Captain Elliot and the Founding of Hong Kong

by Captain Elliot

  a copy of a memorandum I have caused to be read to the prisoners with the purpose of discouraging malingering … a column will be inserted on all lists of recommendation for Her Majesty’s clemency showing the actual number of days in each year that each candidate for release before the expiration of sentence has been in the actual performance of the work allotted to them.’49

  The tidying up completed, Elliot wrote to the Secretary of State saying that he had done all he had to do in Bermuda and that on his departure the administration of the government of Bermuda would devolve (temporarily) to Colonel Montgomery Williams, Royal Engineers. The Governor’s last formal communication was the standard certificate of attendance and diligence, suitably extended: ‘I certify that I have been in the execution of my duties from the 1st of January last to this 13th day of February, when I have embarked on the Brigantine Daphne to proceed to assume the Government of Trinidad.’50

  By most reckonings, Charles Elliot’s Governorship of Bermuda had been generally successful. He had not accomplished all he would have wished, particularly in so far as the colony’s machinery of governance was concerned, and his attempts to revive agriculture seem not to have had any enduring effect. The fortification of the naval base and the defensive development of the territory remained a work in progress for many years to come. A leading historian of Bermuda referred to the years 1839 to 1854 as ‘the great period of Reid and Elliot’.51 Whether or not that description is justified, Elliot’s work in widening educational opportunity in the colony is properly remembered as a significant achievement. Of at least equal importance were the initiatives he took to improve the conditions and prospects of the convict establishment, which were consonant with the eventual abolition of transportation to Bermuda, and with the evacuation of all convict prisoners by 1863. Elliot’s concern to alleviate the suffering caused by the yellow fever epidemic was much lauded in the Bermuda press, perhaps in the knowledge that his health had been problematic and could have resulted in his remaining in England for longer, proceeding then direct to Trinidad instead of returning to Bermuda.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Back to the Caribbean

  In the twenty-five years since Charles Elliot completed his active service in the Royal Navy much had changed in the West Indies. The apprentice system which had replaced slavery in several British colonies after its formal end in 1834 had been followed in Trinidad and elsewhere by an influx of thousands of labourers from Asia, largely India and China. The hope was that this process of replacing the enslaved workforce would lead to the restoration of the sugar and cocoa-based economy of the island to its previous level of prosperity. Though less affected by the economic consequences of emancipation than several other West Indian colonies, it took Trinidad’s sugar industry some twenty years to recover. The immigration from many different European, African, Arab and Asian cultures which was in full flow during the 1850s continued into the twentieth century.

  Since 1797 when the British took the island from the Spanish, an acquisition ratified by the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, there had been nine substantive (as opposed to interim acting) Governors of Trinidad. They had ranged from the controversial and harsh (Colonel Thomas Picton) to the benevolent and enlightened (Lord Harris).1 Harris was Elliot’s immediate predecessor, in office from 1846 to 1854. A man of considerable private means, some of which he used for the benefit of the colony, he is remembered in Trinidad as a progressive innovator who was responsible for improving the infrastructure and educational provision of the island. As in Bermuda, it was Elliot’s lot to follow a highly successful governor. Unlike Bermuda, however, Trinidad was despite Harris’s reforms not a happy environment in which to live. The island’s abundant natural resources suffered from inefficient management and the islanders felt neglected by the British government. Harris had himself written to Grey in 1848 of the downturn in Trinidad’s economic fortunes, that it was

  pitiable indeed to witness a fine colony daily deteriorating; a land enjoying almost every blessing under heaven, suffering from a shock from which it does not rally; but the deepest pang of all to an Englishman, is to see the hearts and affections of a whole population becoming alienated from the country which he loves.2

  It was no surprise to Elliot when he arrived in 1854 to find that the colony had not yet fully recovered from the yellow fever epidemic which had swept the Caribbean and spread to Bermuda and elsewhere. In one of its regular news reports, ‘From the West Indies’, the Bermuda Royal Gazette had drawn particular attention in September 1853 to the prevalence of the disease in Trinidad.3 Of even greater concern was an outbreak of cholera later in 1854, which spread alarmingly quickly throughout the island. In the capital, Port of Spain, the population was literally decimated. Not until news came from Britain that cholera had been shown to be a water-borne disease could effective action, including the filling in of wells near cesspits and the installation of water pipes, be taken to stem the epidemic.

