Page:Europe in China.djvu/200

182 gracious and royal pleasure, the harbour of Hongkong (like that of Chusan) should be considered a free port and that no manner of customs, port duties or any other charges, should be levied on any ships or vessels of whatever nation or on their cargoesHe then proceeded (February 15, 1842) to Macao and removed the whole establishment of the Superintendency of Trade from thence to Hongkong (February 27, 1842). The staff of this Department (under Mr. A. R. Johnston, as Deputy Superintendent), consisted of E. Elmslie (Secretary and Treasurer), J. R. Morrison (Chinese Secretary and Interpreter), L. d'Almada e Castro, A. W. Elmslie, and J. M. d'Almada e Castro (Clerks), Rev. Ch. Gützlaff and R. Thom (Joint Interpreters), J. B. Rodriguez, W. H. Medhurst, and Kazigachi Kiukitchi (Clerks). These two measures of Sir Henry, the removal of the Superintendency to Hongkong, and the encouragement he held out, by the confirmation of the freedom of the port, to Chinese and foreign vessels to resort to Hongkong, were generally viewed, in combination with the purchase of the Commissariat Buildings, and the large sums now spent in the erection of barracks, hospitals, naval and victualling stores, as an indirect intimation that the settlement on Hongkong would sooner or later receive official recognition as a British Colony. Even the news of the debate which took place in the House of Commons on the subject (March 15, 1842), unsatisfactory as it was, did not shake the faith now generally placed in the future of Hongkong. For the words of Sir Robert Peel (who had meanwhile stepped into the place of Lord Palmerston) 'that, really, during the progress of hostilities in China, he must decline to commit the Government by answering the question as to what were the intentions of the Government regarding the Island of Hongkong,' were read by the residents in the light of the above measures of Sir H. Pottinger.

Ever since this belief in the permanency of the British occupation of Hongkong gained ground, some of the leading British merchants, instead of merely opening branch offices at Hongkong, began to break up their establishments at Macao