the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (A. Hay Anderson), the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China (W. Ormiston), the Commercial Bank of India (P. R. Harper), and the Oriental Bank Corporation (W. Lamond), indicates the views then taken of the growing prosperity of Hongkong. The broad international basis on which this new banking enterprise was constructed is observable from the names of the merchants who formed the provisional committee of the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank, viz. F. Chomley, A. F. Heard, Thomas Sutherland, G. F. Maclean, D. Lapraik, W. Nissen, H. B. Lemann, W. Schmidt, A. Sassoon, R. Brand, Pallanjee Framjee, W. Adamson, G. J. Helland, and Rustomjee Dhunjeeshaw. This new bank, whose first manager (V. Kresser) entered upon his duties on January 1, 1865, was the first to profit by the Limited Liability provisions of the Trading Companies' Ordinance (1 of 1865).
During the first four years of this period (1859 to 1862) the stream of Chinese emigrants, paying their own passage, continued to flow forth from Hongkong at an average rate of 12,166 emigrants per annum. Contract emigration was, since the year 1859, almost entirely confined to Macao or Whampoa, the only exception being the shipment of Chinese coolies to British Colonies. In September, 1861, an attempt was made to ship coolies under contract to some other place, but the Police seized the ship and liberated the coolies. The emigration agent for the British West Indies (J. Gardiner Austin) succeeded in securing (November 15, 1859), through the influence of Protestant missionaries, numbers of Chinese families for Demerara, whereas it had previously been asserted that Chinese women could not be induced to emigrate. As many as 2,756 respectable Chinese women were (with their husbands and children) shipped from Hongkong during those four years, and mostly to the West Indies. Unfortunately, however, San Francisco took advantage of this new departure and sent thenceforth for annually increasing numbers of single Chinese women, most of whom were probably required for immoral
