The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, Vol. I (of 2) - As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, - K.C.B., D.C.L., Many Years Consul and Minister in China

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Title: The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, Vol. I (of 2) - As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, - K.C.B., D.C.L., Many Years Consul and Minister in China - and Japan
Author: Michie, Alexander
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, Vol. I (of 2) - As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, - K.C.B., D.C.L., Many Years Consul and Minister in China - and Japan" ***

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Internet Archive)

Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

In the caption to the illustration facing page 370, KOLENGSOO
should possibly be KULANGSU.

THE ENGLISHMAN IN CHINA

CHAP. XXIII.: Tsze-kung asked, saying, "Is there one word which may
serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?" The Master said, "Is
not RECIPROCITY such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do
not do to others."

[Illustration: Mr Alcock, at the age of 34.
from a drawing by L. A. de Fabeck, 1843.
Walker & Cockerell ph. sc.]

THE ENGLISHMAN IN CHINA
DURING THE VICTORIAN ERA

AS ILLUSTRATED IN
THE CAREER OF
SIR RUTHERFORD ALCOCK, K.C.B., D.C.L.
MANY YEARS CONSUL AND MINISTER IN
CHINA AND JAPAN

BY
ALEXANDER MICHIE

AUTHOR OF
'THE SIBERIAN OVERLAND ROUTE,' 'MISSIONARIES
IN CHINA,' ETC.

VOL. I.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCC

_All Rights reserved_

PREFACE.

Reminiscences of the Far East called up by the death of Sir Rutherford
Alcock in November 1897 prompted the writer to send a contribution on
the subject to 'Blackwood's Magazine.' Being appreciated by the
family, the article suggested to them some more substantial memorial
of the deceased statesman, a scheme with which the writer fell in the
more readily that it seemed to harmonise with the task which friends
had been already urging upon him--that of writing some account of
occurrences in the Far East during his own residence there. For there
was no other name round which these events could be so consistently
grouped during the thirty years when British policy was a power in
that part of the world. As Consul and Minister Alcock was so
interwoven with the history of the period that neither the life of the
man nor the times in which he lived could be treated apart. And the
personal element renders his connection with Far Eastern affairs
particularly instructive, for, combining the highest executive
qualities with a philosophic grasp of the problems with which he had
to deal, he at the same time possessed the faculty of exposition,
whereby the vital relation between the theoretical and the practical
sides of Far Eastern politics was made plain. The student may thus
draw his lessons equally from the actions and the reflections of this
great official.

The life history of Sir Rutherford Alcock is that of the progressive
development of a sterling character making in all circumstances the
most of itself, self-reliant, self-supporting, without friends or
fortune, without interest or advantage of any kind whatsoever. From
first to last the record is clear, without sediment or anything
requiring to be veiled or extenuated. Every achievement, great or
small, is stamped with the hall-mark of duty, of unfaltering devotion
to the service of the nation and to the interests of humanity.

A copious and facile writer, he has left singularly little in the way
of personal history. The only journal he seems ever to have kept was
consigned by him to oblivion, a few early dates and remarks having
alone been rescued. When in recent years he was approached by friends
on the subject of auto-biography, he was wont to reply, "My life is in
my work; by that I am content to be remembered." We must needs
therefore take him at his word and judge by the fruit what was the
nature of the tree.

In the following work the reader may trace in more or less continuous
outline the stages by which the present relation between China and
foreign nations has been reached. In the earlier portion the course of
events indicated is comparatively simple, being confined to
Anglo-Chinese developing into Anglo-Franco-Chinese relations. In the
latter portion, corresponding roughly with the second volume, the
stream becomes subdivided into many collateral branches, as all the
Western nations and Japan, with their separate interests, came to
claim their share, each in its own way, of the intercourse with China.
It is hoped that the data submitted to the reader will enable him to
draw such conclusions as to past transactions as may furnish a basis
for estimating future probabilities.

The scope of the work being restricted to the points of contact
between China and the rest of the world, nothing recondite is
attempted, still less is any enigma solved. It is the belief of the
author that the so-called Chinese mystery has been a source of
needless mystification; that the relation between China and the outer
world was intrinsically simple; and that to have worked from the basis
of their resemblances to the rest of humanity would have been a
shorter way to an amicable understanding with the Chinese than the
crude attempt to accommodate Western procedure to the uncomprehended
differences which divided them. It needed no mastery of their
sociology to keep the Chinese strictly to their written engagements
and to deter them from outrage. But discussion was the invitation to
laxity; and laxity, condoned and pampered, then defiant and
triumphant, lies at the root of the disasters which have befallen the
Chinese Empire itself, and now threaten to recoil also upon the
foreign nations which are responsible for them. This responsibility
was never more tersely summed up than by Mr Burlingame in his capacity
of Chinese Envoy. After sounding the Foreign Office that astute
diplomatist was able to inform the Tsungli-Yamên in 1869 that "the
British Government was so friendly and pacific that they would endure
anything." The dictum, though true, was fatal, and the operation of it
during thirty subsequent years explains most that has happened during
that period, at least in the relations between China and Great
Britain.

A word as to the orthography may be useful to the reader. The
impossibility of transliterating Chinese sounds into any alphabetical
language causes great confusion in the spelling of names. A uniform
system would indeed be most desirable, but common practice has already
fixed so many of them that it seems better, in a book intended for
general reading, not to depart too much from the conventional usage,
or attempt to follow any scientific system, which must, after all, be
based upon mispronunciation of the Chinese sounds.

As regards personal names, it may be convenient to call attention to
the distinction between Chinese and Manchu forms. In the case of the
former the custom is to write the _nomen_, or family name, separately,
and the _pre-nomen_ (which by Chinese practice becomes the
_post-nomen_) by itself, and, when it consists of two characters,
separated by a hyphen--_e.g._, Li (_nomen_) Hung-chang (_post-nomen_).
In the case of Manchus, who are known not by a family name, but by
what may be termed, for want of a better expression, their
_pre-nomen_, it is customary to write the name in one word, without
hyphens--for example, Kiying, Ilipu. As the Chinese name usually
consists of three characters or syllables, and the Manchu usually of
two, the form of name affords a _prima facie_ indication of the
extraction of the personage referred to. Polysyllabic names, as
San-ko-lin-sin, are generally Mongol.

The sovereign is not referred to by name, the terms Kwanghsu,
Tungchih, and so forth, being the Chinese characters chosen to
designate, or, as we might say, idealise the reign, in the same way as
impersonal titles are selected for houses of business.

I desire to express my deep obligation to Sir Rutherford Alcock's
stepdaughter Amy, Lady Pelly, without whose efficient aid the book
could not have been compiled. It is a subject of regret to all
concerned that Lady Alcock herself did not live to see the completion
of a task in the inception of which she took a keen and loving
interest.

To the other friends who have in different ways helped in the
production of the book, and particularly to Mr William Keswick, M.P.,
for the loan of his valuable Chinnery and Crealock drawings, my best
thanks are due.

A. M.
LONDON, _November 2nd, 1900_.

_Postscript._--The legend on the front cover is a
paraphrase of Chapter xxiii., Book xv., of the Analects of
Confucius, Dr Legge's translation of which has been adopted
by me as the motto of these volumes.

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

CHAP. PAGE

I. THE ARMY SURGEON--
I. YOUTH 1
II. THE PENINSULA, 1832-1837 8
III. ENGLAND, 1838-1844 23

II. SENT TO CHINA 29
FOREIGN RELATIONS WITH CHINA 31

III. ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR--
I. THE OPIUM TRADE 42
II. THE SEQUEL TO THE SURRENDER OF OPIUM 55

IV. THE FIRST CHINA WAR, 1839-1842 60

V. THE TREATY OF 1842 78

VI. THE FRUITS OF THE WAR AND PROSPECTS OF PEACE 86

VII. THE NEW INTERCOURSE: CANTON, 1842-1847 93

VIII. THE NEW TREATY PORTS--FOOCHOW, AMOY, NINGPO 112

IX. SHANGHAI 124
I. THE TSINGPU AFFAIR 129
II. REBELLION 135
III. THE CHINESE MARITIME CUSTOMS 143
IV. CREATION OF THE FOREIGN CUSTOMS 149
V. MR ALCOCK'S DEPARTURE FROM SHANGHAI 156

X. CONSUL ALCOCK'S VIEWS ON GENERAL POLICY 161

XI. TRADE UNDER THE TREATY OF NANKING 167
I. TEA 178
II. SILK 187
III. OPIUM 191
IV. CHINESE EXPORTS 200
V. BRITISH EXPORTS 203
VI. NATIVE TRADE 207

XII. SHIPPING 211

XIII. THE TRADERS--
I. FOREIGN 248
II. CHINESE 263

XIV. HONGKONG 271

XV. MACAO 287

XVI. PIRACY 299

XVII. THE ARROW WAR 308
I. THE EARL OF ELGIN AND HIS MISSION 320
II. LORD ELGIN'S SECOND MISSION 349

XVIII. INTERCOURSE UNDER THE TREATIES OF 1858 AND 1860--
I. THE DIPLOMATIC OVERTURE 361
II. NEW PORTS AND OPENING OF YANGTZE 369
III. ADMIRAL HOPE'S POLICY TOWARDS INSURGENTS 375
IV. THE LAY-OSBORN FLOTILLA 387
V. THE END OF THE REBELLION 392
VI. EVACUATION OF CANTON 396
VII. DEATH OF THE EMPEROR 397
VIII. INFLUENCE OF THESE EVENTS ON PROGRESS OF
DIPLOMACY 398

APPENDIX.

I. NOTE ON OUR PRESENT POSITION AND THE STATE OF OUR
RELATIONS WITH CHINA, BY CONSUL ALCOCK, JANUARY
19, 1849 411

II. CONFIDENTIAL DESPATCH BY CONSUL ALCOCK TO SIR GEORGE
BONHAM, JANUARY 13, 1852 428

III. CONFIDENTIAL DESPATCH TO SIR GEORGE BONHAM, DATED JUNE
17, 1852. (EXTRACT) 432

IV. ACCOUNT OF THE SALT TRADE ANNEXED TO MR PARKES' SUMMARY
OF THE NATIVE MARITIME TRADE OF FOOCHOW,
1846. (EXTRACTS) 439

ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE FIRST VOLUME.

PAGE

MR RUTHERFORD ALCOCK AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-FOUR. _Frontispiece_
From a drawing by L. A. de Fabeck.

MACAO 48

H.M. SHIPS IMOGEN AND ANDROMACHE PASSING BOCCA TIGRIS
BATTERIES 70

THE LAKES, NINGPO 114

THE FIRST CONSULAR RESIDENCE AT FOOCHOW 116

BRIDGE OVER RIVER MIN 120

THE SECOND CONSULAR RESIDENCE AT FOOCHOW, 1848 122

BAMBOO BRIDGE AT FOOCHOW 124

COUNTRY WATERWAY NEAR SHANGHAI 126

ENTRANCE TO SZE-KING, NEAR SHANGHAI 136

RUSTIC SCENE NEAR SHANGHAI 156

VILLAGE ON THE CANALS 200

DENT'S VERANDAH, MACAO 294

GEORGE CHINNERY 298
From an oil-painting by himself.

SIR FREDERICK BRUCE 348

MR LOCH DEPARTS FROM PEKING FOR ENGLAND WITH CHINESE
TREATY 354

MONSEIGNEUR MOUILLI 356

FIRST BRITISH CONSULATE AT KOLENGSOO, 1844 370

MAPS.

MAP OF CANTON WATERS 62

YANGTZE AND GRAND CANAL 75

MOUTH OF YANGTZE AND CHUSAN ARCHIPELAGO 132

ROADS AND WATERWAYS BETWEEN PEKING AND TIENTSIN 331

THE ENGLISHMAN IN CHINA.

CHAPTER I.

THE ARMY SURGEON.

I. YOUTH.

Birth at Ealing -- Motherless childhood -- Feeble health --
Irregular schooling -- Medical education -- Student days in
Paris -- Wax-modelling -- Admission to College of Surgeons
-- House Surgeon at Westminster Hospital.

Born in the same year as Mr Gladstone, May 1809, John Rutherford
Alcock[1] predeceased that statesman by only six months. His
birthplace was Ealing, and he died in Westminster, after a residence
there in retirement of twenty-seven years. Being a delicate infant, he
was baptised in Ealing church when one day old. His childhood was
deprived of its sunshine by the loss of his mother, and it does not
appear that his father, a medical man of some note, and an artist to
boot, was equal to filling the void in the young life. Consequently
boyhood had for him none of the halo of a golden age, but was, on the
contrary, a grey and cheerless memory, furnishing tests of hardihood
rather than those glowing aspirations which generally kindle young
ambitions.

His early life was passed with relatives in the north of England, and
he went to school at Hexham, where he had for companions Sir John
Swinburne and Mr Dawson Lambton.

Of his school-days there is little to remark. Indeed his early
education seems to have been most irregular, having been subject to
long and frequent interruptions on account of ill-health, which
necessitated sea-voyages and other changes of air. Nevertheless the
diligence which was part of his nature compensated for these drawbacks
of his youth, and set its seal on his whole after-career.

On returning to his father's house at the age of fifteen, the boy began
his medical education, being, according to the fashion of the day,
apprenticed to his father, and at the same time entered as a student
at the Westminster Hospital and the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic
Hospital under that distinguished surgeon, G. J. Guthrie. His passion
for art had already asserted itself, and he was enabled to indulge it
by constant visits to Chantrey's studio, where, "amid the musical
sounds of the chisel on the marble, with snatches of airs from the
workmen, where all breathed a calm and happy repose, he passed
delightful hours." His half-holidays were spent at Chantrey's in
modelling.

In the following year he visited Paris, and seems ever after to have
looked back on the gay city as a kind of paradise, for there the world
first really opened to the young man of sixteen. Then began that life
of work and enjoyment, so blended as to be inseparable, which
continued without intermission for more than seventy years. In the
stimulating atmosphere of Paris, and its free and independent life,
the boy's faculties rapidly developed. He seemed, indeed, to expand
suddenly into full manhood. Destined for the medical profession, he
worked hard at anatomy, chemistry, and natural history, while taking
also a keen interest in artistic and literary subjects; mastered
French and Italian; and, in short, turned his twelve or eighteen
months' sojourn to highly practical account.

From a small pocket-book containing notes of the journey to France,
and part of his work in Paris, we give some extracts illustrative of
the boy's character and powers of observation.

It was on the 17th of August 1825 that the party embarked at the
Custom-House Stairs for Calais, the voyage occupying fourteen hours.
On landing the lad "amused himself by observing the effects in the sky
and the sea, and by picking up shells, bones of birds and animals,
which having remained in the sea until perfectly clean, looked
beautiful and white as ivory." Simple things interested him, and after
dinner at the Hôtel Meurice in Paris he "listened with much pleasure
to a man playing airs on what he called an American flute"--which he
goes on to describe: "The tones were mellow in the extreme, and the
airs he played I think were much superior in sweetness to any I have
ever heard from an instrument so clear," and so on. Obviously a
subjective impression; it is his own emancipation that beautifies the
simplest things and inspires the simplest sounds. Like the
convalescent in Gray--

"The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise."

On his first Sunday in Paris he was "much struck with the beauty of
the paintings and a great number of pieces sculptured in
_bas-relief_." Then he walked in the gardens of the Tuileries, "which
in extent, in statues and in fountains, in the appearance of it taking
it altogether, far exceeded anything my imagination had conceived
concerning it."

At Versailles he was "highly delighted with many of the paintings. The
gardens are extremely extensive and the fountains very numerous; ...
but it is all extremely artificial, and therefore soon fatigues the
eye." In these slight observations are perceptible the artistic
instinct and sense of fitness, faculties which served him so admirably
in his future work, and might have won him distinction in other fields
than those in which his lot was ultimately cast.

He was in Paris for a serious purpose, the study of medicine and
surgery, and seriously he followed it. At the same time he mixed
freely in the artistic and literary society of the French capital, and
left none of his talents uncultivated. A characteristic incident in
his educational career was his mastering the art of modelling in wax
and in plaster. Following up his experiments in Chantrey's studio, he
took regular lessons in Paris, and attained such proficiency that,
young as he was, he was able to maintain himself while in that city by
the sale of his anatomical models. For one of these he mentions
receiving fifty guineas, and a few years after "for two arms and two
legs the size of life" he notes receiving 140 guineas. These also won
for him distinctions at home, for in the year 1825 he was awarded the
"Gold Isis Medal" of the Society of Arts, and in the following year
the "large gold medal" of that society, for original models in
coloured wax. And it may be mentioned as characteristic that although
in later years an active member of that society, Sir H. T. Wood, the
secretary, who knew him well, was unaware of Sir Rutherford Alcock's
having so early in life received the society's medals. "The fact is an
interesting one," he says, "and I am glad to have had my attention
drawn to it." Some of these works were preserved in the Museum of the
College of Surgeons, while others, prepared in special wax, were
bought by Government for the use of the Indian medical schools.

From the small pocket-book to which we have already referred, and
which contains concise notes of his course of instruction in modelling
under a M. Dupont, we extract the note of his first lesson. It shows
thoroughness of mind, keenness of observation, and the instinct for
accuracy which enabled him so soon to attain to excellence in the art,
and led to success in all the other pursuits of his life:--

_Sept. 1._--To-day my first lesson in modelling began. I
saw M. Dupont work upon a mask of a little boy's face in
wax. He opened the eyes, but did not in my opinion make
them quite correct. The only thing I observed in particular
was his using oil very freely with his tool. I afterwards
saw three moulds of a thigh near the hip after amputation,
cast in wax. One was soaked in water, another was rubbed
with soft-soap, and a third was well oiled. The one that
was oiled produced the most perfect cast, but I should have
thought both water, soap, and oil were used much too
freely. They were all cast in wax of a deep red colour, and
one of them was placed in the stump of one of the thighs of
the model on which M. Dupont was engaged. It was not quite
large enough for the thigh in some places, and too large in
others. This he altered without scruple, so that when the
stump was finished, though it looked extremely natural, it
was by no means accurate.

Before quitting the life in Paris the following sample of its popular
amusements as they presented themselves to the young student may be
interesting to readers, and it is unfortunately the last entry in the
pocket-book, and almost the last assistance we shall get from journals
during the seventy years of crowded life which followed:--

I went yesterday [Sunday, September 10, 1826] to the Swiss
Mountain, very extensive gardens on the Boulevards, where
the most respectable part of the pleasure-seeking Parisians
assemble on Sunday: you pay ten sous admittance. Here there
is a large establishment for dinners where you may dine as
at the restaurateurs, in a public room, or there are a long
suite of apartments for parties of four, six, or twelve
each, looking out into the gardens, and immediately before
the windows was the space enclosed by trees, which form a
canopy over it, and which is allotted to dancing. On one
side is the orchestra; and when I heard it there was a very
excellent band of musicians in it. It was rather
unfavourable weather, as there were in the course of the
day several very heavy showers, yet there seemed to be a
very great number of elegantly dressed females and
respectable-looking men; and some even highly-dressed,
which is a wonder, I think, for the gentlemen in Paris seem
to dress as much inferior to us as the French ladies dress
better than the English. Indeed it is quite delightful to
see the great taste with which they dress and the elegance
of contour in all their figures. I don't know how it
happens, but I never recollect seeing a French woman that
was at all above the lowest class of society that was a
slovenly or slattern figure, and very few that were not
really elegant, though their faces are, generally speaking,
plain.

After having dined I went to see the Swiss Mountain, which
had made a noise whilst I was at dinner that very much
resembled distant thunder. I had no idea what it was; my
surprise may therefore be conceived when, on coming
suddenly in sight of it, I saw a man, apparently sitting on
a chair, whirl past me with a velocity more resembling the
speed of lightning than anything I had before seen,--so
much so, that though from the top to the bottom where they
drop might be about 200 feet, I had merely time to
perceive that there was a man seated on some sort of
vehicle like a chair.

The mountain consisted of boards raised at an angle of
about from 60° to 70° with the ground, and gradually
becoming level. The distance from where they set off to
where they stop I have before stated, I think, to be about
200 feet.

This platform is sufficiently broad to allow three of the
vehicles to go down and one to return up at the same
time--that is to say, there are four iron grooves
accurately fitted to the small wheels on which the vehicles
move. There are horses as well as chairs for both ladies
and gentlemen. I saw several gentlemen on horseback and one
lady. The horses appear to me to be real horses' hides,
perhaps covering a wooden horse. They are accoutred with
saddle, stirrups, and bridle. One person who came down on
one of these horses rose and fell in his stirrups as though
riding a real horse; it created much laughter, and the
people surrounding immediately called out "Un Anglais! un
Anglais!" I believe he was an Englishman. It had a
ridiculous effect to observe the anxiety depicted on the
countenances of the heroes, and compare them, with the
knowledge of their perfect safety, with the laughing groups
that surrounded them. Sometimes a veteran hero would mount
one of the horses and come down with triumph in his
countenance; the effect then became still more ridiculous,
for he seemed like a great baby mounted on a hobby-horse
proportionately large. But so it is through life, I think;
one sees people capable of being elated as much by actions
little in themselves, but enlarged for the instant by
circumstances, as, for instance, in this case--the rapidity
of motion, the gay crowd, and the distant music--as they
would have been by an action really great in itself but
unembroidered by outward show.

Hearing the music and wishing to see the dancing I had
heard so much of, I approached the dancers. We read that
the French enjoy dancing with great zest; certes, to see
them dance a quadrille, one would not say so: 'tis true it
is a dance in which custom has forbidden much exertion,
still the entire listlessness they show induced me to think
it was a task rather than a pleasure. But when a lively
waltz struck up and the waltzing began, I....

Here the notes break off.

Of the student's life of four years from 1828 to 1832 there is little
which can or need be said. For two years and a half out of the four he
was house surgeon at the Westminster Hospital and the Ophthalmic
Hospital, having received, at the age of twenty-one, the diploma from
the Royal College to practise surgery. During this period he continued
modelling, and took pupils in that art. Writing for periodicals also
occupied some of his leisure time.

No sooner was his student career ended than an opening presented
itself which determined the future course of his life, but in a way
very different from what could possibly have been anticipated.

II. THE PENINSULA, 1832-1837.

Dynastic quarrel in Portugal -- Foreign legion -- Mr Alcock
enters the service, 1832 -- Character of the force and its
leaders -- Colonel Shaw -- Incidents of the campaign --
Important medical services of Mr Alcock -- Joins the
Spanish Foreign Legion, 1836 -- Termination of the
campaign.

There were troubles in Portugal. The usurper Dom Miguel was on the
throne. It was proposed to seat the rightful sovereign, Donna Maria,
there--her father, Dom Pedro, ex-Emperor of Brazil, who assumed the
title of Duke of Braganza, heading the movement.

Sympathy was excited in France and England, in both of which countries
irregular forces were levied to co-operate with the constitutional
party in Portugal led by his imperial majesty. It was a kind of
service which tempted alike young bloods and old soldiers who had been
languishing in peace and idleness since 1815, and a small army of
"Liberators" was got together in England, with a corresponding naval
force.

It has been mentioned that young Alcock had studied under the eminent
army surgeon Guthrie. Feelings of regard had sprung up between the two
which extended far beyond the professional sphere. Not only had the
boy been a favourite pupil whose aptitude reflected credit on his
teacher, but it is quite evident that a personal affection which
lasted their respective lifetimes was rekindled during the years they
subsequently spent together in Westminster. When, therefore, Mr
Guthrie was applied to by Mr O'Meara, who had been in attendance on
Napoleon at St Helena, to recommend a surgeon for the British-Portuguese
force, Guthrie sent at once for Alcock and discussed with him his
professional prospects. The upshot was that as, considering his
youth,--he was then only twenty-two,--it was useless for him to think
of beginning practice in London, a few years might be most
advantageously passed in military service abroad. The young man was
only too eager to close with the offer then made to him, which not
only afforded the prospect of active professional work, but seemed to
open the way for adventures such as the soul of a young man loveth.
Within twenty-four hours of accepting the offer Alcock was on the way
to Portsmouth and the Azores. For some time after his arrival there he
did duty on board ship. His ambition being cramped by this restricted
service, however, he was anxious to be transferred to the military
force. He accordingly applied to Colonel Hodges, who commanded the
marine battalion, to be taken on his staff. The colonel looked at him
with some hesitation owing to his extremely youthful appearance, but
on hearing that he had been specially recommended by Guthrie, said,
"Oh, that is a different matter; come along."

Of the Peninsular expeditions of 1832-37 the interest for the present
generation lies less in their origin, aims, and results, than in their
conduct and incidents. They were episodes which have left no marks on
the general course of history visible to the ordinary observer, and
are memorable chiefly for their dramatic effects, the play of
character, the exhibitions of personal courage, capacity, and
devotion; of jealousy, intrigue, and incapacity; of love and hate; and
of the lights and shadows that flit across the theatre of human life.
Interferences in other people's quarrels naturally bring to the
surface all the incongruities. The auxiliaries are sure to be thought
arrogant whether they are really so or not, and the _protégés_ are no
less certain to be deemed ungrateful. Each party is apt to
underestimate the exploits of the other and to exaggerate his own.
They take widely different views of the conditions under which their
respective services are rendered; they misconstrue each other's
motives, assessing them at their lowest apparent value. Each side
looks for certain sentimental acknowledgments from the other, while
daily frictions and inevitable misunderstandings continually embitter
the disappointment felt at their absence. And there are not two
parties, but many. There are wheels within wheels; sections playing on
each other tricks which savour of treachery on the one side, while on
the other side there may be sulks which are constructive mutiny. The
question of pay is naturally a constant source of bitterness, for
countries that need foreign assistance are impecunious and dilatory.
Few of them would be entitled to the certificate which Dugald Dalgetty
gave to his excellent paymasters, the Dutch. Yet in spite of
drawbacks, there is a kind of method in the whole business, a movement
towards a goal, though at a maximum of cost, with the greatest waste
and the most poignant regrets over mismanagement.

But what in these irregular campaigns is so remarkable as to be almost
repugnant to common reason is the devotion of the mercenary soldier.
This inspiriting sentiment, which springs up spontaneously like a
wild-flower in desert places, seems to put patriotism in the shade as
a motive for sacrifice. The hired soldier, though an alien, is often
indeed more faithful than the son of the soil, perhaps for the reason
that his allegiance is of a simpler nature, more categorical and
explicit. The direct personal character of such alien allegiance and
its transferability are exemplified in the lives of soldiers of
fortune in general: never better, perhaps, than in the wild and
dangerous career of Alexander Gardner, colonel of artillery in the
service of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, whose Memoirs have been recently
edited by Major Hugh Pearse. Is it the fighting instinct, hereditary
heroism, or military discipline that makes the soldier? Is it the
cause that inspires him, or is it only devotion to his immediate
leader? Explain it how we may, the British Legion both in Portugal and
in Spain maintained the character of their race for pluck and tenacity
as well as if they had been fighting for their own king and country.
And this is rendered still more remarkable when the promiscuous
manner of their muster is considered. Clandestine engagements in the
slums of Soho, under the guise of labour or emigrant contracts, in
evasion of the Foreign Enlistment Acts; surreptitious journeys, as
"hop-pickers," to Gravesend; secret embarkations under cover of night;
and the disciplining of a mob composed of the dregs of the streets,
afford subject of some graphic and humorous descriptions on the part
of the officers concerned in raising the squad and licking them into
shape. It must have required a very sanguine faith in the radical
qualities of the stock for any officer of repute to consent to "march
through Coventry" with such a herd of scalliwags.

The officer who seems to have had a principal share in collecting
these raw levies, and distinguished himself in both campaigns in the
Peninsula, in which he bore a leading part, has left us some racy
descriptions of the force and its experiences in the field. Sir
Charles Shaw was himself a typical soldier by nature and by practice.
Circumstances alone would determine whether it should be as a soldier
of fortune, a patriot defending hearths and homes, or as an Ishmaelite
adventurer, that his sword would be unsheathed. The sporting and
adventurous instinct scents danger afar, like the war-horse in the
book of Job which laughs at the spears. The manner in which he came to
embrace the profession of arms was itself so characteristic as to
deserve mention.

As a youth he was passionately devoted to sport, and when that
momentous question the choice of a profession came up for
consideration, sport decided it in favour of law, for the somewhat
original reason that the young gentleman had observed that lawyers
seemed to enjoy the longest holidays! He had begun his studies, and
was on his way to St Andrews to enter on a new course when an incident
occurred which diverted the current of his thoughts. He met a batch of
French prisoners of war being removed from one garrison to another,
whose misery affected him so much that he was instantly seized with
the idea of becoming a soldier. The particular form in which the
inspiration took him was that he put himself in the position of one of
these prisoners and imagined himself the hero of his own and his
comrades' deliverance.

His studies at St Andrews, perturbed by the new passion, made
indifferent progress. The historic golf-links afforded some relief,
acting as a kind of neutral soothing medium between antagonistic
aspirations. But the final solution of his troubles came from a famous
piece of water which is there, called the Witches' Pond. The virtue of
this water was great in the barbaric age when the curse of witchcraft
lay heavy on the land. The suspected person was thrown into the water.
If she floated, her guilt was proven and she was incontinently burned;
if she sank, it proved the high specific gravity of flesh and bone.
Happy thought! The young man would subject his life's destiny to this
convenient ordeal. He would jump into the pond, and either sink as a
lawyer or emerge as a soldier!

After this original form of baptism, initiation into the mysteries
soon followed, and the young soldier saw much active service during
the Napoleonic wars in the Peninsula and in the Low Countries. He
missed Waterloo through being on other duty, and in the piping times
of peace which followed that decisive battle an idyllic life at
Richmond seemed to bound the horizon of his unsatisfied ambition for
some fifteen years. From a totally unexpected quarter the call to arms
reached him in his retreat, and suddenly roused all his sleeping
energies. The offer of a commission in the service of the young Queen
of Portugal met with an eager response, and Shaw entered heart and
soul into the service of Donna Maria.

As well as being an active soldier, Major Shaw was a lively
correspondent, and it is from his letters to his family that we get
the most brilliant flash-lights on the incidents of his military
career generally, and more particularly on that exciting portion of it
which most concerns the subject of these volumes. These letters were
edited and published by himself at the close of the operations in
Spain.

Colonel Hodges, who commanded the foreign brigade in Portugal, and
seems to have left the queen's service in a huff, also published a
narrative of the campaign, of which, however, the historical value is
not enhanced by its apologetic and explanatory motive.

From the contemporary notes of these two officers we get generous and
emphatic testimony to the manner in which Mr Alcock acquitted himself
under the ordeal of severe military service. Indeed his comrades and
commanding officers, first in Portugal and afterwards in Spain, seem
to have vied with each other in spontaneous eulogy of the conduct of
the young surgeon, none of them more flattering than General De Lacy
Evans, who commanded in Spain. It is the record of a hero and a
philanthropist, of high military ardour subordinated to still higher
duty both to the cause he was serving and to the comrades whose lives
were under his care. The valour of a non-combatant makes no less a
demand on the virile stamina than the valour of the soldier,--oftentimes
indeed more, since he lacks the stimulus of active conflict and
confronts danger passive and unarmed. A few extracts from these really
remarkable testimonials may still be read with pleasure after the
lapse of sixty years.

Shaw writes to his family:--

A peasant led the way (they wear no shoes and their feet
are like hands). I took off my shoes, and after getting
down about fifty yards, I looked up and saw a favourite
soldier of mine close above me, and an intimate friend of
Ramus, the assistant-surgeon Alcock (a nice young fellow),
following. I ordered the soldier to halt; but his answer
of, "I'll follow your honour to death, captain," made me
silent. I tried military authority with young Alcock, as I
saw he was much excited; but no, his professional services
were, he thought, required, and follow he would. Every
moment expecting he would roll down, I clasped my toes and
fingers close to the precipice, that he might fall without
sweeping me with him: such is selfish nature! Two or three
times I determined to return, but the soldier's speech
forced me on. We reached the bottom in about half an hour,
and, believe me, I returned thanks.

I proceeded along the rocky beach, and there found poor
Ramus lying on a rock, in a sleeping position, with all his
clothes torn, and a dreadful gash in his head; his body all
broken; but with an expression of countenance indicating he
had suffered no pain. I was astonished to see him without
his shoes; but in ascending a sharp rock I found them, with
the marks where his heels had caught as he tumbled
backwards head foremost. Finding that our descent had been
useless, I told those who had come down that I would not
allow them to risk their lives in ascending, and sent off
a peasant to get a boat; but he failed both in this and in
getting ropes to pull us up. Self again stepped in, and as
senior I led the way--one great reason being that no one
could tumble back on me! I reached the top--hands torn and
feet bruised; and to my joy young Alcock made his
appearance, but so faint that I was obliged to supply him
liberally with my brandy.

The duty which now had to be performed by the medical men
was of the most arduous character. The surgeon of the
British battalion, Souper, carried away by the military
spirit instilled into him by being an actor in the "Three
Days of July," resigned his commission as surgeon, and on
this day commenced and finished his military career, being
killed at Hodges' side while carrying orders to the French
battalion. His place was filled up by Mr Rutherford Alcock,
who had the same love for "fire," but for a different
object--that of being close at hand to give prompt
assistance to any one who was wounded. Although young,
Alcock was old in knowledge and experience: he was highly
respected by all who knew him, and beloved by those who
entered into action, as they felt assured that he thought
not of his own safety when his services could be of benefit
to them. In the most exposed situations I saw him this day,
dressing officers and men with the same coolness as if he
were in a London hospital; and I cannot refrain from
expressing envy at the gratified feeling he must ever
possess when he thinks of the number of human beings he has
saved by his knowledge, experience, bravery, and activity,
both at Oporto, Vittoria, and St Sebastian. But his trials
after the fight of the 29th of September were great.

Owing to the fights of Pennafiel, Ponte Fereira, and the
different affairs on the Lugar das Antas, the wards
allotted to the British in the general hospitals were full;
therefore, one may form some idea of the misery of the
British when scattered among the different hospitals,
speaking a language which was not understood. Measures were
taken by Hodges and Alcock to gather the wounded foreigners
together, but the Minister of War threw every impediment in
the way of this; almost making one suspect, that now that
the soldier had done his work and was useless, the sooner
he died the better.

Truth compels me to state a fact I should wish to avoid,
but it is right that those who are to be soldiers should
know the value that is sometimes put upon their services.
The words were made use of by Dom Pedro, but from what I
have seen of him, I think others must have at the moment
prompted him. The medical man was mentioning that it would
be necessary to amputate the legs and arms of some of the
British. "No, no," said Dom Pedro, "you British are fond of
amputations, because your men are to have pensions, and
that is expensive."

No application from myself as commanding the battalion;
from Alcock, as senior medical officer; nor from Hodges, as
the representative of the foreigners, had any effect on
Augustinho José Freire: thus the poor fellows, crowded
together, without beds, without nurses, without clothes,
and even without medicines, died in numbers.

The references to Alcock's services are so frequent in these letters,
so unconventional and spontaneous, as to prove the deep and lasting
impression the young surgeon had made on his companions in arms. "I am
glad for all your sakes to tell you that my wounds have healed in an
extraordinary manner.... I consider myself greatly indebted to Alcock
both for his skill and attention." And at the close of the Portuguese
campaign: "I wonder if Alcock knows that he has got the decoration of
the Tower and Sword? No man in the service deserves it more, both for
bravery and kindness to the wounded." "The scarcity of medicines was
dreadful; but with the active and willing assistance of Alcock, and
the Portuguese medical gentlemen, it is quite wonderful what has been
accomplished."

The bad condition of the hospitals at Oporto is the burden of many
references in both Shaw's letters and Hodges' more formal narrative;
and as the only records of the campaign from Alcock's own pen happen
to be in official documents connected with the medical service, we
give _in extenso_ one of his despatches, showing in an inexperienced
boy of twenty-three a maturity of judgment and a broad grasp of duty,
with, what is perhaps more important, a mastery of work, that would
not discredit a veteran.

OPORTO, _Sept. 20, 1832_.

SIR,--The danger to which the patients were found to be
exposed by the fire of the enemy caused their removal to a
place of greater safety, where they might at least have
nothing to fear from the enemy's shells. This change in the
arrangements, however, has been in other respects extremely
disadvantageous to the sick and wounded men. They are now
crowded from the higher parts of the building into the
corridors and ground-floors--a situation well known to be
unfavourable to the recovery of sick men, from the air
being so much less pure. Our own men, including the English
sailors, have been placed in one ward, which, though of
tolerably large dimensions, is very far from affording the
necessary space and quantum of air required for forty-eight
or fifty patients, which for some time has been the
average--an average which we may rather expect to see
increased than diminished during the approaching wet
season. Moreover, from peculiar localities, it is quite
impossible efficiently to ventilate the room, or to ensure
a free circulation of air, which is as essential as any
other means employed for the recovery of health.

It is under these circumstances that I feel not only
authorised, but bound in duty, to draw your attention to
the subject; assured that in any measures proposed for the
benefit or wellbeing of the men under your command it is
only necessary to show they are really required to meet
your cordial support. Many difficulties, and many
disadvantageous arrangements, have always attended the
treatment of the patients in the present establishment; but
these last compulsory changes, when added to the former
state, place my patients in too dangerous a position to
allow me to be silent or inactive. Situated as we are, I
cannot promise the speedy recovery of any of the gunshot
wounds, nor indeed of the sick generally, and their
liability to any of the epidemics unfortunately so common
in crowded hospitals renders me exceedingly anxious to
have some steps taken to place them in a more favourable
position.

The means I have to submit for your consideration and
approval are, I believe and hope, extremely feasible. I
desire to have some large dwelling-house appropriated for
the reception of all English and French sick and wounded,
by which means the General Hospital would be relieved of
nearly a hundred patients, and of those, moreover, who,
from the difference of language, are a fruitful and
constant source of trouble and inconvenience--nay, more, of
irregularity as prejudicial to the patients as it is
discreditable to a military establishment of such
importance. Many houses well adapted for this purpose might
easily be mentioned, already at the disposal of the
Government by the flight of the owners. One I could point
out at this moment which, from a superficial inspection, I
believe might be advantageously appropriated--a corner
house in the Praça de St Ildefonso, adjoining the church.

The advantages which would accrue from this arrangement
cannot for a moment be counterbalanced by the trouble or
difficulty of first organising the separate establishment.
The patients could then be classed and placed in different
rooms, and not, as now, promiscuously crowded
together--surgical and medical, fevers and amputations; by
which arrangement their liability to any epidemic would be
exceedingly diminished, while the patients would be more
immediately under the eye and control of the medical
attendants. Both surgeon and patient would thus be placed
under more favourable circumstances, and the general
service much facilitated by the removal of foreign troops
from an establishment entirely Portuguese.

