a resident in China, under the title 'British Intercourse with China.' The anonymous author of this pamphlet represented the Missionary view of the question and suggested that the Government should choose a pacific policy towards China on grounds of expediency, humility and generosity, and confine its political action to the establishment of a Consulate at Canton together with a small fleet for the protection of trade.
To combat the foregoing opponents of his scheme, Sir George Staunton now came forward again and published, in 1836, a pamphlet entitled 'Remarks on British Relations with China.' Sir George had, however, but little to say that was new. He argued, as before, that Canton was the very worst station to select for trade purposes, but he now advocated the occupation of an island on the coast without previous negotiation with the Chinese Government. He stated that there were many islands on the coast over which the Chinese Government exercised no act of jurisdiction, and that such an island might easily be taken possession of with the entire consent and good-will of the inhabitants if there were any. Moreover he now pointed very aptly, to the precedent afforded by the Portuguese Colony on the island of Macao, the original occupation of which was an act precisely of that description which Sir George Staunton advocated, and not the result of any previous authentic cession by the Chinese Authorities, as pretended by the Portuguese.
So far, however, this general search for a Colony in the East was more a groping about for an island on the east coast of China than in the neighbourhood of Canton. Chusan was most in favour. Next came Ningpo and Formosa. But other places also were mentioned. At the close of the year 1836, when this war of the pamphleteers was transferred from England to Canton, the general divergence of views was increased. Mr. G. Tradescant Lay, a naturalist who had accompanied Captain Beechy's Expedition to the Bonin Islands, strongly advocated, in the Canton newspapers and by a pamphlet published in 1837, the occupation of one of those islands for the purpose of a British Colony. Hongkong was almost out of the running.
