ABSTRACT
The British colonists had few resources and fewer set plans for the government of Hong Kong. The years 1841–1843, before the formal establishment of Hong Kong as a colony and the appointment of a Governor, were particularly years of ‘make do and see’, also years when order superseded law as the administration’s priority. Thus, the colonists remained ‘consistent opponents of giving the administration of the law into Chinese hands’. However, the colonial government in Hong Kong used the police and the military to do any and every administrative or practical task required at the time. As the foregoing implies in colonial rule, the composition of the police force reflected a tension between the need to keep the costs of the colony down and the elite’s distrust of the local population. Elite resistance to Hennessey’s policy of ‘equality for the Chinese that as soon as he left the colony, such practices were abandoned and only non-local police officers were allowed to carry arms.