In glancing at the advantages, I should omit one of very
great importance if I did not submit to you the facility it
would afford for the good treatment of wounded and sick
officers. Instead of being attended at their own quarters,
often just within the first line, to their own great risk
and the inconvenience of the surgeon, they would be removed
to a place of safety, and where, moreover, from being
entirely under medical command, their rank would procure
them none of those injurious indulgences in the way of
diet, &c., which even the wisest of us are apt to risk the
enjoyment of when in our power. They might easily enjoy
every necessary comfort, while they would be carefully
guarded from all imprudent excess.

The chief difficulties I foresee, and which I have no doubt
will immediately present themselves to your mind, appear to
me very far from insurmountable. I require the assistance
of no Portuguese officer whatever, except a commissary or
purveyor, on whom I can _fully depend_, for the due and
regular supply of fuel, meat, wine, fowls, and such other
articles as are required for the good treatment of the
patients, and which are daily supplied to the General
Hospital. This is of the greatest importance, as any
irregularity in this branch of the service would not only
cripple my efforts, but be of serious injury to all under
my care. In addition to this I should require one
Portuguese domestic to every fifteen cases, for the purpose
of cooking, washing the linen, keeping the wards clean, and
such other menial duties as are independent of those
appertaining to the orderlies. The expense of a separate
establishment ought to be, and would be, of the most
trifling kind. The same beds, trussels, and utensils, now
exclusively appropriated to us, would be equally
serviceable in any other hospital. Two or three boilers,
and a few cooking utensils, with a slipper bath, are really
the chief and most expensive things required. I may safely
leave it to you, sir, to decide if this can cause any
grievous outlay.

Should it be any convenience, or be deemed by you, sir,
advantageous to the service, to the English and French
might be added the wounded Portuguese soldiers of your
brigade. I have little more to add, but should you require
further detail, I beg to refer to a letter addressed to
Major Shaw on this subject. I am fully conscious and aware
of the labour I am entailing on myself, and that which is
still more irksome, the heavy responsibility, but I have a
duty to perform. I neither court the labour nor desire the
responsibility; but if they come as a consequence of my
efforts to do that duty I can look steadfastly on them, and
I trust I have energy and perseverance enough to do all
that depends upon me in spite of them. My most ardent wish
is to prove myself worthy of the confidence you have
honoured me with, and the trust conferred upon me.--I have
the honour to be, sir, your obedient humble servant,

RUTHERFORD ALCOCK.

To Colonel HODGES,
commanding Foreign Brigade, &c., &c.

As the campaign in defence of the Queen of Portugal closed, that in
defence of the Queen Christina of Spain opened, and their rough
experiences in the former did not deter either Colonel Shaw or Surgeon
Alcock from accepting service in the Spanish Legion organised and
commanded by De Lacy Evans. "On my arrival in London," writes Shaw in
1836, "you may suppose how delighted I was to find my friend Alcock at
the head of the medical department, as his experiences in difficulties
made him decidedly the most proper man." As it is no part of our plan
to trace the operations, we give one characteristic letter from
Colonel Shaw. It is dated San Sebastian, 2 o'clock, May 6, 1836:--

MY DEAR MOTHER.--The steamer is detained, so I write to you
once more. I and my brigade are so fatigued and cut up that
we have been allowed to return here for the night. We had a
terrible morning's work of it, the brigade having lost, in
killed and wounded, about 400 men and 27 officers; others
not so much. How I escaped I know not; kind Providence was
my protector. My watch is smashed, the ball having cut
through cloak, coat, trousers, drawers, and shirt, and only
bruised me. A spent ball hit me on the chest, and my gaiter
was cut across by another. We had dreadful lines to force:
very steep, vomiting fire; and the clay up to our ankles
made us so slow that they picked as they chose. The enemy
not only behaved well behind their lines, but charged out,
and twice or thrice put us for a moment in confusion.
Alcock is slightly wounded.

And as an agreeable pendant to the severe strictures on the state of
the Portuguese hospitals, the following may fitly close our extracts
from these racy records of arduous military adventure:--

BAYONNE, _September, 1836_.

When you land, introduce yourself to my friend Alcock, and
beg him to take you through the hospitals. You will, or I
am greatly mistaken, be agreeably surprised by the
prevailing cleanliness and regularity, as also the care and
attendance bestowed on the sick and wounded. Alcock has had
a most difficult card to play. He knows well that there are
many disabled poor fellows who, if they were in the British
service, would be sent to England, certain of receiving
their pensions; but he is also aware that a poor fellow
sent to England from the service of Queen Christina,
instead of receiving his pension, is generally left to
starve. It is therefore from a praiseworthy charity that he
keeps many in hospital, under his own eye, in order that
they may in this manner get as much as will keep body and
soul together.

Mr Alcock retired from military service in 1837 with the rank of
Deputy-Inspector of Hospitals, having received the Order of the Tower
and Sword together with the war medal of the three years' service in
Portugal, and the Cross of the Order of Charles III. and Commander's
Cross of Isabella the Catholic, with medals for the two principal
actions against the Carlists.

The six years of Peninsular experiences he declared to have been "the
most stirring and attractive of his life," and in some portions of
that period he had "more complete personal gratification and material
happiness than could be safely anticipated in the future." He was now
to have six years of quite a different experience, which led up to the
turning-point in his life.

III. ENGLAND, 1838-1844.

Returns to England, 1838 -- Alcock resumes professional
work -- Prize essays and publications -- Sir James Paget's
testimonial -- A Commissioner for adjusting Peninsular
claims -- Appointed Inspector of Anatomy, 1842 --
Imperfections of the Anatomy Act -- Marriage to Miss Bacon,
1841 -- His enforced abandonment of a surgical career.

On his return to England in 1838 Alcock at once resumed the work of
his profession. In that year he published in a small 8vo volume 'Notes
on the Medical History and Statistics of the British Legion of Spain';
and in 1839, and again in 1841, he carried off the Jacksonian prizes
of the Royal College of Surgeons awarded for the best essays on
subjects selected by the Council. The first of these was "On
Concussion or Commotion of the Brain"; the second, "On Injuries of the
Thorax and Operations on its Parietes"; and naturally the value of the
papers lay in the extent to which the author was able to draw on his
own observation and experience of gunshot wounds during his seven
years of Peninsular service.

Of these contributions to medical literature Sir James Paget remarks
that "they may make one regret that he was ever induced to give up the
study of surgery. For they show an immense power of accurately
observing and recording facts, and of testing his own and others'
opinions by the help of all the knowledge of the facts possessed by
others at that time.... I doubt whether in the first half of this
century better essays on gunshot wounds of the head and of the thorax
had been written."

And the small volume dealing with hospital experiences in Spain has
drawn from the same eminent authority the comment that "it tells in a
most graphic and clear manner the difficulties which, sixty years ago,
beset the practice of surgery and the care of troops during war. These
difficulties may have been greater at that time in Spain than in any
other country in Western Europe, and may be thought now impossible,
but they may be read with great interest, and one cannot doubt that
Sir Rutherford Alcock's true account of them helped to remedy them,
... contributed to the improvement of the medical department of the
army in this country."

Mr Alcock joined the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society in 1839,
and was appointed Lecturer in Surgery at Sydenham College, where he
delivered a series of lectures on complicated injuries, amputations,
&c.

His professional labours were soon diversified by an employment which
could scarcely have been consistent with a large practice, though in
the beginning of his surgical career it might not seem to involve much
sacrifice except of time. But it was arduous, onerous, and absolutely
gratuitous. Great trouble had arisen between the Spanish Government
and the Foreign Legion in regard to pay. No settlement could be
obtained, and eventually a commission was appointed to examine and
adjudicate the numerous claims, to which commission Mr Alcock was
appointed by express and unanimous request of the general and the
field officers of the corps. His qualifications for such an office
were quite exceptional, for to first-rate business capacity, which had
been shown in the campaign, he added a knowledge of the language and
the country which was not common, and a character which commanded
universal confidence. His work on this commission extended over two
years, and was brought to a satisfactory termination in 1839.

No sooner were the labours of the Spanish commission concluded than Mr
Alcock was, in 1840, appointed by the Foreign Office to a similar duty
in an Anglo-Portuguese commission constituted by the two Governments
to adjust the claims of British subjects who had served in the
Miguelite war of 1832-35. The work of that commission also was
satisfactorily accomplished in 1844, and, as in the Spanish
commission, Mr Alcock's labours were given without remuneration, in
order, as he said, that his judgment might be unbiassed.[2]

During the course of the Spanish commission Mr Alcock was, in 1842,
appointed, on the strong recommendation of Sir Benjamin Brodie, to a
post under the Home Office, that of Inspector of Anatomy. It would be
distasteful and of no utility to rake up the circumstances which set
on foot an agitation culminating in the passing of an Act of
Parliament in 1832 known as "The Anatomy Act." Like many other Acts of
legislature in this country, it was a compromise by which difficulties
were sought to be evaded by cunningly devised phrases whereby the
thing that was meant was so disguised as to appear to be something
else. "The Act failed in two most important points; it failed in
honesty, and was wanting in the extent of the powers conferred." In
short, after ten years' trial the Act was becoming unworkable, and a
reform in its administration was imperatively demanded. It was at
that critical moment that Mr Alcock was nominated as one of the two
inspectors under the Act, and he entered on his duties with his
well-proved practical energy. Before the end of the first year a long
and interesting report was sent in by the inspectors, and we may judge
by the sample of the Hospital Report in Oporto how thoroughly they
exposed the difficulties and how practically they proposed to overcome
them. A second report followed in 1843. But Government is a lumbering
machine, always waiting for some stronger compulsion than a mere
demonstration of what ought to be; and we are not surprised,
therefore, to find fifteen years later, and fourteen after his
connection with the Home Department had ceased, Mr Alcock still
writing the most lucid and matter-of-fact memoranda on the conditions
under which competent inspectors might be induced "to work a very
imperfect Act of Parliament."

It was during the period under review that the most interesting
episode in a young man's life occurred. On the 17th of May 1841, when
he had just completed his thirty-second year, he was married to Miss
Bacon, daughter of the sculptor of that name. The ceremony took place
at St Margaret's, Westminster, Dean Milman, then a Canon of
Westminster, officiating. His domestic bliss was unruffled, the couple
being profoundly congenial.

But now "a change came o'er the spirit of his dream." The career which
opened before the young surgeon was full of promise. So far as the
personal factor was concerned, no man could have started with a
better equipment. There were efficiency, thoroughness, enthusiasm,
courage, and common-sense; there were, as we have seen in the student
days, manual dexterity and exactness and artistic power of no
contemptible order; there was, in short, every attribute of an
accomplished surgeon, who must in the course of nature rise to
eminence. A chair of military surgery was ready for him at King's
College, and an assistant-surgeonship at Westminster Hospital. All
that, however, had to be sacrificed and a new departure taken, in
consequence of an illness which left its mark in the form of paralysis
of hands and arms, and thus put an end to "all dreams of surgical
practice."

This malady was a legacy from the Peninsula. Like Cæsar, "he had a
fever when he was in Spain," a rheumatic fever of a particularly
severe type contracted at the siege of San Sebastian. This entailed
indescribable pain and misery during many months, and, in spite of
partial recoveries, seems to have left its after-effects seven years
later in what he calls the "mysterious" affection in his hands. It was
indeed considered remarkable that he should have survived an attack of
so formidable a character. He never recovered the use of his thumbs,
which marred the legibility of his writing to the end of his life.

His professional career being thus rudely closed, it might well have
appeared to a man of thirty-five that his life was shipwrecked ere the
voyage was well begun. It would have been in accord with the
short-sighted judgment which men usually form of their own fortunes.
But

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will;"--

and Alcock learned, what many before and since have learned, that
prosperity and adversity oft visit men in disguise, and are liable to
be mistaken the one for the other. Providence employs for its
favourites an alchemy whereby the very ashes of their misery may be
transmuted into pure gold; and what looks like disaster is but the
rending of the veil which concealed a world of richer promise than
that which they abandon with regret.

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] He dropped the "John" so early in life that he was never known by
it.

[2] The only valuable consideration he received for these labours was
bestowed some years later, when his entry into the service of the
Foreign Office was ante-dated to 1840, so as to include the period of
the Peninsular commissions.

CHAPTER II.

SENT TO CHINA.

Importance of appointment -- New position created by Treaty
of Nanking -- Exceptional responsibility of the new consuls
-- The evolution and scope of foreign intercourse --
Pioneer traders -- Mutual experiences of Chinese and
foreigners -- Results -- English inheritors of the record
-- An intolerable state of things -- Drastic remedy --
Where it failed -- Chasm between Eastern and Western ideas
-- Commerce alone supplied a safe medium of intercourse --
Its healing qualities -- But social and political
concomitants created friction -- Arbitrary interferences of
Chinese Government -- Their traditional mode of treating
barbarians -- Denial of human rights -- Absence of law in
their intercourse -- Spasmodic resistance to Chinese
tyranny aggravated the evils -- East India Company
submitted for the sake of gain -- Close of the Company's
charter -- Followed by endeavour of British Government to
establish official intercourse -- Determined resistance of
Chinese -- Lord Napier, first British envoy, not received
-- Loaded with insults -- Contradictory instructions given
by British Government -- To conciliate Chinese as in days
of Company, and at same time to open diplomatic relations
-- Lord Napier's appeal to experience -- His death at Macao
-- Captain Ellis, a third envoy, reverts to the policy of
submission -- Has no success.

When thus thrown upon his beam-ends in 1844, an appointment was
conferred on Mr Alcock which was not only honourable to him but
creditable to the Government which selected him. He was among the five
chosen to fill the office of consul in China under the treaty of
Nanking, which had been concluded in 1842. And if any event in human
life be deserving of such distinction, the opening thus provided for
the talents of Mr Alcock is on many grounds entitled to rank as
providential. To the end of his days he himself recognised that his
previous training had not been thrown away, but "had been
unconsciously preparing him for the great work of his life." The
Minister responsible for the appointment may be excused if, while
selecting a man of proved capacity for a post of unknown requirements,
he did not realise the full value of the service he was rendering to
his country. Governments are not always so perspicacious in gauging
the merits of the uncovenanted, and other nominations made under
circumstances not dissimilar have shown how easily the efficiency of
the candidate may be subordinated to considerations extraneous to the
public weal.

The China consulates were a new creation, a venture into the unknown,
a voyage without landmarks or chart, where success depended on the
personal qualities of the pioneer navigators--their judgment,
resourcefulness, and faculty of initiative. Great issues hung upon the
opening of the new world of the Far East, the success of which was
largely in the hands of the agents who were employed, for they were
practically beyond the reach of instructions. There was no telegraph,
and the so-called Overland Route to India was just beginning to be
exploited for the conveyance of mails and passengers. Nor was it
possible for even the wisest Government to frame general instructions
providing for eventualities out of the range of common experience. The
conditions of service were therefore such as to constitute an ordeal
under which a bureaucratic official would shrivel into uselessness or
worse, while to a strong man they were a powerful stimulant, the very
breath of life.

It was therefore a matter of serious consequence who should be
intrusted with the actual inauguration of the new relations with
China; and in the course of the present narrative it will probably
appear that it was a happy accident by which the country lost one
distinguished surgeon among many and gained in exchange a political
representative whose services must be considered unique.

FOREIGN RELATIONS WITH CHINA.

To understand fully the state of our relations with China created by
the treaty of Nanking, the whole history not only of our own
commercial intercourse, but of that of the nations who were our
forerunners in the Far East, would have to be kept in mind. For much
as we tried and hoped then, and ever since, to confine the
international question to a few bald propositions respecting trade,
personal protection, and so forth, it is impossible to eliminate the
historical, the human, and the general political elements from the
problem. For both good and evil we are the necessary outcome of our
own antecedents, as are the Chinese of theirs, and if we had acquired
a stock of experience of the Chinese, no less had they of us; indeed,
if we fairly consider the matter, theirs was the more comprehensive.
For to the Chinese we represented not ourselves alone, nor the East
India Company, nor a generation or two of timid traders, but
Christendom as a whole--our Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch
precursors, the Romish propaganda, and all the abortive missions to
Peking.

For three centuries and more what may be called the foreign education
of the Chinese had been proceeding: their habits were being formed in
so far as their dealings with strangers were concerned, and their
judgment was being trained by the authentic data with which they had
been plentifully supplied. European intercourse, in short, had been
one long lesson to the Chinese in the art of managing men from the
West. Without meaning it, we had been teaching them how to treat us,
just as we train animals to perform tricks; and the worst we can say
of the Chinese is that they have bettered the instruction, to their
loss perhaps as well as ours.

In the chronicles of that long history there are many deeds worthy of
remembrance, as well as many of another hue, neither being confined to
one side. There were good and bad among the early adventurers, as
there are at all times in every other section of mankind. Of two
brothers, for example, connected with the very early times, the first
comer ingratiated himself with the Chinese, and left such a good
impression behind him that the second was received with open arms:
very soon, however, he abused the liberality of the natives,
committing outrages upon them, which led ultimately to his forcible
expulsion from the country and to restrictions on the outlets for
trade. Taking it as a whole, the record of the pioneers in China is
rather a despicable one, in which violence, cupidity, and cowardice
formed large ingredients.

The English, as latest comers, being served heirs to the turpitudes
of all Europe, paid the penalty for the misdeeds and shortcomings of
their predecessors and their neighbours, as well as for their own. The
penalty was the intolerable degradation they had been made to endure,
with ever-increasing aggravation, at the only port where they were
permitted to trade--Canton.

As there are forms of impurity which can only be cleansed by fire, so
there was no possible remedy for the miseries of Anglo-Chinese
intercourse short of open war. The hostilities begun in 1839, and
brought to a conclusion by the treaty of Nanking in 1842, were
naturally held as a drastic liquidation of long-standing grievances
and the harbinger of a new era of peace and mutual respect. Why even
the decisive and one-sided war should have proved an inadequate
solvent of the perennial strife may partly appear as our story
proceeds.

The chasm between the Chinese and the Western world, as then
represented by Great Britain, was in fact much too deep to be bridged
over by any convention. Intercommunion between bodies so alien was as
the welding of heterogeneous metals, contact without fusion. From one
point of view, indeed, circumstances were highly favourable to a
sympathetic attachment, for there is no safer medium of intercourse
between nations than the commerce which blesses him that buys and him
that sells. It was the pursuit of commerce alone that drew men from
afar to the Asiatic coasts, and the reciprocal desire on the part of
the natives which opened for the strangers, be it ever so little, the
gates of the Chinese empire. The purely commercial relation left
little to be desired on the side of mutual goodwill. The impression
of it left on the mind of old residents in Canton is thus recorded by
Mr W. C. Hunter, an American merchant, who lived there from 1824:
"From the facility of all dealings with the Chinese who were assigned
to transact business with us, together with their proverbial honesty,
combined with a sense of perfect security to person and property,
scarcely a resident of any lengthened time--in short, any 'Old
Canton'--but finally left them with regret."

Mr Hunter goes further and testifies to the "vigilant care over the
personal safety of strangers who came to live in the midst of a
population whose customs and prejudices were so opposed to everything
foreign."

Why, then, was it that on the ground-level of common material
interest, and under the sunshine of the protection spontaneously
accorded by authority, the parties failed in two hundred years to
evolve between them a _modus vivendi_? The solution of this riddle can
only be found in a patient survey of events both before and after the
war.

It would carry us far beyond our limits even to summarise the history
of foreign intercourse with China. Nor is such a task necessary, since
our concern lies mainly with those later developments which culminated
in the war of 1839-42, a glance at which seems essential to any fair
appreciation of the sequel.

That there was no material cause of difference between the Chinese
Government and people on the one hand and the foreign traders and
their representatives on the other was made manifest by the
persistence and continuous growth of their mutual commerce. And their
common appreciation of the advantages of the trade is shown by the
readiness of each in turn to resort to the threat of stopping
business as a means of pressure on the other side. It is not therefore
the substance, but the accidents and conditions, of the intercourse
that generated the friction which led through outrage to reprisals;
and the two conditions most fruitful in conflict were the necessary
absence of law and the inevitable incomprehension of each others
status.

Left to themselves, the traders on either side, though without law,
would have been a law to themselves, both parties having been
habituated to a discipline of custom more potent within its sphere
than any code, commercial or penal. But as no problem in life can ever
be isolated, so in this case the twofold interference of the State and
the populace constantly obstructed the genial flow of commercial
intercourse.

The interference of the Chinese bore no resemblance to the
restrictions imposed on trade by Western Governments, for these, even
when most oppressive, are usually specific and calculable. There is a
tariff of duties, there are harbour and police regulations, and there
are the laws of the land. The peculiarity of the Chinese official
supervision of foreign trade was that it was incalculable and
arbitrary, governed by cupidities and jealousies, and subject to
individual caprice. Having barbarians to deal with, the Chinese
authorities followed the maxims of their ancient kings and "ruled them
by misrule, which is the true and the only way of ruling them." And
finding the barbarians submissive, they grew accustomed to practise on
them such indignities as a wanton schoolboy might inflict on a captive
animal, unrestrained by any consideration save the risk of
retaliation. The Chinese had no conscience to be shocked by the
persecution of foreigners, for in relation to them justice and
injustice were meaningless terms. Such arrogance was not so much the
result of any formulated belief as of a traditional feeling lying at
the bottom of their moral conceptions; and just as the Chinese people
to-day speak of foreigners, without consciousness of offence, as
"devils," so did the best educated officials in the days before the
war sincerely regard strangers as an inferior, if not a degraded,
race. As late as 1870 a British representative writing to the Chinese
Prime Minister complained that "the educated class, both by speech and
writing, lets the people see that it regards the foreigner as a
barbarian, a devil, or a brute." And there has been no change since
except what is enforced by prudence. To the absence of law in their
intercourse was therefore superadded a special negation of human
rights, naturally accompanied by an overbearing demeanour on the side
of the natives. The strangers were in effect outlawed. The attempts
made from time to time to assert their independence resembled the
spasmodic kicking of the ox against the goad which led rather to
aggravation than amelioration of the pain. The prevailing tone was
that of submission, inviting more and more aggression, until the cup
overflowed and war ensued.

If we ask how it could happen that Britons of any class came to submit
to such ignominy, the only answer forthcoming is that they did it for
the sake of gain. And if, further, we try to press home the
responsibility to any particular quarter, there is very little doubt
that the principal blame must be laid at the door of the East India
Company, which ruled and monopolised the English trade with China
until the expiration of their charter in 1834. The Board of Directors
in Leadenhall Street demanded remittances, and cared nothing for the
indignities which their distant agents might be forced to undergo in
order to supply these demands. "The interests at stake were too
valuable to be put at issue upon considerations of a personal nature,
... and the Court leave the vindication of the national honour to the
Crown." Such was their unchanging attitude. The agents on their side,
balancing the pros and cons, concluded that at any cost they must
retain the favour of the omnipotent Board. By this course of procedure
the prestige which would have protected British subjects from outrage
was bartered away; the Chinese were induced by the subservience of the
Company's officers to practise constantly increasing insolence, and
small blame to them. The demeanour of the Company's representatives
was that of men carrying out instructions against their better
judgment. Occasionally, indeed, their judgment got the better of their
instructions, and they would attempt to make a stand for their rights.
A case occurred in 1831 when new restrictions on the export of silver
were imposed by the Chinese authorities. Mr H. H. Lindsay, head of the
Company's committee, resented the proceeding, and threatened to stop
the trade. In the event, however, the committee gave way, and in token
of surrender delivered the keys of their factory to a Chinese
mandarin.

The process which had been consecrated by time naturally did not stop
when the principal cause of it was removed. It continued uninterrupted
after the monopoly of the Company had ceased. Indeed the case became
much aggravated when the British agents, beginning with Lord Napier,
became representatives of the Crown instead of the Company. And so
little was the position understood by the authorities in Great Britain
that, yielding to considerations of convenience, they appointed some
of the very men whom the Chinese had been long accustomed to treat
with contumely to be the representatives of the King. But the Chinese
had a true presentiment of the nature of the changes which this new
departure threatened. They had learned from Captain Weddell, Commodore
Anson, and others what were the pretensions of the commander of a
Kings ship; and then justly inferred that a King's representative
would stand on a wholly different footing from a Company's
superintendent. They resolved, therefore, to nip in the bud every
effort to open international relations, employing to that end all the
weapons which were familiar to them. The viceroy of Canton not only
declined communication with the British envoy, but imprisoned him and
intercepted his letters, so that a naval force was required to release
him from captivity. Yet it was not malevolence but policy that guided
the hand of the Chinese authorities--the settled policy of keeping
foreigners at arm's-length at all costs.

The rule of conduct enjoined by the British Government on the first
representatives of the Crown in China was emphatically conciliation,
as in the time of the East India Company and its superintendents. They
were to "cautiously abstain from all unnecessary use of menacing
language, or from making any appeal for protection to our military or
naval force (except in extreme cases), or to do anything to irritate
the feelings or revolt the opinions or prejudices of the Chinese
people." That article of the "Sign-manual Instructions to the
Superintendents of Trade in China" was faithfully carried out; while
the one ordering the envoy to "take up your residence at the port of
Canton" could not be obeyed because the Chinese provincial authorities
placed their veto on it. The conciliatory demeanour of the British
representative was met by the refusal, accompanied by the grossest
insults, of the Chinese to receive or acknowledge him. And not by
insults only, such as perverting the phonetic rendering of his name by
the substitution of characters bearing odious meanings, and by various
indignities offered to his person, but by interference with his
domestic servants, and even cutting off his food-supply, did they
coerce him into abandoning his post at Canton. Their conduct evoked
the opinion from Lord Napier, in reporting the incidents to his
Government, that "the viceroy of Canton was guilty of an outrage on
the British Crown calling for redress," which drew from the Duke of
Wellington (February 2, 1835) the chilling comment that "it is not by
force and violence that his Majesty intends to establish a commercial
intercourse between his subjects and China, but by the other
conciliatory measures so strongly inculcated in all the instructions
which you have received." Lord Napier's despatches prove that he
understood the situation perfectly. "What advantage or what point did
we ever gain," he wrote, "by negotiating or humbling ourselves before
these people, or rather before their Government? The records show
nothing but subsequent humiliation and disgrace. What advantage or
what point, again, have we ever lost that was just and reasonable, by
acting with promptitude and vigour? The records again assure us that
such measures have been attended with complete success." And he
recommended his Government "to consult immediately on the best plan to
be adopted for commanding a commercial treaty, or a treaty which shall
secure the just rights and embrace the interests, public and private,
of all Europeans,--not of British alone, but of all civilised people
coming to trade according to the principles of international law."

Driven to death by Chinese official barbarities, and by the
discouragement of his own Government, Lord Napier was succeeded first
by one then by another of the East India Company's old staff, who
could only maintain themselves by sinking their character as British
national envoys and submitting to the indignities which the Chinese
more than ever delighted in imposing on them, increasing in virulence
in proportion as the resistance to them grew weaker.

The line of policy inculcated upon Lord Napier was, in fact,
scrupulously followed after his death, notably by Captain Charles
Elliot, the third in succession, who received the King's commission in
1836. That officer indeed went far beyond his instructions in his
efforts to conciliate the Chinese; for though repeatedly ordered by
Lord Palmerston to communicate with the authorities direct, and not
through the Hong merchants;[3] and not to head his communications with
the word "petition"; and notwithstanding his own reiterated opinion in
the same sense, Captain Elliot entirely yielded to the Chinese
pretensions. He communicated through the Hong merchants, and
explicitly received the "commands" of the authorities with
"reverence." As was natural, the more he conceded the more was exacted
from him, until conciliation reached the point of exhaustion and there
was nothing left to give up. Matters had nearly reached this stage
when the British envoy could thus address the Governor of Canton
(through the Hong merchants) in 1837: "The undersigned respectfully
assures his Excellency that it is at once his duty and his anxious
desire to conform in all things to the imperial pleasure." The result
of this extreme humility was that Captain Elliot was forced to strike
his flag at Canton and withdraw to the Portuguese settlement of Macao,
on the ground that he was unable to maintain intercourse with the
authorities on the conditions prescribed for him by her Majesty's
Government.

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTE:

[3] These were a syndicate appointed by the Chinese Government to
conduct the foreign trade and be responsible to the Government for the
proceedings of the foreign merchants.

CHAPTER III.

ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR.

I. THE OPIUM TRADE.

Its increase caused alarm to Chinese Government by throwing
the balance of trade against China -- English manufacturers
deplored the same fact -- Drain of silver -- Government
opposition to the importation of opium -- Official
participation in the trade -- The reign of sham --
Illustrated by Mr Hunter -- Captain Elliot volunteers to
prevent smuggling -- Rebuffed by Canton authorities -- The
principal patrons of the opium trade -- Imperial Government
and the opium traffic -- Proposals to legalise it -- The
Empress -- Commissioner Lin appointed to suppress trade --
His uncompromising proceedings at Canton -- Imprisonment of
the foreign merchants, and of the British envoy --
Surrender of opium by Captain Elliot.

Commerce itself had also for some time been a source of disquietude,
and it is an interesting circumstance that it was the same feature of
it which caused anxiety to both sides. The balance of trade was
against China, which in the year 1838 had to provide bullion to the
amount of upwards of £2,000,000 sterling to pay for the excess of
imports over exports. English manufacturers deplored the fact that the
purchasing power of China was restricted by the paucity of her
commodities suitable for foreign markets, while the Chinese
authorities saw with genuine alarm a yearly drain of what they deemed
the life-blood of their national wealth; for not only was silver and
gold bullion exported in what to them were large amounts, but the
vessels which brought raw cotton and opium from India were frequently
ballasted for the return voyage with the copper coinage of the
country. Crude, arbitrary, and quite ineffectual devices were resorted
to by the Chinese for the arrest or mitigation of the leakage of the
precious metal. Opium, being the commodity which the people most
imperatively demanded, was always paid for in hard cash, while
ordinary merchandise might be bartered against Chinese produce. It is
not therefore difficult to understand how, without prejudice to moral
or political considerations, the article opium should have become so
conspicuous a factor in the agony which preceded the war.

In characterising the relations then subsisting between the Chinese
and foreigners as lawless, it is not meant that China is a country
governed without law, although it is true that even in the purely
domestic administration of the State legality is systematically
travestied. But in connection with foreign relations, and almost as a
necessity of the case, every trace of legality was obliterated in
practice, and the merchants were constantly entangled in a labyrinth
of illusions and pitfalls. No regulation was, or was ever intended to
be, carried out as promulgated; it was generally something quite
different that was aimed at, and it is literally true that the law was
more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

Many Chinese eagles swooped on the carcass of foreign trade; various
authorities competed for the spoil; and the constantly changing orders
were often merely stratagems by which one set of officials sought to
steal an advantage over another. The rules of the game were perfectly
understood, and the loftiest professions of public duty were the
invariable concomitant of the most corrupt practice.

The two principal trade authorities in Canton were the viceroy of the
two provinces, and the _hoppo_, who held an independent commission
from Peking as superintendent of the customs. Smuggling was of course
systematic. Though there were severe dormant laws against it whereby
unwary individuals might on occasion be entrapped, yet the practice
was openly carried on in every department of traffic, its chief
patrons being the viceroy and the _hoppo_. The importation of opium
was officially prohibited, but no branch of trade was so effectually
protected. The depot ships lay in what was regarded as the outer
waters of China--that is, the archipelago in the estuary of the Canton
river. But the drug was brought to land in the viceroy's own boats and
to his profit. The traffic was conducted under a fluctuating
arrangement between the native merchants and the authorities, the
latter taking frequent occasion to pick quarrels with the former in
order to have a pretext for extortion. The fees levied upon the
opium-dealers were divided among the officials, but they could never
trust each other to deal fairly in the distribution of the takings. By
way of check on sharp practice a Chinese war-vessel was in the habit
of visiting the receiving ships, taking from them an account of their
deliveries, and at the same time making a small levy for the
commanders personal behoof, for which a formal receipt was granted.

A new _hoppo_ came to Canton in 1837, and, as had been the custom
with his predecessors, he inaugurated his commission by issuing
drastic edicts, in concert with the viceroy, against the sale of
opium, even going through the form of arresting some of the dealers.
This demonstration, like all that had gone before, was merely intended
to cover a heavier exaction than had yet been levied. The dealers and
boatmen refused the terms, and by way of protest the latter burned
their boats. Whereupon the two high officers built boats of their own,
which, with the Government ones already employed in the business,
brought the whole of the opium to Canton. In this manner was the trade
resumed after a temporary stoppage caused by the strike of the dealers
and boat-owners against the extortions of the viceroy and _hoppo_. Nor
was there ever any secret in Peking respecting these proceedings.
Indeed the occasion of any high official travelling to the capital was
always marked by a great enhancement of the market price of opium, of
which the official or his retinue invariably carried a large quantity
for sale there. This circumstance was published in the trade circulars
printed in Canton, without the least concealment of the name of the
mandarin under whose protection the drug was transported. The _hoppo_
was, and still is, an imperial _protégé_, and it was, and is still,
perfectly understood that he divides the proceeds of his Canton
harvest with his patrons. It is for that purpose that he receives the
appointment. And this was a trade proscribed under extreme penalties
by imperial edict! It is needless to trace the network of elusion in
which the administrative ingenuity of Chinese officialdom was
exercised, and the specimen given above may be taken as typical of
the system. "Nevertheless, during the year 1838 very serious and
determined measures began to be adopted by the Chinese authorities,
directed generally against the trade in opium; and imperial edicts
threatened death as the punishment for both the dealers in and smokers
of the drug."

It is hardly possible outside of China to realise the systematic
make-believe under which public affairs are carried on.

Life and business in Canton, says Mr Hunter,[4] was a
conundrum as insoluble as the Sphinx; everything worked
smoothly by acting in direct opposition to what we were
told to do. Certainly we were told to "listen and obey," to
"tremble and not by obstinacy and irregularity to court the
wrath of the imperial will"! We were reminded from time to
time that we were "sojourning in the land on sufferance."
We were threatened and re-threatened with the "direst
penalties if we sold _foreign mud_ to the people; truly
forbearance could no longer be exercised." Yet we continued
to sell the drug as usual. Our receiving ships at Lintin
must no longer loiter at that anchorage, but "forthwith
either come into port or return to their respective
countries." The heart of the ruler of all within the _Four
Seas_ was indeed full of compassion and had been indulgent
to the barbarians. But now no more delay could be granted,
"cruisers would be sent to open their irresistible
broadsides" upon the foreign ships. Yet in spite of these
terrors the ships never budged. We were "forbidden to
wander about except three times a-month, and that not
without a linguist," but we walked whenever we pleased, and
the linguist is the last person we ever saw.

And so on through a long catalogue of prohibitions to the disregard of
which the officials themselves were always parties.

We get an exact description also of the mode in which the opium trade
was carried on from the pen of Mr Hunter, himself an actor as well as
an eyewitness. It furnishes a perfect illustration of the reign of
sham which prevails generally in China:--

We anchored on the inside of the island of Namoa close by
two English brigs, the Omega and Governor Findlay. Inshore
of us were riding at anchor two men-of-war junks, with much
bunting displayed; one bore the flag of a _foo-tseang_ or
commodore. Knowing the "formalities" to be gone through
with the mandarins, we expected a visit from one, and until
it was made no Chinese boat would come alongside, nor would
a junk, not even a bumboat. We had no sooner furled sails
and made everything shipshape, when his "Excellency"
approached in his gig--a sort of scow as broad as she was
long.... He was received at the gangway by Captain Forster.
His manner and bearing were easy and dignified. When
cheroots and a glass of wine had been offered, the
"commodore" inquired the cause of our anchoring at Namoa.
The _shroff_ gave him to understand that the vessel, being
on her way from Singapore to Canton, had been compelled,
through contrary winds and currents, to run for Namoa to
replenish her wood and water. Having listened attentively,
the great man said that "any supplies might be obtained,
but when they were on board, not a moment must be lost in
sailing for Whampoa, as the Great Emperor did not permit
vessels from afar to visit any other port." He then gravely
pulled from his boot a long red document and handed it to
his secretary, that we might be informed of its purport. It
was as follows:--

_An Imperial Edict._

As the port of Canton is the only one at which outside
barbarians are allowed to trade, on no account can they be
permitted to wander about to other places in the "Middle
Kingdom." The "Son of Heaven," however, whose compassion is
as boundless as the ocean, cannot deny to those who are in
distress from want of food, through adverse seas and
currents, the necessary means of continuing their voyage.
When supplied they must no longer loiter, but depart at
once. Respect this.

TAO-KUANG, _17th year, 6th moon, 4th sun_.

This "imperial edict" having been replaced in its envelope
and slipped inside of his boot (for service on the chance
of another foreign vessel "in distress"), his Excellency
arose from his seat, which was a signal for all his
attendants to return to the boat, except his secretary. The
two were then invited to the cabin to refresh, which being
done, we proceeded to business. The mandarin opened by the
direct questions, "How many chests have you on board? Are
they all for Namoa? Do you go farther up the coast?"
Intimating at the same time that _there_ the officers were
uncommonly strict, and were obliged to carry out the will
of the "Emperor of the Universe," &c. But our answers were
equally as clear and prompt, that the vessel was not going
north of Namoa, that her cargo consisted of about 200
chests. Then came the question of _cumsha_, and that was
settled on the good old Chinese principle of "all same
custom." Everything being thus comfortably arranged, wine
drunk, and cheroots smoked, his Excellency said "Kaou-tsze"
(I announce my departure).... Chinese buyers came on board
freely the moment they saw the "official" visit had been
made. A day or two after, several merchant junks stood out
from the mainland for the anchorage. As they approached we
distinguished a private signal at their mastheads, a copy
of which had been furnished to us before leaving
Capshuymun. We hoisted ours, the junks anchored close to
us, and in a surprisingly short time received from the Rose
in their own boats the opium, which had been sold at
Canton, and there paid for, deliverable at this anchorage.
It was a good illustration of the entire confidence
existing between the foreign seller in his factory at
Canton and the Chinese buyers, and of a transaction for a
breach of any of the conditions of which there existed no
legal redress on one side or the other.

[Illustration: MACAO.]

From his asylum in Macao Captain Elliot thought he saw an opportunity
for making a fresh attempt to ingratiate himself with the Chinese
authorities. Disregarding the fact that the only return for his
previous efforts at conciliation had been accumulated insult and
odious accusations against himself personally, Captain Elliot resolved
on trying once more. So, when the opium agitation broke out in
1838-39, he volunteered his assistance in suppressing smuggling in the
river. The viceroy, being the head and front of the abuse, spurned the
offer, saying, what was perfectly true, that he could stop the traffic
himself by a stroke of the pen.

Ignoring the rebuff, Captain Elliot did nevertheless issue an order
that "all British-owned schooners, or other vessels habitually or
occasionally engaged in the illicit opium traffic, _within_ the Bocca
Tigris, should remove before the expiration of three days, and not
again return within the Bocca Tigris, being so engaged." And they were
at the same time distinctly warned, that if "any British subjects were
feloniously to cause the death of a Chinaman in consequence of
persisting in the trade within the Bocca Tigris, he would be liable to
capital punishment; that no owners of such vessels so engaged would
receive any assistance or interposition from the British Government in
case the Chinese Government should seize any of them; and that all
British subjects employed in these vessels would be held responsible
for any consequences which might arise from forcible resistance
offered to the Chinese Government, in the same manner as if such
resistance were offered to their own or any other Government, in their
own or in any foreign country." This gratuitous assumption of the
functions of the Chinese executive plunged Captain Elliot into still
greater difficulties, and prepared the way for the tragic events which
were to follow a year later. In vulgar parlance he "gave himself away"
to the Chinese, for in professing to be able to stop opium traffic
within the river he tacitly accepted the responsibility of stopping
it also in the estuary, where the British depot ships lay at anchor.
It was, in fact, the driving home of this responsibility by the
Chinese which was the apparent occasion of the war. For it is certain
that during his three years of office as representative of the Crown
of England Captain Elliot had given no provocation to the Chinese, nor
had he in any way withstood their aggression.

But a sudden change now came over the scene. The opium question had
been for some time debated in the imperial counsels with considerable
earnestness, the issue turning on the alternatives of suppressing or
legalising the traffic. It seems likely that in those deliberations
the reigning emperor, Tao-kuang, played a very secondary part; indeed
as an active factor in the government of the country he appears to
have been of little more account than his successors have been. He is
described as an amiable but weak man, sensible of the difficulties of
his country, but misinformed with regard to them by the favourites
around him. The most interesting personality about the Imperial Court
at that time appears to have been the empress, who had raised herself
to that exalted position by her talents as well as by her
fascinations. Though her career was a very short one, she exercised a
potent influence on affairs throughout the whole empire. She was
credited with a rare power of judging men and of selecting them for
offices of trust. She was a reformer of abuses and a true patriot; but
what was most remarkable, considering the order of ideas which
surrounded her, she held liberal views as to the extension of foreign
intercourse, and was at the head of the party which was in favour of
legalising the opium traffic. A memorial addressed to her urging this
measure was submitted by the emperor to the governor of Canton, Tang,
who with his colleagues reported on it favourably. The success of the
empress's policy enraged her enemies and stirred them to the most
strenuous efforts to compass her fall. The emperor, it is said,
remained neutral in this strife. The opposition party prevailed,
gaining over the emperor to their side while he was smarting from the
grief caused by the death of his own son from opium, an event which
enlisted his personal feelings against the drug.

So far, however, had the question been carried, that the legalisation
of the opium trade was fully anticipated by Captain Elliot up to the
very hour that the storm burst.

The final decision of the Government was to put an end to the trade,
for which purpose they sent an imperial commissioner to Canton, armed
with full authority to carry out the emperor's edicts. He arrived at
his post, March 10, 1839. Commissioner Lin, the best known character,
with the exception of Captain Elliot himself, in connection with the
war, was a man of uncommon energy and resolution, and was therefore in
some respects well chosen for the extraordinary task which was imposed
upon him. He was a native of Fukien province, an official of high
standing, having been Governor-General of the Central Provinces, the
Hu Kwang. He was now appointed Governor-General of the Two Kwang and
Imperial Commissioner for dealing with the opium question. As a
Chinese administrator he had been popular, and was no doubt possessed
of many high qualities.[5] It is possible that had he taken time to
study the foreign question with which he had to deal, and had he not
been betrayed by his too easy initial successes, he might have been
the means of placing the foreign relations of his country on a footing
of mutual accommodation. A reasonable man would have perceived the
utter impossibility of preventing the Chinese people from purchasing a
commodity for which they had an overmastering desire. He showed great
ignorance of human nature in proposing to break his countrymen of
opium-smoking within a year, after which time offenders were to be
beheaded.[6] This was but a sample of his violence and of his
incapacity to see two sides of a question. It must be remembered,
however, that he had undertaken to carry out the emperor's
instructions, and it is difficult to pronounce what amount of latitude
he might have allowed himself in the interpretation of them.

His proceedings were of an uncompromising character most unusual with
Chinese. Possessing full authority, he exercised it to the utmost,
terrorising all the local officials into absolute subservience. The
governor of Canton, himself deeply implicated in the opium traffic, a
fact well known to the Imperial Commissioner, was constrained to save
himself by affecting the utmost zeal in executing the commissioner's
behests. Having thus disposed of all the opposition with which Chinese
high officials have usually to reckon from their subordinates, Lin
gave the rein to his headstrong temper, and instead of effecting
reform, plunged his country into a war which shattered the imperial
prestige.

Within three weeks of Lin's arrival in Canton the drastic measures
against foreigners, and particularly against the opium trade,
culminated in his imprisoning the whole of the merchants within their
factories at Canton, menacing them with further outrages on their
person. At this crisis Captain Elliot, having left his residence at
Macao, made his way under difficulties to Canton, that he might share
the captivity of his countrymen and act as their head and mouthpiece.
Having thus got the superintendent of trade into his power,
Commissioner Lin preferred most extravagant demands upon him,
including the delivery to the Chinese of all opium owned by British
merchants, which amounted to 20,000 chests valued at upwards of
£2,000,000. The imprisoned merchants had no choice but to yield to the
demand made upon them by the representative of the British Crown; and
as the recent agitations had interfered greatly with the course of
trade, their assent to the terms was no doubt soothed by the
reflection that they were making a clearance sale of their goods to a
solvent purchaser, her Majesty's Government. They issued their
delivery orders for the opium on the 27th March 1839. It is to the
credit of Commissioner Lin that in a memorial to the throne he
commended the loyalty of certain of the British merchants.[7]

This grand concession to the demand of Commissioner Lin was but the
climax of all the antecedent steps of British submission. There was no
haggling, but a prompt and unconditional surrender in the following
terms:--

_Elliot to the Imperial Commissioner._

CANTON, _March 27, 1839_.

Elliot, &c., &c., has now the honour to receive for the
first time your Excellency's commands, bearing date the
26th day of March, issued by the pleasure of the Great
Emperor, to deliver over into the hands of honourable
officers to be appointed by your Excellency all the opium
in the hands of British subjects.

Elliot must faithfully and completely fulfil these
commands, and he has now respectfully to request that your
Excellency will be pleased to indicate the point to which
the ships of his nation, having opium on board, are to
proceed, so that the whole may be delivered up.

The faithful account of the same shall be transmitted as
soon as it is ascertained.

Captain Elliot did not even give himself time to verify the figures,
and in his haste committed himself to the delivery of more opium than
was actually in being. The consequence was that he could not deliver
until fresh importations arrived, when he was obliged to enter the
market as an opium merchant and purchase sufficient to enable him to
fulfil his engagement.

II. THE SEQUEL TO THE SURRENDER OF OPIUM.

Captain Elliot complains of his lengthened imprisonment --
The continued cruelties of Commissioner Lin -- Subservience
of the Portuguese -- English merchants driven from their
homes in Macao to seek refuge on shipboard -- Pursued by
the vengeance of the Commissioner -- Chinese claim absolute
jurisdiction over person and property -- Demand for an
English seaman for execution.

The interesting question in all this is how the Chinese authorities
were impressed with the magnanimous sacrifice of over £2,000,000
sterling worth of private property as a ransom for the liberties of
British subjects. They were certainly not impressed favourably, for
Captain Elliot, together with the whole community, was detained for
many weeks after the delivery of the opium close prisoners in Canton,
and cut off from all outside communication. A week after the surrender
Captain Elliot wrote to Lord Palmerston, "The blockade is increasing
in closeness.... This is the first time in our intercourse with this
empire that its Government has taken the unprovoked initiative in
aggressive measures against British life, property, and liberty, and
against the dignity of the British Crown." On the same day the
Imperial Commissioner threatened to cut off the water-supply from the
beleaguered merchants. A week later Captain Elliot wrote, "The
blockade is not relaxed, ... the reverse is the case;" and he was
constrained, though with evident reluctance, to characterise "the late
measures as public robbery and wanton violence." Commissioner Lin's
"continuance of the state of restraint, insult, and dark intimidation,
subsequently to the surrender, has classed the case amongst the most
shameless violences which one nation has yet dared to perpetrate
against another." And there is a forlorn pathos in his confession, a
fortnight later, of the futility of "remonstrances from a man in my
present situation to a high Chinese officer determined to be false and
perfidious."

Nor did the Chinese appetite for cruelty cease to grow by what it fed
upon even after the crisis of the Canton imprisonment was over. The
British community, when forced to seek safety on board of their ships,
were pursued from anchorage to anchorage by the implacable vengeance
of the Imperial Commissioner. The natives were by proclamation ordered
to "intercept and wholly cut off all supplies" from the English, some
of whom "had gone to reside on board the foreign ships at Hongkong,
and it was to be apprehended that in their extremity some may land at
the outer villages and hamlets along the coast to purchase
provisions," in which case the "people were to drive them back, fire
upon or make prisoners of them." "Even when they land to take water
from the springs, stop their progress and let them not have it in
their power to drink." Another proclamation stated that "poison had
been put into this water; let none of our people take it to drink."
During the summer of 1839 many murderous outrages were perpetrated by
the Commissioner's orders on English small craft wherever they were
found isolated or defenceless.

It is not necessary to pursue these barbarities in detail. Sufficient
has been advanced to illustrate the spirit in which the Chinese
Government, in a time of peace and without a vestige of provocation,
drove the retreating and absolutely submissive English to desperation.
And their characteristic manner of recompensing servility was
illustrated with cynical humour in a long memorandum drawn up during
the progress of the war by Commissioner Lin, the author of the savage
proceedings just referred to. "Since," he says, "the English are so
eager for the recommencement of their traffic, let us couple the grant
with another stipulation, that they present us with the head of
Elliot, the leader in every mischief, the disturber of the peace, and
the source of all this trouble"--the last statement containing more
truth than probably the writer himself fully realised.

Under such conditions it was obviously impossible to place the persons
and property of British subjects at the mercy of Chinese officials.
Yet this is what the authorities at Canton insisted upon,--"full
submission to Chinese penal legislation, involving capital punishment
by Chinese forms of trial." This was no new claim. The Chinese were
simply following the precedents. English, French, and Americans had
each in turn given up their men to be strangled on the demand of the
Chinese authorities, and though the right had not been exercised for
nearly twenty years, Lin evidently thought the occasion favourable for
reviving it. He furnished a clear explanation of what a Chinese trial
would be by demanding of the British representative the unconditional
surrender for execution of the alleged murderer of a Chinese. To
Captain Elliot's almost penitential protestations, that he had been
unable to discover the assumed murderer among the numerous liberty men
of ships of more than one nationality who had been in the scuffle, the
Chinese authorities paid no regard whatever. The Queen's
representative was publicly denounced in scurrilous language by
Commissioner Lin for concealing and failing to deliver up an offender,
and for criminal violation of the laws of China as "shown by our
reiterated proclamations and clear commands." This truculent
proclamation being followed by an ultimatum giving ten days for the
surrender of the unknown murderer under threat of the extermination of
the British community, the latter had to escape in a body from Canton
to seek refuge in Macao, whence they were expelled by the authorities
of that settlement at the behest of the Chinese commissioner. This act
of loyalty on the part of the Portuguese was duly acknowledged by the
Imperial Commissioners reply, through his subordinate officials, in
the following terms:--

We have received from his Excellency the Imperial
Commissioner a reply to our representation that the English
foreigners had, one and all, left Macao, and that the
Portuguese Governor and Procurador had ably and strenuously
aided in their expulsion, and faithfully repressed
disorder. The reply is to this effect:--

That the Portuguese Governor and Procurador having thus
ably obeyed the commands for their expulsion, evinces the
respectful sense of duty of those officers, and merits
commendation. I, the High Commissioner, in company with the
Governor, will personally repair to Macao to soothe and
encourage. And you are required to pay instant obedience
hereto, by making this intention known to them.

Captain Elliot, in a despatch to the Portuguese governor,
characterised his act as a participation "in measures of unprecedented
inhospitality and enmity against British subjects."[8]

Into the merits of the opium question itself, or of that unique
transaction, the surrender of £2,000,000 sterling worth of the
commodity by a British agent on the mere demand of a Chinese official,
it would be impossible to enter within the limits of space assigned to
us. But it is obvious that such a demand, made within two years of the
time when the viceroy of Canton was building a flotilla to carry the
merchants' drug from the receiving ships to his provincial capital,
was something so extravagant that compliance with it must be followed
either by open war or by complete submission and the abandonment of
China as a trading field. It is of course conceivable that had the
ordinary Chinese canon been applied to the case, and the proclamations
of Commissioner Lin been interpreted, like those that had gone before,
as the inaugural bombast of a newcomer, the demands might have been
evaded with impunity. The Portuguese, in fact, did evade them by the
simple expedient of sending their opium to sea for a time and bringing
it back again. There is some ground for the surmise that the High
Commissioner himself reckoned on evasion, and was even embarrassed by
his unexpected success in having such an enormous amount of property
frankly thrown on his hands. Our collision with China may thus be said
to have been brought about by a breach in the continuity of precedents
on both sides,--we reckoning up to a certain point on the continuance
of sham, and the Chinese on the continuance of submission. Both were
misled, and there was no way of reconciliation but by the arbitrament
of force.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Bits of Old China. Kegan Paul.

[5] When he visited Macao later in the year 1839--after the
events--there were public demonstrations in his honour, whether
prompted by public respect for his despotic power or approval of the
use he had just made of it, or merely a recognition of his previously
established reputation, may very well remain an open question.

[6] Possibly, however, this was but a specimen of the hyperbolic
diction which is habitual with the Chinese. An official will threaten
his servant with instant decapitation for a trifling offence, meaning
nothing whatever thereby.

[7] As in its commutation for the surrender of slave property, so now
the British Government inflicted serious injustice on the owners of
the opium. Captain Elliot's drafts on the Treasury were dishonoured,
he having had no authority to draw, and the merchants had to wait four
years for a most inadequate payment.

[8] "By the treaty of 1703," wrote Sir Anders Ljunstedt, the last
chief of the Swedish Company's factory, "Portugal placed herself, as
it were, under the protection of Great Britain. This Power never
failed to render her ally the assistance she stood in need of either
in Europe or her ultramarine dominions." The English had defended
Macao against the French in 1803.

CHAPTER IV.

THE FIRST CHINA WAR, 1839-1842.

Captain Elliot despatches his only ship to India with a
report of the situation -- The helplessness of the British
community and persecutions by the Chinese during three
months -- Arrival of two ships -- The Chinese attack them
and are defeated -- Expedition from India and England
arrives -- Canton river blockaded -- Attempts to appeal to
Central Government rebuffed -- Squadron sent to the Peiho
-- Kishen appointed to treat -- Expedition returns south --
Negotiations opened near Canton -- Bogue forts destroyed by
British ships -- Illusory negotiations -- River blockaded,
but commerce partially resumed -- Extensive war
preparations by Chinese -- Captain Elliot's confidence in
the Chinese -- Hostilities carried on -- Canton commanded
and ransomed -- Triumph of the populace -- Operations
extended to northern coasts -- Agreement between Captain
Elliot and Kishen repudiated by both sovereigns -- Arrival
of Vice-Admiral Sir William Parker -- War vigorously
prosecuted -- Towns and forts taken -- Nanking threatened
-- Commissioners Ilipu and Kiying appointed to treat --
Treaty concluded at Nanking, August 29, 1842 -- The
character of Ilipu.

Captain Elliot, after the severities to which he and his countrymen
had been subjected, despatched a vessel to Calcutta with a report on
the situation to the Governor-General of India, making a corresponding
report at the same time to London. The departure of this, the only
vessel at the disposal of the British agent, left him and the
mercantile community in a helpless predicament during three critical
months, and it was natural that the Chinese should take advantage of
so favourable an opportunity to fill the cup of their cruelties fuller
than ever. The only form of reprisal which was left to the
unfortunate Captain Elliot was his intimation to the merchants that he
had moved both the British and Indian Governments to forbid the
admission of tea and other Chinese produce into their territories--an
announcement which is said to have irritated Commissioner Lin
excessively. On September 11, 1839, however, her Majesty's ship Volage
appeared on the scene. Her commander, Captain Smith, considered that
the least he could do in defence of his countrymen was to blockade the
Canton river by way of retaliation for "the stoppage of the supplies
of food by order of the Chinese Government, and for the Chinese people
having been ordered to fire upon and seize her Majesty's subjects
wherever they went; and that certain of them had been actually cut
off."

This slight evidence of vitality on the part of the English produced
an immediate effect on the Chinese: their violent proclamations
against Elliot were withdrawn; provisions were no longer prohibited;
and certain negotiations were inaugurated for the resumption of trade
_outside_ the Barrier; whereupon Captain Smith promptly raised the
blockade.

Before long, however, the Chinese resumed their offensive attitude,
endeavoured to compel British trading ships to enter within the Bogue,
and renewed their demands for the murderer of a Chinaman, failing
which the foreign ships were ordered to depart within three days on
pain of immediate destruction. They accordingly withdrew to the
anchorage of Tongku, which became the rendezvous of all the ships of
war. Difficulties continued to increase on both sides, without
prospect of any solution, until the 29th of October, when another
British man-of-war, the Hyacinth, arrived and joined the Volage. These
vessels proceeded to Chuenpee, with Captain Elliot on board, for the
purpose of eliciting from the Commissioner some explicit declaration
of his intentions. They were at once attacked by the Chinese admiral
with a fleet of twenty-nine war-junks, which they beat off; and thus
occurred the first hostile encounter between the armed forces of the
two nations.

[Illustration: MAP OF CANTON WATERS.]

Of the operations which followed, extending over nearly three years,
full accounts were given at the time, none better than the 'Narrative
of the Voyages and Services of the Nemesis from 1840-43,' by W. D.
Bernard, with which may be profitably compared Dr Eitel's concise
history,[9] published forty years later, with all the documents before
him.

The British Government came to the conclusion that the limits of
forbearance had been overstepped. The action of the Chinese
authorities during 1839 forced on it the choice of two alternatives,
to abandon British subjects and their interests or to exact reasonable
treatment for them from the Chinese. The latter was selected, and it
was resolved to demand a commercial treaty under which foreign trade
might be carried on with security to person and property. In support
of this decision military and naval forces, equipped in England and in
India, assembled on the coast of China during the spring of 1840.
Among the novelties of this equipment were a number of small
light-draught iron steamers, the most famous of which was the Nemesis,
built for the Honourable Company by Mr Laird of Birkenhead, drawing
only six feet laden. This exceedingly mobile little craft, under her
energetic commander, W. H. Hall, performed almost incredible services
as the maid-of-all-work of the expedition. The blockade of the Canton
river, which had been established and withdrawn several times, was
finally declared on the 28th of June 1840, as a first step in the
regular war programme, by Commodore Sir Gordon Bremer. A few days
later the command of the fleet was assumed by Rear-Admiral the Hon.
George Elliot, who was also appointed joint-plenipotentiary with
Captain Charles Elliot.

Before commencing a general war upon the Emperor of China every
resource was exhausted for opening communications with the Imperial
Government through other channels than that of Canton. The frigate
Blonde was despatched for this purpose to the harbour of Amoy, where
the local officials not only refused to receive a letter from the
English admiral, but ordered an attack upon the boat conveying it on
shore. The frigate retaliated for this insult by opening fire upon the
Chinese batteries and war-junks, after which she returned to Hongkong
to report proceedings to the admiral. About this time, early in July
1840, the island of Chusan was taken and occupied. The attempt to
deliver a letter from Lord Palmerston addressed to the Cabinet at
Peking, by way of Ningpo, having been frustrated by the authorities at
that port, a blockade was established of Hangchow Bay and the mouth of
the Yangtze. It had been Captain Elliot's favourite device, as it came
to be that of all his successors, to apply pressure to the Court of
Peking by means of a blockade of this the main artery of the Chinese
empire, and it was by following up this scheme that the war thus
commenced in 1840 was actually brought to a successful issue in 1842.

The attempts to gain access to the Court through the southern seaports
having failed, the venue was shifted to the neighbourhood of the
capital itself. A heavy squadron of ships accordingly anchored off the
mouth of the Peiho--a demonstration which was sufficiently menacing to
the capital to induce the Court to appoint an official to parley with
Captain Elliot, and also to receive the undelivered letter from Lord
Palmerston. Kishen, a Manchu of high rank, was chosen for this service
by the emperor. The first, perhaps the sole, object of Kishen's
diplomacy was to relieve the apprehensions of the Court by procuring
the prompt withdrawal of the foreign forces. This end was achieved in
one short conference with Captain Elliot, when Tientsin was pronounced
to be too near the emperor's palace for negotiations, and it was
decided that the scene should be shifted back to Canton, a new
commissioner being appointed to supersede Lin, the impracticable. The
squadron thereupon, about the end of September, withdrew to Chusan. It
was generally believed that an armistice had been arranged pending
negotiations, but it was soon discovered that the only truce made
applied exclusively to the island of Chusan, where it had been
declared. The two English plenipotentiaries repaired to Macao in
November.

All this while extensive preparations for hostilities were vigorously
prosecuted in the neighbourhood of Canton. Attempts to communicate
under flag of truce were repelled by force, and it was remarked that
the Chinese were sufficiently well versed in the significance of the
white flag to make free use of it for their own protection, while
disregarding its employment by the other side. The Imperial
Commissioner, Kishen, reached Canton at the end of November, his
arrival coinciding in point of time with the invaliding of Admiral
Elliot, the co-plenipotentiary, thus leaving the British negotiations
once more in the sole hands of Captain Elliot until such time as Sir
Gordon Bremer was appointed as his associate.

Of the two diplomatists who had now to confront each other it would
be difficult to say whether the English or Chinese was the more
anxious to avert hostilities. To avoid precipitating a conflict
negotiations were not pressed home by either party, nor were any steps
taken to give effect to the conference which had been held between
them at Tientsin.

The hostile demonstrations of the Chinese, and the extraordinary
exertions they were putting forth to place themselves in a position to
bar the entrance to the river, compelled the British naval
commander-in-chief to assume the offensive by attacking the outer
defences at its mouth. The forts and guns were destroyed as well as
the Chinese fleet of war-junks, native Indian troops and Royal Marines
forming an important part of the attacking force. There remained
extensive fortifications within the embouchure, and every preparation
was made on both sides for resuming the contest on the following
morning; but just as the British guns were about to open fire a small
sampan, with an old woman and a man on board, was sent off by the
Chinese admiral proposing a cessation of hostilities. This unpromising
overture did actually eventuate in an armistice, holding out the
prospect of a treaty of peace, but with the details as usual carefully
kept in the background. During the period of truce granted by Captain
Elliot the Chinese continued as active as ever in strengthening and
extending their defences. This necessitated continued precautions on
the British side, for it is to be noted throughout all the proceedings
that the naval and military commanders never shared the illusions of
Captain Elliot as regards the conciliatory intentions of the Chinese.
They formed their opinions upon what they saw with their eyes, and
not by what any Chinese official professed with his lips.

On January 20, thirteen days after the attack on Chuenpee forts,
Captain Elliot announced from Macao that "preliminary arrangements had
been concluded. Hongkong was to be ceded, and an indemnity of
$6,000,000 to be paid by the Chinese; direct official intercourse on
terms of equality, and trade to be resumed, within ten days." This
good effect, he added, was "due to the scrupulous good faith of every
eminent person with whom negotiations are still pending." The British
plenipotentiary did not lose an hour in carrying out his part of the
incomplete compact, which was the substantial one of rendering back to
the Chinese their captured forts. The ceremony of the rendition of the
Chuenpee forts was performed on the 21st, when the British flag was
formally struck and the Chinese hoisted in its place under a salute
from the flagship. On the other side the occupation of Hongkong by the
British forces proceeded just as if the arrangements between the
plenipotentiaries had been definitive.

Serious conferences then ensued between the British and Chinese
plenipotentiaries within the river, at a point known as the Second
Bar. The blockade was nevertheless maintained, so that a French
corvette which arrived to watch the course of events was unable to
enter the river. Captain Elliot, however, invited her commander to
accompany him and "assist" at his interview with Kishen. In the
meanwhile the conciliatory attitude of the Chinese commissioner was
severely denounced from the throne, and while these conferences were
proceeding, messengers of war were on their way from Peking charged
with nothing less than the extermination of the barbarians. Kishen was
degraded, and instead of peaceable negotiations, a proclamation was
placarded on the walls of Canton offering $50,000 each for the heads
of the British plenipotentiary and the commodore.

After the expiration of this one-sided truce open hostilities were
re-entered upon. The Bogue forts had to be once more captured, and the
British flag re-hoisted. That accomplished, the blockade of the river
was raised. This somewhat remarkable step was no doubt due to the
overmastering anxiety shown throughout by Captain Elliot for the
immediate resumption of trade, he having learnt in the Company's
school to place the current season's business above every other
consideration. It appears certain that the quite disproportionate
value attached by him to this one object obscured his perspective, if
indeed it did not vitiate his whole policy. Trading vessels were
permitted to proceed up-river, but under the peculiar reservation that
the stakes, chains, and barriers placed by the Chinese to obstruct
navigation should first be removed. The fleet, nevertheless, had still
to fight its way up to Canton, Captain Elliot meanwhile never ceasing
to make overtures of peace to the Chinese. There were truces and
suspensions of hostilities, all of the same nature, binding only on
one side, and such a medley of peace and war as seemed rather to
belong to the middle ages than to the nineteenth century. Trade was
pushed on all the more briskly for the general fear that the duration
of peace was likely to be brief; and as both parties were alike
interested in getting the season's produce shipped, the Chinese
authorities were not ill-pleased to see commerce thus carried on while
they employed the interval in hurrying forward their grand
preparations for the crushing of the invading force. Hostilities were
suspended by an agreement on March 20, 1841, and Captain Elliot, after
residing some time in the foreign factory, where he had opportunities
of sounding the disposition of the new commissioners, declared himself
perfectly satisfied with their "assurances of good faith," which he
repeated in the same public manner a fortnight later--that is, a month
after the suspension of hostilities. On leaving the Canton factory
Captain Elliot, strong in the faith he professed, urged on the senior
naval officer the propriety of moving his ships away from the city in
order to show our peaceful disposition, the guard of marines which had
been stationed for the protection of the factories to be at the same
time withdrawn.

The mercantile community by no means participated in the confidence of
the plenipotentiary, nor, as we have said, did the naval commanders.
Indeed so little satisfied were they with the turn of affairs, that
Sir Gordon Bremer left in a Company's steamer for Calcutta to lay the
situation before the Governor-General of India.[10] This occurred in
the middle of April. In the beginning of May troops were seen pouring
into the forts near the city. An immense number of fire-rafts in
preparation to burn the fleet could not be concealed, while placards
of a most menacing character were posted about the city walls. Captain
Elliot, whether he was shaken in his belief in the pacific assurances
of the Chinese authorities or not, returned to the scene, on board the
Nemesis, on the 10th of May, and it is said that, in order to show the
Chinese that he still believed in their good faith, he was accompanied
on this one occasion by his wife, probably the first European woman
who had set foot in Canton.

Several weeks more elapsed before the British plenipotentiary allowed
himself to be finally disillusioned. Then he issued a proclamation to
the merchants warning them to be prepared to leave the factories at a
moment's notice, while the inevitable Nemesis was moved close up for
the protection of the foreign community generally. The Chinese had
employed the greatest ingenuity in masking their warlike preparations,
and even at the last, when they saw that concealment was no longer
possible, they attempted to allay the apprehensions of the foreigners
by issuing an edict in order "to calm the feelings of the merchants
and to tranquillise commercial business,"--their object being, as it
was confidently alleged, to take the whole community by surprise and
completely annihilate them.

[Illustration: H.M. SHIPS IMOGEN AND ANDROMACHE PASSING BOCCA TIGRIS
BATTERIES.]

Although thus attempting to lull the foreigners, the Chinese authorities
had previously warned the natives, through the elders, to remove their
families and effects from the neighbourhood of the river. On the very
day after the soothing proclamation, May 21, the signal for the
renewal of the war was given by the launching of a number of ingeniously
contrived fire-rafts, which were dropped down by the tide upon the
English vessels with the design of burning them at their anchors. This
scheme failed in its object, partly from miscalculation,--only ten or
twelve out of about a hundred being ignited,--and partly from the
intrepidity of the British officers and seamen in grappling with those
they could reach in their boats, and towing them out of their intended
course. Indeed the destructive effects of these elaborate engines were
turned on the Chinese themselves, some of the rafts taking the ground
close to the city and setting fire to the suburbs. This fiasco was
followed on the one side by an attack on the forts and the destruction
of a very large fleet of war-junks, and on the other by the demolition
and pillage of the foreign factories, not however without some curious
discrimination.

The attack on Canton was now undertaken in earnest. On the 26th May
the heights in rear of the city had been captured and were held in
force, so that the whole Chinese position was completely commanded.
Everything was ready for the assault, which would have been a
bloodless affair, an elevation just within the wall affording a
military vantage-ground from which the whole city could have been
dominated without the least risk by a very small force. At this
critical moment Captain Elliot appeared to stay the hand of Sir Hugh
Gough and Commodore Senhouse, the commanders of the military and naval
forces respectively. Captain Elliot had, in fact, granted a truce in
order to discuss, not the terms of peace with China, but merely the
conditions on which the British forces should retire from Canton. The
principal of these were that the city should be evacuated by all the
Chinese and Manchu troops, estimated at 45,000, over whom the
authorities proved that they had perfect control; and that the
authorities should pay the ransom of $6,000,000, in consideration of
which all the river forts were to be restored to the Chinese, under
the proviso that the forts below Whampoa were not to be rearmed until
the final conclusion of peace. From first to last 1200 pieces of
cannon had been captured or destroyed in these river forts, which
would in any case have taken some time to replace.

The incident which closed this transaction having an important bearing
upon future events, it merits particular attention. Two days after the
agreement was concluded the armed Braves of the city and locality
began to assemble in great numbers on the heights threatening the
British position, and they even advanced to the attack. Fighting
ensued, which lasted two days, during which the Chinese force was
constantly augmenting, and, though more than once dispersed by the
British, it was only to reassemble in greater numbers and renew the
attack. Thus the ransoming of the city seemed to be but the beginning
of strife. At length the British commander insisted upon the prefect
of Canton going out to the Braves and causing them to disperse, after
which the British force re-embarked. The incident left on the minds of
the Cantonese the conviction that they were invincible, for they took
to themselves the whole credit of expelling the barbarians.[11] This
belief was destined to bear much bitter fruit in after-days.

The emperor repudiated all these pacific arrangements, and ordered
that as soon as the English ships had withdrawn new and stronger forts
were to be erected and armed. After the anomalous episode of Canton
the war was transferred to the northern coasts. Hongkong, with its
capacious and well-sheltered harbour and facilities for ingress and
egress, was found to be an admirable naval and military base, and the
island soon became a scene of intense activity afloat and ashore. The
Chinese were attracted to it in great numbers. Tradesmen, mechanics,
builders, carpenters, servants, boatmen, market-people, and common
labourers flocked into the island, where one and all found profitable
employment both under the British Government and in connection with
the commercial establishment which had already been set up there. It
is estimated that during the year 1841 not less than 15,000 natives
from the mainland had taken up their quarters in the new possession of
Great Britain, and were naturally of material assistance in the
fitting out of the great expedition which was about to invade the
eastern seaboard. One drawback, unfortunately, soon showed itself in
the sickness and mortality of the troops, who were attacked by a fever
attributed, rightly or wrongly, to the breaking up of the soil, which
was composed of decomposed granite. Possibly, however, the hardships
of campaigning in the unhealthy delta of the Canton river predisposed
the men, when the excitement was over, to attacks of the diseases
associated with the name of Hongkong. This disastrous epidemic left to
the colony an evil reputation, which survived many years of hygienic
improvement.

The agreement concluded between Captain Elliot and Kishen, repudiated
by the emperor, was no less emphatically disapproved of by the
Government of Great Britain. Captain Elliot was recalled, and quitted
China on August 24, Sir Henry Pottinger, the new plenipotentiary,
having arrived, in company with Vice-Admiral Sir William Parker, on
the 10th, to the great joy of every one. The war was thereupon pursued
systematically and with vigour.

The twelve months over which these operations extended will not seem
long if we consider that the coast of China, with its marvellous
archipelago, was then scarcely known to navigators; that the ships
were propelled by sails; that they had to operate nearly 1000 miles
from their base--and that a place of which they held precarious
possession; and that the greatest caution was required in moving a
squadron of fifty vessels, besides transports and store-ships. Indeed
the real matter for surprise--and it reflects the highest credit on
the officers concerned--is that in an expedition of such magnitude,
including the advance of 200 miles up the Yangtze, a river till then
quite unknown, so few casualties occurred. It should also be
remembered that in this war against China precautions of quite unusual
stringency were observed for the protection of private property and
the avoidance of injury to the population.

The Chinese Government was allowed ample time for reflection between
each step in the hostile advance, yet neither the capture of the coast
forts and cities nor the incursions which were made from convenient
points into the interior sufficed to bring the Court of Peking to sue
for terms. Amoy, Chinhae, Chapu, Ningpo, Wusung, and Shanghai were
taken in succession, and Chusan was reoccupied. The Chinese defence of
these various places was far from contemptible, excepting only as
regarded the antiquity of its methods and the inefficiency of its
weapons. The fortifications at the various ports were very extensive,
and were mounted with an immense number of guns. The troops in most
cases stood bravely the attack by superior weapons and skill, in
several cases waiting for the bayonet charge before abandoning their
earthworks. It was not until the fleet had made its way up the
Yangtze, secured the Grand Canal which connects the rich rice-growing
provinces with the northern capital, and had taken its station in
front of Nanking, the southern capital, that the strategic centre of
the empire was reached.

[Illustration: YANGTZE AND GRAND CANAL.]

At Nanking, therefore, commissioners were appointed to treat with Sir
Henry Pottinger, and as they had nothing to do but acquiesce in his
demands with the best grace, while at the same time saving the face of
the Imperial Government as much as the circumstances of such a
surrender would allow, the long-desired treaty of commerce was at last
concluded on August 29, 1842.

The two Imperial Commissioners intrusted with the negotiations were
men of the highest distinction and rank, Ilipu and Kiying. Of the
latter it was said that he was the first high officer who since the
commencement of the war had dared to tell the naked truth to his
imperial master. Their joint memorial to the throne, on which the
imperial instructions for signing the treaty were based, was
remarkable for its clearness, simplicity, and outspokenness,
contrasting in these respects strongly with the customary tone of
flattery, evasion, and bombast. Of Kiying we shall hear further in the
sequel.

Ilipu was already an old man and infirm. His name is never mentioned
by contemporary writers without respect amounting almost to
veneration. Governor-general in Nanking, he had been appointed
Imperial Commissioner and ordered to Ningpo to get the dependent
island Chusan cleared of foreigners. He had thus been brought into
communication with the foreign commanders in connection with the
occupation of Ningpo and the capture of Chapu, out of which a
correspondence ensued alike honourable to both sides. A number of
Chinese prisoners, after having their wounds attended to and their
wants provided for, with a small present of money, were restored to
liberty by the British commander. This unexpected action seemed to
impress Ilipu, who in return sent down to Chapu a number of English
prisoners, who had been for some time incarcerated at Hangchow,
treating them handsomely, according to his lights. The despatch of the
prisoners was accompanied by a respectful letter to Sir Hugh Gough and
Sir William Parker, probably the first communication deserving to be
so styled that ever passed between a high Chinese officer and a
foreigner. These circumstances augured well for the success of future
intercourse. Ilipu was sent to Canton as High Commissioner to arrange
details as to the carrying out of the treaty. He died there, and was
succeeded by Kiying, who brought the ratification of the treaty to
Hongkong in June 1843.

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Europe in Asia. Luzac & Co.

[10] Commodore Senhouse, who succeeded temporarily to the command, was
so mortified by the course of diplomacy that his death at Hongkong in
the month of June 1841 was believed to have been hastened thereby. His
dying request was that his body should be taken to Macao, for burial,
as he feared that further conciliatory measures might result in
Hongkong being given back to the Chinese.

[11] In a proclamation issued in 1844 it was said, "Remember how our
people were persuaded not to fall upon and massacre your soldiers."

CHAPTER V.

THE TREATY OF 1842.

A one-sided bargain -- Not deemed by Chinese obligatory --
Condemned by powerful parties -- The Chinese conscience
against it -- Fulfilment therefore could not be voluntary
-- The Chinese and Manchus compared -- Repugnance to treaty
common to them both -- Much determination needed to obtain
fulfilment.

Out of such antecedents in peace and war it was a moral impossibility
that normal international relations between Chinese and foreigners
should follow the conclusion of peace.

The treaty signed at Nanking by Sir Henry Pottinger in 1842, simple
and explicit in its grammatical construction, and fulfilling as far as
words could do so all the conditions of a charter of fair trade, was
tainted with the vices of a one-sided bargain. Indeed the Chinese did
not regard it in the light of a bargain at all, but as a yoke
temporarily imposed on them which it was their business to shake off.
Sir John Davis has told us that "at Peking almost every Chinese of
rank and influence was opposed to the fulfilment of the stipulations
of the treaty. The negotiators of it shared in the odium of the
cowardly generals who had deceived their sovereign by false
representations of their powers of defence." The obligations of the
treaty, in fact, sat so lightly on their consciences, that only so far
as they were held rigorously to its provisions would they observe
them.

The open-mouthed denunciation of the treaty in high quarters was but
the textual confirmation of what was obvious in the nature of the
case, that the Chinese Government regarded the treaty of Nanking as a
_ruse de guerre_, a mere expedient for purchasing present relief, "a
temporary arrangement in order to recover from our losses."

The official animus and the political conscience were thus entirely on
the side of what we call bad faith, a state of things which has come
down unabated to our own time, though prudence on the one side and
pressure on the other have generally toned down the outward
manifestation of it.

Fulfilment of the treaty under these circumstances could only be hoped
for by the actual employment of the coercive agency which had secured
its signature, or by the conviction, firmly rooted in the minds of the
Chinese, that such agency was always ready to be invoked. But as
perpetual coercion on the part of Great Britain was not to be thought
of, the establishment and maintenance of satisfactory working
relations demanded on the part of the British agents responsible for
the execution of the treaty a rare combination of personal qualities.
They had, in fact, to assume a power which they did not possess, to
trade upon the prestige which their country had gained by the success
of its arms, trusting that their pretensions might be tacitly
acquiesced in. Had this attitude been consistently maintained, in
small as well as in great things, from the very outset, there is no
telling whether the observance of the treaty might not have become a
matter of Chinese routine, and in time acquired the sacred authority
of custom. But the contrary was the case, and it was not the
observance but the non-observance of the treaty that was allowed to
acquire the sanction of custom.

The conduct of the war offered conclusive evidence that though certain
individuals, from either better knowledge or higher principle than
their contemporaries, were inclined to meet their enemies fairly, yet
the conscience of the State, as authoritatively represented in the
emperor's edicts, rejected as absurd the notion of keeping any kind of
faith with the barbarians. Hence the barren result of all appeals to
the binding authority of the compact, unless when backed by force;
hence also the efficacy of every application of force in the dealings
of foreign nations with China whether before or after the treaty of
1842. This consideration is indeed of the essence of our Chinese
relations, though habitually ignored in the conduct of our
intercourse.

As regards the attitude of the Chinese Government towards foreigners
in connection with the war and the peace, an interesting and
suggestive distinction has been drawn by Sir John Davis between the
two elements in the Government, the Chinese and the Manchu,--a
distinction which has been independently made by other observers. It
is therefore a point well worthy of being kept in view both in the
conduct of official intercourse and in speculations as to the future
of the Chinese empire. Sir John Davis, who, first as a Company's agent
in China, then for a short time as British envoy before the war, and
eventually chief superintendent of trade for some years after that
event, had much experience in dealing with officials of the two races,
is emphatic on the point that moderation and humanity were always
found on the side of the Manchus, while implacable ferocity allied
with treachery distinguished the Chinese officials. The war, he says,
was solely the work of the latter, the peace, of the former. "New
Tajin was a thorough Chinese, and, like the rest of his tribe,
vociferous for war while it was absent, but unable to sustain its
presence; while the Tartars were generally advocates for peace, though
they did their duty in an emergency." The antithetic character of the
two races shown collectively and individually has been a matter of
general remark by foreigners acquainted with both. "Ilipu," says
Davis, "a Manchu by birth, possessed the un-Chinese quality of
straightforwardness and honesty of purpose.... As an early adviser of
the sovereign, he had endeavoured to dissuade him from risking a
foreign quarrel in making the English a party to the question of
restricting the consumption of opium among his own subjects."

The Manchu Kishen, who replaced Commissioner Lin on the failure of the
latter, was also a man of good faith. He did his best first to avoid
and then to terminate the war, and in the middle of it concluded a
convention with Captain Elliot by which Hongkong was ceded and six
millions of dollars were to be paid as ransom for Canton. Yet having
been admonished by the emperor "to arouse the patriotism of the nation
and send the heads of the rebellious barbarians to Peking in baskets,
for to treat them reasonably is out of the question," he had to excuse
himself by resort to a false pretence of treachery. The convention he
represented as a ruse, because "his reinforcements were yet far off";
but he declared that, "bearing the barbarians many a grudge," he only
abided his time "for exterminating them whenever it can be done." In
the impeachment of that capable statesman one of the charges was, "You
gave to the barbarians Hongkong as a dwelling-place, contrary to our
law of indivisibility," to which he was fain to answer, "I pretended
to do so, from the mere force of circumstances, to put them off for a
time, but had no such serious intention; ... a mere feint to avert the
further outrages of the barbarians."

He took up similar ground in apologising for the conduct of Admiral
Kwan, a brave and respectable officer, who had asked and obtained an
armistice in the Canton river: "He has agreed to a truce with the
barbarians merely to gain time and be in a state to resist them."

The courtesy of the Manchus was no less conspicuous. Lord Jocelyn, as
quoted by Mr Hunter, remarked, after a meeting with Kishen: "He rose
at our entrance and received the mission with great courtesy and
civility. Indeed the manners of these high mandarins would have done
honour to any courtier in the most polished Court of Europe." A French
envoy was similarly impressed in an interview with Kiying: "I have
visited many European Courts," he said, "and have met and known many
of the most distinguished men belonging to them, but for polished
manners, dignity, and ease I have never seen these Chinese surpassed."

While the noblest of the officials were thus driven to assume a
perfidy which was not really in their heart in order to accommodate
themselves to the prevailing temper, the baser minds were clamouring
open-mouthed for meeting honour with dishonour. For it is instructive
to recall that the most truculent officials--Commissioner Lin, for
example--based their slippery strategy on the known good faith of the
barbarians, "which made their engagements sacred," as the Roman
generals took advantage of the Sabbatical prejudices of the Jews. The
Chinese could afford to play fast and loose with their end of the
rope, knowing the other end to be secured to a pillar of good faith.
The commissioners who signed the treaty in their report to the throne
also testified that "the English had acted with uniform sincerity."

The confiding spirit of the English tempted the common run of Chinese
officials to practise systematic deception. Thus a disreputable
Tartar, who was governor of Canton, reported that he had "resolved to
get rid of them by a sum of money, as by far the cheapest way.... But
once having got rid of them, and blocked up all the passages leading
to Canton, we may again cut off their commerce, and place them in the
worst possible position," thus anticipating almost to the letter what
took place at the Taku forts in the second war between 1858-59. A
pamphlet, attributed to Commissioner Lin, whose wanton atrocities had
provoked the war, after testifying to the habitual good faith of the
barbarian, urged the Government "never to conclude a peace: an
armistice, a temporary arrangement for the present, in order to
recover from our losses, is all we desire."

The Manchu and Chinese races are the complement of each other in the
economy of the State. The Manchus, with their military heredity, were
best fitted for the imperial _rôle_, while the Chinese are by
tradition rather men of business than administrators. From which it
may be inferred that the material progress of the country will rest
more with the Chinese with all their faults than with the Manchus with
their governing instincts. The Peking Court, indeed, has been long
under the numerically preponderant influence of the Chinese, and
except in matters of dynastic interest they are Chinese rather than
Manchu ethics which govern the acts of State. The counsels of such men
as Lin and the Chinese party generally prevailed, as we have seen,
over those of the distinguished Manchus, some of them belonging to the
imperial family, who had to do with the foreign imbroglio, and it was
in full accord with Chinese sentiment that the Emperor Tao-kuang was
brought to declare that such a nation as the English should not be
allowed to exist on the earth.

Much of the hostility to the treaty may no doubt be fairly referable
to the military humiliation of a Government to whom war was rebellion
and rebellion parricide. Nor is the exasperation of the Chinese
against their conquerors to be measured by those chivalrous standards
which have been evolved from the traditions of nations accustomed,
even in war, to meet as equals. They were playing the game under a
different set of rules. But when every such allowance has been made,
the moral principle governing Chinese official conduct cannot be
designated by any word in Western vocabularies but perfidy.
Belligerency as understood by Western nations did not enter into their
conception, and their war tactics of kidnapping, poisoning the water,
torturing and massacring prisoners, and so forth, differed little from
their procedure in time of peace, being in either case based on the
implicit negation of human rights in connection with foreigners.

It may thus be seen what difficulties had to be encountered, even
under the treaty, in guiding the intercourse between Chinese and
foreigners into safe and peaceable channels; how much depended on the
tact and capacity of the newly appointed consuls, and how little
assistance they could hope for from the department which commissioned
them. For no matter how perspicacious the Home Government might from
time to time be, they were as much in the hands of their
representatives after as they had been before the war. The distance
was too great and the communication too slow for the most vigilant
ministry to do more than issue general instructions. "The man on the
spot" would act as his judgment or his feelings or his power prompted
as emergencies might arise, and we have seen how even the clear
intentions of Lord Palmerston were thwarted by the idiosyncrasies of
some of his agents in China.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI.

THE FRUITS OF THE WAR AND PROSPECTS OF PEACE.

Pretensions of British and Chinese irreconcilable --
International equality inconceivable by Chinese -- British
aims as set forth by merchants -- The inadequacy of their
demands -- Clearer insight of their Government --
Unsteadiness of British policy -- Consistency of Chinese
policy -- Treaty to be observed so far as needful to
obviate another war -- Canton irreconcilable -- Ransoming
the city in 1841 the cause of much subsequent trouble
there.

The pretensions of the contending parties being absolutely
irreconcilable, no spontaneous accommodation was possible between
them. The Chinese could never acknowledge, or even comprehend,
equality among nations, the single relationship of victor and victim
being the beginning and the end of their international ethics. If,
therefore, they ever set before their minds the issue to be decided by
a war, it must have assumed the brutal but simple oriental form, Whose
foot is to be on the other's neck? The question, then, to be submitted
to the ordeal of battle between Great Britain and China was, Which
should be the uppermost; which should henceforth dictate to the other?
In justice to the Chinese, it must be admitted that they realised more
clearly than their adversary what the quarrel really signified. What
disconcerted them and led to chronic misunderstanding in the sequel
was the after-discovery that the victor was slack in claiming the
fruits of his victory. Whether they really expected success to attend
their arms may be an open question, for their ingrained habit of
boasting of their prowess may have deceived even themselves. With this
caveat the temper in which the Chinese entered on hostilities may be
gathered from a proclamation of the High Commissioner and the viceroy
of Canton in September 1839:--

Let it be asked [they say], though the foreign soldiers be
numerous, can they amount to one tenth-thousandth part of
ours? Though it be allowed that the foreign guns are
powerful and effective, can their ammunition be employed
for any long period and not be expended? If they venture to
enter the port, there will be but a moment's blaze and they
will be turned to cinders. If they dare to go on shore, it
is permitted to all the people to seize and kill them. How
can these foreigners then remain unawed?

From the British point of view the object of the China expedition was
set forth with conspicuous moderation by the merchants of London and
of the great industrial centres. And here it seems not unfitting to
remark upon the lively and intelligent interest which the commercial
community of that period was wont to take in the affairs of China. The
trade of Great Britain and of British India with that country had not
reached the annual value of £12,000,000 sterling including treasure,
yet we find in the years 1839 and 1840 a series of ably drawn
memorials to Government bearing the signatures of all the important
houses in the kingdom, showing the most intimate acquaintance with
everything that was passing in China, even though they failed to
apprehend the full signification thereof. The signatories of these
papers pointed out without circumlocution the measures necessary to
be taken in order to place the commercial interests of her Majesty's
subjects on a satisfactory footing. It would appear, therefore, that
it was from the independent merchants and manufacturers of Great
Britain and British India that the true inspiration came to Lord
Palmerston, who was then Foreign Minister; and not the inspiration
only, but the courage which was needed to throw over the pusillanimous
traditions of the Honourable East India Company, and to apply the
maxims of common-sense to our relations with the Chinese authorities.

Among the memorials addressed to, and by request of, the Foreign
Secretary, that from the East India and China Association,
representing the merchants of London interested in the Far East, gives
perhaps the clearest exposition of the whole case from the commercial
point of view. After a succinct historical _résumé_ of our successes
and failures in China, each traced to its cause, the memorialists
state their opinion that "submission will now only aggravate the evil,
and that an attempt should be made, supported by a powerful force, to
obtain such concessions from China as would place the trade upon a
secure and permanent footing." And they conclude with an outline of
the commercial treaty which they think would conduce to that result.

_First._ Admission not only to Canton, but to certain ports
to the northward--say Amoy, Fuh-cho-foo, Ningpo, and the
Yang-che-keang and Kwan-chou--situated between 29° and 32°
north latitude, near the silk, nankin, and tea districts,
and it is on this coast that the chief demand for British
woollens, longells, and camlets exists.

_Second._ Commercial relations to be maintained at these
places, or at Canton, generally with the Chinese natives;
but if the trade be limited to certain _hongs_, which we
must strongly deprecate, then the Government to be
guarantees of the solvency of such parties so chosen by it.

_Third._ That British subjects in China carrying on a
legitimate trade shall not be treated by the Government or
its officials as inferiors, but be left free in their
social and domestic relations to adopt European customs, to
possess warehouses, and to have their wives and families
with them, and to be under the protection of the Chinese
laws from insult and oppression.

_Fourth._ That a tariff of duties, inwards and outwards, be
fixed and agreed upon by the British and Chinese
Governments, and no alteration be made but by mutual
consent.

_Fifth._ That the Queen's representative, as superintendent
of the trade, be allowed direct communication with the
Emperor and his Ministers, as well as with the local
authorities; and that he be permitted to reside at Peking,
or at a given port, for the protection of British subjects
and the regulation of the trade.

_Sixth._ That in the event of any infraction of the Chinese
laws, the punishment for the same shall be confined to the
offender; and British subjects shall not be considered
responsible for the acts of each other, but each man for
his own--the innocent not being confounded with the guilty.

_Seventh._ That supposing the Chinese to refuse opening
their ports generally, the cession by purchase, or
otherwise, of an island be obtained, upon which a British
factory could be established.

Upon terms such as these the British trade with China
could, we think, be carried on with credit and advantage to
this country; and if force must be used to obtain them, we
cannot believe that the people of Great Britain and the
European community in general would offer any objection to
its exercise; at least we humbly suggest that the adoption
of this course is worth the trial, for if it be not
followed, the only alternative seems to be the abandonment
of this important and growing commerce to smugglers and to
piracy.--We have, &c.,

G. G. DE H. LARPENT.
JOHN ABEL SMITH.
W. CRAWFORD.

These stipulations, and the hypothetical form in which they were
advanced, show how imperfect, after all, was the grasp which the
mercantile community had as yet taken of the situation. While fully
recognising the necessity of force and urging its employment, they yet
seem to have clung to the hope that in some way or another the
expected treaty was to be the result of amicable negotiation. They did
not clearly realise that as without force nothing could be obtained,
so with force everything could be.

And from what an abyss the status of British subjects had come to be
regarded when it could be deemed a boon that they be placed under the
protection of Chinese law--instead of being kept for ever outside the
pale of law and of common human suffrages! Fortunately the Government,
profiting by past experience and better versed in political science,
held a more consistent course than that marked out for it by the
merchants, and went far beyond them in the concessions demanded of the
Chinese Government. Instead of trusting to Chinese law, protection for
the persons and property of British subjects was provided for under
the laws of Great Britain, a stipulation in the treaty which has been
the palladium of the liberties of all nationalities in China for sixty
years. The ambiguity which characterised the public appreciation of
the China question, even when expressed through the most authoritative
channel, deserves to be noted here on account of the influence it was
destined to exercise on the future conduct of affairs; for though the
British Government was perspicacious in the conduct of the war and in
arranging terms of peace, yet, lacking the sustained support of a
well-instructed public opinion, its Chinese policy was subject to
many backslidings. During protracted intervals of inadvertence the
pernicious influences which it was the purpose of the war to suppress
were allowed to regain lost ground, with the result that during the
whole sixty years our Chinese intercourse has been marred by the
chronic recrudescence of the old hostile temper which inspired the
outrages before the war.

On the part of the Chinese Court there was undoubtedly a desire for
such substantial fulfilment of the treaty as might obviate the risk of
a renewal of the war. The final instruction of the Emperor Tao-kuang
while the negotiations were proceeding was, "Be careful to make such
arrangements as shall cut off for ever all cause of war, and do not
leave anything incomplete or liable to doubt." And so long, at least,
as the material guarantee of Chusan was retained by Great
Britain--that is, until 1846--no open violation was to be apprehended.
The Chinese war party, however--as distinguished from the more
reasonable Manchus--were furious in their denunciations of the treaty;
and it was the opinion of Sir John Davis that the situation was only
saved by the financial exhaustion of the country: "the ordinary taxes
could not be collected." There would in any circumstances have been a
strong presumption of covert evasion being resorted to, a presumption
which was reduced to a certainty by the indulgence extended to that
ancient focus of mischief, Canton. By one of those aberrations of
judgment which it is scarcely unfair to call characteristic, Captain
Elliot desired to save Canton, of all places in the Chinese empire,
from the pressure of war, and in 1841, in the midst of hostilities on
the coast, he accepted ransom for the city, a transaction so
inexplicable that her Majesty's Treasury, at a loss what to do with
the money, after much explanatory correspondence declared itself
unable to appropriate the fund in the manner intended by her Majesty's
representative. The arrogance of the Cantonese had been so
immeasurably puffed up by this misguided clemency that the peace left
the populace of the city and district absolutely convinced of their
invincibility. As the eradication of this dangerous delusion was among
the primary purposes of the war, so the pandering to the pride of
Canton proved, as was inevitable, the malignant root of all subsequent
bitterness.[12]

FOOTNOTE:

[12] It is impossible to review, however summarily, the events of that
period without free reference to the officer who was during the time
charged with the care of British interests in China. But no pretence
is made in these pages to pass a verdict on the public record of
Captain Elliot. His acts involved too many solecisms in finance, for
one thing, to have escaped the attention of Parliament; but, like
others who come before that tribunal, he was neither attacked on his
merits nor defended on his merits. None could question the sincerity
of the encomiums passed by the Duke of Wellington and Lord Melbourne
on his "courage, coolness, and self-devotion"; to which might well be
added a quite exceptional fearlessness of responsibility. But the
first representatives of the British Crown in China were doomed to
failure by the nature of their commission. The terms of their
instructions were more than contradictory--they were mutually
destructive. To conciliate the Chinese while opening official
relations with them was to mix the ingredients of an explosive. A
dilemma was, in fact, presented unwittingly by the British Government
to their agents. Lord Napier impaled himself on one horn--that of
claiming a diplomatic status; Captain Elliot on the other--that of
gaining over the Government by conciliation; and no earthly skill
could have saved either of them.

CHAPTER VII.

THE NEW INTERCOURSE: CANTON, 1842-1847.

The fundamental difficulty of giving effect to the treaty
-- Necessity for thoroughness -- Character of Kiying,
Imperial Commissioner -- His amicable relations with
British Superintendent of Trade -- Turbulence of Canton --
Outrages on British merchants -- Condoned by Chinese
Government, if not encouraged both by imperial and
provincial authorities -- Sir John Davis's testimony -- His
passive treatment -- False policy of allowing Chinese
Government to screen itself behind the mob -- Postponement
of entry into city -- Climax in affair -- Evacuation of
Chusan -- Increase of insults at Canton -- Sir John Davis
palliates and then asks for redress -- Sudden reaction in
his policy consequent on Lord Palmerston's becoming Foreign
Secretary -- His clear despatches -- Sir John Davis makes a
raid on the river defences -- Has the city at his mercy --
But makes an unsatisfactory agreement -- Withdraws
protection in spite of remonstrance of merchants --
Massacre of six Englishmen in 1847 -- Redress -- Whole
question of British protection brought up -- Canton consul
objects to ship of war at factories -- Palmerston orders
one to be there -- Agreement to defer entry into city till
1849 -- People intoxicated with their success -- The
potency of the people -- Its limitations -- Interesting
correspondence -- Final agreement dictated by people and
signed by Sir John Davis and Kiying.

To carry out a treaty which was odious to Chinese officials in
general, most of all to the bureaucracy and populace of the main
centre of intercourse, Canton, required an effort analogous to that of
maintaining a body of water at an artificial level--success in either
case depending on completeness. It is easier to keep the reservoir
intact than to compromise with leakages, as in certain conditions of
the human will total abstinence is less irksome than moderation. To
carry out the treaty, the whole treaty, and nothing but the treaty,
would seem, therefore, to have been the obvious course for British
agents to follow, a course suited equally to strong and to weak
characters. This was, no doubt, understood by some, though not by all,
of the British staff,--fifty years ago, as in our own day; but in the
distribution of the _personnel_ it fell out that the fundamental
condition of success was least realised just where it was most
imperatively needed--to wit, at that intermittent volcano, Canton. For
even the close proximity of the chief superintendent--only 120 miles
distant--at Hongkong was insufficient to keep the cistern of our
Canton relations water-tight. Sir John Davis, on the whole a competent
official, shared to some extent in the common human imperfection of
knowing what was right without always doing, or being able to do, it.
He is indeed himself the most candid witness to the breakdown of the
patchwork policy which he permitted to grow up in Canton, perhaps
because he could not do otherwise.

The first British plenipotentiaries under treaty were exceptionally
fortunate in their Chinese colleague, the High Commissioner, Kiying.
He being a near kinsman of the emperor, and, with Ilipu, the principal
instrument in promoting the conclusion of peace, his appointment must
have been considered the best recognition the Court could accord of
the validity of the treaty. "Kiying," says Sir J. Davis, "was by far
the most remarkable person with whom Europeans have ever come in
contact in that part of the world; the most elevated in rank as well
as the most estimable in character." Intercourse with Kiying,
therefore, was pleasant, and conducive to self-respect.

Both officials were unfortunate in having to reckon with an
intractable peace-disturbing element in their mutual relations. This
is the name which, for want of a more exact designation, must be given
to the people of Canton, "who, through every event since 1839,
remained incorrigible in the real hatred and affected contempt for
foreigners."

It has always been, and still is, the practice of the Chinese
authorities to make use of the populace in their aggressions on
strangers. There is at all times in China, as in most countries, an
inexhaustible fund of anti-foreign sentiment ready to be drawn upon by
agitators, whether within the Government circle or not, and subject
also to spontaneous explosion. By working on these latent passions,
and inflaming the popular mind by the dissemination of odious
calumnies, Government could at any moment foment an anti-foreign raid.
It was a political engine in the use of which Chinese officialdom had
become thoroughly expert. It was tempting by its cheapness, and it
had, moreover, the special fascination for them that in the event of
being called to account for outrage they could disavow the excesses of
the "poor ignorant people." Such a force, however, is not without its
drawbacks to those who employ it. Like a fire, which is easy to kindle
but hard to control, the popular excitement was apt to extend beyond
the limits assigned by its instigators, and many an engineer has thus
been hoist by his own petard. "Otho had not sufficient authority to
prevent crime, though he could command it," says Tacitus; and the
observation fits the case of successive generations of Chinese rulers
as if it had been written for each one of them separately.

The rowdy population of Canton enjoyed special immunity from official
control. Not only had they been habitually pampered for two hundred
years, and diligently taught to tyrannise over and despise foreigners,
but during the war they were allowed to organise themselves
independently of the authorities, and to claim the honour of driving
the invaders off on the occasion when the city was admitted to ransom.
On the mendacious reports of these transactions reaching him, the
emperor not only bestowed rewards on the leaders but encouraged the
populace to further hostile measures against the foreigners. The
liberal distribution of arms during the war proved afterwards a
powerful incentive to crimes of violence, of which outrages on
foreigners were but one development.

The self-organised, self-trained bands of Canton were by no means
disposed to submit tamely to the new order of things, in the
settlement of which they had had no voice. They had bettered their
official instruction in the storing up and practising of hatred and
contempt for foreigners, and they did not choose suddenly to recant
merely because their Government had been coerced into making a treaty
in a distant province. Consequently, within three short months of its
signature notices were placarded inciting the people to violence; very
soon an organised attack on the British factories was made, and the
buildings were burned down.

So far from attempting to repress such outrages, the governor of
Canton, "while the ruins were still smoking," reported to the throne
that the people "in their natural indignation had committed some
excesses against the grasping barbarians," and a very gracious answer
was vouchsafed to an offer of the people of certain outlying villages
to join the armed bands of the city. The Imperial Government as well
as the provincial government was thus identified with the popular
hostility to foreigners, and opposition to the fulfilment of the
treaty. "The excesses of the Canton mob," writes Sir John Davis, "were
perpetually and annually resumed, up to the public decapitation of the
four murderers of the Englishmen in 1847, with the subsequent
punishment of eleven more."

But this is surely remarkable testimony from the Minister of Great
Britain who was charged with the protection of his nationals[13] from
wrong? With British garrisons in occupation of Kulangsu and Chusan, a
military and naval force in Hongkong, and a Chinese commissioner
professedly willing to afford protection and redress to foreigners,
the acquiescence of the British authorities in these recurrent
outrages seems to stand in need of explanation. The native
authorities, it was clear, would not, even if they dared, coerce the
Canton populace. Kiying himself, though meaning to be just, and ready
to enforce redress against individual culprits, recoiled before the
mob. So it would appear did the British representative, who, though
vigilant in requiring compliance with the treaty in minor respects,
seemed to be paralysed whenever the Cantonese were in question. He
had been too long accustomed to their practices not to be aware of the
cumulative quality of these outrages, and he was too practical a
philosopher not to know the wisdom of arresting the virulent stream at
its fountain-head. Yet "the miserable policy of the Chinese Government
... had permitted the populace of Canton ... to reach the
culminating-point of organised misrule in 1846," British merchants
being the sufferers. Why was nothing done to protect them at least
from the consequences of this misrule?

The intricacies of the relation between the criminal rabble of Canton
and the authorities there it would be hopeless to unravel, just as it
would be vain to make such an attempt with regard to analogous cases
which are to this day of constant recurrence. But no special
penetration is needed to discover the falsity of a policy of allowing
an organised government to plead its inability to control its own
populace. Once admit such a plea and the security of the stranger is
gone, for he has relinquished his hold on the Government without being
compensated by any alternative security. Such was the state of things
which had been allowed to grow up in Canton, producing the only fruit
possible--outrage, ever increasing in violence and ending in massacre.

The postponement of the right of entry into the city conferred by
treaty was a test case which gave the Chinese the clue to the weakness
of British policy. The consequences would have been less pernicious
had the right been frankly surrendered from the first, for to have it
merely deferred from time to time on the avowed ground of the populace
not being ready to acquiesce in it was to flatter the mob beyond
measure while feeding their passion for violence. It was in this
manner that the British Government had "given itself away" to the
lawless rowdies of Canton.

The "climax" referred to by Sir John Davis occurred at an interesting
juncture of time, for it was in 1846 that the last British soldier
quitted Chinese soil, and Sir John Davis testifies that the
restoration of Chusan had produced a change for the worse in the tone
of the Chinese authorities. Kiying himself forgot his urbanity and
acted "with a degree of _brusquerie_, not to say insolence, never
before exhibited by him."

A riotous attack on the foreign factories broke out in July 1846, in
which the merchants were compelled in a body to defend themselves
against an immense number of assailants. For this outbreak Sir John
Davis blamed one of the English merchants, and got him irregularly
fined by the consul. A murderous assault was committed on two British
seamen in the city of Canton in October following. In the ordinary
routine he reported the occurrence to the Foreign Office in a despatch
of seven lines. "Two English merchant seamen," he said, "having
strayed into the town, had been violently ill-used by the populace";
adding that he "considered it to be the duty of the consul to prevent
seamen wandering through Canton." He at the same time instructed the
consul to find some means of punishing the master of the ship for
allowing his men liberty, and proposed placing greater power in the
hands of the consul for the restraint of British subjects generally.
Above this level the plenipotentiary seemed unable to rise.

In March 1847 an English party of six, including Colonel Chesney,
commanding the Royal Artillery in Hongkong, narrowly escaped murder at
the hands of a riotous mob during an excursion up the Canton river.
They strayed much farther than the two sailors had done, and if they
did not fare worse it was due to the almost miraculous interposition
of a Chinese officer with his followers, he himself being roughly
handled by the mob. It would not do to apply to Colonel Chesney's case
the homoeopathic treatment which was thought appropriate to the
others, and Sir John Davis made a formal demand on the Chinese
authorities for the punishment of the aggressors. The cup of Chinese
iniquity was deemed full, and the avenger was at last let loose.

Whence, it is pertinent to ask, came this sudden access of vigour in
the British representative?

The juncture of time above referred to was interesting from another
point of view, for coincidently with the evacuation of Chusan and the
renewed arrogance of the Chinese, a political event took place in the
western hemisphere which had an important bearing on the whole
attitude of Great Britain. There was a change of Government,
Palmerston succeeding Aberdeen at the Foreign Office. The influence of
Lord Palmerston on Chinese affairs during his long public career was
so remarkable, that the ebb and flow of British prestige may be traced
as closely by his periods of office as the course of the oceanic tide
by the phases of the moon. Let any patriotic Englishman ransack the
records of the sixty odd years of that statesman's full activity, and
he will find no despatch or speech on the subject of China, even down
to our own day, that will afford him such genuine satisfaction as
those emanating from Lord Palmerston. They are so much the embodiment
of common-sense that they might sometimes be considered commonplace;
practical, true, clear as a bugle-note. He had been barely six months
in office when one of his terse despatches to Sir John Davis turned
that cautious official for the time being into a hero. The
astonishment of Sir John may be imagined when, in reply to his placid
report of the outrage on the two seamen, he received a curt
communication from the Foreign Office in which his attention was
directed to the punishment, not of the victims, but of the
perpetrators, of the outrage.

I have [wrote Lord Palmerston, January 12, 1847] to
instruct you to demand the punishment of the parties guilty
of this outrage; and you will, moreover, inform the Chinese
authorities in plain and distinct terms that the British
Government will not tolerate that a Chinese mob shall with
impunity maltreat British subjects in China whenever they
get them into their power; and that if the Chinese
authorities will not by the exercise of their own power
punish and prevent such outrages, the British Government
will be obliged to take the matter into their own hands.

Sir John Davis was the more ready to respond to this stirring appeal
that it reached him just as he had entered on a correspondence with
the Chinese respecting the attack on Colonel Chesney's party. The turn
of the tide was marked with unusual distinctness in a single sentence
of the plenipotentiary's despatch dated March 27, 1847. "The records
of the Foreign Office," wrote Sir John, "will convince your lordship
that during the last three years I have been rigidly tied down by my
instructions to the most forbearing policy.... The time has, in my
opinion, certainly arrived when decision becomes necessary and
further forbearance impolitic." The inspiration of these instructions
may be inferred from a speech of Lord Stanley's in 1845, in which he
said, speaking of China, "I believe, so far as our later experience
has gone, that there is no nation which more highly values public
faith in others; and up to the present moment I am bound to say there
never was a government or a nation which more strictly and
conscientiously adhered to the literal fulfilment of the engagements
into which it had entered." This from a Minister of the Crown, after
three years of continuous outrages in Canton and of refusal to fulfil
a specific article in the treaty, reflects either on the
superintendent of trade in China as having withheld information from
the Government, or on the Government itself in arriving at conclusions
diametrically opposed to the tenor of their agent's despatches. If it
be any justification of the Government theory to say so, the
sentiments expressed by Lord Stanley were echoed by the newspapers of
the day. "The Chinese," said one of them, "have acted with exemplary
good faith, nor is there the least probability of their failing in
future to do so."

Under the new afflatus, and backed handsomely by the naval and
military commanders, Sir John Davis proceeded to prick the bubble of
mob lawlessness and to reduce the Anglo-Chinese relations to working
order. This he did by a sudden raid on the Canton river defences,
without apparently any diplomatic preliminaries. By a brilliant feat
of arms General D'Aguilar with a detachment from the Hongkong
garrison, conveyed by three small steamers of the China squadron,
swept the defences of the Canton river, blew up the magazines, spiked
827 pieces of heavy cannon, and placed the city of Canton "entirely at
our mercy, ... all without the loss of one British life." Under the
intoxication of such a triumph the plenipotentiary might be pardoned
the illusion that the Canton troubles were now at an end. "The Chinese
yielded in five minutes what had been delayed as many months." And yet
it proved to be a fool's paradise after all in which he found shelter,
for the old fatality of half-measures that has marred so many British
victories overshadowed Sir John Davis's first essay in diplomacy. The
agreement in seven articles concluded with Kiying on April 6, 1847,
contained such blemishes as the British negotiator could perceive
clearly enough when the work of other officials was in question.
Having laid down broadly that the good faith of the Chinese Government
bore a direct relation to the hostages they had given, yet the
plenipotentiary, when he came to business on his own account,
abandoned the securities which were actually in his hands, and, either
from misgivings of some sort, or under the impulse of a sudden
reconversion, he threw himself unreservedly on the good faith of the
Chinese without any guarantee whatever.

With regard to the protection to be afforded to the merchants and the
prevention of attacks upon them, Lord Palmerston wrote in December
1846: "Wherever British subjects are placed in danger, in a situation
which is accessible to a British ship of war, thither a British ship
of war ought to be, and will be ordered, not only to go but to remain
as long as its presence may be required. I see no reason for
cancelling the instructions given to you for the constant presence of
a ship of war within reach of the factories at Canton." This promise
of Lord Palmerston's was the sheet-anchor of the merchants' security.
The question of having a ship of war close to the factories divided
the mercantile from the local official view, and as the Home
Government had so clearly adopted the former, the merchants took
courage to stand up for what they deemed their rights. Learning that
Sir John Davis, in the plenitude of his military success, had resolved
to withdraw all her Majesty's forces from Canton, they ventured to
make a strong remonstrance against such a step. Sir John, however,
while consenting to the retention of a portion of the force, never
allowed himself to be convinced of the need of any such measure.
Writing to his Government in August 1847, he declared that "the Canton
factories were never less in need of the presence of such a vessel
than at present,"--an opinion frequently reiterated until November 20,
when "for the first time since the peace it may be confidently
predicated that a steamer will not be required." This was within
sixteen days of the most cruel and revolting massacre of six young
Englishmen at Hwang-chu-ke, within three miles of the city. The
absence of a ship of war at that moment was deeply deplored, because
several of the victims were kept alive long enough to have been
rescued had there been any British force at hand.

This massacre naturally produced a profound impression on the Canton
community, who felt that their warnings and petitions had been cruelly
disregarded. The resident British merchants, in a memorial to Lord
Palmerston, quoted his lordship's own instruction as to the
stationing of a British ship of war at Canton, and said "it was with
the utmost surprise and regret they beheld that officer [Sir J. Davis]
shutting his eyes to the danger that menaced us, ... and withholding
the protection he had been directed to afford." "The heavy calamity
which has befallen us," they add, "is the result of this infatuation."

So much for the protection of life and property resulting from the
armed expedition of 1847. The value of the new agreement, purely local
in its bearing, which was the result of the successful invasion, was
esteemed but lightly by the merchants. In their memorial, written in
the month of August, they said: "If it is not deemed expedient to
carry out a general measure in the manner contemplated by the 4th
article of the new agreement, it would be much better that the
merchants be again left to themselves"; while respecting the military
raid and its consequences, they represented that "the just alarm
occasioned by the expedition four months ago, and the excitement kept
up by these fruitless negotiations, have done incalculable injury to
the trade without bettering the position of foreigners in the least."

Such diverse views of policy held by the principal parties concerned
are typical of the relations which have subsisted between the
protectors and the protected throughout a great part of the period
which has elapsed since the British Government established relations
with China in 1834.

These occurrences at Canton and the decided action taken by the
British Government brought up in a definite form the whole question of
the safety of British interests in China, and the means by which it
was to be secured. The conversion of Sir John Davis, though much, was
not everything. The aim of Lord Palmerston's policy was still liable
to be deflected by the perturbing influence of a minor planet in the
system. The consul in Canton gave him almost as much trouble in his
day as the famous Tiverton butcher did afterwards in his; and the
patience with which his lordship endeavoured to enlighten his agent on
the most elementary principles of human action was admirable. It had
been the practice of the consul "to report to your Excellency another
wanton and unprovoked attack on the part of the populace upon a party
of Englishmen," and at the same time to deprecate any measures of
defence, whether by organising volunteers among the residents or
having a British ship of war stationed where she could be seen.

The consul's object in all this was to avoid exciting suspicion in the
minds of the Chinese populace. Sir John Davis, who had all along
agreed with the consul, had now to tell his subordinate that "Viscount
Palmerston was of opinion that we shall lose all advantages which we
have gained by the war if we take the low tone which has been adopted
at Canton."

We must stop [continued his lordship] on the very threshold
any attempt on their part to treat us otherwise than as
their equals.... The Chinese must learn and be convinced
that if they attack our people and our factories they will
be shot.... So far from objecting (as the Consul had done)
to the armed association, I think it a wise security
against the necessity of using force.... Depend upon it
that the best way of keeping any men quiet is to let them
see that you are able and determined to repel force by
force, and the Chinese are not in the least different in
this respect from the rest of mankind.

In the light of the history of the subsequent fifty years, one is
tempted to say that Lord Palmerston's dictum puts the eternal China
question in a nutshell.

But when we reflect on the consequences of a man "of great experience"
needing such lectures and yet left for years undisturbed at a centre
of turbulence like Canton, can we greatly wonder at the periodical
harvest of atrocities which followed?

The one important article in the April agreement was that suspending
for a definite period of two years the operation of the article of the
treaty of Nanking conferring the right of entering the city of Canton
and the other ports of trade. Sir John Davis demanded either
permission to "return your Excellency's visit in the city, or that a
time be specifically named after which there shall be general free
ingress for British subjects." To which Kiying replied, "The intention
of entering the city to return my visit is excellent. The feelings of
the people, however, are not yet reconciled to it." And Kiying easily
had his way. Sir John thereupon explicitly sanctioned a definite delay
of two years in the exercise of this treaty right, representing the
privilege in his report to Lord Palmerston as of little importance.

Such, however, was not the view either of the Chinese or the British
community of Canton. The throwing open of the city was by the latter
considered the essential object of the recent expedition, and in their
memorial to Lord Palmerston the merchants stated that the Braves
having declared their determination to oppose the English at all
costs, the withdrawal of our troops _re infectâ_ "intoxicated all
ranks of the people with an imaginary triumph." Exclusion from the
city thus remained as a trophy in the hands of the reactionaries, to
become in 1856 the crux of a new dispute and a new war.

It was no imaginary, but a very real, triumph for "the people"; and
even looking back on the transaction with the advantage of fifty
years' experience, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was
an inversion of judgment to have a city entirely at your mercy and
then yield to the city instead of making the city yield to you. The
least that could have been expected was, that while the troops were on
the spot they should have vindicated the treaty of Nanking once for
all by opening the city gates and thus eliminating the most pregnant
source of future strife.

On one point Sir John Davis was in agreement with the
memorialists--namely, in "tracing back the conduct of the Canton
populace to the operations of 1841, on which occasion they were spared
by our forces at the rear of the city." But the merchants were
pointing out to Lord Palmerston that Sir John Davis was himself
implicitly following that very precedent.

The China career of Sir John Davis was destined to a tragic finale,
for in the midst of a series of decidedly optimistic despatches he was
startled by the news of the Hwang-chu-ke murders. Expiation was as
prompt as could have been reasonably expected, the High Commissioner
not daring to afford provocation for a further punitive expedition
which might not have ended quite so easily as that of the previous
April.

The Canton imbroglio of 1847 threw into strong relief the potency of
the Chinese demos and its relation to the Central Government. The
pretensions of the populace and the stress of events drove the
Imperial Government into a corner and forced it to show its hand,
with the result that the occult combination which had been the despair
of British officials for fourteen years was resolved into its
elements, and for a time made amenable to treatment. It was
demonstrated by this experiment that though the Imperial Government
dared not, except in extremity, oppose any popular movement, yet when
necessity required the authorities assumed an easy mastery. Sir John
Davis wrote in one of his latest despatches, "Kiying had clearly
proved his power over the people when he chooses to exercise it."
Coerced themselves, the authorities applied corresponding coercion to
the people, even at the behest of foreigners, "truckling" to whom was
equally disgraceful to both the Chinese parties. The interaction of
the two Powers exemplified in a memorable way the principle of all
Chinese intercourse, that boldness begets timidity and gentleness
arrogance. When the people asserted themselves the authorities yielded
and fell into line with them, and when the authorities asserted
themselves the people succumbed. Such were the lessons of the Canton
operations of 1847, lessons since forgotten and relearned again and
again at ever-increasing cost.

But the relations between the Government and the people bore also a
quasi-diplomatic character. They dealt with each other as if they were
two Estates of the realm having parallel or concurrent jurisdiction.
The most remarkable phase, however, of the popular pretensions which
was evolved under the unaccustomed pressure of the British Minister
was the attempt of the populace to diplomatise direct with him. So
curious an incident may still be studied with profit. The new
departure of the people was the more startling in that they had been
hitherto known only as a ferocious and lawless mob addicted to
outrage, whose hatred of foreigners gained in bitterness by a long
immunity from reprisals. Now that they had felt the "mailed fist" of a
man of fact, and were almost in the act of delivering up their own
heroes for execution, they sought to parley with the Power they had
despised.

The elders of the murderous villages, in the midst of his stern
demands, sent a memorial to Sir John Davis full of amity and goodwill.
"Come and let us reason together" was the burden of this novel
address. The elders proposed a convention for the suppression of
outrages, somewhat on the lines of the Kilmainham Treaty, to supersede
the law of the land. "The former treaty drawn up in Kiangnan was not
well understood by the common people"; in other words, it was wanting
in validity, for "the resolutions of Government are in nowise to be
compared to those self-imposed by the people.... Were not this
preferable to the fruitless proclamations and manifestos of
government?" "It has, therefore," they say, "been resolved to invite
the upright and influential gentry and literati of the whole city to
meet together, and, in concert with the wealthy and important
merchants of your honourable nation, establish a compact of peace."

Though he could not receive such a communication officially, Sir John
Davis forwarded a copy to the Foreign Office, to whom he imparted his
belief that the author was no other than Kiying himself--a surmise
which was soon confirmed. The paper was extensively circulated; its
arguments and phraseology were adopted by Kiying in his official
correspondence with Sir John Davis. "The compact of peace" which
closed their negotiations amounted to no more, indeed, than police
protection for foreigners in their country walks, which, however, was
counterbalanced by a new restriction excluding them from the villages
as they had already been from the city. The interesting point is that,
such as it was, it was the proposal of the people ratified by the two
plenipotentiaries.

* * * * *

From this hurried sketch of affairs at Canton during the first five
years of the new intercourse we see that the secular policy of China
had undergone no change as a result of the treaty. The settled
determination of the Government to exclude foreigners from the country
and keep them in strict subjection at the farthest maritime outpost of
the empire had been overcome by violence; but the Chinese never
abandoned the hope of retrieving their position in whole or in part,
nor did they forego any opportunity of avenging their military defeat.
A frontal attack being out of the question, the invader could be
perpetually worried by guerilla tactics, his sentries caught napping,
his chiefs bamboozled: what had been lost through force might thus be
won back by force and fraud judiciously blended, for craft is the
natural resource of the weak. The conditions of the contest have
varied with the international developments of fifty years, but time
has worked no change in the nature of the struggle East _v._ West.

FOOTNOTE:

[13] This convenient term, borrowed from the French, saves many
periphrases and sometimes an ambiguity. Neither "fellow-countrymen,"
"fellow-subjects," nor "fellow-citizens" fully expresses the
relationship between an official in an extra-territorialised country
and those whom he protects and governs.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE NEW TREATY PORTS--FOOCHOW, AMOY, NINGPO.

Visit of Chinese commissioners to Hongkong -- A
supplementary treaty negotiated -- Chinese thereby obtain
control of junk trade of colony -- Vain efforts to recover
the lost ground -- New ports criticised -- Amoy -- Alcock's
temporary residence there, 1844 -- Interpreter Parkes --
Foochow -- Bad beginning -- Insolence of mandarin and mob
-- Lost ground recovered during Alcock's consulate -- His
family arrive -- Little trade -- Difficulties of diverting
the Bohea trade from old routes -- Alcock's commercial
reports -- Their grasp of salient points in a fresh range
of subjects.

It accorded with the fitness of things that the negotiator of the
treaty should remain to carry out its provisions. Sir Henry Pottinger
was appointed the first Governor of Hongkong, Chief Superintendent of
Trade, and Minister Plenipotentiary for Great Britain; Kiying and two
associates Imperial Commissioners for China. Intercourse between them
was of the most agreeable character. Though the wound to the pride of
China was deep and still fresh, the Imperial Commissioners' acceptance
of the new state of things exceeded what the most stoical philosophy
could call for. They came in person, on invitation, to the alienated
island, there to exchange the ratifications of the Nanking treaty;
entered heartily into the life of the community, showed great interest
in their nascent institutions, and "returned to Canton charmed with
English civilisation." China then was really converted, and Kiying the
patron saint of the young colony! That adroit Manchu, however, had a
purpose to serve by his effusive _bonhomie_: it was nothing less than
to undermine the treaty of Nanking.

So long as Sir Henry Pottinger was negotiating under the guns of her
Majesty's ships he was master of the situation, but when pitted
against the Chinese in the open field the position was reversed, for
they had definite aims and knew how to gain them. Arrangements were
found necessary for the conduct of trade at the five consular ports;
the relations between the colony of Hongkong and the empire of China,
as regards criminals, debtors, &c., required definition; and, more
important still, the native shipping frequenting its harbour had to be
regulated. The negotiations required for these purposes afforded
Kiying a favourable opportunity for giving effect to the reactionary
policy of the Chinese Government. The supplementary treaty was
negotiated at the Bogue between Sir Henry Pottinger and Kiying in
October 1843. The Chinese version seems to have been signed by the
British agent without his having before him a textual English
translation: by its provisions the Chinese authorities engaged to
protect the junk traffic in colonial waters. Sir Henry Pottinger did
not realise the kind of weapon he had thus placed in the hands of his
friends until its damaging effects were demonstrated by experience.
Then what had been lost by diplomacy was sought to be partially
regained by persuasion. To this end strenuous efforts were made by
successive governors of Hongkong to induce Kiying to forego some of
the powers which had been inadvertently conferred on him, as their
exercise was proving ruinous to the trade of the island. But as this
result was precisely what had been intended by the Chinese, nothing
short of another war would have moved them to yield a single point.

His hesitation to exercise the right of entry into the city of Canton
conferred by the treaty of Nanking, while allowing the Chinese the
full advantage of the concessions gained by them under the
supplementary treaty, must likewise be held as a blemish on the policy
of Sir Henry Pottinger. The best palliation of these errors of the
first treaty-maker is perhaps to be found in the fact that his
successors, with many years of actual experience to guide them, have
fallen into the same errors of both omission and commission.

In other respects Sir Henry Pottinger's arrangements for giving effect
to the treaty seem to have been as practical as the untried
circumstances would allow.

[Illustration: THE LAKES, NINGPO.]

The opening of the new ports, with the exception of Shanghai, was
unfavourably commented upon by a section of the English press, not
perhaps unwilling to score a point against the "Tory Government, which
was alone answerable for the treaty of Nanking." They denounced the
opening of so many ports on the ground that it would only multiply
points of collision with the Chinese. Three years later the 'Times'
pronounced "Amoy, Foochow, and Ningpo as good for nothing as places of
trade," while Hongkong itself was equally despised as a commercial
colony. Some of the journals resuscitated the idea which had been
freely discussed during the years preceding the war, and advocated the
acquisition in sovereignty of islands as emporia instead of ports on
the mainland, and it is worthy of remark that the same idea was again
revived by Mr Cobden twenty years later. "Get two other small
islands," he said in 1864; "merely establish them as free ports" on
the model of Hongkong. And this with a view to superseding the treaty
ports on the coast, where trade had been established for twenty years.

Three of the new ports--Shanghai, Ningpo, and Amoy--were opened under
Sir Henry Pottinger's auspices in 1843; Foochow in 1844. These places,
distributed at approximately equal intervals along the coast-line of
1000 miles between Shanghai and Canton, were not chosen at random.
They had all been at one time or another entrepots of foreign commerce
with either Europe, Southern Asia, or Japan. Foochow had been many
years before strongly recommended by one of the East India Company's
tea-tasters as most desirable for the shipment of tea. An expedition
equipped by the Company under Mr Hamilton Lindsay, who, like the other
servants of the Company, was versed in the Chinese language, visited
the northern coast in the chartered ship Amherst in 1832, and gained
the first authentic information concerning the commercial capabilities
of Shanghai. Mr Gutzlaff, who acted as secretary and coadjutor to Mr
Lindsay's mission, made several adventurous voyages, including one in
Chinese disguise, in a native junk, to Tientsin. Though the coast had
not yet been surveyed, and navigation was in consequence somewhat
dangerous, a good deal of fairly accurate information, some of it
already obsolete, was by these means placed at the disposal of those
who made the selection of the treaty ports. Ningpo was noted for its
literary culture, for the respectability and intelligence of its
inhabitants, and their friendly disposition towards foreigners. But
although it was the entrepot of a flourishing coasting trade, the
shallowness of its river, the want of anchorage at its embouchure, and
its vicinity to Shanghai, combined to preclude the growth of foreign
commerce at the port of Ningpo.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE FIRST CONSULAR RESIDENCE AT FOOCHOW.]

It was to Foochow that Mr Alcock was appointed in 1844, by Mr Davis
(as he then was), who had recently succeeded Sir Henry Pottinger. The
new consul, however, made his actual _début_ at Amoy, where he was
detained for four months, from November 1844 to March 1845, acting for
the titular consul at that port. There he at once displayed that
energy and clear-sightedness which were to become so conspicuous in
his subsequent career. Two important matters had to be arranged within
the period named--the evacuation of the island of Kulangsu by the
British garrison and the future residence of the consul. Trifling as
this last may seem, it was a matter of no small consideration in
China, where, to paraphrase Polonius, the dwelling oft proclaims the
man. It was one of the innumerable devices of the Chinese authorities
for degrading new-comers in the eyes of the populace to force them to
live, as at Canton, within a confined space or in squalid tenements.
Mr Alcock knew by instinct the importance of prestige, while his
Peninsular training had taught him the value of sanitation.
Following these two guiding stars, he overbore the obstruction of the
officials, and not only obtained a commodious site but had a house
built to his own specification during his temporary incumbency of the
office. That, and his general bearing towards the authorities, stamped
on the Amoy consulate the impress of dignity which has never been
wholly effaced. He was most fortunate, it must be allowed, in his
instruments, chiefly in the interpreter whom he found at Amoy, a man,
or rather a boy--for he was only sixteen--entirely after his own
heart. That was Harry Parkes, one of the bravest and best of our
empire-builders. It is indeed to the journals and letters of Sir Harry
Parkes, edited by Mr Stanley Lane-Poole, and to notes supplied for
that biography by Sir Rutherford Alcock himself in 1893, that we are
chiefly indebted for the record of their joint proceedings at Amoy,
Foochow, and to some extent also Shanghai, from 1844 to 1848. The
consul made a favourable first impression on the young interpreter,
who described him in a family letter as "tall but slimly made,
standing about six feet in his boots; ... very gentlemanly in his
manners and address, and exceedingly polite." It was not, however,
till he reached his proper post, Foochow, that the mettle of the new
consul and interpreter was seriously tested.

Foochow was of superior rank to the other two ports, being, like Canton,
at once a provincial capital and the seat of a governor-general or
viceroy of two provinces--namely, Fukien and Chêkiang--and possessing
a Manchu garrison. The Chinese Government was believed to have been
most reluctant to open Foochow as a trading port at all, which seemed
reason enough for the British negotiators insisting on its being
opened. Its trade was small, which perhaps rendered the port the more
suitable for the experimental purpose of testing the principles which
were to govern the new intercourse.

As the leading occurrences there have been set forth at some length by
Mr Stanley Lane-Poole in the above-mentioned work, there is the less
reason for us to linger over details. We find that on arrival at the
end of March 1845 Mr Alcock discovered that he had not to maintain,
but to regain, the prestige which had already been lost at Foochow.
Canton was, in fact, repeating itself both as regards the arrogance of
the Chinese and the acquiescence of British officials. Exclusion from
the city and various other indignities had been imposed on the consul,
who, on his part, had followed the course which had proved so fatal at
Canton of currying favour by submission. Living in a shed,[14] where
Mr Davis on a flying visit was ashamed to receive return calls from
the native authorities, keeping up no great state, afraid even to
hoist his consular flag for fear of hurting the feelings of the
Chinese, the consul soon brought upon himself and his nationals the
inevitable consequences of his humility. Mob violence and outrages,
encouraged at first by the authorities in order to cow the foreigners,
had attained dimensions which at last alarmed the authorities
themselves, all within two years of the opening of the port. Mr Alcock
set himself sternly to oppose this downward current, but a year
elapsed before the violence of the people and the studied rudeness of
the officials were finally stamped out. For, curiously enough, as Mr
Lane-Poole has so well pointed out, every outrage in Canton found its
echo at Foochow, showing clearly where lay the "centre of
disturbance," as our meteorologists express it.

In the end, however, the ascendancy of the British authority was
completely achieved. The consul and the interpreter between them
succeeded in getting proud Tartars put in the common pillory and
lesser ruffians severely flogged, while before they left Foochow in
1846 they had extorted from the authorities substantial pecuniary
compensation for injuries sustained by British subjects. The credit of
these vigorous measures no doubt belonged in the first instance to Sir
John Davis, the chief superintendent, who had been so struck with the
deplorable condition of things on his first official visit to the port
in 1844 that he empowered the new consul to find the remedy. The
effect of this resolute policy on the mandarins was as prompt and
natural as the effect of the submissive policy had been, and it is
instructive to read the testimony of Sir John Davis that, after
redress had been exacted, "the consul was on the best terms with the
local authorities," which is the perpetual lesson taught in all our
dealings with the Chinese.

Foochow is distinguished among the coast ports of China by the beauty
and even grandeur of its scenery and the comparative salubrity of its
climate. The city itself contains above half a million of people,
covers an extensive area on the left bank of the river Min, and is
connected with the foreign quarter by a stone bridge of forty-five
"arches," which are not arches but spaces between the piers on which
huge granite slabs are laid horizontally, forming the roadway. The
houses and business premises of the merchants, the custom-house and
foreign consulates, are all now situated on Nantai, an island of some
twenty miles in circumference, which divides the main stream of the
Min from its tributary, the Yungfu. In the early days the British
consulate was located within the walled city, in the grounds of a
Buddhist temple, three miles from the landing-place and business
quarter on Nantai, and approached through narrow and exceedingly
foul-smelling streets.

Mrs Alcock joined her husband as soon as tolerable accommodation could
be prepared for her, and being the first foreign lady who had set foot
in the city, her entry excited no small curiosity among the people. A
year later Mrs and Miss Bacon, Mrs Alcock's mother and sister, were
added to the family party, and though curiosity was still keen, they
were safely escorted through the surging crowd to their peaceful
_enclave_ in the heart of the city. The situation was suggestive of
monastic life. Being on high ground the consulate commanded a superb
mountain view, with the two rivers issuing from their recesses and the
great city lying below forming a picturesque foreground, while in the
middle distance the terraced rice-fields showed in their season the
tenderest of all greens. The circumstances were conducive to the
idyllic life of which we get a glimpse in the biography of Sir Harry
Parkes, who shared it. He speaks in the warmest terms of the kindness
he received from Mr and Mrs Alcock, who tended him through a fever
which, but for the medical skill of the consul--no other professional
aid being available--must have ended fatally. They helped him with
books, enlarged his field of culture, and there is no doubt that daily
intercourse with this genial and accomplished family did much to
supply the want of that liberal education from which the boy had been
untimely cut adrift. The value of such parental influence to a lad who
had left school at thirteen can hardly be over-estimated, and he did
not exaggerate in writing, "I can never repay the Alcocks the lasting
obligations I am under to them."

[Illustration: BRIDGE OVER RIVER MIN.]

During the first few years there was practically no foreign trade at
Foochow except in opium, which was conducted from a sea base beyond
port limits, a trade which was invisible alike to Chinese and British
authorities in the sense in which harlequin is invisible to clown and
pantaloon. The spasmodic attempts which were made to open up a market
for British manufactures met with no encouragement, for only one
British merchant maintained a precarious existence, and the question
of abandoning the port was mooted. The prospect of commercial
development at Foochow depended on its vicinity to that classic centre
of the tea cultivation, the famous Bohea range, about 250 miles to the
westward, whose name, however, was used to cover many inferior
products. Ten years more elapsed before this advantageous position was
turned to practical account, owing to the serious obstacles that stood
in the way of changing the established trade route to Canton and the
absence of aggressive energy sufficient to overcome them. Through the
enterprise of an American merchant in alliance with Chinese, Foochow
began to be a shipping port for tea about the year 1853, growing year
by year in importance until it rivalled Canton and Shanghai. But as
its prosperity has always rested on the single article, the fortunes
of the port have necessarily fallen with the general decay of the
Chinese tea trade.

Apart from the task of putting the official intercourse on a good
working basis, of maintaining order between the few foreigners,
residents, and visitors, and the native population, the consular
duties at a port like Foochow were necessarily of the lightest
description. But it was not in Mr Alcock's nature to make a sinecure
of his office. He was a stranger to the country, about which he had
everything to learn. He was surrounded by problems all of great
interest, and some of them pressing urgently for solution, and he had
to make a success of his port or "know the reason why." Among the
fruits of his labours during the latter part of his term at Foochow
are a series of commercial reports, partly published by Government,
which bear witness to exhaustive research into every circumstance
having any bearing on the genesis of trade, and applying to those
local, and to him absolutely novel, conditions the great root
principles which are of universal validity. Considering how alien to
his previous experience was the whole range of such subjects, his at
once grappling with them and firmly seizing their salient features
showed a mind of no common capacity. For there was nothing perfunctory
about those early treatises; on the contrary, they were at once more
polished and more profound than most things of the same kind which
have appeared during the subsequent half century. The principal
generalisations of recent commentators on the trade of China were in
fact set forth in the three Foochow consular reports of 1845-46, while
many supposed new lights which the discussions of the last few years
have shed on Chinese character and methods had been already displayed,
and in a more perfect form, in the buried records of the
superintendency of trade in China.

[Illustration: THE SECOND CONSULAR RESIDENCE AT FOOCHOW, 1848.]

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTE:

[14] "Mr Lay, who has been officiating as consul for some weeks, has
been located in a miserable house built on piles on a mud flat, apart
from the city, and above the bridge, where the tide, as it ebbs and
flows, daily sweeps up to his door; and all efforts to obtain even
decent accommodation in the city, where he is entitled to demand it,
or in any but this pestilent locality, have been in vain."--'Times'
Correspondent, Hongkong, October 22, 1844.

CHAPTER IX.

SHANGHAI.

Shanghai -- Importance of its situation -- Consul Balfour
-- Germ of municipal institutions -- The foreign
settlements -- Confidence and civility of the natives --
Alcock appointed consul, 1846 -- Excursions into the
country -- Their limitations -- Responsibilities of
consuls.

Of the four new ports, Shanghai, by far the most important, had been
fortunate in the selection of its first consul. This was Captain
George Balfour of the Madras Artillery, who, like a wise
master-builder, laid the foundations of what is now one of the
greatest emporia in the world. Captain Balfour had managed the
beginnings of the settlement so judiciously that the merchants enjoyed
the fullest facilities for prosecuting their business, while the
consul maintained good relations with the native authorities and no
hostile feeling existed between the foreign and native communities.
The circumstances of the place were favourable to all this: the
foreign residents were not, as at Canton, confined to a narrow space;
they had abundance of elbow-room and perfect freedom of movement in
the surrounding district, which was well provided with footpaths and
an excellent system of waterways. The people of that part of the
country are of a peaceable and rather timid disposition. Altogether, a
healthy condition of things had grown up, there seemed to be no
grievance felt on either side, while the material prosperity of the
natives rapidly increased as a result of a great and expanding foreign
trade, to which they had never been accustomed. The regulation of
business accommodation and residence was very simple and worked
automatically. A certain area, ample for every purpose that could be
foreseen, was set apart by the Chinese Government for the residence of
foreigners, the location having been indicated by Sir Henry Pottinger
on his way from Nanking after the signing of the treaty. The rights of
the native proprietors were in no way interfered with, the merchants
and others who desired to settle were at liberty to deal with the
natives for the purchase of building lots, and as the prices paid were
so much above the normal value of the land there was no essential
difficulty in effecting purchases. But there being so many interested
parties, several years elapsed before the whole area had passed into
the possession of foreign occupants. The land remained the property of
the Crown, held under perpetual lease, subject only to a small
ground-rent, which was collected through the consulates, as at this
day. Roads were gradually marked out and jetties for boats were built
on the river frontage, and what is now a municipal council served by a
large secretarial staff and an imposing body of police, and handling a
budget amounting to £130,000, came into existence under the modest
title of a "Committee for Roads and Jetties." In the beginning there
seems to have been an idea of forming separate reservations of land
for the subjects of the three treaty Powers--Great Britain, France,
and the United States; but the exigencies of business soon effaced
the theoretical distinction as between England and America, whose
separate ideal settlements were merged for all practical purposes into
one cosmopolitan colony, in which the Powers coming later on the scene
enjoyed the same rights as the original pioneers.

[Illustration: BAMBOO BRIDGE AT FOOCHOW.]

To ground thus wisely prepared Mr Alcock succeeded in the autumn of
1846. His four months at Amoy and eighteen at Foochow were only
preparatory for the real work which lay before him in the consulate at
Shanghai, whither he carried in his train the interpreter Parkes, with
whom he had grown accustomed to work so efficiently. Shanghai by this
time was already realising the position assigned to it by nature as a
great commercial port, and the resident community, 120 Europeans all
told, was already forming itself into that novel kind of republic
which is so flourishing to-day, while its commercial interests were
such as to give its members weight in the administration of their own
affairs as well as in matters of public policy.

[Illustration: COUNTRY WATERWAY NEAR SHANGHAI.]

The level country round Shanghai was, as we have said, very favourable
for excursions by land and water, affording tourists and sportsmen
congenial recreation. The district was in those days remarkably well
stocked with game. Pheasants of the "ring-necked" variety, now so
predominant in English preserves, abounded close up to the city wall,
and were sometimes found in the gardens of the foreign residents.
Snipe, quail, and wildfowl were plentiful in their season, the last
named in great variety. All classes of the foreign community took
advantage of the freedom of locomotion which they enjoyed. Newly
arrived missionaries, no less than newly arrived sportsmen, were
encouraged by the ease and safety with which they could prosecute
their vocation in the towns and villages accessible from Shanghai.
Within the radius authorised by treaty the foreigners soon became
familiar objects in a district which is reckoned to support a
population as dense as that of Belgium. Not only did friendly
relations exist, but a wonderful degree of confidence was established
between the natives and foreign tourists. It was not the custom in
those days for foreigners to carry money, the only coinage available
being of a clumsy and non-portable character. They paid their way by
"chits" or orders upon their comprador, and it was not uncommon for
them in those early days to pay for supplies during their excursions
into the interior by a few hieroglyphics pencilled on a scrap of
paper, which the confiding peasant accepted in perfect good faith, and
with so little apprehension that sometimes a considerable interval
would elapse before presentation of these primitive cheques--until,
perhaps, the holder had occasion to make a journey to Shanghai.

But although the foreigner in his proper costume moved freely within
the prescribed area, it was considered hazardous to venture beyond
these limits. It was also, of course, a nominal contravention of the
treaty, for the consequences of which the traveller must take the
whole risk. Those, therefore--and they were exceedingly few--who could
not repress the desire to penetrate into the interior adopted as a
disguise the costume of the natives. It was thus that Fortune made his
explorations into the tea districts of China. The notion that either
difficulty or danger attended these distant excursions gradually
disappeared, and about the year 1855 sportsmen and travellers began
to explore the forbidden country without any disguise at all, to the
great amusement of the populace, and to the profit of the priests of
the temples where they found accommodation.

The consular authorities occupied a peculiar and highly responsible
position in China. Their nationals being exempt from native
jurisdiction, and subject only to the laws of their own country,
promulgated, interpreted, and, when occasion arose, executed, by the
consul, that functionary was morally answerable to the people and the
Government of China for the good behaviour of his countrymen. On the
other hand, it was his primary duty to defend them against all
aggression of the Chinese. Between these two opposite duties the
consul needed all the discretion, courage, and good judgment that he
could command; and it was but natural that individual temperament or
the pressure of local circumstances should cause diversity in the mode
in which the consuls interpreted their instructions and balanced the
different claims of their public duty. As has been said before,
Captain Balfour had shown himself most judicious in all his
arrangements for the protection and advancement of his countrymen in
Shanghai. Foreseeing, notwithstanding the peaceable disposition of the
natives, that risks might attend unfettered intercourse with the
interior, he had thought it prudent to restrict the rambles of British
subjects to the limits of a twenty-four hours' journey from
Shanghai,--a limit which coincided with curious exactness with the
"thirty-mile radius" of defence against the rebels which was laid down
by Admiral Hope eighteen years later.

I. THE TSINGPU AFFAIR.

Attack on three missionaries -- Redress extorted by Consul
Alcock -- Its lasting effect.

Affairs in Shanghai had followed a placid and uneventful course until
an incident occurred which brought into sudden activity the latent
forces of disorder. Within little more than a year after the arrival
of Mr Alcock at his new post an outrage was perpetrated on the persons
of three English missionaries, which led to the first and the last
important struggle between the British and Chinese authorities in
Shanghai. The assailants of Messrs Medhurst, Lockhart, and Muirhead,
the three missionaries concerned, were not the peaceably disposed
natives of the place, but the discharged crews of the Government
grain-junks, who had been cast adrift by the officials and left to
shift for themselves after the manner of disbanded soldiers. The
attack took place at a small walled town called Tsingpu, within the
authorised radius, and the three Englishmen came very near losing
their lives. Mr Alcock lost not a moment in demanding full redress
from the Chinese authorities, who instinctively sheltered themselves
under the old evasive pleas which had proved so effective at Canton.
It happened that the highest local official, the Taotai, had had
experience of the southern port, and, entirely unaware that he was
confronted in Shanghai with a man of very different calibre from any
he had encountered before, he brought out all the rusty weapons of the
Canton armoury, in sure and certain hope of reducing the consul's
demands to nullity. Evasion being exhausted, intimidation was tried,
and the consul and his interpreter were threatened with the vengeance
of an outraged people, quite in the Canton manner. But intimidation
was the very worst tactics to try on two Englishmen of the stamp of
Alcock and Parkes, and when that card had been played the Chinese game
was up.

The situation was one of those critical ones that test moral stamina,
that discriminate crucially between a man and a copying-machine. It
was also one which illuminated, as by an electric flash, the pivotal
point of all our relations with China then as now, for the principle
never grows old. It is therefore important to set forth the part
played by the responsible officer, the support he obtained, the risks
he ran, and the effective results of his action. An absolutely
unprovoked murderous outrage had been perpetrated on three Englishmen;
the Chinese authorities refused redress with insolence and evasion;
acquiescence in the denial of justice would have been as fatal to
future good relations at Shanghai as it had been in the previous
decade in Canton. What was the official charged with the protection of
his countrymen to do? He had no instructions except to conciliate the
Chinese; there was no telegraph to England; communication even with
the chief superintendent of trade at Hongkong, 850 miles off, was
dependent on chance sailing vessels. Delay was equivalent to
surrender. Now or never was the peremptory alternative presented to
the consul, who, taking his official life in his hands, had to decide
and act on his own personal responsibility. Had time allowed of an
exchange of views with the plenipotentiary in Hongkong, we know for
certain that nothing would have been done, for the first announcement
of Mr Alcock's strong measures filled Mr Bonham (who had just
succeeded Sir John Davis) with genuine alarm.

Considering the instructions [he wrote] with which you have
been furnished from the Foreign Office, dated December 18,
1846, and the limited power and duties of a consul, I
cannot but express my regret that you should have taken the
steps you have seen fit to do without previous reference to
her Majesty's plenipotentiary, as undoubtedly, under the
peremptory orders recently received from her Majesty's
Government, I should not have considered myself warranted
in sanctioning, &c., &c.

Fortunately for the consul and for the peaceful development of British
trade, one of Palmerston's specific instructions had been obeyed in
Shanghai. There was a British ship of war in port, the 10-gun brig
Childers, and, what was of still more importance, a real British _man_
on board of her, Commander Pitman, who shared to the full the Consul's
responsibility for what was done.

The measures adopted by Consul Alcock--when negotiation was
exhausted--were to announce to the Chinese authorities that, until
satisfaction had been obtained, no duties should be paid on cargo
imported or exported in British ships: furthermore, that the great
junk fleet of 1400 sail, laden and ready for sea with the tribute rice
for Peking, should not be allowed to leave the port. The Childers,
moored in the stream below the junk anchorage, was in a position to
make this a most effective blockade. The rage of the Taotai rose to
fever heat, and it was then he threatened, and no doubt attempted to
inflame the populace and the whole vagabond class. The Taotai ordered
some of the rice-laden junks to proceed; but though there were fifty
war-junks to guard them, the masters dared not attempt to pass the
ideal barrier thrown across the river by the resolute Captain Pitman.

[Illustration: MOUTH OF YANGTZE AND CHUSAN ARCHIPELAGO.]

The outrage took place on the 8th of March. On the 13th the consul
presented an ultimatum to the Taotai giving him forty-eight hours to
produce the criminals. This being disregarded, the measures above
referred to were enforced, with the full approval, it may be
mentioned, of the consuls of the two other treaty Powers. At the same
time Vice-Consul Robertson, with Parkes for interpreter, was
despatched to Nanking on board her Majesty's ship Espiègle to lay the
whole case before the viceroy of Kiangnan. The matter was there
promptly attended to, full redress was ordered, and the culprits
punished exactly three weeks after the assault. The embargo on the
rice-junks was removed, and affairs resumed their normal course.[15]
The effect of this lesson has never been effaced, harmony having
prevailed between British and Chinese officials and people in Shanghai
and the province from that day to this.

The circumstances were of course very unusual which placed such ready
means of bloodless coercion in the hands of the British consul. The
fortuitous coincidence of the time of the outrage with the period of
departure of the grain fleet placed a weapon in the consul's hands
which of itself would have eventually brought the Chinese to terms,
should the matter in the mean time not have been taken out of the
hands of the consul and dealt with from Hongkong by the
plenipotentiary, whose views have been given above. So soon as the
detention of the grain fleet became known to the Government of Peking,
orders of a very drastic nature would undoubtedly have been despatched
to the viceroy of the province, and both he and his subordinate would
have been made answerable for their incompetence in imperilling the
supply of rice for the Government. But the pressure was doubly
intensified by the appearance of a foreign ship of war under the walls
of Nanking. Six years had not elapsed since a similar demonstration
had brought the Government to its knees, and to have allowed such an
invasion a second time would have drawn down the imperial wrath on the
luckless provincial authorities. For Nanking differs from the other
provincial capitals, such as Canton and Foochow, inasmuch as it is
near the strategic centre of the empire, commanding the main artery of
communication with the interior of the country, at the point of
intersection of the Yangtze river by the famous Imperial Canal which
connects the capital with the richest region in the Yangtze valley. A
blockade of the sea-going grain fleet with a simultaneous blockade of
these inland waters, so easily effected, would have throttled China.
The viceroy, who sent a report on the transaction to the throne by
special express, explained away his own hasty action by saying "that
the appearance of the barbarian chiefs at the provincial city may have
caused anxiety in the sacred breast."

The verdict of the Home Government on the episode was substantially
the same as that on Sir John Davis's brilliant expedition on the
Canton river the year before: "Gratified with your success, but don't
do it again;" in other words, "Do it at your peril, leaving us to
applaud or repudiate according to the event." Perhaps it would be more
just to say that there were then, as always, conflicting views in the
British Cabinet, the apparent vacillations of the Government depending
a good deal on which of its members happened, for the moment, to have
the parole,--whether the Foreign Secretary, the Colonial Secretary, or
other Minister indited the despatch.

Commenting some years later on the general question of our relations
with China, Mr Alcock wrote as follows: "A salutary dread of the
immediate consequences of violence offered to British subjects,
certainty of its creating greater trouble and danger to the native
authorities personally than even the most vigorous efforts to protect
the foreigners and seize their assailants will entail, seems to be the
best and only protection in this country for Englishmen." Palmerston
himself could not have laid down the law and common-sense of the case
with greater precision.

II. REBELLION.

Taiping rebellion -- Rebel occupation of Shanghai --
Encroachment of investing force on foreign settlement --
Driven off by Anglo-American forces -- The French quarrel
with insurgents -- Consequent enlargement of French
concession -- The assumption of self-government by the
Anglo-American community -- Exemplary conduct of Chinese
authorities after their defeat -- French belligerency --
Difficult question of neutrality -- Treatment of native
refugees.

Affairs went smoothly and prosperously in Shanghai for another five
years, when the greatest calamity that has visited China in modern
times cast its shadow on the province and on the city. The appalling
ravages of the Taiping rebellion, which, originating in the southern
province of Kwangsi, followed the great trade-routes to the
Yangtze-kiang and down the course of that stream, leaving absolute
desolation in its wake, reached the southern capital, Nanking, on
March 8, 1853. The city was paralysed, and surrendered on the 19th,
apparently without a struggle; the whole Tartar garrison, numbering
20,000, were put ruthlessly to the sword, not a soul being spared. The
whole country, officials and people alike, was thrown into a state of
abject fear. The ease with which such Government forces as there were
succumbed to the onslaught of the rebel hordes may very well have
prompted the rowdy element, which exists more or less everywhere, to
make raids on their own account. Such a band, belonging as was
supposed to certain secret societies, but without any connection with
the main body of the Taipings, who were at the time applying fire and
sword to the populous towns on the Yangtze, surprised and captured the
walled city of Shanghai. "The news," says an eyewitness, "came like
thunder from a clear sky;" there was no thought of the city being in
danger either from within or without. The people were panic-stricken
at first, but fear with them seemed near akin to criminality, and the
scene enacted was what was repeated thousands of times and over a wide
area--one of general pillage and destruction. "Several hundred of the
usually innocent and simple country-folk--who must have scented their
prey as the eagle does the carcass, for as yet it was early
morning--fell upon the custom-house, whence they carried off chairs,
tables, windows, doors, everything that was portable, leaving the
floor littered with books and papers, which were being kicked about
and trodden on in a most unceremonious way."

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO SZE-KING, NEAR SHANGHAI.]

For a period of eighteen months, beginning in September 1853 and
ending in February 1855, these rebels held possession of the city.
It took a little time before the authorities were able to gather any
force to expel them. But they did commence a species of siege which
ultimately succeeded in its object. There would be no interest in
tracing its progress. What we have to note is the effect which the
interregnum produced on the relations between the foreign officials
and community and the Chinese.

The first was of a very remarkable character, being nothing less than
an armed collision between such foreign forces as could be mustered
and the imperialist troops who were investing the city. The Chinese
soldiers were in camp at a short distance outside of the foreign
settlement, which was exempt from the operations of the war. But the
discipline of Chinese troops is never very efficient, and unruly
stragglers from the camps kept the foreigners in the settlement in
constant hot water. It became, in fact, dangerous for them to take
their recreation in the open ground at the back of the settlement,
which was used as a racecourse. Immunity from reprisals produced its
invariable result, and the aggressions of the soldiery became more
persistent and better organised. The foreigners were at last driven to
retaliate in their own defence. After a formidable inroad of the
Chinese troops, the three treaty consuls met hastily and decided on
sending a demand to the Chinese general for the withdrawal of all his
soldiers from the vicinity of the settlement, failing which, his
position would be attacked at four o'clock the same afternoon by all
the available foreign forces. These were, marines and bluejackets from
her Britannic Majesty's ships Encounter and Grecian, marines and
sailors from the United States ship Plymouth, some sailors from the
merchant ships in port, and about 200 of the residents as infantry
volunteers. The English force was commanded by Captain O'Callaghan,
who was accompanied by Consul Alcock; the Americans were led by
Captain Kelley, who was accompanied by Consul Murphy; while the
volunteers were commanded by Vice-Consul Wade, subsequently her
Majesty's Minister to China. The attack on the Chinese position was
completely successful; indeed there was apparently very little
resistance, a circumstance which was attributed by Mr Wetmore, who was
in the action from beginning to end, to the uncovenanted co-operation
of the rebels within the city. It was, nevertheless, according to him,
writing nearly forty years after, "a hazardous, if not a reckless,
undertaking."

Her Majesty's Government, in a despatch from the Foreign Office dated
June 16, "entirely approved of Mr Alcock's proceedings, and they
considered that he displayed great courage and judgment in
circumstances of no ordinary difficulty"; while the British community
unanimously conveyed their warmest thanks to Consul Alcock,
Vice-Consul Wade, and the naval officers concerned, for "saving their
lives and property from the most imminent jeopardy." And they add that
"any symptoms of hesitation and timid policy would inevitably have led
to serious consequences and far greater loss of life."

It is to be remarked that the French took no part in this common
defence of the settlement, in explanation of which it must be noted
that they had never fallen kindly into the cosmopolitan system, but
as years went on kept themselves more and more apart, expanding what
was a mere consular residence until it covered two populous suburbs
embracing half of the circuit of the walled city, and what began as a
settlement came to be spoken of as a "concession."

In this situation it was not difficult for them to pick a quarrel on
their own account with the rebels, which led to an ineffectual
bombardment of the city by French ships of war moored close under the
walls. Guns were then landed in the suburb, which was thereafter
embraced within the limits of the French concession, the houses being
demolished to give play to the artillery. A cannonade lasting many
days resulted in a practical breach in the city wall, which was
followed up by a combined assault by the French and the imperialist
troops, with whom they had allied themselves. The attack was repulsed
with severe loss to the assailants.

Among the results of these operations and of the lapse of organised
government during eighteen months the most direct was perhaps the
establishment of the French on the ground where their batteries had
been placed. For reasons military or otherwise, a _tabula rasa_ was
made of an immense populous suburb, the ground then admitting of easy
occupation and the laying out of streets and roads. The area thus
occupied by the French is separated from the cosmopolitan settlement
of Shanghai by a tidal creek.

Results less showy, but more important in the interests of humanity
and international commerce, were very soon apparent in the
cosmopolitan settlement. The first of these was the assumption by the
foreign community of the function of self-government and
self-protection, and the foundation of that important municipality,
which has established as fine a record of public service as any such
body has ever done. The inroads of vagabondage and crime would,
without the protective measures extemporised for the occasion, have
swamped the foreign quarter and reduced it to the desolate condition
of the native city. And this necessity of relying on their own
strength has no doubt given to the community of Shanghai that tone of
self-confidence which has characterised successive generations of
them.

