oaths of office as Governor. At first progress was rapid. The Queen's Road was laid out for a length of between three and four miles, and buildings rose rapidly. But a check was received owing to the unhealthy conditions which were developed by the breaking of the malarious soil, and in 1844, soon after the arrival of Sir John Davis, who assumed the Government in June, the advisability of abandoning the island altogether as a colony was seriously discussed. Mr. Montgomery Martin, H.M.'s Treasurer, drew up a long report, in which he earnestly recommended the abandonment of a place which, he believed, would never be habitable for Europeans, instancing the case of the 98th Regiment, which lost 257 men by death in twenty-one months, and of the Royal Artillery, which in two years lost 51 out of a strength of 135, and gave it as his opinion that it was a delusion to hope that Hongkong could ever become a commercial emporium like Singapore. Sir John Davis, in a despatch dated April, 1845, strongly combated Mr Martin's pessimistic conclusions and expressed a firm belief that time alone was required for the develop- ment of the colony and for the correction of some of the evils which hindered its early progress. Sir John (who died in November, 1890, in his ninety-sixth year) lived to see his predictions most amply verified, and in after years must have reflected with satisfaction on the fact that his views had prevailed in Downing Street. On the 26th May, 1846, the Hongkong Club house, situated in Queen's Road Central, at its junction with Wyndham Street, was opened with a ball, and was occupied by the Club for over fifty years, being vacated in July, 1897, when the Club moved into new and more commodious premises on the New Praya. Sir John Davis resigned in January, 1848, and left the colony on the 30th March of that year, Major-General Stavely administering the government until the arrival, a few weeks later, of Sir George (then Mr.) Bonham. During Sir George Bonham's administration, which lasted, with two intervals, until April, 1854, the colony continued to progress, but the garrison and residents still suffered severely from malaria. On the 13th April, 1854, Sir John Bowring took the oaths as Governor, and held the reins until May, 1859. Sir John Bowring was the last Governor who united that office with that of Minister Plenipotentiary and Superintendent of British Trade in China. During his administration various public works were carried out, and the Bowrington Canal constructed. In September, 1859, Sir Hercules Robinson arrived and assumed the administration. In 1860 the peninsula of Kowloon was placed under British control, and soon afterwards became a great camp, the English and French troops of the Allied Expeditionary Force being for some time quartered there. The principal work effected during the Government of Sir Hercules Robinson was the construction of the original Praya wall, in connection with which an extensive reclamation of land from the sea was made. Prior to that time the marine lot-holders had the entire control of the sea frontage of their lots and no public road properly speaking existed along the water frontage. In 1862 the Clock Tower was completed, and the Hongkong Mint was erected, but owing to the loss attending the working of this institution it was closed early in

Google

Original from

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN