CHAPTER IX.
The Acquisition of Hongkong—Early History of the Island—The building of Victoria—Hongkong declared a Free Port—Dark Days—R. M. Martin's Scathing Denunciations of the Colony—The Select Committee of 1847 and Hongkong.
From the exclusively British standpoint the great central fact of the Nanking Treaty was the formal cession of Hongkong. The acquisition of this island gave Great Britain what no other Western nation, save the Portuguese, had in China, a national pied à terre—a station which would supply a rallying centre for her trade, and a strategic point for her navy. The desirability of forming a settlement of this kind had long been contemplated. The occupation of an island off the coast was, as we have seen in the earlier chapters, suggested by Chinese traders as a means of overcoming the difficulties which in the eighteenth century attended the conduct of the trade. Coming to later times. Sir George Staunton, in speaking in the House of Commons in 1833, expressed the view that when the trade was thrown open, if it should prove impracticable to give it the benefit of a national connection emanating directly from the Crown, it might become expedient to withdraw it altogether from the control of the Chinese authorities and establish it in some insular position upon the Chinese coast. In a general way the value of Hongkong harbour as an anchorage had been recognised for a great many years. In the eighteenth century ships occasionally visited it, attracted by the security of the position and the admirable facilities offered for watering ships in the rivulet of purest water—the "Heang Keang," or fragrant stream—which in old time was perhaps the most conspicuous natural feature of the island. These casual visits familiarised British commanders with the harbour, and during the protracted war with France at the end of the eighteenth and the commencement of the nineteenth century, it was frequently resorted to by vessels of our squadrons. The place came into special prominence on the occasion of Lord Amherst's mission to the Peking Court in 1816–17. The vessels conveying the members of the mission, as has been already noted, anchored in the harbour on their arrival in China, and during their brief stay a careful survey was made of the harbour and island—the former by the naval authorities and the latter by Dr. Charles Abel, who accompanied the mission as medical officer. When the mission returned to England a glowing account was given of the great natural advantages of the position. "In all points, both of facility of egress and ingress, and in its perfectly land-locked situation, this harbour can hardly have a superior in the world," wrote the official historian of the mission. These words of enthusiastic commendation bore no direct fruit, perhaps because the failure of the mission did not tend to encourage a policy of exploitation. But when the opium troubles occurred at Canton, Hongkong harbour became the resort of all British shipping, and ultimately (in 1837) a settlement was formed on the rocky shore. And so when Captain Elliot got into difficulties with the Canton authorities in 1839, and found the officialism of Macao to accord ill with the British constitution, it was the most natural thing in the world that he should withdraw to Hongkong, which, though remote enough to be free from Chinese surveillance, was sufficiently near Canton to allow of touch being kept with the authorities. Probably at first the idea was only to use the harbour temporarily, but when Lin, by his violent policy, forced matters to an issue, the formation of a permanent settlement became a definite object of policy. During the operations which culminated in the attack on the Bogue forts in 1841, the island was only used to a limited extent, Chusan then being the principal base for the expedition; but as soon as Keshen had been compelled to sue for peace in the early weeks of the year, the cession of the island was made a prominent condition of the settlement, and on the terms put forward being conceded by the Chinese Commissioner, the troops were removed from that place to Hongkong, and its incorporation in the British Empire was formally notified by Captain Elliot in a proclamation dated January 29, 1841. The act of taking possession occurred four days earlier. It is thus noticed in Sir Edward Belcher's "Voyage of H.M.S. Sulphur": "We landed on Monday the 25th January, 1841, at fifteen minutes past eight a.m., and being the bonâ fide first possessors Her Majesty's health was drunk with three cheers on Possession Mount. On the 26th the squadron arrived; the marines were landed, the Union Jack hoisted on our fort, and formal possession taken of the island by Commodore Sir J. G. Bremer, accompanied by the four officers of the squadron, under a feu de joie from the marines and the royal salute from the ships of war. On the Kowloong Peninsula were situated two batteries, which might have commanded the anchorage, but which appeared but thinly manned; these received due notice to withdraw their men and guns as agreed by the late Treaty." Nearly two years were to elapse before the final notification of the Treaty of Nanking placed the occupation of the island on a thoroughly legal basis, but practically January 26, 1841, marks the commencement of the organised life of the settlement.