The effect of the collision on the relations between the foreign and
Chinese authorities can hardly be understood without some explanatory
words. In countries where the soldier, sudden and quick in quarrel,
seeks the bubble reputation in the cannon's mouth, there is a
psychological figment called military honour, which may be symbolised
in various ways, as, for example, by a rag at the end of a stick for
which brave men will cheerfully die. The warlike traditions which have
evolved European codes of honour have no existence in China.
_Revanche_, therefore, did not enter into the heads of the defeated
Chinese commanders, who contented themselves with posting placards
about their camps stating that "the barbarians were about to be
annihilated, but that they had ransomed themselves for 300,000 taels,
and that an additional 300,000 would be required." Their conduct,
however, was quite exemplary during the remainder of the siege, their
chief solicitude being to avoid encroaching on the foreign quarter.
Whatever be the explanation, the fact is that the Chinese were on
better terms with the foreign officials after than they had been
before the battle of "Muddy Flat," fought on the 4th of April 1854.
Within ten days they were amicably settling in concert the ground for
a new camp, which would not hamper the military operations of the
besiegers nor yet compromise the sanctity of the foreign settlement.

Thus there was no obstacle whatever in the way of concerting with the
nearest representatives of the Government of China all those measures
which were demanded by the position of neutrality assumed by the
British Government between the insurgents and imperialist forces, and
also for the regulation and control of the Chinese refugees, who
poured into the foreign settlement to escape the rapine of savage war.
The neutrality of the British representative was difficult to
maintain: by force of circumstances it took a benevolent form towards
the beleaguered rebels, who were dependent for their continued
existence upon supplies received from and through the foreign
settlement. The situation was complicated by the action of the French,
who, having quarrelled with the insurgents, entered on the stage as a
third belligerent. Thereupon the French authorities made a grievance
of "the scandal of supplies being furnished to the declared enemies of
the French in the sight and under the protection of our English
guard," France being at the time allied with Great Britain in
prosecuting the war in the Crimea. Consul Alcock, whose sense of
propriety had already been considerably shocked by the facilities
which the position of the cosmopolitan settlement afforded for
conveying supplies into the city, treated the appeal of his French
colleague with respect, and made it the text of a representation to
the senior naval officer, urging him, if possible, to devise means in
conjunction with the measures which were already being adopted in the
settlement for enforcing British neutrality, so that "we may be able
to give an honest answer to all three belligerents--imperialists,
insurgents, and French." This policy was at the same time proclaimed
by a unanimous resolution of the largest meeting of residents ever, up
to that time, assembled in Shanghai.

The question of the influx of refugees seems not to have met with such
a prompt solution, but that was due rather to the British
plenipotentiary's caution than to the obstruction of the Chinese. In a
despatch to Sir John Bowring, dated June 5, 1854, the consul thus
describes the evil in question:--

As regards the strange and altogether unsatisfactory
position in which we are placed by the pouring in of a
large Chinese population, who have squatted down within our
limits contrary to the standing edicts of their own
authorities, and run up whole streets of wooden and brick
tenements, giving cover to every species of vice and filth,
I have only to remark that a walk through the settlement
[the governor was expected on a visit] will, I am
convinced, satisfy your Excellency that the evil is already
too great and increasing at too rapid a rate to be
overlooked. The health of foreign residents, the security
of their property, and the very tenability of the place as
a foreign location, alike render it imperative that a
jurisdiction of some kind should be promptly and
energetically asserted.

The important negotiations which, within three months, issued in the
birth of the Foreign Maritime Customs, must be regarded as by far the
most important outcome of the rebel episode of 1854-55.

III. THE CHINESE MARITIME CUSTOMS.

Extent and audacity of smuggling -- Alcock's determination
to suppress it -- His report on the position -- Corruption
of the Chinese customs service -- Efforts of the British
Government to co-operate in collecting dues -- Nullified by
treaties with other Powers -- Consequent injury to all
foreign trade -- Unexpected solution of the difficulty
during the interregnum -- Impetus given to trade by the
Taiping rebellion -- Alcock with French and American
consuls takes over the customs and collects all dues in
trust for the Chinese Government -- Promissory notes
employed -- Conditions which made it impossible to enforce
payment -- Notes ultimately cancelled.

Certain crying evils in foreign intercourse having arrested the
attention of Consul Alcock from the day of his arrival in China, he
bent himself strenuously to the task of overcoming or mitigating them.
They formed the subject-matter of many anxious reports to his
superiors, for Mr Alcock always took both a serious and a
comprehensive view of his duties. For many years there seemed little
hope of a successful issue to these labours; but at last a rift in the
clouds opened up the prospect of coping with at least one of them, and
that was smuggling. So universal was this practice that it seemed a
necessary and natural feature of all commercial dealings in China. As
its roots lay deep in the Chinese character and civilisation, no
stigma attached to the venality of the officials charged with the
collection of the maritime revenues. Although the practice was in
extent universal, it was by no means wholesale in degree, and where
the facilities for evading duties were so tempting, merchants must
often have been astonished at their own moderation.

Among the legends of the coast, it is true, there were certain _tours
de force_ in the way of smuggling which made good topics for
walnuts-and-wine conversation among a community which was rather
lacking in subjects of general interest,--as of an apocryphal ship
clearing from China in ballast or with coal which would mysteriously
land in England a full cargo of tea, which had been taken on board
without being passed through the custom-house. Conversely, a shipload
of manufactured goods taken on board in England would melt on the
passage to China like a cargo of ice, so far as the records in the
Chinese custom-house would show. One special feat was kept alive,
post-prandially, for many years as the acme of audacious smuggling.
British goods were entered at the custom-house "for re-exportation,"
and no duty paid. The merchant packed the empty cases with silk, which
was thus shipped under the original English marks, and was described
as calicoes, on which a "drawback" was claimed of import duties which
had never been paid at all. Such racy anecdotes belonged to the order
of Rabelaisian humour which inspired the boast of a certain Lancashire
manufacturer at the time when, owing to the scarcity and high price of
cotton, the "filling" of shirtings with plaster of Paris and other
substances to make up the required weight of the piece was raised to
almost the dignity of a fine art. Complaints being made by the
consumer that the cloth so compounded would not wash, this genial
Lancastrian declared that for his part he would never rest satisfied
until he could turn out his calicoes without any cotton in them at
all.

Shanghai, of course, was the great centre of the smuggling trade. What
smuggling was done at Canton, being the only other important entrepot,
was on a system which was regulated by the customs authorities
themselves, and the testimony of Mr Alexander Matheson before the
House of Commons Committee was to the effect that their tariff was so
light that it was not worth the merchant's while to smuggle. Such,
however, was not the view taken by Mr Consul Alcock, who regarded the
smuggling system as a very serious evil, against which he waged a
relentless war. He not only compelled, as far as lay in his power, the
British merchants to comply with the letter of the treaty in their
dealings with the customs, but he further considered himself bound to
enforce on the Chinese officials themselves the proper discharge of
their duty. In these efforts to abolish irregular practices, which all
deplored, many of the British merchants were only too willing to
co-operate with the consul's efforts, and the Foreign Office was
repeatedly moved to take some action in the reform of these abuses.
The difficulties and anomalies of the situation were fully set forth
by Mr Alcock in many reports made to his superior, the chief
superintendent of trade, as the following extract, written in 1851,
will exemplify:--

How the commercial and custom-house system of the West and
the very opposite principles and practice of the East might
be combined so that both should work together with the
least possible friction and prejudice, was a difficult
problem, no doubt, for those who had the framing of
existing treaties. How even the trading operations of
foreign merchants, based upon good faith and honesty, could
be in any way associated with the corrupt and inept
administration of the Chinese custom-house, so that the
revenue of the latter alone should be liable to suffer and
not the foreign trade, though apparently a simpler task,
seems to have presented to the negotiators insuperable
difficulties. For one or other of these problems,
nevertheless, it was essential they should find some
adequate solution, or whatever treaties might be signed
their real mission was unfulfilled, and the basis of all
future trading relations left unstable and unsatisfactory.

We cannot suppose this important fact was overlooked by the
British Government, which, on the contrary, appears to have
sought earnestly to meet the difficulty by undertaking in
good faith to co-operate with the Chinese authorities in
collecting the duties on British trade. Neither is it clear
that failure would have attended such a course had not a
disturbing element been speedily introduced from without
for which adequate provision does not seem to have been
made. We allude to the ratification of treaties with other
Governments which should repudiate all obligation on this
point to contribute to the protection of the Chinese
revenue. It might have been supposed that the Chinese
Government, having obtained so great and unquestionable an
advantage from the Power they had most to fear, would
scarcely have been so foolish as to throw it away upon the
first occasion, yet such proved to be the fact, and some
credit was taken by the United States commissioner for the
omission of all co-operative clauses. Two treaties in
consequence came into operation, founded upon different
principles--the one subversive of the other in a very
essential point. So much was this the case that no fair
trial could be given to the provisions of the British
treaty respecting the payment of duties, and any attempt to
act upon the system contemplated in it became altogether
unpracticable so soon as the alteration of our navigation
laws opened our ports to foreign shipping.

We found that to secure the essential objects of these
treaties as they now stand there is one thing plainly
wanting and yet essential, an honest and efficient
custom-house, and who does not see that this is
unattainable in China? Too much or too little has been
done, therefore. We should either have refused to concede a
right to levy maritime duties, or obtained as the condition
some better guarantee for its impartial exercise. It should
have been remembered that although a foreign Power might
give this right to the Emperor of China, it could not so
easily give him honest and faithful servants, without which
custom-house duties cannot be fairly levied. The very
attempt to profit by such a right partially, and with
manifestly imperfect means, could not fail to prove
injurious to the trade it was the great object of the
treaties to develop and protect. It is superfluous now to
say that against this evil no sufficient provision was
made, and the result has been perpetual and irreconcilable
antagonism. From the first day the American treaty came
into operation the contracting parties, Chinese and
foreign, have been placed in a false position in regard to
each other and to the permanent interests of both. The
emperor had obtained a right he could not unaided duly
exercise, and the foreign merchant was laid under a legal
obligation which under such circumstances tended to make
his trading privileges nugatory. The former was daily
exposed to the loss of the whole or a part of a revenue to
which he was by treaty legally entitled, as the price of
commercial privileges to the foreigner; and the latter, in
so far as he recognised his obligation to pay to such
revenue, was debarred from trading with advantage or
profit.

Loss to the custom-house is palpably only one of the
mischiefs resulting, and injury to foreign trade is the
direct consequence in a far more important degree. There
may be some disposed to question this, but when no man can
calculate on entering into an operation within 15 or 20 per
cent of the prime cost of his merchandise before it shall
leave his hands, and his next-door neighbour may gain
advantage over him to this amount, while the ordinary
margin of profit seldom exceeds that range, it is difficult
to arrive at any other conclusion. And when we consider
that the natural tendency of partial smuggling is to raise
the price in the buying and to lower it in the selling
market, its disastrous influence on the general prosperity
of the trade must be too plain to admit of contradiction.
However it may temporarily enrich a few, it must eventually
impoverish many.

The British plenipotentiary may have thought that
smuggling, so far as the interests of trade were concerned,
would affect only the Chinese revenue: the American
commissioner clearly must have concluded so, and on this
supposition acted. But experience has abundantly proved
such a conclusion erroneous, and based upon a partial view
of the whole case.

The solution of all these difficulties, and the end of the apparently
hopeless struggle to set things right, came about in a way that must
have been totally unexpected by all parties. It was through the
capture of Shanghai by the rebel band in 1853.

The day the city fell the functions of the custom-house ceased, but
trade continued without interruption; indeed the export trade was
naturally stimulated by the eagerness of the natives to convert their
produce into money, and by the desire of the foreign merchants to get
their purchases safely on board ship. But there was no one in a
position to collect the dues. Mr Alcock, never timid when he had a
case for action which satisfied his own mind, proposed to his French
and American colleagues, who also never seemed to hesitate to follow
his lead, a method of bridging over the interregnum of the Chinese
authority and at the same time establishing for the first time the
precedent of collecting full duties. The plan was that the consuls
should themselves perform the functions which the Chinese officials
had never performed--take a rigid account of the goods landed and
shipped, and receive the amount of the duty on them, to be held in
trust for the Chinese Government when it should once more be
resuscitated in Shanghai. Not in coin, however, but in promissory
notes payable on conditions which were complicated by the necessity of
maintaining equality of treatment between the various nationalities
concerned. The contingencies were, in fact, such that it would never
have been possible to enforce payment of the notes, and in the end
they were all cancelled and returned to the merchants, so that during
the ten months between September 1853 and July 1854 there were no
duties collected at all at the port of Shanghai.

IV. CREATION OF THE FOREIGN CUSTOMS.

The provisional system -- British and American ships pay
full dues -- Other nations enter and clear free --
Americans follow the same course -- Alcock's strict views
of neutrality -- Danger of infringing it by establishment
of Government officials within the foreign colony --
Breakdown of the provisional system -- Alcock calls upon
the Imperial Government -- Custom-house re-established by
the Taotai Wu -- Reappearance of all abuses -- Alcock's
remonstrances -- Antecedents of Wu -- He makes private
arrangements and admits vessels free of dues -- Alcock
allows British ships to do likewise -- Shanghai thus
becomes a free port -- Alcock's efforts to meet the
difficulty -- First idea of the foreign customs --
Conditions of success -- Conference with the Taotai --
Delegates appointed -- New custom-house inaugurated July
12, 1854 -- Mr H. N. Lay appointed Inspector-General --
Conditions and essential features which caused immediate
and permanent success of the foreign customs.

The "provisional system," as it was called, worked smoothly for four
months, but not equally, for while British and American ships paid
full duties (in conditional promissory notes), those of other
nationalities, having mercantile consuls, were entered and cleared
exempt from all duty. One Prussian, one Hamburg, two Siamese, one
Austrian, three Danish, and two Spanish--in all ten vessels--were so
cleared between September and January, which was, of course, a serious
injustice to the competing merchants on whose ventures full duties
were levied. In vain might the British consul argue that the cargoes
of these defaulting ships bore no larger a proportion to the whole
trade than in normal conditions the smugglers would bear to the honest
traders. The American consul, sympathising with the latter, notified
on January 20, 1854, his secession from the provisional compact, to
which decision he gave immediate effect by allowing two vessels, the
Oneida and Science, to depart without payment or security of any
kind. It was impossible after this for the British authorities to
continue to lay a burden on their nationals from which competitors
were thus freeing themselves, the more especially as on broader
considerations their collecting duties at all for the Chinese had
been, three years previously, pronounced inexpedient by the British
Government. However commendable, therefore, on political and moral
grounds, and however convenient as a stop-gap, the provisional system
was doomed. The next move was by some means or other to procure the
re-establishment of a legal Chinese custom-house.

This would have been done at an earlier period but for the strict
views held by Mr Alcock on the question of neutrality between the
belligerents. The soil of the foreign settlement had been declared
sacred and neutral. To permit any Chinese authority to use it even for
fiscal purposes seemed a violation of its neutrality. Besides, native
officials exercising their functions there would have had either to
protect themselves by military force, however small, or to be
protected by the foreigners, in either case compromising the
neutrality of the settlement. When the Chinese officials proposed as
an alternative to discharge customs functions afloat in the river, the
same objections presented themselves. The foreigners must in that case
also have defended the revenue collectors from attack by the rebels.
The customs authority therefore remained dormant.

But on the breakdown of the provisional system whereby the three
treaty consuls acted as trustees for the Chinese Government, there was
no alternative left between making Shanghai absolutely a free port and
setting up some sort of native custom-house. As the lesser evil--to
say no more--Mr Alcock chose the latter, and within three weeks of the
lapse of the provisional system he had "called upon the imperial
authorities to re-establish a custom-house in some convenient
locality," offering at the same time to afford them the necessary
facilities for working it. The custom-house was, in fact,
re-established by the Taotai Wu on February 9, when the provisional
system of collecting duties, a system never favoured by the British
Government, was finally and officially terminated.

The reinstatement of the custom-house under the superintendency of the
Taotai Wu was the signal for the prompt reappearance of all the worst
irregularities in an exaggerated form.

The admonitions that official received from Mr Alcock on his treaty
rights and on the necessity for strictness and impartial accuracy were
completely thrown away. The Taotai had been formerly a merchant in
Canton, under the name Samqua; and whether it was the passion for a
"deal" inspired by early training, or the corruption of good manners
by subsequent association with official life, or, as is most likely, a
double dose of both, without the checks appropriate to either, he, the
superintendent of customs, fell at once to making private bargains
with individual merchants. By arrangement with him a Bremen ship, the
Aristides, was allowed to enter and clear without complying with a
single customs or port regulation or the payment of any dues, save
what may have been paid to Wu himself by way of douceur. Two American
ships and one British were dealt with in similar fashion. These facts
being brought to the notice of Mr Alcock, he called the Taotai to
account, and on receiving only subterfuges instead of explanation, he
thenceforth allowed openly to British ships the same privileges that
the Chinese authorities had voluntarily, though secretly, conferred on
those who chose to make corrupt bargains with them. That is to say,
Shanghai became now--from April 1854--absolutely a free port.

At last, then, there was a real _tabula rasa_ inviting a fresh
experiment; and Mr Alcock immediately applied his mind to devising
some new expedient to meet the difficulty. The Chinese superintendent,
however willing to compound to his own advantage for the customs dues,
was as little pleased with its complete abolition as the foreign
authorities themselves, and he had made sundry alternative proposals,
based on his experience at Canton, for the effective collection of
duties. It seemed, however, that in the hands of such a facile
official, or any one likely to succeed him, his remedies against
smuggling were worse than the disease, and the necessity of a new
departure began seriously to occupy the minds of the treaty consuls.
The outcome was a novel scheme, which was mooted in a despatch to Sir
John Bowring, dated May 1, 1854, in which Consul Alcock, while
recognising that "the attempt will not be unaccompanied by serious
difficulties," declared that he "did not relinquish all hope of
success _if the collection of duties can in any way be brought under
the effective control of the three treaty Powers as to the executive
of the custom-house administration_."

"On any other basis," he added, "I believe every effort to benefit the
Chinese revenue and at the same time protect the honest merchant must
in the nature of things prove nugatory." The idea took further shape
in a memorandum of suggestions drawn up by Mr Alcock on 15th June,
when he stated that "the sole issue out of the difficulties by which
the whole subject is beset under existing treaties is to be sought in
the combination of a _foreign element of probity and vigilance with
Chinese authority_."

He adds as the first condition of success the "free concurrence of the
Chinese authorities" in any scheme which may be concocted, and then
proposes "the association with the Chinese executive of a responsible
and trustworthy foreign _inspector of customs_ as the delegate of the
three treaty Powers, to be appointed by the consuls and Taotai
conjointly at a liberal salary." This is put down at $6000 per annum,
the whole foreign staff to cost $12,000, and various details of
administration follow.

It argues well for the absence of international jealousy in those days
that Mr Alcock proposed that a French gentleman of the name of Smith,
in the French consular service, should be the inspector whom he and
the American consul agreed to recommend to the Taotai. In a despatch
to M. Edan on the 27th of June 1854 he solicited his official sanction
to the appointment.

The next step was a conference where the three treaty consuls--Alcock,
Murphy, and Edan--received the Taotai, who discussed with them and
then adopted substantially, though with some modifications, the
"suggestions" above quoted.

Instead of one delegate from the three consuls, it was decided that
each was to appoint one, the three delegates then forming a "board of
inspectors with a single and united action." As many questions of
national and international jurisdiction were likely to arise out of
the executive functions of the inspectors, provision was made for
dealing with them, and as far as human ingenuity could foresee without
any experience to guide, every contingency, down to the minutiæ of
internal administration, was considered in the instructions given to
the inspectors. The announcement of the newly-constituted Customs
Board was formally made by the consuls on July 6, and the new
custom-house was inaugurated on the 12th, the three inspectors being
Mr T. F. Wade, British; Mr Lewis Carr, American; and M. Smith, French.

The new custom-house was an immediate success: it fulfilled every
purpose for which it was created, yielding its full revenue to the
Chinese Government, and putting an end to the temptations of traders
to seek illicit advantages over each other. It says much for the
soundness of the principles on which it was established that not only
has the custom-house of 1854 survived the shock of rebellion and war,
of extended treaties, of the multiplication of trading-ports from five
to thirty and of treaty Powers from three to thirteen, but its roots
have struck deep and its branches have spread wide over every portion
of the empire, and that in spite of the opposition of powerful
provincial officials, whose revenues it curtailed by diverting them
into the imperial channel. The triumvirate Board under which the
institution was launched was little more than nominal, the direction
of the customs being a one-man power from the outset, one only of the
three inspectors possessing either the knowledge, capacity, or zeal
needed to infuse life into the new department.

The first English inspector, who was only lent for a time to start the
new enterprise, was replaced in a few months by Mr H. N. Lay,
interpreter to the consulate, who definitively retired from the
British in order to enter the Chinese service, while Mr Wade returned
to his vice-consular duties. The functions of the Board of Inspectors
were soon consolidated in the office of Inspector-General, which was
conferred upon Mr Lay, and held by him until 1863, when he was obliged
to resign the service of the Chinese Government in consequence of
their failure to ratify his engagements in connection with the Osborn
flotilla.

It only remains to mention in this place that coincident with the
establishment of the maritime customs in Shanghai came the
instructions from her Majesty's Government to cancel the promissory
notes, amounting to a million of dollars, which had been given by the
British merchants for duties during the interregnum, the conditions
attached rendering them legally invalid.

Although the organisation of the foreign customs was an expedient to
meet an emergency never likely to recur, the transaction,
nevertheless, forms a brief epitome of the ideal foreign relations
with China, and it is useful therefore to note what were its essential
features and the conditions of its creation.

_First._ The Chinese Government were reduced to helplessness and were
amenable to advice.

_Second._ Corruption and laxity were inherent in their nature and
ineradicable except by external force.

_Third._ The external force, to be savingly applied, must not be
subversive of Chinese authority, but must supply the element in
administration in which the natives are absolutely wanting, and which
is so tersely summarised by Mr Alcock as "vigilance and probity."

_Fourth._ This combination of Chinese authority with foreign
vigilance and probity, which has rendered the Chinese customs service
a kind of miracle of reform, was capable of renovating the whole
Chinese administration. Why it has not been extended into the other
departments of state is only another form of lament over lost
opportunities.

_Fifth._ That the system was established on the broadest cosmopolitan
basis.

V. MR ALCOCK'S DEPARTURE FROM SHANGHAI.

Promoted to Canton -- Impression he had made upon the
European colony of Shanghai -- Their confidence in his
integrity and ability -- His domestic life -- First
literary work -- Condition of affairs at Canton --
Difficulties and obstructions -- Alcock leaves for home
before the outbreak of 1856.

With these distinguished services Mr Alcock's career in Shanghai was
brought to a close. He was promoted to the senior consulate at Canton,
but he remained long enough in his northern post to see the city of
Shanghai once more in possession of the constituted authorities and
the restoration of peace in the vicinity of the port. Being
practically starved out, the insurgents set fire to the city and made
the best escape they could during the night, which happened to be the
last night of the Chinese year, 17th February 1855. Some may have
escaped, but the greater part fell into the hands of their enemies,
and for weeks afterwards many a ghastly trophy in the neighbourhood
attested the ruthless treatment which the fugitives received,
recalling the realistic picture in a certain epitaph of Villon.

[Illustration: RUSTIC SCENE NEAR SHANGHAI.]

On his departure from Shanghai in April of that year Mr Alcock
received a flattering testimonial from the British residents, who were
cordially joined by both French and Americans. This compliment had the
special value of being practically unanimous, while yet by no means
undiscriminating. As a curious characteristic of the social relations
of the community at that time, it may be mentioned that the document
was presented in two parts, substantially the same, but differently
worded. The explanation of the dual presentation is to be found in the
etiquette which was commonly observed between the Montagues and the
Capulets of the period, it being considered a point of honour that
neither should follow the signature of the other; hence the two
leading members of the community had each to head a separate list.

It was impossible for an officer of such strict views and such an
uncompromising character to live for eight years in the midst of an
independent population whom he had to treat as his subjects without
provoking occasional resentment, and creating friction in carrying out
the details of his administration. Moreover, his public acts were of
too decisive a quality to commend themselves to universal approval.
Yet, frankly recognising all this, the memorialists state, "In
whatever degree as individuals we may have approved or dissented from
any of your acts of public policy, we are all ready to do justice to
the singleness of purpose and sense of public duty under which you
have uniformly acted. We believe that you have throughout held in view
your conscientious convictions of what was right and just, and that no
undue external influence has at any time operated to divert you from
them." In fact, the Shanghai community--_quorum pars fui_--were proud
of their consul, and looked up to him as soldiers do to a commander in
whom they have absolute confidence. They felt themselves ennobled by
contact with a character _sans peur et sans reproche_. Above all, he
represented before the Chinese authorities the dignity of his country
in a manner which has rarely been equalled, and gratitude for that
patriotic service would of itself have covered a multitude of sins.
The feeling of respect so generated reconciled the residents to that
which in another man might have been held to savour of coldness, for
in social life he was reserved, if not somewhat haughty in his
bearing,--partly no doubt from temperament, but chiefly from
absorption in the duties and responsibilities of his office, in
researches into all the matters which concerned his work, and in the
study of subjects which were congenial to his mind. It may also be
said, without reflection on either party, that those robust
recreations which engrossed the leisure of younger men--and the
community was very young--were not of a kind with which the consul had
much personal sympathy. His own distractions were more of a literary
and reflective order. He did not unbend to gain popularity.

His domestic life left him nothing to desire in the way of society. To
his wife he was most devoted, and to her he addressed, in half
soliloquy, a series of thoughts on religious subjects which reveal
more than anything the deep earnestness of his nature. When this
loving helpmeet was snatched from his side in March 1853, the calm
exterior was little disturbed; but having to face that immense gap in
his life, he was thrown more than ever on his mental resources. His
isolation was the more keenly felt when he was relieved from the
heavy demand which the affairs of Shanghai had made on his energies,
and it was in the comparative leisure of Canton that he composed his
first serious political contribution to periodical literature, an
outlet for his thoughts which proved such an attraction to him to the
end of his life. His first essay was an article in the 'Bombay
Quarterly Review' on "The Chinese Empire and its Destinies," published
in October 1855. It was soon followed by a second, entitled "The
Chinese Empire and its Foreign Relations," a paper which fills no less
than seventy-eight pages of the 'Review.' The two together form an
able disquisition on the state of China which has not become obsolete
by lapse of time.

It was during the same period also that he composed that series of
short essays which were published anonymously under the title of
'Life's Problems.' Instead of attempting any appreciation of that
little volume, we prefer to quote the impression it made on one reader
many years afterwards. In a letter of Dora Greenwell, published in her
Memoirs, she says: "I have met with a friend, a book that seems to
take my whole rational nature along with it. I have seen no such book
now or at any former time; and it is a book I have often longed for,
yet never hoped for--a book contemplating _life_ as it is in a
Christian spirit, yet from the natural standpoint."

The consulate in Canton during the year that Mr Alcock occupied the
post presented nothing of sensational interest. There was a
superficial lull there, the lull before the storm which burst in
October 1856, after Mr Alcock had left for home on his first
well-earned furlough. The chronic obstruction to business and the old
difficulties in communicating with the Chinese authorities formed the
burden of his reports to his chief, Sir John Bowring. The question of
direct intercourse and of access to the city, which had been put off
from time to time, was still unsettled. The definitive postponement of
the treaty right of entry till 1849 had not rendered the solution of
it one whit easier. On the contrary, the concession had only served to
confirm the Chinese officials and people in their determination to
resist the claim for ever. On the accession of Lord Palmerston to the
Premiership in 1855 the dormant claim was revived, and Sir John
Bowring was instructed by the Government to obtain unrestricted
intercourse with the native authorities and the full exercise of the
right of admission to all the cities which were opened to trade,
Canton included. To repeated applications of this tenor the Viceroy
Yeh replied by the traditional evasions, thus laying the train for the
explosion which soon followed.

Mr Alcock being personally severed from the chain of events which led
to the outbreak of hostilities in the autumn of 1856, it will be
convenient here to suspend the narrative and glance at some of those
general questions which form the subject-matter of our relations with
China.

FOOTNOTE:

[15] See this whole transaction described in his characteristic manner
by De Quincey in his brochure on China, originally published in Titan,
1857.

CHAPTER X.

CONSUL ALCOCK'S VIEWS ON GENERAL POLICY.

Essays on international relations -- Foresight -- Its
connection with succeeding events -- The Canton city
question resuscitated.

Among serious students of the international problems arising out of
the forced intercourse of the Western nations with China, Sir
Rutherford Alcock occupies the first rank. In the long roll of
consular and diplomatic agents employed by the British Government
since 1833 he stands alone in the effort to evolve a reasonable
working scheme out of the chaos of blunders and misunderstandings
which marked the opening of China to foreign trade. Mr Taylor Meadows,
another consular officer, though equally far-sighted, was perhaps too
philosophical for the exigencies of current business. Consul Alcock's
political philosophy, on the other hand, grew entirely out of the
facts with which he had to deal from day to day, and was therefore
essentially practical.

It might seem that fifty-year-old disquisitions on what we now call
the "China question" must have too much of the musty odour of ancient
history about them to afford profitable reading to a generation which
has only been aroused by the thunder of events to take an
interest--and that as yet perfunctory--in the affairs of the Far East.
But as Mr Alcock had the faculty of getting to the heart of things, of
seizing the principles which do not change, his early studies have
lost neither validity nor value through the lapse of years. On these
well-digested observations, accordingly, modern inquirers may
confidently rely as on a corner-stone of Anglo-Chinese politics well
and truly laid. And the lapse of time, so far from detracting from the
utility of these opinions, enhances their value. For by extending the
base of observation over a long period, errors due to personal
equation, change of circumstance, and other temporary causes, are
eliminated from the survey, and the seeker after truth is thus
furnished with a trustworthy criterion by which he may verify his
conclusions. The forecast of 1849, realised in the developments of
1900, affords strong proof that the earlier generalisations were not
the result of ingenious speculation.

It seems reasonable, therefore, here to introduce some of the
reflections of Consul Alcock while he was as yet comparatively new to
China. These occur in various forms, as in confidential despatches, in
private memoranda, and notes for literary articles apparently never
extended. One of these notes, dated January 19, 1849, summing up the
results of six years' working of the treaty of Nanking, may well serve
as a landmark in the record of foreign intercourse with China.

Some extracts from this and other papers are printed for the
convenience of the reader in an Appendix to the present volume.[16]
Though bearing directly on the policy of the time when they were
written, they are no less applicable to present circumstances. They
show that nothing had changed then, as nothing has changed since, in
the attitude of the Chinese to foreign nations. "The same arrogant and
hostile spirit exists, and their policy is still to degrade foreigners
in the eyes of the people.... Without the power [on our part] of
commanding attention to any just demands, there is every reason to
believe the Chinese rulers would still be the most impracticable of
Orientals.... We cannot hope that any effort of ours or of the emperor
would suffice to change at once the character and habits of the people
or even the population of a city."

While advocating a resolute policy in maintaining all British rights
granted by treaty, the far-sighted consul uttered a timely caution
against pushing demands for concessions too far. In this he was in
accord with the policy, often enunciated by the British Government, of
not imperilling what we already possessed by striving after more. Mr
Alcock indicates clearly the danger which threatened British interests
from the prospective influx of Western Powers pressing through the
doors which Great Britain might be constrained to open:--

Powers who, having no such great interests to jeopardise,
are without this beneficial and most needful check, and may
therefore be induced to repeat at a semi-barbarian Court
the intrigues and counter-projects for the destruction of
our influence and the injury of our trade in the East which
are at work in our own times in every capital in Europe, as
formerly in India and the Eastern Archipelago.

Nor could a much more accurate description of the state of affairs now
existing be given than the picture of the future drawn by Consul
Alcock:--

An interesting feature in the prognostications of both Mr Alcock and
Mr Meadows in those early days was the ignoring of the Power which is
now assuming such an active part in the rearrangement of the Far East.
Germany was not even thought of as a world Power, but her entry on the
stage has only added confirmation to the soundness of all these
predictions.

The more immediate significance, however, of the elaborate exposition
of the Anglo-Chinese situation which we are now considering, lay in
its connection with the chain of events which followed within a few
years, and its coincidence with the progress in the views of the
British Government, which might almost be traced back to the date of
the paper. The year 1849 was one of the critical epochs in foreign
intercourse with China, for it was then that the last promissory note
as to the opening of Canton became due, and was dishonoured. The years
of grace successively granted to the Chinese authorities to enable
them to prepare for the execution of the treaty stipulation had been
used by them, or at any rate by the populace, to render its execution
permanently impossible. Mr Bonham, who proceeded up the river to apply
for the fulfilment of the agreement of 1847, which promised admission
to the city within two years, was received, not with the suave evasion
of Kiying but with the coarse rebuff of Governor-General Seu, who amid
popular enthusiasm caused a memorial arch to be erected to commemorate
the third repulse of the barbarians. The turning-point of affairs had
been now reached; the scales fell from the eyes of the British
Government. Reluctantly they were driven to the conclusion that they
had for seven years been trifled with, that their agents, one after
another, had been duped; that while they deluded themselves by
imagining that by their concessions they were pouring oil on water,
they were, in fact, throwing that inflammable substance on fire. Such
systematic blunders could not be made with impunity. It began, in
short, to be perceived that the ground so weakly surrendered at Canton
could not be recovered without, in the prophetic words of Lord
Palmerston, "coming to blows" once more with the Chinese.

The attention of the British Government being thus seriously directed
to China, they entered into correspondence with their plenipotentiary,
the governor of Hongkong, as to the best means of arresting the
decline of British prestige and of placing the interests of trade and
residence on a satisfactory footing. The plenipotentiary had no
resource but one for obtaining either information or advice on such
large questions, and that was always Consul Alcock at Shanghai, a
thousand miles from the seat of trouble, who had not then even seen
Canton. Mr Alcock was alert to respond to the invitation of his chief,
copiously, fearlessly, and with masterly lucidity as well as
comprehensiveness. In a despatch to Sir George Bonham dated January
13, 1852, the development of the new policy may be traced.[17] And the
whole situation is fully laid bare in a further despatch of June 17,
1852.[18]

This confidential official correspondence,[19] carried on for a number
of years, constitutes a natural introduction to the chapter of history
which was about to open. In the transactions which led to a second
rupture with China Consul Alcock had personally no part, for he was on
leave in England, but there also his voice was heard in the discussion
of the causes and objects of the war.

In a series of letters to the press, during 1857-58, commenting on the
progress of events, Mr Alcock endeavoured to keep the British public
informed of what was transpiring in China, the reasons for it, and the
probable consequences. These letters were republished in pamphlet
form, of course anonymously.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] See Appendix I.

[17] See Appendix II.

[18] See Appendix III.

[19] See Appendices I., II., and III.

CHAPTER XI.

TRADE UNDER THE TREATY OF NANKING.

Trade the sole motive in all British and American dealings
with China -- Simplicity of this trade -- Chief staple
imports and exports -- Data for any review of Chinese trade
-- Mutual alarm caused by excess of imports -- Peculiar
conditions of British trade -- Entailing a loss of over 30
per cent, yet steadily maintained -- System of barter --
Consequent impossibility of clear accounts -- And ignorance
of position at any given moment -- Trade also hampered by
traditions of the East India Company -- Such as that of
keeping large stores on hand -- Gradual improvement on
these methods -- Advantages of landed investment in China
-- Perceived and acted on by the Jesuits -- And later by
foreign merchants -- The American trade -- Similarity of
currency -- Excess of Chinese exports met by shipments of
specie -- And later by credits on London banks.

Whatever may be said of that of other nations, the intercourse of
Great Britain and the United States with China, from the earliest
period to the latest, whether in peace or war, has had no other object
than trade between the nations, and therefore all the steps in that
intercourse must be judged in their relation to the promotion of
international commerce. War and diplomacy, geographical exploration
and reforms, even literary researches and mutual instruction, being
all ancillary to the main purpose, it seems fitting to consider as
briefly as may be what manner of thing it was which set, and still
keeps, all these auxiliary forces in motion.

From its first introduction till now one feature has characterised the
Chinese foreign trade, and that is its simplicity. Both on the export
and the import side a few staple commodities have made up its whole
volume, and in this respect the statistics of to-day differ but little
from those of fifty years ago. The leading Chinese imports at the
conclusion of the first war were: From India, opium and raw cotton, to
which has been added, since the development of steam factories, cotton
yarn. From England, plain bleached and unbleached cotton goods, cotton
yarn, some descriptions of woollens, iron and lead, account for nearly
the whole value. The trade from the United States and the continent of
Europe in those days did not greatly affect the general aggregate. The
exports of Chinese produce were at the period in question almost
confined to the one article--tea. Subsequently silk grew into
importance, and soon exceeded in value the great speciality of China.
Rhubarb was a commodity on which, next to tea, the Chinese affected to
lay much stress, on the ground that foreigners were dependent upon it
for the preservation of their health, and that stopping the supply
might offer an easy means of coercing them. But the article never
assumed any important commercial value. Sugar, camphor, and matting
were also among the exports, the last named being much in demand in
the United States. It is only of recent years, however, that anything
like assorted cargoes of produce have been sent away from the Chinese
ports. The trade has passed through many vicissitudes, has had its
periodical ebb and flow, but has on the whole been prosaically
progressive. And this has been especially the case with the imports
of British and other Western produce.

