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186 be sure to bring sooner or later a ratification of the cession of Hongkong, regarding which he stated in a dispatch to Lord Stanley (July 17, 1843) that he had always been of opinion that the sole or at least chief object of it was to secure an emporium of trade. The fact that Sir H. Pottinger's measures all rested on the assumption that the occupation of Hongkong would never be annulled, gave a fresh impetus to the growth of the settlement. In March, 1842, the population, then estimated at over 15,000 people, was stated to include 12,361 Chinese, mostly labourers and artizans, attracted to Hongkong by the high wages obtainable here, and numbers of large buildings were reported to be in course of erection. The Central Market, then South of Queen's Road, opposite its present site, was formally opened (June 10, 1842) and farmed out to a Chinaman (Afoon); all the roads were improved and extended, a good road, in the direction of Stanley, completed as far as Taitamtuk (June, 1842), and a picnic house built at Little Hongkong by Mr. Johnston, Major Caine and a number of other private subscribers.

Apart from all these signs of material progress, there are also evidences of the higher interests of religion and education receiving now recognition and attention in Hongkong. The building of a Roman Catholic church was commenced, in June 1842, on a site in Wellington Street granted by Government. A Baptist chapel was opened in Queen's Road (July 7, 1842) by the Rev. J. L. Schuck, by subscriptions obtained from the foreign residents and visitors. The Morrison Education Society of Canton and Macao, which for years past had supported various Mission Schools in the Straits and in China by money grants and (in 1841) started at Macao a training school (under Mr. and Mrs. Brown), now arranged to remove its establishment to Hongkong and commenced (October, 1842) building a large house on Morrison Hill on a site granted by Sir H. Pottinger (February 22, 1842), who became the patron of the institution (April 5, 1842). In autumn 1842, a Naval Chaplain, Mr. Phelps and Mr. A. R. Johnston started a subscription by means of which a room was erected on the site of the present Parade ground