H. Pottinger's commercial policy, in stating that 'in spite of the discouragement afforded by the Supplementary Treaty, the Chinese trade appears to be rather on the increase.' The dispute was continued in the home papers and on April 6, 1846, the Times gave expression to the melancholy views of the European community in the following words. 'Hongkong has quite lost taste as a place for mercantile operations. Many of the merchants have already abandoned the Island. Since the beginning of the present year two firms have given up their establishments, two more of old standing have expressed their 'determination to quit the Colony, and two others are hesitating about following their example or at most of leaving a clerk in possession to forward goods or letters.' The climax was reached when an American contributor to the Economist (August 8, 1846) incisively declared that 'Hongkong is nothing now but a depot for a few opium smugglers, soldiers, officers and menof-war's men.' These sensational statements, however, represented merely the feelings of disappointment aroused by a natural but unusually prolonged period of depression consequent upon previous unnatural inflation. While friends and foes of the Colony debated the extent and causes of its rain, Hongkong itself stood smiling like Patience on a monument bearing the bold legend 'Resurgam.'
As regards the native trade of Hongkong, there were distinct signs visible in 1846 of a speedy revival. Junks from Pakhoi, Hoihow and Tinpak, in the south-west, commenced in 1840 a prosperous trade with Hongkong. The fact that the Chinese Mandarins dared not, or on account of the piratical fleets could not, stop this trade, combined with the rising faith in the power of Great Britain, produced by the repeated humiliations which Sir J. Davis had inflicted on Kiying, now gave currency to the belief that Chinese merchants residing in Hongkong need not confine their operations (by means of native junks) to the Treaty ports of China. Thenceforth Chinese subjects established in the Colony rejoiced in, and commercially took all the advantages of, the double status of residing under