It would be instructive to review the circumstances of the Chinese
trade at successive stages of its progress, and to note the grievances
of merchants and manufacturers at different epochs and the obstacles
to commercial development as they were felt from time to time. It
would be more interesting to do this were it possible to discriminate
between permanent causes and temporary accidents. But it is not always
what is of the most lasting importance that makes the strongest
impression upon those who are actively engaged in the struggle for
life. The trader does not greatly differ from the world at large in
his love of a whipping-boy--that is to say, in the common tendency to
attribute mischances to objective rather than to subjective causes.
Prosperity, like good health, is, to those who enjoy it, its own
sufficient explanation, the normal reward of the merit each one takes
to himself as a matter of course. Adversity, on the other hand, is
assigned to demonic origin, its victims being martyrs to the powers of
nature or the hostile combinations of men. For these reasons it would
be as difficult to gather from their own accounts what were the real
helps and what the real hindrances to the traders' progress, as to
draw general conclusions on the state of agriculture from
conversations with working farmers. The commercial circular is a
familiar product of the modern era of open trade. It undertakes to
record the actual state of markets and to give the reasons why they
are not otherwise. If one were to circumnavigate the globe and compare
the ordinary run of these reports issuing from the great emporia, one
feature would be found common to them all--it is the bogy. Everything
would be for the best--but for certain adverse influences. It may be
the vagaries of some Finance Minister or Tariff Commission, the
restraint of princes, war, pestilence, or famine--inundations here and
droughts there; but a something there must always be to explain away
the moral accountability of the individual traders, manufacturers, or
planters. China and Japan have seldom been without such fatalistic
obstacles to commerce. For many years the rebellion was the _bête
noire_ of merchants, then the mandarins, and smaller rebellions; the
scarcity of specie at one period, at another the superabundance of
cheap silver. In Burma the King of Ava stood for long as the root of
all commercial evil. In Japan the Daimios and the currency served
their turn. India is never without calamities sufficient to account
for perhaps more than ever happens there. All such drawbacks, however,
though real enough as far as they go, are never exhaustive, and seldom
even reach to the core of the problem. They are as atmospheric
phenomena, to be observed, taken advantage of, or provided against,
and are extremely interesting to the individuals immediately affected
by them. But as regards the general course of trade, such incidents
are but as storms on the surface of the deep oceanic currents: it is
the onward sweep of the great volume of traffic that alone possesses
public interest. Of the circumstances which influence the course and
direction of that beneficent current a collation of the utterances of
traders would yield but a refracted account. So that in order to
appreciate the progress of commerce we have to fall back on the
unadorned columns of statistical tables, which themselves leave
something to be desired on the score of completeness.[20]

With regard to certain periods of the China trade we have rather full
data, as, for instance, in the decade following the war, when the
working of the trade exercised the minds both of British merchants and
of their Government in a degree which has scarcely been equalled
since. The same may be predicated of the Chinese Government also, and,
as has been observed in a previous chapter, it was an interesting
coincidence that during that critical period it was the self-same
grievance that pressed on both sides--namely, the insufficiency of the
Chinese exported produce to pay for the goods imported. The effect of
this on the Chinese Government was to excite unfeigned alarm at the
steady drain of silver required to pay for the excess of their
imports. On the British side the grievance came home to the
manufacturers in the form of the incapacity of the Chinese to take off
an adequate quantity of the products of English looms. The remedy
proposed from the two sides was thoroughly characteristic of their
respective traditions. On the Chinese side it was negative,
obstructive, prohibitory, and absolutely vain. On the British side the
proposal was positive, expansive, and in accord with the spirit of
modern commerce. The Chinese remedy was to forbid the export of silver
and the import of opium, which, being the article in most urgent
demand, was usually paid for in bullion or in coined dollars. The
English remedy was to stimulate the export of Chinese produce. But
here a paradox stands in the way of a clear perception of the
position. The British trade was being carried on at a loss, which some
of the merchants estimated at 33 per cent on the round venture. That
is to say, manufactured goods were sold in China at a loss of 15 to 20
per cent, and the proceeds, being invested in Chinese produce,
realised a further loss on sale in England of 17 or 20 per cent.

To account for this unremunerative trade being carried on voluntarily
year after year, it is necessary to remember the great distance of the
two markets in the days before the introduction of steam and the
shortening of the voyage by the piercing of the Suez Canal. We have to
allow also for the gambling or speculative element which animates all
commerce, and the "hope-on-hope-ever" spirit without which no distant
adventure would ever be undertaken. The rationale of the phenomenon
was reduced to a very simple expression by Mr Gregson, who, when asked
by the Committee of the House of Commons if he could explain "the
singular proceeding of continuing the trade for a series of years with
perpetual losses on it," replied: "The manufacturers reason that as
the losses have been considerable the exports will fall off, and
therefore they may export again. They are generally deceived, because
their neighbours taking the same view, the exports are kept up and the
loss continues."

The case thus bluntly stated by Mr Gregson was not such a temporary
phase as might naturally have been concluded. The same remarkable
features continued for many years afterwards more or less
characteristic of the China trade, so that had another commission been
appointed to consider the subject they would have been surprised to
find the old riddle still awaiting solution, Why so regular and simple
a trade should be carried on apparently without profit? The data of
supply and demand being well ascertained, prices remunerative to the
merchant might have been expected to arrange themselves automatically.
Further explanations seem, in fact, required to supplement Mr
Gregson's, and some of these must appear somewhat whimsical and
farfetched to the general reader. The peculiar method in vogue of
stating accounts was not perhaps without its influence in obscuring
the merchants' perceptions of the merits of their current operations.
The trade being virtually conducted by barter, the sale of a
particular parcel of goods did not necessarily close the venture. A
nominal price was agreed upon between buyer and seller for the
convenience of account-keeping, but this almost always had reference
to the return investment in tea or other produce. So that British
goods were regarded as a means of laying down funds in China for the
purchase of tea, while tea was regarded as a return remittance for the
proceeds of manufactured goods, and as a means of laying down funds in
England for further investments in the same commodity for shipment to
China. The trade thus revolving in an eternal circle, having neither
beginning nor end, it was impossible to pronounce definitely at what
particular point of the revolution the profit or loss occurred. A bad
out-turn of goods exported would, it was hoped, be compensated for by
the favourable result of the produce imported, and _vice versâ_, _ad
infinitum_. Thus no transaction stood on its own merits or received
the unbiassed attention of the merchants. Their accounts did not show
the actual amount of loss or gain on a particular invoice, the
formula simply recording the price at which the venture, as an
operation in exchange, "laid down the dollar." The par value of that
coin being taken at 4s. 4d., the out-turn of a sterling invoice which
yielded the dollar at any price below that was of course a gain, or
anything above it a loss. But the gain or loss so registered was
merely provisional. The dollar as such was never realised: it was but
a fiction of the accountant, which acquired its substantial value only
when reinvested in Chinese produce. The final criterion, therefore,
was how much the dollar invoices of Chinese produce would yield back
in sterling money when sold in London, and how that yield compared
with the "laid-down" cost of the dollar in China. But even that
finality was only provisional so long as the circuit of reinvestment
was uninterrupted.

Merchants were not called upon to face their losses as they were made,
nor could they realise their profits as they were earned. Long before
one year's account could be closed, the venture of one or two
subsequent years had been launched beyond recall, and the figures of
the newest balance-sheet related to transactions which, having already
become ancient history, were but a dry study compared with the new
enterprises bearing the promise of the future and absorbing the whole
interest of the merchant. Business was thus carried on very much in
the dark, the eyes of the trader being constantly directed forward,
while past experience was not allowed its legitimate influence in
forming the judgment. A blind reliance on the equalising effect of
averages was perhaps the safest principle on which such a commerce
could be carried on. The merchants themselves were wont to say that
after drawing the clearest inferences from experience, and making the
most careful estimates of probabilities, the wisest man was he who
could act contrary to the obvious deductions therefrom. Business thus
became a kind of concrete fatalism.

The China trade was, moreover, much hampered by certain traditions of
the East India Company which long clung to its skirts. One of these
relics of conservatism, transmitted from the days of the maritime
wars, was the principle of storing up merchandise at both termini. It
was an understood thing that the Company should never keep less than
two years' supply of tea in the London warehouses, and long after the
Company ceased to trade stocks of that commodity often amounted to
nearly twelve months' consumption. Similarly, manufactured goods were
accumulated, whether of set purpose or from the mere force of habit,
in the China depots. The merchant seemed to have inherited the
principle of holding merchandise for some ideal price, locking up his
own or his constituents' capital, incurring cumulative charges on
commodities which were all the while deteriorating in value, and
eventually perhaps selling under some financial or other pressure. A
certain satisfaction seems to have been derived from the contemplation
of a full "go-down," as if the merchandise there stored had been
realised wealth instead of a block to such realisation.

That primitive state of affairs is now a thing of the past, since the
progress of the world during the last thirty years has revolutionised
not the foreign trade of China, but the peculiar system on which it
was carried on. The distribution of capital and the services of
Exchange banks exploded many conservative doctrines. The first
merchants who, perceiving the necessity of reforming the habits of the
trade, boldly resolved to "sell and repent" on the arrival of their
merchandise, were pitied by their more antiquated neighbours, and
thought to be likely to stand much in need of repentance. But in their
case wisdom has been justified of her children.

This bald sketch of the trade customs inherited from the East India
Company, though typical, is by no means exhaustive. There were, both
before and after the treaty of Nanking, many byways and specialities
and exceptions by which the vicious circle was broken with happy
results to the individuals. Indeed at all points there have been
collateral avenues to fortune, contributory enterprises more
profitable than those which were purely commercial. The various ways
of taxing commerce, as by insurance, freightage, storage, lighterage,
packing, financing, &c., have afforded, on the whole, safe and good
returns on capital. In countries where family improvidence is
prevalent, and where capital is scarce and dear, as is the case
generally in the Far East, both the opportunity and the inducement to
invest in real estate are afforded to those who are in a position to
take advantage of them,--for the same conditions which bring property
into the market provide the tenants for the new proprietors. By
following with that singleness of purpose which distinguishes all
their proceedings the line of financial policy so obviously suggested
by this state of things, the Jesuits, Lazarists, and other religious
orders have gradually accumulated in every locality where they have
settled a very large amount of house property in and around populous
centres. By this means they have laid whole communities of natives,
and even foreigners, under permanent tribute to the Church, and have
thereby rendered their missions independent of subventions from
Christian countries. Many of the foreign merchants, following this
worldly-wise example, have in like manner rendered themselves
independent of mercantile business.

The American trade was for the most part exempt from the drawbacks as
well as the advantages of the circuit system. The similarity of
currency helped to simplify American commerce with China, and though
from an early period the United States exported manufactures to that
country, these went but a little way in payment for the products which
they imported from China. Hence large shipments of specie had to be
made to purchase their cargoes. No statistics exist, but Mr Hunter
incidentally mentions one ship carrying amongst other cargo $350,000,
and three other vessels carrying between them $1,100,000, which may be
taken as typical of the course of trade prior to the abolition of the
East India Company's monopoly. This mode of paying for produce was
succeeded in after-years by credits on London banks, drafts under
which supplied the most convenient medium of remittance to shippers of
opium and other produce from India. The circuit was trilateral, and to
a considerable extent remains so.

I. TEA.

Causes of bad state of trade -- Failure of hopes built on
"free" trade -- Efforts for improvement -- Select Committee
of 1847 -- Excessive duties in England -- Irregularities in
valuation -- Annual consumption at this time -- Revenue
from the duties -- Beginnings of the India tea trade -- Mr
Robert Fortune -- Lord William Bentinck, Governor-General,
introduces tea culture, 1834 -- Assam Company founded 1839
-- Fortune's missions to China -- Tea-plant indigenous in
India -- Progress of scientific culture -- Vicissitudes of
the trade -- Ultimate success of the India and Ceylon trade
-- An example of Western as against Eastern methods --
Tea-planting introduced in Ceylon -- Rapid increase there
-- Why China has been supplanted in the market -- Ingenuity
and enterprise of the Indian planters -- A victory of race
and progress -- Obstructive measures of the Chinese
Government.

There was an apparent inconsistency in the outcry for larger
quantities of Chinese produce to balance the trade, while the small
quantity that did come forward could only be sold at a loss. The
explanation may partly be found in the "boom" which naturally ensued
on the emancipation of the China trade from the oppressive monopoly of
the East India Company, and in the disappointment which, no less
naturally, succeeded the boom. To some extent also the onerous imposts
laid upon the principal article of export--tea--by the British
Exchequer might be held responsible for the anomaly; for the English
duties were a mechanical dead-weight on the trade, impeding the free
play of the other economic factors. There was a practically unlimited
supply of tea in China, and a growing demand for it in England, and
yet some £2,000,000 in specie was annually sent away from China as the
balance of trade. How to commute that amount of silver into tea for
the benefit of both countries might be said to be the problem before
the merchants and their Governments.

The only means which appeared to them feasible to effect this object
was to lower the British import duty. Among many interesting
particulars concerning the actual state of the Chinese trade at that
time, we get from the report of the Select Committee of the House of
Commons on "Commercial Relations with China," of 1847, an insight into
the difficulties, such as in our day can scarcely be imagined, which
stood in the way of any reduction of the tea duties.

On the opening of what was called free trade with China--"free," that
is to say, of the East India Company's monopoly--the duty was 96 per
cent _ad valorem_ on all teas sold at or under 2s. a pound, or 100 per
cent on all above that price. These _ad valorem_ duties worked
iniquitously for both the Government and the merchants, the Customs
levying the higher rate when the lower was appropriate, and the
merchants redressing the injustice in their own fashion when occasion
served. An attempt was made to remedy this regrettable situation by
the reduction of tea to three classifications, and the conversion of
the _ad valorem_ duties into specific duties ranging from 1s. 6d. to
3s. per pound on these classifications. The arrangement was still
found unworkable, and the most glaring irregularities were common. The
same parcel of tea, absolutely uniform in quality, divided between
London and Liverpool, would be assessed in one port on the lower, and
in the other on the higher, scale of duties, and the Customs would
grant no redress, though the overcharge might be ruinous to the
trader.

This impossible state of things was remedied in 1836, when the duties
were converted to one uniform rate of 2s. per pound on all teas.
Subsequently 5 per cent was added to this, so that the duty in 1847
was 2s. 2¼d. The object to which the Government inquiry was primarily
directed was to gauge the effect on the consumption of tea of the
raising or lowering of the duties, on which depended the ultimate
retail price. The admission of competition in the Chinese trade in
1834 had the immediate effect of reducing the "laid-down" cost of tea,
which promptly reacted upon the consumption of the article in England.
But as the import duty remained unaltered, while the prime cost of the
tea was much lowered, the Exchequer derived the whole benefit from the
increased consumption.

The annual consumption at that time in Great Britain was 1 lb. 10 oz.
per head, or 46,000,000 lb. in total, and it was shown that in every
instance where the duty was lower the consumption was proportionately
greater. In the Isle of Man, where the duty was 1s. per pound, the
consumption quickly rose, when the restriction on the quantity allowed
to be imported there was removed, to 2 lb. 10 oz. per head. In the
Channel Islands it was 4 lb. 4 oz. per head. "In Newfoundland,
Australia, and other colonies the consumption is very much larger per
head than it is in this country." The Australian colonies have
maintained to the present day their pre-eminence as tea-drinkers,
their consumption averaging no less than 10 lb. per head. Consumption
in Russia and the United States is estimated at a little over 1 lb.
per head of the population.

The colonists have always been the most intelligent consumers of the
article. Forty years ago they substituted good black teas for the
pungent green which had supplied the wants of the mining camps and
primitive sheep stations, and within the last few years they have
shown their appreciation of the flavoury Ceylon leaf by taking every
year a larger quantity in relative displacement of the rougher
qualities which come from India. The "geographical distribution" of
the taste for tea presents some rather curious facts. In the United
Kingdom, for example, dealers find that Irish consumers demand the
best quality of tea. The United States remained faithful to their
green tea long after that description was discarded in Australia; and
even when black tea came to be in part substituted, it was not the
Ceylon or Chinese Congou, but the astringent Oolong kinds, such as are
so largely supplied from Japan, which met the taste of American
consumers.

The cost price of tea had been so much reduced by the abolition of the
East India Company's monopoly that the fixed rate of duty, instead of
being equivalent, as it had been when originally fixed, to 100 per
cent on the value, was estimated to average 165 per cent on Congou
tea, which was much beyond what the Legislature intended when the
tariff was decided; for while they reckoned on getting a revenue of
£3,600,000, the increase in the quantity had been so considerable that
the yield of the duty had risen to £5,000,000. The arguments and the
evidence in favour of reducing the duties were unanswerable from every
point of view. Yet the utmost which the advocates in 1847 seem to have
hoped for was that it might be reduced to 1s. per pound, which they
considered would entail a temporary loss to the revenue. But we see in
our day that the Government draws nearly £4,000,000 from the article
on a tariff rate of 4d. per pound, while the consumption per head of
population has risen to 6 lb., or a total of 235,000,000 lb. per
annum.

While the mercantile community were thus straining after means of
developing the tea trade from China there were causes at work, of
which they seemed to have no suspicion, which have completely
revolutionised that trade, reducing China to a quite secondary
position as an exporter. Among the witnesses examined before the
Committee of 1847 there was one who may almost be said to have held
the fate of the Chinese tea trade in his hands, though probably he
himself was unaware of it. This was Mr Robert Fortune, curator of the
Physic Gardens at Chelsea, who had travelled in some of the tea
districts of China as agent of the Horticultural Society of London,
being also commissioned by the East India Company to investigate the
processes of the growth and manufacture of tea in China, and to bring
to India seeds and plants as well as skilled workmen to manipulate the
leaves. The idea of cultivating tea in India had long been entertained
by the Company. The plant itself had been found indigenous in Upper
Assam twenty years before Fortune's day, but no practical notice was
taken of the discovery until 1834, when the Government of India
resolved to attempt the culture of the leaf. The scheme received its
first embodiment in a Minute of Lord William Bentinck, the first
Governor-General of India,[21] in 1834. The plan he laid down was to
"select an intelligent agent, who should go to Penang and Singapore
and in conjunction with authorities and the most intelligent of
Chinese agents should concert measures for obtaining the genuine
plant, and actual cultivators." The state of affairs in China at the
time did not favour the prosecution of such an enterprise. The native
resources of India, however, began at once to be utilised. The Assam
Company, the pioneer of tea-culture, was established in 1839, and
continues its operations to our own day. After the treaty of peace and
the successful establishment of trade at the new ports in China, Lord
William Bentinck's ideas were realised in the two missions of Fortune,
who succeeded in conveying to India nearly 20,000 plants from both the
black and green tea countries of Central China. Although, judging from
subsequent experience, India might by her unaided efforts have
developed this great industry, yet it can hardly be doubted that the
enterprise of the practical Scottish gardener applied the effective
stimulus which raised tea-growing to the rank of a serious national
interest. Hybridisation between the imported Chinese plants and those
of indigenous growth proceeded actively, no less than one hundred
varieties being thus produced. Planters now consider that the native
plant would have served all their purposes without any intermixture,
but probably nothing short of practical experience would have
persuaded them of this.

The vicissitudes of tea-growing in India have been so sharp that they
would form of themselves an interesting episode of industrial history.
Mania and panic alternated during the experimental stages of the
enterprise, with the inevitable result of wholesale transfers of
property, so that of the early pioneers comparatively few were
destined to enjoy the ultimate reward of their sacrifices.
Difficulties of many kinds dogged the steps of the planters, among
these being the unsatisfactory land tenure and the supply of labour.
The mortality among the imported coolies was for many years so heavy
that the Government was eventually obliged to interfere with severe
regulations, which were imposed in 1863. These and other difficulties
being successfully grappled with, the prosperity of the industry
flowed as smoothly as the Niagara river below the Falls, until the
supply of tea from India and Ceylon had completely swamped that from
the original home of the trade.

The supplanting of Chinese by Indian tea in the markets of the
world--for even Russia is now an importer of the latter--is an
interesting example of the encroachment of Western enterprise on the
ancient province of Eastern habits. These are of course only general
terms, for from all such comparisons Japan must be either excluded or
classed rather among the foremost of the progressive nations than
among her nearest geographical neighbours. When tea-cultivation was
once shown to be "payable" in British Indian territory the energy of
the Western people was quickly brought to bear on the industry, and
through several cycles of success and failure, and over the dead
bodies, so to speak, of many pioneers, the production available for
and distributed in the English market has steadily grown from nothing
up to 154,000,000 lb. per annum.

The cultivation of tea was introduced at a much later period into
Ceylon, where it most opportunely took the place of coffee, which had
been ruined by disease, and already the deliveries of tea from that
island press hard on that from India itself, having reached 90,000,000
lb., or more than half of the Indian supply. The rate of progress in
Ceylon has been most remarkable. In 1883 the most experienced
residents in the island considered themselves sanguine in predicting
that the export of tea would eventually reach the total of 20,000,000
lb.--it being at that time under 1,000,000 lb. While the products of
India and Ceylon have thus been advancing by leaps and bounds, the
import from China has dwindled down to 29,000,000 lb.,--about
one-tenth part of a trade of which forty years ago she held an easy
monopoly.

How has such a gigantic displacement been brought about? Primarily, no
doubt, from the vigorous following up of the discovery that tea could
be profitably grown in India. But beyond that it is a victory of race
over race, of progress over stagnation, of the spirit of innovation
and experiment over that of conservative contentment. The Indian
planters have made a personal study of all the conditions of
tea-culture, have selected their plants, invented machinery to do all
that the Chinese have done for centuries by manipulation, have put
ample capital into the enterprise, and used the utmost skill in
adapting their product to the taste of their customers. Moreover, they
have by dint of advertising all over the world, attending exhibitions,
and many other devices, forced their commodity into markets which
would never have come to them. There was, on the other hand, no one
interested in the success of Chinese tea-growers, whose plantations
are in the interior of the country, subdivided into garden-plots, with
no cohesion among their owners for aggressive purposes. For though
the Chinese can and do combine, it is usually in a negative sense, to
obstruct and not to promote action, whereas the tea-growers of India
have shown examples of intelligent co-operation of the aggressive and
productive kind, not wasting power in seeking to impede rivals, but
devoting their whole energies to the prosecution of their own
business. And they have their reward.

The short-sightedness of the Government has no doubt contributed to
the decline of the Chinese tea trade, through the excessive duties of
one kind and another which they have continued to levy on the article
from the place of growth to the port of shipment. It is fair to
remember, however, that their exactions bear most heavily on the low
grades, which, notwithstanding, continue to be shipped in quite as
large quantities as is desirable in the interest of consumers; while
the superior qualities, which are quite able to bear the taxes, have
almost ceased to be imported into Great Britain, the whole supply
finding its way to Russia. That country has long been celebrated, and
justly so, for the excellence of its tea, for which fantastical
reasons are wont to be given. The true reason is very simple. Russian
merchants purchase the fine Chinese teas for which no market can now
be found in England, the public taste having run so exclusively on the
product of India and Ceylon that a cup of good Chinese tea has become
a luxury reserved for those who have facilities for obtaining the
article outside the ordinary channels of trade.

II. SILK.

Balance of trade adjusted by Shanghai silk trade -- China
the original silk country -- Silk chiefly exported from
Canton -- Advantages of the new port of Shanghai -- Disease
attacks the silkworm in Europe -- Shanghai supplies the
deficit -- Efforts in Italy and France to obtain healthy
seed from China and Japan -- Disease overcome by M. Pasteur
-- Renewed prosperity of the European producers shared by
the Chinese.

Within six years of the time when the merchants of England were
earnestly seeking a remedy for the crying evil of the balance of trade
against China, the whole difficulty had disappeared through the
operation of natural causes. The great factor in bringing about the
change was the rapid growth of the trade of Shanghai, and more
particularly the large exportation of raw silk from that port. "The
noble article," as the Italians fondly call it, already in 1853
represented a larger value than the tea exported; the turn of the tide
had come; the balance of trade had shifted; and in a very few years
silver flowed into the country more copiously than it had ever flowed
out.

Of all the materials of commerce silk is perhaps the most classical. A
fibre so lustrous, so pure, and so durable, has been the desire of all
nations ancient and modern, and the peculiar interest excited by its
humble origin enveloped the subject in myths and legends during the
earlier intercourse between Europe and Asia. China was known to the
ancients as the cradle of sericulture, deriving, in fact, from its
most famous product the name Serica, by which it was known to the
Greeks and Romans. There is not a silk-producing country in the world
which is not directly or indirectly indebted to China for the seed of
the insect, if not also for the introduction of the white
mulberry-tree, upon the leaves of which the caterpillar is fed. Though
rivals have sprung up in many countries both in Europe and in Asia,
China has not lost its reputation, or even its pre-eminence, as a
producer of the article.

The vicissitudes of the silk trade and cultivation would afford more
varied interest than the comparatively simple annals of the
displacement of tea. Though the subject falls outside the scope of the
present work, the changes that have taken place in Chinese commerce
cannot be intelligently followed without some reference to the
animated competition which has been going on for more than forty years
among the great silk-producing countries. The first in rank among
these was Italy, France following at a considerable distance. The
wants of Europe had been mainly supplied during centuries by the
product of these countries, India and the Levant and some others
contributing also their share. Japan had been growing silk for her own
use during all the time that intercourse with the rest of the world
was prohibited by severe laws, and she came later into the field as an
exporter.

The quantity obtained from China previous to the opening of the five
ports was all derived from the southern provinces, and was exported
from Canton. In nothing was the pre-eminence of the new port of
Shanghai over its older rival destined to be more marked than in the
development of the silk trade. Its position within an easy canal
journey of the richest silk-growing districts in the whole empire gave
to the northern port advantages which were promptly turned to account
in co-operation between the foreign and the native merchants,
resulting before many years in the growth of a healthy and most
satisfactory trade. The supply of the article having up to that time
been regulated by the home demand, the entry of an outside customer
had a very stimulating effect upon the Chinese growers. Some years
elapsed before the product of the newly opened districts could be
fully tested and appreciated by the manufacturers in Europe. This time
was well employed by the Chinese cultivators and traders in maturing
their arrangements for bringing larger supplies to the foreign market,
suited to the requirements of the new purchasers, as far as they were
understood. The supply and demand had progressed evenly, admitting of
good profits to both sides, until a stage was reached when the trade
and cultivation were both ready to respond to a new stimulus, and just
then the new stimulus was applied.

Disease began to attack the silkworms in Europe; the production of
Italian and other silk became precarious, and inadequate to the
demands of the manufacturing trade. Into the vacuum thus created
supplies from China were ready to pour in, and highly remunerative
prices awaited them. The export from Shanghai for the year 1856 was
very large, and the result encouraged growers and native and foreign
merchants to put forth still greater efforts in the following year,
when the shipments from that port reached 90,000 bales, worth probably
£10,000,000 sterling. These shipments, thrown on the market during the
money panic of 1857, resulted disastrously, but the impetus given to
the trade continued to be felt during many subsequent years.

The Italians in the meanwhile, driven to their wits' end to save so
valuable an industry, tried first to obtain healthy seed from China
and Japan. The first experiments being unsuccessful, the eggs having
hatched during the voyage, steamers were specially chartered and
carefully fitted up with conveniences for preserving the precious
commodity. Experiment was also made of sending the seed by the caravan
route through Siberia to save the risk of premature incubation. In
fact, Jason's quest of the Golden Fleece was scarcely characterised by
more varied adventures than that of the Italians--the French also
joining to a certain extent--after a healthy breed of silkworm. After
many years of anxious and almost desperate efforts, some success was
obtained in introducing Chinese and Japanese seed into Europe; but the
produce of the exotic seed also in time became liable to attacks of
the parasite, and it was not till science came to the aid of the
cultivators that the true remedy was finally applied, and an important
item in the national wealth of Southern Europe was saved. It was M.
Pasteur who eventually furnished the means of detecting in the egg the
germ of the destructive parasite; so that by sorting out the infected
eggs and destroying them the race was purified. Thus the way was
opened for the restoration of European culture to more than its
pristine prosperity; for the many valuable lessons which the
cultivators learnt in the school of their adversity have stood them in
good stead now that fortune has again smiled upon them.

Notwithstanding the revival of European silk-culture, the silks of
China and Japan and other Eastern countries still hold their own in
the Western markets, and continue to form an important constituent of
the export trade of the Far East.[22] The European markets to which
they are consigned are no longer indeed English, but French, German,
American, and others, the last forty years having witnessed a
revolution in the silk industries of Great Britain, and a virtual
transference of the old industries of Spitalfields, Norwich,
Macclesfield, and other districts to her manufacturing rivals.

III. OPIUM.

The largest and most interesting Chinese import --
Peculiarities of the trade -- Nominally contraband -- But
openly dealt in -- Ships anchored in the Canton river -- Or
near the trading-ports -- Wusung -- Opium cargoes
discharged into old hulks before entering Shanghai port --
Importance of the opium traffic as a factor in foreign
intercourse -- The opium clippers -- The opium market
liable to much variation -- Piracy -- The clippers were
armed -- Occasionally attacked -- Anomalous position --
Alcock's aversion to the opium traffic -- His reasons --
Experience at Shanghai modifies his opinion -- The trade
being bound up with our Indian and Chinese commerce -- No
attempt to stop it could do other than aggravate the
mischief -- Still wishes to see the trade modified or
abolished -- Despatch to Sir J. Bowring -- His desire to
devise some scheme -- His last proposal of 1870 --
Ambiguous attitude of the British Government -- Inheritors
of the East India Company's traditions -- These forbad the
carrying of opium in their ships -- Question of legalising
the traffic -- 1885 Chinese Government trebles the import
duty and asks the help of the Hongkong Government for its
collection.

The most interesting constituent of trade in China has always been
opium, especially since the product of British India was so much
improved and stimulated by the Government as practically to supersede
in the China market the demand for the production of other countries.
The value of the opium imported exceeded that of all other articles,
the figures being returned at $23,000,000 and $20,000,000 respectively
for the year 1845. As the exports of Chinese produce were at that time
estimated at $37,000,000, it is evident that opium played a most
important part in the adjustment of the balance of trade; and as it
came from India and the returns from it had to go thither, opium and
raw cotton, which also came from India, formed the pivot of exchange.
As the opium was paid for in silver and not by the barter of produce,
it was natural to charge it with the loss of the silver which was
annually shipped away from China, and which was assumed to reach the
amount of £2,000,000 sterling, though that seems to be an
exaggeration.

The trade in this commodity differs from all ordinary commerce in the
conditions under which it has been carried on, and in the sentiments
which have grown up concerning it. Until the treaty made by Lord Elgin
in 1858 the importation of opium had been for many years nominally
contraband, while yet the trade in it was as open as that in any other
commodity and was as little interfered with by the Government. Laxity
and connivance being the characteristics of Chinese officialdom, there
would be nothing extraordinary even in the official patronage of a
traffic which was forbidden by the State, so that it would not be safe
to infer from the outward show what the real mind of the responsible
Government was on that or any other subject. The necessity of saving
appearances, an object always so dear to the Chinese heart,
necessitated a special machinery for conducting the trade in opium.
Before the war, as has been already said, the ships carrying the drug
anchored at certain rendezvous in the estuary of the Canton river,
where they delivered their goods on the order of the merchants who
were located in Canton or Macao. The vessels also made excursions up
the coast, where they had direct dealings with the Chinese, the master
acting as agent for the owners. And when the northern ports were
opened, after the treaty of Nanking, the opium depot ships were
stationed at convenient points on the coast in the vicinity of the
trading-ports. The most important of these stations was at Wusung, on
the Hwangpu river, nine miles by road from Shanghai. There were
sometimes a dozen, and never less than half-a-dozen, hulks moored
there, dismantled, housed-in, and unfit for sea. The supply was kept
up in the earlier days by fast schooners and latterly by steamers,
which in the period before the treaty of 1858 discharged their opium
into these hulks without surveillance of any kind, and then proceeded
up the river to Shanghai with the rest of their cargo, which, though
often consisting of but a few odd packages, was taken charge of by the
custom-house with the utmost punctilio, while the valuable cargo of
opium was ignored as if it did not exist.

The opium trade was a ruling factor in the general scheme of foreign
intercourse and residence in China. The postal communication, for
example, on the coast and between India and China was practically
dependent on it; for, being a precious commodity, it could afford to
pay very high charges for freight, and the opium clippers could be run
regardless of expense, as will be more fully described in the Chapter
on "Shipping."

The high value of the article influenced the conduct of the trade in a
variety of ways, one in particular being that the vessels carrying it
had to go heavily armed. The coast of China before the war and after
swarmed with pirates, to whom so portable an article as opium offered
an irresistible temptation. The clippers on the coast were usually
small schooners from 100 to 200 tons burthen, and though with their
superior sailing powers they could always take care of themselves in a
breeze, they would have been helpless in a calm unless prepared to
stand to their guns. It was sometimes alleged by those opposed to the
traffic that these vessels were little better than pirates themselves,
inasmuch as they were forcing a trade prohibited by the laws of the
empire, and were armed to resist the authorities. The opium-carriers
were not unfrequently attacked by pirates, sometimes captured and
destroyed by them; but there never seems to have been any interference
or complaint on the part of the Government, even when prompted thereto
by British consuls. Nevertheless it was an anomalous state of things,
though one far from unusual in the first third of the century, that
European vessels should ply their trade armed like privateers.

The attitude of Consul Alcock towards the opium trade was, from the
earliest days of his consulship in Foochow until his final departure
from China in 1870, one of consistent aversion, so decided, indeed,
that in some of the arguments adduced in his Foochow reports against
the trade the conclusion somewhat outran the premisses, as he in after
years acknowledged by marginal notes on those earlier despatches:--

A trade prohibited and denounced alike as illegal and
injurious by the Chinese authority constitutes a very
anomalous position both for British subjects and British
authorities, giving to the latter an appearance of
collusion or connivance at the infraction of the laws of
China, which must be held to reflect upon their integrity
and good faith by the Chinese.

No small portion of the odium attaching to the illicit
traffic in China falls upon the consular authorities under
whose jurisdiction the sales take place, and upon the whole
nation whose subjects are engaged in the trade; and the
foundations of the largest smuggling trade in the world are
largely extended, carrying with them a habit of violating
the laws of another country.

The opium is of necessity inimical and opposed to the
enlargement of our manufacturing trade.

That which has been said of war may with still greater
force apply to the illicit traffic in opium, "It is the
loss of the many that is the gain of the few."

Whichever way we turn, evil of some kind connected with
this monstrous trade and monopoly of large houses meets our
eye.

In order to do justice to the agents in the traffic, he adds in the
same report on the trade for 1845--

While the cultivation and sale of opium are sanctioned and
encouraged for the purposes of revenue in India, and those
who purchase the drug deriving wealth and importance from
the disposal of it in China are free from blame, it is vain
to attempt to throw exclusive opprobrium upon the last
agents in the transaction.

These were the impressions of a fresh and presumably unprejudiced mind
taking its first survey of the state of our commercial intercourse
with China. They were reflections necessarily of a somewhat abstract
character, formed on a very limited acquaintance with the actualities
of a trade which did not yet exist in Foochow. A few years' experience
at the great commercial mart of Shanghai widened the views of the
consul materially, and showed him that there was more in this opium
question than meets the eye of the mere philosopher. A confidential
report on the subject made in 1852 treats the matter from a more
statesman-like as well as a more businesslike point of view. In that
paper he does more than deplore the evil, and while seeking earnestly
for a remedy, fully recognises the practical difficulties and the
danger of curing that which is bad by something which is worse.

The opium trade [he observes in a despatch to Sir John
Bowring] is not simply a question of commerce but first and
chiefly one of revenue--or, in other words, of finance, of
national government and taxation--in which a ninth of the
whole income of Great Britain and a seventh of that of
British India is engaged.

The trade of Great Britain with India in the year 1850
showed by the official returns an export of manufactures to
the value of £8,000,000, leaving a large balance of trade
against that country. A portion of the revenue of India has
also to be annually remitted to England in addition, for
payment of the dividends on Indian stock and a portion of
the Government expenses. These remittances are now
profitably made _viâ_ China, by means of the opium sold
there; and failing this, serious charges would have to be
incurred which must curtail both the trade and the
resources of the Indian Exchequer.

In China, again, scarcely a million and a half of
manufactured goods can find a market; yet we buy of tea and
silk for shipment to Great Britain not less than five
millions, and the difference is paid by opium.

A trade of £10,000,000 in British manufactures is therefore
at stake, and a revenue of £9,000,000--six to the British
and three to the Indian Treasury.

Which of these is the more important in a national point of
view,--the commerce, or the revenue derived from it? Both
are, however, so essential to our interests, imperial and
commercial, that any risk to either has long been regarded
with distrust and alarm, and tends to give a character of
timidity to our policy and measures for the maintenance of
our relations with China--the more disastrous in its
results, that to the oriental mind it is a sure indication
of weakness, and to the weak the Chinese are both
inexorable and faithless.

That the opium trade, illegal as it is, forms an _essential
element_, interference with which would derange the whole
circle of operations, must be too apparent to require
further demonstration.

Reference to the practical details of the colossal trade in
which it plays so prominent a part shows that it is
inextricably mixed up with every trading operation between
the three countries, and that to recognise the one and
ignore the other is about as difficult in any practical
sense as to accept the acquaintance of one of the Siamese
twins and deny all knowledge of his brother.

_No attempt of the British Government to stop or materially
diminish the consumption could possibly avail_, or be
otherwise than productive of aggravated mischief to India,
to China, and to the whole world, by giving a motive for
its forced production where it is now unknown, and throwing
the trade into hands less scrupulous, and relieved of all
those checks which under the British flag prevent the trade
from taking the worst characters of smuggling, and being
confounded with other acts of a lawless and piratical
nature affecting life and property, to the destruction of
all friendly or commercial relations between the two races.
It is also sufficient to bear in mind that it is a traffic,
as has been shown, which _vitalises_ the whole of our
commerce in the East; that without such means of laying
down funds _the whole trade_ would languish, and its
present proportions, colossal as they are, soon shrink into
other and insignificant dimensions; that the two branches
of trade are otherwise so _inextricably interwoven_, that
no means could be devised (were they less essential to each
other) of separating them. And finally, although Great
Britain has much to _lose_, China in such a quixotic
enterprise has little or nothing to _gain_.

Notwithstanding all these weighty considerations, Mr Alcock never
swerved in his desire to see "the opium trade, with all its train of
contradictions, anomalies, and falsifying conditions," modified, if
not done away with. In a careful despatch to Sir John Bowring dated
May 6, 1854, reviewing our whole position in China, he thus expresses
himself:--

Any modification for the better in our relations must, I
believe, begin here. We must either find means of inducing
the Chinese Government to diminish the evil by legalising
the trade, or enter the field of discussion ... with a
stone wall before us.... The legalisation would go far to
diminish the obstacle such an outrider to our treaty
creates; but far better would it be, and more profitable in
the end in view of what China might become commercially to
Europe, America, and to Great Britain specially, if the
Indian Government abandoned their three million sterling
revenue from the cultivation of opium, and our merchants
submitted to the temporary prejudice or inconvenience of
importing silver for the balance of trade.

Nearly twenty years afterwards we find Mr Alcock still engaged on the
problem how to diminish the trade in opium without dislocating both
the trade and finance of India, his last act on retiring from China in
1870 having been to propose a fiscal scheme of rearrangement by which
the opium trade might undergo a process of slow and painless
extinction.[23]

The attitude of the British Government towards the opium trade has
always been ambiguous. Succeeding to the inheritance of the East India
Company as the great growers of opium, they had to carry on its
traditions. These had led the Company in its trading days into some
striking inconsistencies, for though they cultivated the poppy
expressly for the China market, employing all the intelligence at
their command to adapt their product to the special tastes of the
Chinese, they yet refused to carry a single chest of it in their own
ships which traded to China. By this policy they thought they could
exonerate themselves in face of the Chinese authorities from
participation in a trade which was under the ban of that Government.
The importation of the drug was thus thrown upon private adventurers,
and whenever the subject was agitated in Canton and Macao, none were
so warm in their denunciations of the trade as the servants of the
East India Company. This was notably the case with Captain Elliot,
who, after leaving the Company's service and becoming representative
of the Crown, never wearied in his strictures on the opium traffic.

