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EFORE entering now upon the modern history of Hongkong, it is necessary briefly to sketch first of all the history of those political events which, directly connected with the Treaty of Chuenpi, and of the cession of Hongkong, brought about eventually the confirmation of the cession by the Treaty of Nanking (August 29, 1843). For the latter, though not alluding to any previous cession, was virtually but a ratification of the action taken by the representatives of the British Government in taking possession of Hongkong (January 26, 1841) under the Treaty of Chuenpi.

Up to the day when the Island of Hongkong was taken possession of, the Imperial Commissioner Kishen appears to have acted in perfect good faith, honestly determined to make peace and to abide by the promises he had made at Tientsin, and by the purport of the truce concluded by Eleepoo at Chusan and confirmed by his own Treaty of Chuenpi. But on the day when Sir J. J. Gordon Bremer took possession of Hongkong (January 20, 1841), believing, with Elliot, that an era of peace was now being inaugurated, Kishen received an Imperial Edict which virtually nullified the Tientsin promises, the Chusan truce and the Chuenpi Treaty, and indicated a complete reversal of that policy which had been initiated by the Emperor whilst the British fleet threatened Tientsin and Peking,. The force of Lord Palmerston's arguments, as set forth in his dispatch, was in the fleet which presented the dispatch and not in the text of the latter. The order which Kishen now (January 20, 1841)