unless the previous sanction of the constituted Authorities should have been obtained, 'it being the basis of the footing on which the Island of Hongkong has been taken possession of and is to be held pending the Queen's royal and gracious commands, that the proprietary of the soil is vested in and appertains solely to the Crown.' The same principle was also applied to reclamations of foreshore. But the fact that Sir H. Pottinger referred in a public document to an officially recognized and defined footing on which the Island had been taken possession of, convinced everybody now that the formal recognition of Hongkong as a British Colony had already been decided upon and was only delayed pending diplomatic and war-like dealings with the Peking Government.
The promised Land Committee, consisting of Major Malcolm, Captain Meik, Lieutenant Sargent, Surgeon W. Woosnam, and Captain J. Pascoe, was appointed (March 29, 1842) and instructed to recommend the amount of remuneration to be given to native Chinese, for ground which was in their possession previous to the British occupation of the Island and which had been appropriated, to select spots for public landing places, to define the limits of cantonments, to fix the extent of the ground to be reserved for H.M. Naval Yard and for private commercial ventures in the shape of patent slips, and finally to recommend a watering place with a good running stream of water to be reserved for the shipping. The points previously mentioned and not now included in the instructions of the Committee were no doubt left to the discretion of the Land Officer, Captain Mylius, who had been provided with a new Assistant, Mr. E. G. Reynolds. The separation of the Land Office from the Public Works Department was, however, soon after disapproved (May 17, 1842) by the Home Government.
Another important problem which Sir H. Pottinger now took in hand was the regulation of the currency of the settlement. For this purpose he took the dollar for a standard and fixed the rate at which Indian coins and Chinese copper cash were to be accepted as legal tender. A proclamation (March