The important island which had thus become British territory was formerly a part of the Chinese district of Sin-ngan. It was mainly owned by an ancient family of the name of Tang, whose title deeds extended back several centuries. The representatives of this family had paid the land tax for the island for two centuries prior to the occupation to the Chinese Government, and they were recognised by the authorities as the landlords. In the arrangements for the transfer, however, no provision was made for the rights of these proprietors, and though a sum of eight or ten thousand dollars was disbursed amongst the occupants of certain fields, the members of the Tang family do not appear to have benefited. Before the advent of the British the population of the island was confined to a few thousand souls who obtained a precarious living by fishing or tilling the rocky soil. In 1837 the site of the town of Victoria was a mere rugged slope of rock shelving in most places precipitously to the water's edge, with a narrow pathway winding along the cliff to which the fanciful name Kün-Tai-Lu, or Petticoat String Path, was given by the inhabitants. To the eye the island was more picturesque than pleasing. There was little or no vegetation, and the only buildings were a number of ramshackle habitations on the shore constructed out of old junks. The inhabitants were friendly, and they seemed industrious, but there were strong grounds for believing that they took a very free hand in the piracy that at that time was rife at the mouth of the Canton River.
When Hongkong was formally occupied in 1841, in the circumstances described, there was not a single European house in existence. The buildings scattered about the foreshore were either the quaint improvised huts just referred to or houses of the usual native type. As soon, however, as it became evident that the British had come to stay a change came over the aspect of affairs. On June 14, 1841, the first land sale[1] took place, 51 plots being sold at prices which, compared with modern rates, appear ridiculously low. Thereafter building operations were prosecuted with an energy born of the belief that Victoria, as the new settlement had been christened in honour of the Queen, was destined to be no mean city. Dr. Eitel states in his book on the authority of Mr. W. Rawson that the first buildings erected in Hongkong were the so-called Albany Godowns (near Spring Gardens) of Lindsay & Co. "Next rose up the buildings at East Point, where Jardine, Matheson & Co. established themselves. Later on buildings were erected in the Happy Valley and here and there along the hillside as far as the present centre of the town. While the military and naval authorities commenced settling at West Point, erecting cantonments on the hillside (over the site of the present Reformatory and later on above Fairlea) and large naval stores (near the shore in the neighbourhood of the present Gas Company's premises), the Happy Valley was at first intended by British merchants for the principal business centre. However, the prejudices of the Chinese merchants against the Fungshin (geomantic aspects) of the Happy Valley and the peculiarly malignant fever which emptied
- ↑ Referring to this sale, Dr. Eitel says: The purchasers of those lots who may be considered as the first British settlers in Hongkong were the following firms or individuals, viz., Jardine, Matheson & Co.; Heerjeebhoy Rustomjee; Dent & Co.; Macrica & Co.: Geminell & Co.; John Smith; D. Rustomjee; Gribble, Hughes & Co.; Lindsay & Co.; Hooker & Lane; Holliday & Co.; F. Leighton & Co.; Innes, Fletcher & Co.; Jamieson & How; Fox, Rawson & Co.; Turner & Co.; Robert Webster; R. Gully; Charles Hart; Captain Larkins; P. F. Robertson; Captain Morgan: Dirom & Co.: Pestonjee Cowasjee, and Framjee Jamsetjee. This sale was followed by the erection of godowns and houses, and the building of a sea wall, the road alongside of which was thenceforth (in imitation of Macao parlance) called the Praya. The following places were the first to be utilised for commercial buildings and private residences of merchants, viz., West Point, the Happy Valley, Spring Gardens, the neighbourhood of the present Naval Yard (Canton Bazaar), the sites now occupied by Butterfield & Swire, the Hongkong Hotel, by the China Mail, the Hongkong Dispensary, the slope below Wyndham Street, Pottinger Street, Queen's Road Central (the Bazaar), etc.
