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THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR H. POTTINGER.
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not only confined the Chinese junk trade of the Colony rigidly to the five Treaty-ports (virtually to Canton alone), but required the appointment of a British Officer in Hongkong who was to report to the Chinese Customs Officers the nature of the cargo and other particulars of every Chinese vessel resorting to Hongkong and to condemn and report, as an unauthorized or smuggling vessel, every junk trading between Hongkong and any unauthorized port of China. As regards further provisions, injurious to the interest of the Colony, the Journal des Débats stated later on (Monday, September 30, 1844) what at the time was the subject of acrimonious discussion in the Colony, that Sir H. Pottinger, in concluding the Supplementary Treaty, had been the victim of unworthy trickery (supercherie); that the Chinese diplomatists, profiting by the ignorance of the English Plenipotentiary, both of commercial affairs and of the Chinese language, and by the bitter feeling which existed between him and the English merchants who would have been able to advise him, bribed by a sum of money the interpreter who was employed to replace the late Mr. Morrison; that thus the Chinese diplomatists slipped into the Chinese text, unbeknown to Sir H. Pottinger, alterations and suppressions bearing on all the provisions made but particularly on the 13th and the 17th Articles, the immediate effect being that these Articles now strike with nullity the establishment of Hongkong, exclude the Colony from any participation by transit or coasting trade in the commence of the different nations with the five ports, and, in fine, restrain, almost as before the war, the commerce (of Hongkong) to the port of Canton alone. Some of the passages of the Chinese text, which were suppressed in the version submitted to and published by Sir H. Pottinger, were, according to the Journal des Débats, translated in England by the most learned professors of the Chinese language as follows. Article XIII. 'Every Chinese merchant who shall purchase merchandise at Hongkong can only ship it in Chinese bottoms provided with passports delivered at Hongkong. These passports and these permits will be viséd at every time and on every voyage