Committee had deduced therefrom. Sir G. Bonham's administration stands thus connected positively with that of Captain Elliot and negatively with that of Sir H. Pottinger and Sir J. Davis. This view comprehends, in one organic process, the whole period from 1841 to 1854 as the first epoch in the pragmatic history of Hongkong. It also gives its due importance to the administration of Sir G. Bonham which, as it was with regard to the misrule of his two predecessors, the grave of the past, was at the same time, by the restoration of Elliot's vital, principles, the cradle of the future.
What constitutes, therefore, the close of Sir G. Bonham's administration as one of the great turning points in the history of the Colony is this, that by this time both the colonists and the Colonial Office had attained to the clear consciousness of Hongkong's mission as the representative of free trade in the East and of the need of some sort of representative government. An equally clear apprehension of the difficulties standing in the way of a practical realisation of this ideal was not wanting. But the recognition of the ideal itself was now established. This was for the young Colony what the first effulgence of personal self-consciousness is in the evolution of the human mind. Autocratic despotism, protectionism and monopoly, were now doomed, in principle at least. The commercial and financial prosperity of Hongkong was now, though not perfected yet, virtually established. A definite prospect of the Colony becoming soon absolutely self-supporting, was now looming within measurable distance. And as to Hongkong's exercising, on behalf of Europe, a civilizing influence upon the adjoining continent of Asia, the colonists and their rulers could well trust to the natural course of events to work out that problem. A British Colony thus firmly established in Asia, on the root principles of European liberty, was and is sure to play, in the drama of the future, such a part as will illustrate, in the sight of Asia, the superiority of British over Chinese forms of civilization and government and make Hongkong for all times the bulwark of the cause of Europe in the East.