  The recently arrived Elliot family, now comprising Charles, Clara, 17-year-old Freddy and 14-year-old Emma, attempted to settle into their new surroundings. The task was made difficult by the Governor’s residence, which had – like many other dwellings on the island – fallen into a state of serious disrepair. Yet the lushness and tropical beauty of the environment made a deep impression. The sense of wonder overcome by intense frustration is vividly and entertainingly described by Freddy, writing to his aunt Emma:

  My mother tells me that you want a long and true account of Trinidad. Accordingly I begin by telling you it is a paradise, but, as some person said, the paradise of toads and lizards, of which I think there are more in this island than in any place I have visited. The country is precisely beautiful, more than partly, and not sublime, at least in its present state, for I have not yet seen it in what is called the ‘dry season’. The town, Port of Spain, is the best built in the West Indies, and boasts a church which would be beautiful anywhere … we found the house [the Governor’s residence] in the most complete state of dilapidation … the Honourable the Council has, I am told, been spending 500 a year on it, which does not say much for the brightness of their wit…. My mother was, as she generally is after a sea voyage, very unwell, for nearly a month, however, (as I foretold) she recovered, and is now getting things a little in order. They have nearly (this hole being at last condemned) finished a little cottage for us, in the grounds. It will be very pretty, and I am afraid very hot, an inadequate residence for the Governor of an Island like this, who has to give dinners of more than 20, and balls of 500 people; our servants alone are twelve in number without gardeners…

  The various views are exquisite … the colouring is gorgeous, which seems to be effected through the atmosphere, for a ribbon, faded in England, becomes vivid here. Scarcely a tree but has its blossom, some yellow, some red, &c. You may picture the effect produced by such trees, mingling their colours with the masses of different shades of green, high up on the mountains, and the whole contrasted with the very blue sky…. But Trinidad, though so beautiful, is somehow a country in which few people can live, without being by turns, horribly irritable, and desperately indolent. The Island, as well as most individuals, is deeply in debt, so my father has the pleasant task of reducing, modifying, regulating, and all that style of thing. In fact, he comes rather unfortunately after Lord H –– who having his private income, could well afford to spend all his salary in the country…. Here ends my history of Trinidad…. My opinion is, taking all things into consideration, that the sooner we get out of this place the better for there is a kind of continual oppression which affects people more or less, being to some a kind of punishment very like the dripping of water on the head, very pleasant at first, but becoming unbearable.4

  Despite the developments initiated by Governor Harris, Trinidad remained in urgent need of further infrastructural improvement. Obtaining Colonial Office sanction for the money needed to achieve them was a continuing matter of argument with London. Harris, perhaps in the knowl
edge that if absolutely necessary he could find more cash from his own resources, had frequently spent first and sought permission later. A polite but firm note to Harris from the Parliamentary Under Secretary, Frederick Peel, is illustrative:

  I am to state to you … that the Duke of Newcastle has no authority to sanction the very wide variations stated to exist between the estimated and actual expenditure of the years 1852 and 1853 – but His Grace will be happy to transmit to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury any explanations of the several items which Your Lordship may wish to offer in addition to the notes which you have affixed to some of them in the return.5

