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Rh that 'such a settlement as Hongkong was never actually required by the British merchants,' this sudden establishment of a Colony was as unexpected as the birth of a child into a family generally is to the rest of the children. They could only yonder how it had all come about, but they could not undo the fact. They had not been consulted about it. There it was: the newborn Colony of Hongkong. And as to the people of England—'What will they say about it at home?' was the anxious thought of both Elliot and the merchants, and none could foretell with certainty whether the new-fledged Colony would ever live to celebrate its jubilee or indeed outlast the year of its birth.

On February 3, 1841, ignorant as yet of the cession as a fait accompli, the Foreign Office dispatched instructions to Captain Elliot which seemed to him to furnish good cause for the expectation that the establishment of a trade station at Hongkong might eventually meet with the approval of Her Majesty's Government. This dispatch contained the following prophetic caution: 'You are authorized to propose a condition that, if there be ceded to the British Crown an island off the Eastern Coast of China to serve as a commercial station for British subjects, the Chinese merchants and inhabitants of all the towns and cities on the Coast of China shall be permitted by the Chinese Government to come freely and without the least hindrance and molestation to that Island for the purpose of trading with the British subjects there established.' Unfortunately for Hongkong, the injunction here wisely coupled with its probable cession was entirely neglected for years after the cession had been accomplished. Kishen offered Hongkong as a residence for foreigners but he did not intend it to become the Alsatia of China.

Difficult as it may be to say, with prefect accuracy and in a few words, how Hongkong came to be ceded to the British Crown, this much will be clearly established by the above narrative, viz. that the ordinarily current accounts of the cession of Hongkong are inaccurate. It is evidently unjust to say, what is commonly found stated in Continental and American