Kowloon was happily an accomplished fact which he could not undo. Accordingly he arranged in his Peking Convention (October 24, 1860) that the lease of Kowloon should be cancelled and that the peninsula should 'with a view to the maintenance of law and order in and about the harbour of Hongkong, be ceded to H.M. the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Her heirs and successors, to have and to hold as a Dependency of Her Britannic Majesty's Colony of Hongkong.' It was further stipulated in this Convention that Chinese claims to property on the peninsula should be duly investigated by a Mixed Commission and payment awarded to any Chinese (whose claims might be established) if their removal should be deemed necessary. In pursuance of these stipulations a Commission was appointed (December 26, 1860) and the ceremony of handing over Kowloon Peninsula to the British Crown was solemnly performed (January 19, 1861) in the presence of a large assembly and some 2,000 troops. One of the Cantonese Mandarins delivered a paper full of soil to Lord Elgin in token of the cession. Sir Hercules and Lady Robinson and Sir H. Parkes assisted at this function and the royal standard was hoisted amid the cheers of the assembly and the thunders of salutes fired by the men-of-war in the harbour and by a battery on Stonecutters' Island. This was the last official act performed in China by Lord Elgin who with unfeigned relief left Hongkong forthwith (January 21, 1861) for England by way of Manila and Batavia. His name was perpetuated in Hongkong by its being given to a terrace which at the time was a fashionable quarter of the town. Sir H. Robinson had appointed Mr. Ch. May to act as British Commissioner in conjunction with some Chinese deputies to adjust native claims and to mark out the boundary, for which purpose he was assisted by Mr. Bird of the Royal Engineers' Department, who surveyed and mapped out the whole peninsula. But now arose the question how to allot the ground between the Colony, the Army and Navy. Sir Hercules appointed for this purpose a Board in which Mr. Ch. St. G. Cleverly represented the Civil Government, Colonel Mann, R.E., the Army, and Captain Borlase, R.N., the