  Elliot too had plans for the public good requiring more funds than were immediately available, but he also needed adequately to house himself and his family. The cottage to which Freddy referred in his letter, though newly built and in good condition, was not fit for purpose. More accommodation was needed; the urgency was such that Governor Elliot committed the additional expenditure without delay. Having received a statement of justification from Elliot, Newcastle was sympathetic. Merivale passed on to the Treasury Elliot’s explanation that ‘the enlargement of this cottage was a work of urgent necessity inasmuch as the Government House was in such a state of dilapidation as to be dangerous.’ and with a bureaucratic flourish informed the Lords Commissioners that ‘Under these circumstances the Duke of Newcastle is of the opinion that Governor Elliot was justified by the 11 Art. Chap.X Sec. 1 of the Rules and Regulations in taking this Vote of £700 without previous Authority from the Secretary of State.’6,7

  For financing public works on the island, Elliot adhered to the procedural book. What was now required, a need made all the more urgent by the yellow fever epidemic, was more hospitals. He sought from Britain financial authorisation for new hospitals at Port of Spain (£7,000) and the second town San Fernando (£2,000), along with a ‘lunatic asylum’ (£3,000) at the former and a jail (£2,000) at the latter. Merivale informed Sir Charles Trevelyan at the Treasury that

  To meet this expenditure Governor Elliot recommends that authority should be given to the Legislative Council [of Trinidad] to raise a loan of £15,000 of debentures on the credit of the Colony & he encloses a Resolution of the Council pledging themselves to make good the payment of such loan and interest upon it.8,9

  Merivale added that the Secretary of State (now Sir George Grey) was not prepared to propose a Treasury guarantee for the loan, but would recommend that the Trinidad authority should go ahead as suggested by Elliot subject to a moderate rate of interest of the order of six per cent.10 There were also other construction initiatives, not all of which came to fruition. One which did was the canal known as Hart’s Cut at Chaguaramas in the north-west of Trinidad, a shortcut which benefited fishermen and other local sailors. A scheme to export timber for shipbuilding for the Royal Navy was envisaged, but samples sent to Portsmouth and Woolwich were found not hardy enough for the English climate. Unsurprisingly, given his naval background and the prominence of the navy during his years in China and Bermuda, its role and requirements were for Elliot an abiding interest. He was keen to persuade his masters in London of the strategic potential of Trinidad, in particular for the development of Chaguaramas Bay as a naval base.11 His was a lone voice on this subject in the colony; one of the leading merchants described his attention to strategic possibilities as a ‘peculiar hobby’.12

  The government of Trinidad at colony level was now, thanks again partly to changes implemented by Lord Harris, organised on what became a common pattern for Crown colonies – Governor, and Executive Council and Legislative Council with overlapping ex officio membership. Local government, however, was in Elliot’s view in need of further reform. Each of the main organisational units, the wards, had its own warden but there were thirty-nine of them. Even though the island had, for purposes of government, been divided in two by Harris, nineteen or twenty wards in each part were too many for effective communication with the colonial authorities. An Ordinance was passed in August 1854,‘making certain amendments and alterations to the warden’s ordinance, and making it lawful for the governor to form such and so many wards as he shall see fit into ward unions, and to appoint one warden for the several wards comprised in such union’.13 The resulting scheme consisted of nine ward unions of two to six wards each, with a warden appointed for each Union.

  During the first year of his term of office, from March 1854 into the early months of 1855, Elliot was at his most proactive as Governor. That this period of activity was relatively short can be attributed to several factors, personal as well as professional, which subsequently required him to react and manage rather than promote and innovate. He was left with little or no room for advancing the progress of the island. Compared with Bermuda, Trinidad was strategically unimportant to Britain, and presented different challenges for a governor. With ten times the land area, its population was seven times the size, growing rapidly through immigration, and racially complex; the full economic benefits of its mostly fertile soil and tropical climate had yet to materialise; and as noted above its infrastructure, despite improvements, was still inadequate.14 The colony required committed leadership and governance, and resources to match. Elliot was now in his mid-fifties. He had made a good start to his Governorship, but continued to be prone to bouts of illness. He was also increasingly worried about his family, in particular his wife’s health and his children’s education and prospects, and about money. Promotion to rear admiral on the Reserve List did little to lift his spirits.15 As always in times of stress or despondency, his letters to his elder sister became more frequent and more anxious for response. When he became especially agitated he was not beyond a little sarcasm:

