[ { "id": 211620, "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": 35, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "10\n\n16\n\nnot the temper to speak. He had the Chinese at his feet, and might have had what he wished; and what has he got? A few paltry dollars and a barren island... The Chinese are already chuckling, and say they have got the best of it. It makes me quite sick to think of it, and there are not half a dozen people on shore or afloat who are not quite furious'. The alleged sentiments of the Chinese in this letter are in direct contrast to those reported by James Matheson in a letter to William Jardine of 11 February: 'The cession of Hong Kong to the British is what most mortifies the Canton folks with Ki Shen's proceedings. They cannot bear to speak of it with composure'.\" It seems that a portion of the British community in the Pearl Delta area (the author of the letter wishes to appear to have as large a constituency as possible, not only within the merchant community) may have presupposed that their feelings of failure with regard to the acquisition of Hong Kong meant a corresponding sense of triumph for the Chinese.\n\nThe second letter to The Times was equally scathing as it claimed that the British negotiators had been tricked because 'Hong Kong was virtually ours, for it is the place which the opium ships have used as a rendezvous for years'. It was only to be expected therefore that the Chinese would choose to cede that island rather than any other.\n\n19\n\n18\n\nOf the acts of soldiers in the expeditionary force, it might have been expected that the formal taking of possession of Hong Kong would have been worthy of mention even if the author had not been present in person, but it seems that this is not the case. Neither Duncan McPherson nor W. W. Mundy refers to it. Nor did soldiers such as A. Cunynghame20 or Alexander Murray21 who became involved just after the cession of Hong Kong refer back to the ceremony. There is only one reference to the taking of Hong Kong in the official mouthpiece for the forces, The United Service Journal of 1841, and that was in a general article entitled 'The British colonies considered as military posts' written by Lieutenant-Colonel Wilkie. He complained in July 1841 that the rationale for his inclusion of Hong Kong in the article was threatened because arrangements between the British and the Chinese had collapsed, ‘and consequently it is more than doubtful whether I shall have any more authority for treating of this island as a British colony, beyond the simple fact that it has been formally taken possession of as such',22\n\nContemporary press notices of the event, again in direct contrast to news of the opium war and the expedition to the Bogue, are terse and rudimentary. The Chinese Repository of February 1841, edited by the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211625, "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": 40, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "15\n\nhas not materialized is a testimony to the fact that the present and the future in Hong Kong have always been more important than the past, with the result that the recovery of information on Hong Kong's history is now very difficult.\n\nCHRIST'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE\n\nNOTES\n\nSee C. Blake, Charles Elliot R. N., 1801-1875 (London, 1960).\n\n2. W. D. Bernard, Narrative of the Voyages and Services of the Nemesis from 1840 to 1843, I (London, 1844), p. 304.\n\n3. When the British flag was hoisted on Chusan on 5 July 1840, the name of the person responsible for hoisting the flag also went unrecorded as it was considered unimportant. See G. Graham, The China Station (Oxford, 1978), pp. 127-8. I am grateful to Alan Reid for this reference.\n\n4. Captain Sir Edward Belcher, RN, Narrative of a Voyage round the world performed in HM's Ship Sulphur, during the years 1836-1842 (London, 1843).\n\n6. J. Elliot Bingham, Narrative of the Expedition to China (London, 1842).\n\nBernard, Narrative, op. cit. Bernard wrote the book from the notes of W. H. Hall who had commanded the Nemesis, and included his own observations.\n\n7. Bernard, Narrative, op. cit. I, p. 291.\n\n8. Elliot Bingham, Narrative, op. cit. II, p. 120.\n\nIn the text 26 January is misprinted for 25 January.\n\n19. Belcher, Narrative, op. cit. p. 148. This account is the one usually quoted in an account of the cession of Hong Kong. See for example G. R. Sayer, Hong Kong: Birth, Adolescence and Coming of Age (London, 1937), p. 93 and J. R. Jones, “Who Hoisted the Union Jack?“, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 12 (1972), p. 196.\n\n|| Supplement to The Times of 12 June 1841. This expression appears to be formulaic as Bremer uses identical words in a letter to the Earl of Auckland who was Governor General of India of 10 March 1841. See Duncan McPherson, Two years in China (London, 1842), p. 274.\n\n12. The Times of 9 April 1841. The editorial went on to say: 'the recognition of a territorial right in the British crown, as well as the terror of the British name, will give our countrymen advantages which were never possessed by the Portuguese in China'.\n\n13. The Times of 10 April 1841.\n\nE. Jardine Matheson Archives, Cambridge University Library (hereinafter JMA), C5/6, James Matheson's private letter book, 54.\n\n15. Ibid., C5/6, 60, 22 January 1841.\n\nThe Times of 15 April 1841.\n\n17. JMA, C5/6, 69.\n\n18. The Times of 13 April 1841.\n\nMcPherson, Two Years in China, p. 76 and W. W. Mundy, Canton and the Bogue:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 } ]