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240 opium, driven away from Hongkong by the measures of Sir H. Pottinger, was for some time conducted at Whampoa and, on being forced away thence, by a crusade instituted through the Canton Consuls at the instance of the Canton monopolists of the sulphur trade, took refuge at Kapsingmoon near Macao. The Kapsingmoon anchorage being unsafe during the N.E. monsoon, the Hongkong merchants were hoping to procure the return of the trade to their port, when the establishment of an opium farm by Sir J. Davis frustrated their design. Arrangements had been made by some merchants to introduce silk-weaving establishments into the Colony, but the scheme was abandoned in despair when it became apparent that the Governor, with his passion for fiscal exactions, would certainly tax the looms. Competition and trade rivalries, between the merchants established in the Treaty ports of China and those who remained at Hongkong, became intensified by bitter feelings of jealousy. It was publicly stated (August 1, 1846) that Canton merchants had been for some time instructing their correspondents in England to stipulate that vessels by which they shipped goods for the different Treaty ports of China should first come to Whampoa and there discharge goods for Canton before proceeding to Hongkong. In retaliation for this measure, and in their despair at seeing free trade principles overwhelmed by a flood of Government monopolies, Hongkong merchants now broke faith with the established free trade creed of their predecessors and began themselves to look out for protectionist measures to re-establish the decaying commerce of the Colony. Free trade was now looked upon as a bright dream of the past, and it was seriously proposed to agitate, as Captain Elliot had done in June 1841, for an Act of Parliament declaring that for ten years all teas shipped at Hongkong would be protected in Great Britain by a differential duty of one penny per pound on congous and twopence on the finer sorts. This scheme was urged upon the Secretary of State by Hongkong merchants residing in London, and several letters appeared in the Times (December 9 and 24, 1846) advocating the imposition of a