  My dearest Emy, I know you have resolutely determined every day for the last five weeks to congratulate me on this step towards one’s last [?] that I have just taken – But the moment slipped by, and I let you off with the fellow feeling that the spirit was strong, but the – pen – weak.16

  In this gloomy mood, Elliot’s time in China, never far from his thoughts, became again a matter for explicit comment. He wrote

  I have always, in my [?account] of events, congratulated myself that the overland post was not in existence as far as China (at least) when I was there. If the Chinese, Gough, Senhouse, et hoc genus omne, had been reinforced by leading articles from the ‘Times’ a month old then the land force would have [?walked] away or been burnt up in the flames.17

  Freddy, who never felt settled in Trinidad and was now 18, went home to England to his aunt Emma in August 1855. The many letters from Charles to his sister between July and November contained repeated concerns about Freddy and his future, but the anxieties were in reality as much to do with the possible financial impact on Elliot himself as with what was best for his son. He was emphatic at this point that Freddy should not go to Haileybury. He pleaded with Emma that

  all applications for a Haileybury appointment would be quite useless in the first place, and are quite contrary to my wishes for Freddy if that were not the case. If Freddy can win an Indian appointment by his own efforts I shall be greatly pleased, both for his own sake and for mine.18

  Nevertheless, by the end of November he seems, very reluctantly, to have been persuaded that Haileybury was the right way forward. After a taxing time dealing with the cholera outbreak and continuing to be dogged by family worries, a confused depression had taken hold. He wrote to Emma:

  I am meditating retirement from public life, for I do not see what I have to struggle for.The government could not issue me with a pension … the difficulty I shall find in meeting the cost of Freddy’s education at Haileybury and his outfit. Clara and the child [Emma] ought to go for home this spring, and I do not I think have the heart to remain without them…. If I do go to Europe in 1856, I should proceed via the W.I. to France; and then Hatty would come and see us.19

  He was not contemplating going to England, he said, because,‘I should certainly not risk refusal by asking the government for any
further employment, and having nothing to collect from them, I may spare myself the [?hurt] and [?calumny] of an English journey’.20

  Following the organisational and public building initiatives of his first few months and the cholera epidemic, Governor Elliot found himself under sustained pressure from radical activists. From the start of British administration in Trinidad there had been repeated requests for some form of representative government, all of which had been refused. Elliot was sent a memorandum early in 1855 from residents seeking constitutional change for the island, which he forwarded to the Colonial Office. The reform being pursued included involvement in government by the educated minority, essentially, the planters, a development to which Elliot was firmly opposed. The way forward, he believed, was not the immediate representation of a privileged group, but the eventual enfranchisement of the population as a whole. As he put it: ‘The disciplined and griping spirit of a narrow Corporation is always more hurtful to a community than the temporary and capricious excitements of enlarged constituencies, ignorant and impressionable as they may be’.21 His message to the Colonial Office was that Trinidad was simply not yet ready for full representative government. The population was ‘rapidly strengthening not in increasing proportions of intelligence and capital, but by a Heathen Immigration, and as regards the Immigration from the neighbouring regions for the most part by indigent and ignorant people’.22

  The radicals’ ambitions derived added impetus from the parlous economic state of the colony. The twin threats of reduced public expenditure and higher taxes reinforced their desire for representation. Low prices in Europe during the first six months of 1854 had depressed the island’s income, added to which the government in London was exerting renewed pressure to balance Trinidad’s books, a strategy fully supported by the new Governor. The Treasury had minuted the Colonial Office at the start of the year with a shot across the bows, trusting that the individual measures proposed by Lord Harris would ‘have the effect of raising a Revenue at least equal to the estimated Expenditure’.23 Should that not be the case, it would