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The Lease and Cession of Kowloon
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(a) A Deed of Lease [Enclosed in a Dispatch from Sir Hercules Robinson to Duke of Newcastle, No. 33, 20 March 1860]
Between Laou, wearing a decoration of the first rank, a Director of the Board of War, Censor of Right, Governor-General of the Provinces of Kwangtung and Kwang-se, and commander-in-Chief of the same on the part of the Chinese Government, and Harry Smith Parkes Esq., one of the Allied Commissioners for the Government of the City of Canton on the part of the British Government to hold in proof of the undermentioned agreement.
Whereas Tseem-sha-tsuy and its neighbourhood situated in the subdistrict of Kowloon in the district of Sun-on, and consisting for the most part of barren hills that cannot be cultivated, has hitherto formed a place of resort for thieves and outlaws, who, availing themselves of the immediate proximity of Victoria, con- stantly cross to Hong Kong and commit depredations in that settlement to the serious injury of British subjects who can obtain no redress against these marauders. therefore Laou the Governor-General and Harry Smith Parkes, the Commissioner, afore- said, have agreed and determined that all that part of the Kowloon Peninsula lying south of a line drawn from a point near to but south of the Kowloon fort to the northern-most point of Stone- cutter Island, together with that Island, as shown in the accompanying map, shall be leased, as a preliminary measure, to Harry Smith Parkes, the Commissioner aforesaid, acting on behalf of the British Government, in order that the latter may exercise complete control over the same, and take measures for the protec- tion of the good population and the expulsion or punishment of the bad, as well as for bringing the whole locality into order and preventing it becoming a resort for thieves. It is further stipulated and agreed that a rental of five hundred taels of silver shall be annually paid for the same to the local Chinese
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