My copy of the Canton Register came on microfiche from the University of Chicago’s contractor and was copied onto CD-ROM for use on computer using the excellent Smartscan software of Wicks & Wilson of Basingstoke, England. This produced images readable by Kodak Imaging© software bundled with MS Windows©. I wish to thank Tommy Chiu and the staff of China System Co Ltd for their good professional service in making the CD-ROM copies.
The Bombay Courier came from the British Library’s newspaper collection and regrettably has some missing editions. A slight uncertainty also arises from the newspaper page order – it occasionally seemed that some items were commented on in the newspaper editorials before they were reported! Critical readers wishing to check an original entry in the newspaper might need to look at the previous or later issue as well as the referenced one.
For review of the Friend of China I used the copy at the Hong Kong Public Records Office and I am delighted to at last publicly give my sincere thanks to Ms Jessica Lau and her team for the unstinting help, friendly service and thoughtful advice they routinely provided.
The Yuen family of Hong Kong and Shek Lung, family friends for over twenty years, have been repeatedly helpful in arranging visits to the Sea Battle Museum, the Sha Kok fort and associated museum at Fu Mun, the country estates of some 19th century Chinese merchants and several villages that figure in the period covered by these newspaper articles. Thank you very much Yuen family, most particularly Yuen Sze Man, Leung Sau Chu and Leung Siu Man, for your time and friendship. Your help was important to me in completing this work.
I have to thank Ken Kwok and the members of the OFC, the private Hong Kong think-tank, for their repeatedly fascinating penetration of ‘things Chinese’ and their valuable insights into cultural proclivities. Their thoughtful guidance to me and the free way they have given of their time and advice has been like the pole star to early navigators – I doubt this endeavour would be anywhere near ready without it.
Valery Garrett, the well-known Hong Kong-based sinologist is (fortunately for me) married to an old school friend which has allowed me access that might ordinarily have been unavailable. She has been very helpful in advice to this novice author but has not seen anything of the draft.
Another old school friend, Anthony N C Griffiths, also a long-term Hong Kong resident now retired to England, has been patiently helpful in elucidating esoteric aspects of money matters but has not approved my understanding of his advice. As with Valery, I remain solely responsible for what I have written.
Exmo Sr Pedro Zanatti very kindly gave unstintingly of his time in discussing and enlarging on the contents of Forbaz’ Families of Macau, an immense Portuguese work in three volumes detailing all those many families who contributed to the history of that enclave.
There are other people who have helped in other ways. Robert Cochrane, Sanjoy Rajan and Jonathan Beard provided advice on economics. Chan Sui Jeung has been an endless source of esoteric knowledge about Kwangtung, Hong Kong and their histories. Marjie Bloy, who manages the PeelWeb (and more recently the inspiring and exhaustive site www.historyhome.co.uk) was helpful in many ways. As before, none of them has seen or approved the text.
The most arduous task was uploading the digitalised data to the web which turned-out not to be a simple process. Reinstating formatting that disappeared into the ether in transit required the whole thing be examined page-by-page and my dear son Tim was the unfortunate being on whom this Sisyphean task fell. Well done Tim.
My wife Angela has patiently tolerated my virtual absence for the many years required to read these newspapers, understand and edit articles, assemble this great dataset, review such confirmatory published works as were available and prepare this final edition. This generous support was essential to completion of the task.
Production of this last edition has been eased in recent years by Google’s digitalisation of many old texts and by the concurrent appearance on the web of many amateur historians’ work. I wish to mention Richard Heaton’s Newspaper Collection of old British Journals, Leigh Rayment’s list of past and present members of the Commons and the Lords – www.leighrayment.com – and Peter Higginbotham, who fathered the splendid and detailed www.workhouses.org.uk site. He also provided information on the sources of income available to those institutions.
Finally, a major part of this work involves The Great War between democracy and monarchy, a war which Britain financed and led. It has been a pleasure to see, two centuries after the events, that English-speakers can at last read a fair account of events from Andrew Roberts’ great works of 2014 – “Napoleon the Great” and “Napoleon, a Life”
Thank you all.