[
    {
        "id": 207122,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1974",
        "page_number": 193,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n187 \n\nas the property of three Parsee merchants. Later, it appears, two of the owners sold out and she became the sole property of one Cursetzee Cawasjee. The closing entry says that the “Castle Huntly” was lost on Lincoln's Shoal some four hundred miles south of Hong Kong on 23rd October 1845, while on a voyage from China to Bombay. \n\nLloyd's List confirms that the Master of the ship at the time of her loss was a Captain McIntyre and adds that the Master, Officers, Passengers and part of the crew were saved and landed at Hong Kong. \n\nSome further details obtained from another source indicate that before 1829 the \"Castle Huntly\" sailed with the East India Company, and log books up to that time are still extant. These reveal that in 1829 the Governor of Mauritius was a passenger, and that later in the same year there was a mutiny by the crew. \n\nThe ship is mentioned in a book by Basil Lubbock entitled Opium Clippers, as having sailed regularly in this trade between Calcutta and the Canton River in 1835. It seems probable that when she met her end she was still engaged in carrying opium to China. \n\nThis is the story as well as we have been able to discover it, but it leaves some very interesting questions unanswered. The ship was lost on 23rd October, but the date of Elizabeth Ann's death is given as 21st October. Did she die in Hong Kong waters, and was her body put ashore on Shek Kwu Chau at the start of what was to prove the ship's last voyage? And why choose Shek Kwu Chau, which at that time was Chinese territory? It may have been that the master was anxious to make full use of the northeast monsoon which could well have been blowing at that time of the year. \n\nAgain, whence came the tombstone? It is of granite, but a University geologist has given his opinion that it is not of Hong Kong origin. Was it brought to the island at a later date and placed over the lonely grave? These questions may never receive an answer, but to us of a later generation the odd fact is that Elizabeth Ann's remains are to be found on an island now given over to repairing the damage caused by the trade in which her husband was engaged. \n\nJEAN MOORE",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211621,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1989",
        "page_number": 36,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "1} \n\nAmerican missionary, the Reverend Elijah Bridgman,1 merely noted the formal possession of the island in its journal of occurrences; it gave no precise date nor any details.24 Another reference in the same journal in a historical review of events in China was only marginally fuller.25 The Canton Press, published at this point from Macao, expressed itself slightly puzzled by the lack of information about the event: 'On Tuesday last, the 26th January, the Island of Hongkong, the new settlement ceded by the Chinese to the English, was taken possession of in the name of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. The English colours were hoisted, and saluted from the ships; we have not yet heard any further particulars of the ceremony.' Two weeks later the incident was mentioned again, but no further details were forthcoming.26 The Canton Register made no mention of the possession of Hong Kong except in the context of Elliot's treaty with Ch'i-shan; it seemed unimpressed by the terms and referred to 'the paltry island of Hong Kong'.\n\n› 28\n\nThe two groups with the most immediate interest in the acquisition of Hong Kong for the British were the merchants and missionaries. Unlike the troops, for whom the possession of the island was just one part of a long and arduous expedition in a foreign and unhealthy part of the world, the merchants and missionaries were already operating from the area and found Chinese restrictions on their movements irksome. And unlike the British government and its officials, the traders and propagators of salvation were most cognizant of the advantages that a piece of British territory in South China would afford them. They were not politically or ideologically committed to punishing China for the 'disrespect' it had shown to Britain. It is not known whether any missionaries attended the ceremony on 26 January, but some merchants who were late to have their fortunes inextricably bound up with the colony turned up to witness its official birth. According to a study of the Indian community of Hong Kong, at least four Indian merchants were present in Hong Kong at the flag-hoisting: Cawasjee Pallanjee, the representative of Cursetjee Bomanjee and Co. of Bombay; F. M. Talati; Albert Sassoon;29 and Rustomjee Dhunjee Shaw of P. F. Cama and Co. of Bombay. James Matheson of Jardine Matheson and Co.30 went from Macao to Hong Kong precisely in order to witness the hoisting of the British flag, and afterwards, as he wrote to William Jardine in a postscript to a letter of 30 January, he circumnavigated the island.32 Thus the future character of the colony can be gauged from the type of person with most to gain from its possession by the British.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    }
]