The question of legalising the traffic had frequently before been
considered by the Chinese Government,[24] and it was fully expected
that this was the policy which would prevail in Peking in 1837. The
pendulum swung to the opposite side, namely, that of prohibition, and
legalisation was not adopted until 1858. But once adopted, the idea
made such progress that in 1885 the Chinese Government made a
successful appeal to the British Government to be allowed to treble
the import duty authorised in 1858, and that the Colonial Government
of Hongkong should render them special assistance in collecting it.

IV. CHINESE EXPORTS.

Efforts of the consuls to stimulate trade -- Alcock's work
at Foochow -- His despatches -- Exhibition of 1851 --
Exhibits of Chinese produce sent by Alcock.

[Illustration: VILLAGE ON THE CANALS.]

The continuous efforts made by the consuls in the first decade after
the treaty to stimulate the action of foreign merchants in laying hold
of all the opportunities offered to them for extending their
connections with the Chinese trade ought not to be passed over without
notice. It was the burden of Consul Alcock's labours while in Foochow
to gather information from every source, to digest it as well as he
was able, and to lay it before his countrymen; and if he, in his
despatches to the plenipotentiary, sometimes reflected on what seemed
to him the apathy and want of enterprise of the merchants, that must
be set down to a laudable zeal to make his office fruitful of benefit
to his country. The same spirit animated his proceedings in Shanghai.
The demand made for exhibits for the Great Exhibition of 1851 found Mr
Alcock and his lieutenant Parkes eager to supply samples of Chinese
products of every kind likely to be of commercial interest. On
applying to the mercantile community of Shanghai for their
co-operation in collecting materials, he found them not over-sanguine
as to the results of such an effort, and in his despatch of December
1850 to the plenipotentiary he remarks that "the British and foreign
residents in Shanghai appeared to feel that the impossibility of
gaining access to the great seats of manufacture or the producing
districts for raw material placed them in too disadvantageous a
position to do justice either to themselves or the resources of the
empire, which could only be very inadequately represented, and in a
way more calculated to mislead than instruct." "The conclusion," he
goes on to say, "at which the mercantile community has arrived has
gone far to paralyse all exertion on my part." Nevertheless, with the
restricted means at his disposal, he set to work to collect specimens
of Chinese produce and industry and to transmit them to the Board of
Trade for the use of the Commissioners. Of objects of art he sent a
great variety in bronze, inlaid wood, porcelain, soapstone, and
enamels, and the fancy articles which have since acquired such great
reputation in the world that dealers in European and American capitals
send out commissions every year to make extensive purchases. Colours
used by the Chinese for dyeing purposes in twenty shades of blue, silk
brocades, and many valuable products of the Chinese looms, were well
represented, and the commoner utensils, such as scissors, needles, and
razors, some of which were within the last few years specially
recommended in consular reports to the notice of English
manufacturers, as if the suggestion were made for the first time. Of
raw material, samples were sent of hemp, indigo, and many other
natural products; and when it is considered how eager the British
mercantile community appeared to be to increase their importation of
Chinese produce--be it tea, silk, or any other commodity--in order to
balance the export trade, it is interesting to observe that in those
early days a number of articles of export were described and
classified, with an account of the districts of their origin, which
have only taken their place in the list of exports from China within
the last twenty years or so. These were sheep's wool of six different
descriptions, and camels' hair, which are now so extensively dealt in
at the northern ports of China. Perhaps these articles were not seen
in bulk by foreigners until after the opening of the new ports in
1861, and it is worthy of remark that even after this discovery, and
sundry experimental shipments, many years elapsed before the special
products of Northern China became recognised articles of foreign
trade. These now include straw plait, sheep's wool, goats' wools,
goats' skins, dogs' skins, camels' hair, horses' tails, pigs'
bristles, and a number of other articles of export which might
perfectly well have been brought to the foreign market of Shanghai
even before the opening of the northern ports. What was wanted was the
knowledge that such products were procurable and the organisation of a
market for their disposal in China, in Europe, and the United States.
To stimulate inquiry into these matters was an object of the consular
reports of the early days, and the fact that the seed then sown seemed
to have been buried in sterile soil for thirty years affords a
reasonable prospect that from the more advantageous basis on which
commercial men now stand still larger developments of international
commerce may be reserved to future adventurers.

V. BRITISH EXPORTS.

Slow increase -- Turn of the scale by the Shanghai silk
trade -- Consequent inflow of silver to China -- Alcock's
comment on the Report of Select Committee -- His grasp of
the true state of affairs.

This department of trade presents little else but a record of very
slow improvement, with some rather violent fluctuations due to obvious
and temporary causes. In the first year after the treaty of Nanking
the value of shipments to China from the United Kingdom was
£1,500,000; in 1852, £2,500,000; in 1861, £4,500,000, decreasing in
1862 to £2,300,000, and rising in 1863 to £3,000,000; after which
period it steadily increased to £7,000,000, at which it has
practically remained, with the exception of two or three years between
1885 and 1891, when it rose to £9,000,000.

The theory of the merchants who gave evidence before the Committee of
1847, that an increase in the exports from China was all that was
needed to enable the Chinese to purchase larger quantities of
manufactured goods, has by no means been borne out by the subsequent
course of trade. For although the Chinese exports have been greatly
extended since then, that of silk alone having more than sufficed to
pay for the whole of the imports from abroad, there has been no
corresponding increase in the volume of these importations. What
happened was merely this, that the drain of silver from China, which
was deplored on all sides up till about 1853, was converted into a
steady annual inflow of silver to China.[25] Consul Alcock, having
been requested by her Majesty's chief superintendent of trade to make
his comments on the Report of the Select Committee, dealt
comprehensively with the whole question of the trade between Europe,
India, and China, and evinced a wider grasp of the true state of the
case than the London merchants had done. In a despatch dated March 23,
1848, the following passages occur:--

Nearly the whole of the evidence furnished by the witnesses
on our trade is calculated to mislead those imperfectly
acquainted with the details. The existence of this relation
[the importation of opium and raw cotton from India] is
kept out of sight, and conclusions are suggested which
could only be maintained if the Indian imports into China
did not form a part of our commerce, and did not come in
direct competition with the import of staple manufactures.

To counteract as far as may be in my power the erroneous
tendency of the partial evidence which the Blue-Book
contains on this part of the subject, I have ventured for
the information of her Majesty's Government to bring
forward such facts and inferences as seem to me to place in
the strongest light the fallacy of the argument mainly
insisted upon before the Committee--viz., that we have only
our own consumption of tea to look to as indicating the
extent to which we can exchange our manufactures--that this
is the only limit of our imports into China. But imports of
what? Not certainly of cotton and woollen goods, for we
already export of tea and silk from China to the value of
some four millions sterling, and cannot find a profitable
market for manufactured goods to the amount of two
millions; and a somewhat similar proportion, or
disproportion rather, may be traced during the monopoly of
the East India Company, during the free-trade period prior
to the commencement of hostilities, and since the treaty.
Say that from a reduction of the tea duties or any other
cause we _double_ our _exports_ from China as we have
already done since 1833, from what data are we to infer
that in this same proportion the export into China of
British manufactures will increase; or in other words, that
for every additional million of tea there will be an
equivalent value expended upon our cotton fabrics?

The anticipated result is contradicted by all past
experience in China, and a moment's reflection must show
that the essential elements have been overlooked. 1st, That
there is a balance of trade against the Chinese of some
$10,000,000, which must adjust itself before any increase
of our exclusively British imports into China can be safely
or reasonably expected, for which an additional export of
20,000,000 lb. of tea and 10,000 bales of silk is required.
2ndly, That if such increase of our exports hence restored
the balance of trade to-morrow, the proportion in which an
increased import of our goods would take place must depend
upon the result of a competition of cotton goods against
opium and raw cotton--all three objects in demand among the
Chinese; and the proportion of each that may be taken under
the assumed improvement depends upon the relative degree of
preference exhibited by our customers for the different
articles. The two latter have proved formidable rivals to
our manufactures, nor is there any reason to anticipate
beneficial change in that respect.

The argument, therefore, that the only limit to our imports
into China is the consumption of tea and silk in Great
Britain, if meant to be applied, as it appears to be in the
evidence, exclusively to British imports--that is, to
cotton and woollens--is fallacious, and can only be
sustained by dropping the most important features of the
import trade, by treating opium and raw cotton as though
they had neither existence nor influence upon our British
staple trade.

The influence of this mode of reasoning is calculated to be
the more mischievous that it comes from gentlemen of
practical mercantile information, and purports to suggest a
remedy for an evil which is, in truth, of our own creating,
and must recur as often and as certainly as the same causes
are in operation. The trade in China during the last three
years has been a losing, and in many instances a ruinous,
trade, not because the English do not drink more tea, or
the Chinese do not find it convenient to wear more cotton
of our manufacture, but simply because in such market the
supply has not been carefully regulated by an accurate
estimate of the probable demand. Our merchants at home have
unfortunately been led by such reasoning as I have quoted
to assume that in proportion as we purchase more tea the
Chinese would lay out more money in cotton goods, and that
the one might be taken as a true estimate of the other.
Hence came shipments after the treaty so disproportioned to
the actual wants or state of demand in the Chinese market
that an immediate glut, with the consequent and necessary
depreciation in price, followed. Nor did the evil end here:
a return was of necessity to be made for this enormous
over-supply of goods, hence more tea was shipped than the
legitimate demand of the English markets would have
suggested or justified, and at the other end of the chain
the same depreciation and ruinous loss was experienced....

I have submitted in this and the preceding Reports my
strong conviction that other conditions than a mere
increase in our exports hence are essential. Of these I
have endeavoured to show the principal and most important
are access to the first markets, the removal of or
efficient control over all fiscal pretexts for restricting
the free circulation of our goods in the interior and the
transit of Chinese produce thence to the ports, and,
finally, the abolition of all humiliating travelling limits
in the interior, which more than anything else tends to
give the Chinese rulers a power of keeping up a hostile and
arrogant spirit against foreigners, and of fettering our
commerce by exactions and delays of the most injurious
character.

The conditions of the trade were, in fact, simpler than the merchants
had imagined. The Chinese entered into no nice estimates of the
balance of imports and exports, but purchased the goods which were
offered to them so far as they were adapted to their requirements--and
there is no other rule for the guidance of foreign manufacturers in
catering for the great Chinese market.

VI. NATIVE TRADE.

Inter-provincial trade -- Advantages of the employment of
foreign shipping -- China exports surplus of tea and silk
-- Coasting-trade -- Salt.

The great reservoir of all foreign commerce in China is the
old-established local inter-provincial trade of the country itself,
which lies for the most part outside of the sphere of foreign interest
excepting so far as it has come within the last forty years to supply
the cargoes for an ever-increasing fleet of coasting sailing-ships and
steamers. This great development of Chinese commerce carried on in
foreign bottoms was thus foreshadowed by Mr Alcock as early as 1848:--

The disadvantages under which the native trade is now
carried on have become so burdensome as manifestly to
curtail it, greatly to the loss and injury of the Chinese
population, enhancing the price of all the common articles
of consumption: any measures calculated, therefore, to
exempt their commerce from the danger, delay, and loss
attending the transport of valuable produce by junks must
ultimately prove a great boon of permanent value, though at
first it may seem the reverse.

In a political point of view the transfer of the more
valuable portion of their junk trade to foreign bottoms is
highly desirable, as tending more than any measures of
Government to improve our position by impressing the
Chinese people and rulers with a sense of dependence upon
the nations of the West for great and material advantages,
and thus rebuking effectually the pride and arrogance which
lie at the root of all their hostility to foreigners.

In a commercial sense the direct advantage would consist in
the profitable employment of foreign shipping to a greater
extent: it would also assist the development of the
resources of the five ports--more especially those which
hitherto have done little foreign trade. I have entered
into some details to show how the carrying trade may work
such results, particularly in reference to sugar, which
promises to pave the way at this port to large shipments in
this and other articles for the Chinese.

A more effective blow will be given to piracy on the coast
by a partial transfer of the more valuable freights to
foreign vessels than by any measures of repression which
either Government can carry out, for piracy will, in fact,
cease to be profitable....

A further extension of the trade between our Australian
settlements and China, and our colonies in the Straits with
both, may follow as a natural result of any successful
efforts in this direction,--the addition of a large bulky
article of regular consumption like sugar alone sufficing
to remove a great difficulty in the way of a Straits
trade....

If this can be counted upon, I think it may safely be
predicated that at no distant period a large and profitable
employment for foreign shipping will be found here totally
exclusive of the trade with Europe.

It has been said with regard to tea that the quantity sold for export
is but the overflow of what is produced for native consumption, and to
silk the same observation would apply. Essentially a consuming
country, it is the surplus of these two articles that China has been
able to afford which has constituted the staple of export trade from
first to last. It is an interesting question whether there may not be
surpluses of some other Chinese products to be similarly drawn upon.
If the foreign trade has been distinguished by its simplicity, being
confined to a very few standard commodities, such cannot be predicated
of the native trade, which is of a most miscellaneous character. It is
impossible to give any statistical account of the coast and inland
traffic of China. Any estimate of it would be scarcely more
satisfactory than those which are so loosely made of the population.
In the early days, when the ports opened by the treaty of 1842 were
still new ports, great pains were taken by the consuls to collect all
the information they could respecting purely Chinese commerce, which
they not unnaturally regarded as the source whence the material of an
expanded foreign trade might in future be drawn. Especially was this
the case at Foochow under the consulship of Mr Alcock and the
assistantship of his energetic interpreter, Parkes. We find, for
instance, among the returns compiled by that industrious officer of
three months' trading in 1846, the quantities and valuations of over
fifty articles of import and as many of export given in great detail:
imports in 592 junks of 55,000 tons, and of exports in 238 junks of
22,000 tons. Of the sea-going junks he gives an interesting summary,
distinguishing the ports with which they traded and their tonnage,
with short abstracts of the cargoes carried. These amounted for the
year to 1678 arrivals from twenty different places, and 1310
departures for twenty-four places; and this at a port of which the
consul wrote in 1847, "No prospect of a British or other foreign trade
at this port is apparent in the very remotest degree." Every traveller
in every part of China is astonished at the quantity and variety of
the merchandise which is constantly on the move. It is this that
inspires confidence in the boundless potentialities of Chinese
commerce, which seems only waiting for the link of connection between
the resources of the empire and the enterprise of the Western world.

Besides the sea-borne trade of which it was possible to make these
approximate estimates, there is always in China an immense inland
trade; and at the time when piracy was rampant on the coast, and
before the aid of foreign ships and steamers was obtained, all the
goods whose value enabled them to pay the cost of carriage were
conveyed by the inland routes, often indeed from one seaport to
another, as, for instance, between Canton and Foochow, Ningpo,
Shanghai, &c.; and it is still by the interior channels that much of
the trade is done between Shanghai and the provinces to the north of
it, which would appear, geographically speaking, to be more accessible
from their own seaports.

The relation of the Government to the inter-provincial trade is, in
general terms, that of a capricious tax-gatherer, laying such burdens
on merchandise as it is found able and willing to bear. The arbitrary
impositions of the officials are, however, tempered by the genius of
evasion on the part of the Chinese merchant, and by mutual concession
a _modus vivendi_ is easily maintained between them.

The item of trade in which Government comes into most direct relation
with the trader is the article salt, which is produced all along the
sea-coast, and is likewise obtained from wells in the western
provinces. Like many other Governments, the Chinese have long treated
salt as a Government monopoly. As the manner in which this is carried
out illustrates in several points the ideas that lie at the root of
Chinese administration, some notes on the subject made by Parkes at
Foochow in 1846, and printed in an appendix to this volume, may still
be of interest.[26]

FOOTNOTES:

[20] The annual value of the whole foreign trade with China, imports
and exports, is now about £70,000,000.

[21] His predecessors had been governors of Fort William in Bengal.

[22] Eastern countries send to Europe half of the whole consumption of
the West--China yielding 35 per cent to 40 per cent of the entire
supply, Japan 12 per cent.

[23] It is worth notice that this consistent opponent of the opium
trade during fifty active years should have come under the ban of the
Anti-Opium Society in England when the discussion of this important
question degenerated into a mere polemic.

[24] Import duty had been regularly levied on opium for a hundred
years, the prohibition of importation having been decreed after 1796
(Eitel).

[25] During the last two decades important factors--such as foreign
loans, armaments, and the like--have so influenced the movements of
gold and silver that they bear no such simple relation to the "balance
of trade" properly so called as was formerly the case.

[26] See Appendix IV.

CHAPTER XII.

SHIPPING.

The East Indiaman -- Opium clippers -- Coasting craft --
Trading explorations -- Yangtze -- Japan -- Ocean trade --
American shipping -- Gold in California -- Repeal of
British Navigation Laws -- Gold in Australia -- Ocean
rivalry -- Tonnage for China -- Regular traders -- Silk --
British and American competition -- The China clipper --
Steam -- The Suez Canal -- Native shipping -- Lorchas.

Next in importance to the merchandise carried was the shipping which
carried it. That stately argosy, the East Indiaman, was already
invested with the halo of the past. Her leisurely voyages, once in two
years, regulated by the monsoons, landing the "new" tea in London
nearly a year old, and her comfortable habits generally, were matters
of legend at the time of which we write. But a parting glance at the
old is the best way of appreciating the new. The East Indiaman was the
very apotheosis of monopoly. The command was reserved as a short road
to fortune for the _protégés_ of the omnipotent Directors in
Leadenhall Street, and as with Chinese governors, the tenure of the
post was in practice limited to a very few years, for the Directors
were many and their cognates prolific. So many, indeed, were their
privileges, perquisites, and "indulgences" that a captain was expected
to have realised an ample independence in four or five voyages; the
officers and petty officers having similar opportunities,
proportionate to their rank. They were allowed tonnage space, the
captain's share being 56 tons, which they could either fill with their
own merchandise or let out to third parties. The value of this,
including the intermediate "port-to-port" voyage in India, may be
judged from the figures given by one captain, who from actual data
estimated the freight for the round voyage at £43 per ton. The
captains enjoyed also the passage-money, valued by the same authority
at £1500 per voyage. There were other "indulgences," scarcely
intelligible in our days, which yet yielded fabulous results. These
figures are taken from a statement submitted to the Honourable Company
by Captain Innes, who claimed, on behalf of himself and comrades,
compensation for the loss they sustained through the cessation of the
monopoly. The captain showed that he made, on the average of his three
last voyages, £6100 per voyage--of which £180 was pay!--without
counting "profits on investments," for the loss of which he rather
handsomely waived compensation. £8000 to £10,000 per voyage was
reckoned a not extravagant estimate of a captain's emoluments. The
Company employed chartered ships to supplement its own, and the
command of one of them was in practice put up to the highest bidder,
the usual premium being about £3000 for the privilege of the command,
which was of course severely restricted to qualified and selected men.

That such incredible privileges should be abused, to the detriment of
the too indulgent Company, was only natural. The captains, in fact,
carried on a systematic smuggling trade with Continental ports as
well as with ports in the United Kingdom where they had no business to
be at all, though they found pretexts, _à la Chinoise_, such as stress
of weather or want of water, if ever called to account. The Channel
Islands, the Scilly Islands, and the Isle of Wight supplied the
greatest facilities for the illicit traffic, and their populations
were much alarmed when measures were threatened to suppress it. The
inspecting commander reported officially from St Mary's, in 1828,
"that these islands were never known with so little smuggling as this
year, and the greatest part of the inhabitants are reduced to great
distress in consequence, for hitherto it used to be their principal
employment."[27] The ships were also met by accomplices on the high
seas which relieved them of smuggled goods. What is so difficult to
understand about such proceedings is that the Court of Directors,
though not conniving, seemed helpless to check these irregularities.
Their fulminations, resolutions, elaborate advertisements, and
measures prescribed for getting evidence against offenders, bore a
curious resemblance to those futile efforts which are from time to
time put forth by the Chinese Government, which is equally impotent to
suppress illicit practices in its administration. One cause of this
impotence was also very Chinese in character. The smugglers had
friends in office, who supplied them with the most confidential
information.

The East India Company, nevertheless, in one important respect
received value for its money--in the competence of its officers. The
greatest pains were taken to secure the efficiency of the service, for
the ships were more than mere carriers or passenger-boats. They were
maintained on a war-footing, and were manned by thoroughly disciplined
crews. Many gallant actions at sea, even against regular men-of-war,
stand to the credit of the Indiamen.

But what conceivable freight-money or profits on merchandise could
support a trade carried on under such luxurious conditions! It was
magnificent, indeed, but it was not business, and no surprise need be
felt that the East India Company, while furnishing its employees with
the means of fortune, made very little for its shareholders by either
its shipowning or mercantile operations. The Company was a standing
example of that not uncommon phenomenon, the progressionist become
obstructionist, blocking the door which it opened. For many years it
had played the part of dog-in-the-manger, keeping individual traders
out while itself deriving little if any benefit from its monopoly.
Whenever independent merchants succeeded--under great difficulties, of
course--in gaining a footing, they invariably proved the superiority
of their business methods; and it is to them, and not to the Company,
that the development of trade in the Far East is due. English
shipowners had constantly agitated for a share in the traffic round
the Cape, and there were many Indian-owned ships engaged in the China
trade, the Company's ostentatious abstention from carrying the opium
which it grew affording this favourable opening for private
adventurers.

It is somewhat surprising that the seafaring nations of the world, who
were free from the restrictions which so cramped the British
shipowners, should have suffered to endure so long a monopoly so
baseless as that of the East India Company. The fact seems to prove
the general depression of maritime energy in the early part of the
century. But succeeding to such a patriarchal _régime_, it is little
wonder that the common merchantmen, reduced to reasonable economical
conditions, should have reaped a bountiful harvest. The Company's
terms left a very handsome margin for shrinkage in the freight tariff,
while still leaving a remunerative return to the shipowner. The
expiration of the Company's charter, therefore, gave an immense
stimulus to the common carriers of the ocean; though, starting from
such an elevated plateau of profits, the inducements to improvements
in the build and management of ships were not very urgent.

The size of the ships and their capacity for cargo underwent slow
development in the first half of the century. The East Indiamen
averaged about 1000 tons, some ships being as large as 1300, while
those chartered by the Company seem to have run about 500 tons. All
were bad carriers, their cargo capacity not exceeding their registered
tonnage. In the ordinary merchant service which succeeded large ships
were deemed unsuited to the China trade, 300 tons being considered a
handy size, until the expansion of trade and necessity for speed
combined with economical working forced on shipowners a larger type of
vessel.

Of quite another class were the opium clippers, which also in a
certain sense represented monopoly in its long struggle with open
trade--the monopoly of capital, vested interests, and enterprise. The
clippers, first sailing craft and then steamers, were able by means of
the advantages they possessed to prolong the contest into the
'Sixties; indeed the echo of it had scarcely died away when the Suez
Canal and the telegraph cable revolutionised the whole Eastern trade
at a single stroke. The precious cargoes they carried, and scarcely
less valuable intelligence, supplied the means of maintaining the
opium-carriers in the highest efficiency. Every voyage was a race, the
rivalry being none the less animated for the smallness of the
competing field. Indeed, when reduced to a duel, the struggle became
the keenest. It was only towards the close of the period that the
opium-clipper system attained its highest organisation. The great
China houses of Jardine, Matheson, & Co., and Dent & Co., then ran
powerful steamers--the former firm chiefly between Calcutta and
Hongkong--their time of departure from the Indian port being regulated
so as to enable them to intercept the English mail-steamers on their
arrival in Singapore, where they received on board their owners'
despatches, with which they proceeded at once to Hongkong before the
mail-steamer had taken in her coal. They had speed enough to give the
P. and O. steamer two days on the run of 1400 miles; and making the
land in daylight, they would slip into one of the snug bays at the
back of the island at dusk and send their private mail-bag to the
merchant-prince to digest with his port, and either lie hidden under
the cliffs or put to sea again for a day or two with perhaps a number
of impatient passengers on board.

The rival house of Dent & Co. devoted their energies more especially
to the China coast. Their fast steamers would start from Hongkong an
hour after the arrival of the Indian and English mail, landing owners'
despatches at the mouth of the Yangtze, whence they were run across
country to Shanghai. To gain exclusive possession of a market or of a
budget of news for ever so brief a period was the spur continuously
applied to owners, officers, and men. How the public regarded these
operations may be inferred from a note in Admiral Keppel's diary of
1843: "Anonymous opium-clipper arrived from Bombay with only owners'
despatches. Beast."

All this of course presupposed a common ownership of ship and cargo,
or great liberties, if not risks, taken with the property of other
people. In the years before the war this common management of ship and
cargo was a simple necessity, for opium had to be stored afloat and
kept ready for sailing orders. The 20,000 chests surrendered in 1839
might have been all sent away to Manila or elsewhere had that course
of procedure been determined on. Captain John Thacker, examined before
the Parliamentary Committee of 1840, being asked what he would have
done in case the Chinese had ordered away the opium, answered, "I
would have sent mine away to the Malay Islands, to exchange it for
betel-nut and pepper.... I had a ship at Canton that I could not get
freighted with tea, and I intended to send her away with the opium." A
kind of solidarity between ship and cargo was thus an essential of the
trade at that time, and what originated in necessity was continued as
a habit for many years after its economical justification had ceased.

The ambition of owning or controlling ships became a feature of the
China trade, the smaller houses emulating the greater. It seemed as if
the repute of a merchant lacked something of completeness until he had
got one or more ships under his orders, and the first use the
possession was put to was usually the attempt to enforce against all
comers a quasi-monopoly either in merchandise or in news. To be able
to despatch a vessel on some special mission, like Captain Thacker,
had a fascination for the more enterprising of the merchants, which
may perhaps be referred back to the circumstance that they were men
still in the prime of life.

The passion was kept alive by the inducements offered by a series of
events which crowded on each other between the years 1858 and 1861.
Before that time the spread of rebellion, the prevalence of piracy,
and the general state of unrest and distrust which prevailed among the
Chinese commercial classes, threw them on the protection of foreign
flags, and the demand for handy coasting craft was generously
responded to by all maritime nations, but chiefly by the shipowners of
Northern Europe. Such a mosquito fleet was perhaps never before seen
as that which flew the flags of the Hanse Towns and of Scandinavia on
the China coast between 1850 and 1860; and many a frugal family on the
Elbe, the Weser, and the Baltic lived and throve out of the earnings
of these admirably managed and well-equipped vessels. The vessels were
mostly run on time-charters, which were exceedingly remunerative; for
the standard of hire was adopted from a period of English
extravagance, while the ships were run on a scale of economy--and
efficiency--scarcely then dreamed of in England. A schooner of 150
tons register earning $1500 per month, which was a not uncommon rate,
must have paid for herself in a year, for the dollar was then worth
5s. Yet the Chinese also made so much money by subletting their
chartered tonnage that foreigners were tempted into the same business,
without the same knowledge or assurance of loyal co-operation at the
various ports traded with.

The habit of handling ships in this way, whether profitably or not,
had the effect of facilitating the despatch of reconnoitring
expeditions when openings occurred, and they did occur on a
considerable scale within the period above mentioned. The year 1858
was an epoch in itself. It was the year of the treaty of Tientsin,
which threw open three additional trading-ports on the coast, three
within the Gulf of Pechili, and three on the Yangtze. Of the three
northern ports, excepting Tientsin, very little was known to the
mercantile community, and the selection of Têng-chow and Newchwang by
the British plenipotentiary shows what a change has in the interval
come over the relative intelligence of the Government and the
merchants; for in those days, it would appear, the Government was as
far in advance of the merchants in information about China as the
merchants of a later period have been in advance of the Government.
These unknown, almost unheard-of, ports excited much interest during
the year that elapsed between the signing of the treaty and its
ratification. Information about them from Chinese sources was
therefore diligently sought after.

Within a couple of miles of the foreign settlement of Shanghai--and it
was the same thing in the Ningpo river--compact tiers of large
sea-going junks lay moored head and stern, side to side, forming a
continuous platform, so that one could walk across their decks out
into the middle of the river. Their masts, without yards or rigging,
loomed like a dense thicket on the horizon. Of their numbers some idea
may be formed when we remember that 1400 of them were found loaded at
one time in 1848 with tribute rice. Of this enormous fleet of ships
and their trade the foreign mercantile community of Shanghai was
content to remain in virtual ignorance. They traded to the north, and
were vaguely spoken of as "Shantung junks"--Shantung then standing for
everything that was unknown north of the thirty-second parallel. The
map of China conveyed about as much to the mercantile communities on
the coast in those days as it did to the British public generally
before the discussions of 1898. These junks carried large quantities
of foreign manufactured goods and opium to the unknown regions at the
back of the north wind, of which some of the doors were now being
opened. How was one to take advantage of the opening, and be first in
the field? Time must be taken by the forelock, and a certain amount of
commercial exploration entered into in order to obtain data on which
to base ulterior operations. Accordingly in the spring of 1859, a few
months before the period fixed for the exchange of ratifications of
the treaty, several mercantile firms equipped, with the utmost
secrecy, trading expeditions to the Gulf of Pechili. Their first
object was to discover what seaport would serve as the entrepot of
Têngchow, since that city, though near enough to salt water to have
been bombarded for a frolic by the Japanese navy in 1894, possessed
no anchorage. The several sets of argonauts, among whom was the writer
of this book, seeking for such an anchorage, found themselves, in the
month of April, all together in the harbour of Yentai, which they
misnamed Chefoo, a name that has become stereotyped. Obviously, then,
that would be the new port, especially as the bay and the town showed
all the signs of a considerable existing traffic. It was full forty
miles from Têngchow, but there was no nearer anchorage. The foreign
visitors began at once to cultivate relations with the native
merchants, tentatively, like Nicodemus, making their real business by
night, while the magnificent daylight was employed in various local
explorations. These were full of fresh interest, the Shantung coast
being the antithesis of the Yangtze delta; for there were found
donkeys instead of boats, stony roads instead of canals, bare and
barren mountains instead of soft green paddy- or cotton-fields, stone
buildings, and a blue air that sparkled like champagne.

Our own particular movable base of operations was one smart English
schooner, loaded with mixed merchandise, and commanded by a sea-dog
who left a trail of vernacular in his wake. Soon, however, we were
able to transfer our flag to a commodious houseboat, of a hybrid type
suited to the sheltered and shallow waters of the Lower Yangtze, but
not, strictly speaking, seaworthy. Next, a Hamburg barque came and
acted as store-ship, releasing the English schooner for more active
service. The master of that craft was also a character, full of
intelligence, but rough, and the trail of tobacco juice was over all,
with strange pungent odours in the cuddy.

Having thus inserted the thin end of the wedge, pegged out mentally
the site of the future settlement, and trifles of that sort, the
pioneers of commerce waited for the official announcement of the port
being opened. Meantime there was the unknown Newchwang to be
discovered, at the extreme north-east corner of the Gulf of Liaotung,
and for this purpose the boat aforesaid presented a very tempting
facility. The trip was accomplished, not without anxiety and detention
on the way by stress of weather, and the British flag was shown in the
Liao river, to the best of our knowledge, for the first time in May
1859. Many other ports and harbours in the gulf were visited during
the summer and autumn. Weihai-wei became very familiar, not as a place
of trade, which it never was, but as a convenient anchorage better
sheltered than Chefoo. How blind were the pioneers to the destinies of
these gulf ports and the gulf itself! How little did they dream of the
scenes that peaceful harbour was to witness, the fortifications which
were to follow, the Chinese navy making its last desperate stand there
like rats caught in a trap; and finally, the British flag flying over
the heights!

The treaty of course was not ratified, though the news of the repulse
of the British plenipotentiary at Taku only reached the pioneers in
the form of tenebrous Chinese rumours with an ominous thread of
consistency running through their various contradictions. The most
conclusive evidence, however, of the turn affairs had taken was the
interference of the officials with the native merchants and people at
Chefoo, whom they forbade intercourse with the foreigners, and made
responsible for the presence of the foreign ships. The ships,
therefore, had to move out of sight, and it was in this predicament
that the harbour of Weihai-wei offered such a welcome refuge.

To put an end to the intolerable suspense in Chefoo the Hamburger was
got under weigh and sailed to the westward. On approaching the mouth
of the Peiho the situation at once revealed itself: not one English
ship visible, but the Russian despatch-boat America, and one United
States ship, with which news was exchanged, and from which the details
of the Taku disaster were ascertained. This news, of course, knocked
all the commercial adventures which had been set on foot in the gulf
into "pie." Nothing remained but to wind them up with as little
sacrifice as possible,--a process which was not completed till towards
Christmas.

The three ports to be opened on the Yangtze stood on quite a different
footing. They had not been named, and their opening was somewhat
contingent on the position of the hostile forces then occupying the
river-banks. The navigation, moreover, was absolutely unknown above
Nanking, and it was left to Captain Sherard Osborn to explore the
channel and to Lord Elgin to make a political reconnaissance at the
same time in H.M.S. Furious, of which cruise Laurence Oliphant has
left us such a delightful description. It was not, however, till 1861
that the great river was formally opened by Admiral Sir James Hope.
Trade then at once burst upon the desolate scene like the blossoms of
spring. On the admiral's voyage up to Hankow, on the 600 miles of
stream scarcely a rag of sail was to be seen. Within three months the
surface of the river was alive with Chinese craft of all sorts and
sizes. The interior of China had for years been dammed up like a
reservoir by the Taipings, so that when once tapped the stream of
commerce gushed out, much beyond the capacity of any existing
transport. The demand for steamers was therefore sudden, and
everything that was able to burn coal was enlisted in the service. The
freight on light goods from Hankow to Shanghai commenced at 20 taels,
or £6, per ton for a voyage of three days. The pioneer inland steamer
was the Fire Dart, which had been built to the order of an American
house for service in the Canton river. She was soon followed by others
built expressly for the Yangtze, and before long regular trade was
carried on. Again the tradition asserted itself of every mercantile
house owning its own river steamer, some more than one. Steamers
proved a mine of wealth for a certain time. Merchants were thereby
enticed into a technical business for which they had neither training
nor aptitude, and the natural consequences were not very long delayed.

While on the subject of river steamers, it is interesting to recall
that in the beginning English merchants sent their orders for the
Yangtze to the United States. The vessels were light, roomy, and
luxurious, admirably adapted to their work. In the course of a few
years, however, the tables were turned, and the Americans themselves
came to the Clyde builders with their specifications, and had their
river steamers built of iron. Many economies and great improvements
have been made in the construction and management of these vessels
since 1861, but we need not pursue the matter into further detail
here.

The opening of the Yangtze made a revolution in the tea trade, for the
product of Central China, which formerly was carried on men's backs
over the Meiling Pass to Canton, could now be brought by water cheaply
and quickly to Hankow, which in the very year of its opening became a
subsidiary shipping port--subsidiary, that is, to Shanghai, where the
ocean voyage began. Before long, however, this great central mart
became an entrepot for ocean traffic. To the steamer Scotland, owned
by Messrs W. S. Lindsay & Co. and commanded by Captain A. D. Dundas,
R.N., belongs the honour of being the first ocean steamer to ascend
the river to Hankow, and thereby opening the interior of China to
direct trade with foreign countries. And within two years a sailing
vessel was towed up the river and loaded a cargo of the new season's
tea for London.

But the most interesting item in the budget of that _annus mirabilis_
1858 was the opening of Japan to foreign intercourse. To
contemporaries it was the discovery of a new world of activity,
intelligence, beauty--an elaborate civilisation built on strange
foundations. Could the veil of the future have been withdrawn for the
men of that day, how their imaginations would have been staggered
before the unrolling of an epic transcending in human interest all the
creations of fiction! But before all things there was trade to be done
with awakening Japan, nobody knew what or how; while the seductive
novelties of the life, the art, the scenery, and the laws contested
the supremacy of the claims of mundane commerce. Here was an ideal
opening for the commercial pioneer. What kind of merchandise would the
Japanese buy, and what had they to sell, were naturally the first
objects of inquiry. For this purpose ships with trial cargoes had to
be sent hither and thither to explore, and there was work here for the
kind of handy craft that had had such a run on the China coast. By
their means was the foreign trade of the Japanese ports opened to the
world. The clipper ship Mirage, laden with Manchester goods in which
the late Sir John Pender was interested, lay several days in Shanghai
waiting orders to proceed on an experimental trip to Japan as early as
1858, but the owners wisely concluded that the venture would be
premature.

So far we have dealt only with what may be considered as the outriders
of the host, and the subject would be very incomplete without giving
some account of the main body, the common carriers of the
international trade, filling by far the most important place in the
economical system of the countries of their origin. While endeavouring
to confine our attention as much as possible within the limits of the
field embraced by the China, developing later into the Far Eastern,
trade, the progress of the merchant shipping employed therein cannot
be fully understood except from a standpoint more cosmopolitan. For
the history of the Eastern shipping is intimately bound up with events
which were taking place in other and widely-separated quarters of the
globe in the middle of this century. Within the space of three to four
years events happened of a world-moving character, forming the basis
of the commercial revolution that has set its mark on the second half
of the century. The catholicity of commerce and its unfailing
inventiveness in supplying human wants were wonderfully illustrated at
this time. Events so different in their nature as the potato blight
in one hemisphere, the production of gold in another, and the
abrogation of the Navigation Laws in England, combined within these
few years to revolutionise the world's shipping trade.

In the year 1847 the world was first startled by the definitive
announcement of gold discoveries in California, and four years later a
similar phenomenon appeared in Australia. Coincidently with these
events the first Universal Exhibition of the industries of all nations
was held in Hyde Park, and whatever we may think of the relative
influence of that and of the gold discoveries, there can be but one
opinion as to the splendid advertisement which the Exposition lent to
the golden promise of the Antipodes and the East Pacific. Thenceforth
the whole world, industrial, commercial, and financial, beat with one
pulse, a fact which has received constantly accumulating illustrations
until the present day. It was as if the sectional divisions of the
globe had been united in one great pool, forced to maintain a common
level, subject only to disturbances of the nature of rising and
falling waves. The new supplies of gold, by making money plentiful,
inflated the price of all commodities and stimulated production in
every department of agriculture and manufacture; but the time-worn yet
ever-new passion for wealth, disseminated afresh throughout the
civilised world, probably acted more powerfully on the material
progress of mankind than the actual possession of the new riches. The
rapid peopling of desert places created a demand for the necessaries
of life--food, clothing, housing, tools, and appliances of every
description. In a word, the tide of humanity, rushing to America for
food and to the goldfields for the means of buying it, made such calls
on the carrying powers of the world as could not be satisfied without
a stupendous effort.

Of all nations the most responsive to the stimulus was beyond doubt
the United States: it was there that shipbuilding had been making the
most gigantic advances. The total tonnage afloat under the American
flag bade fair at one time to rival that of Great Britain. The
attention of the American shipping interest had been particularly
directed towards China, where excellent employment rewarded the
enterprise, not only in the ocean voyage out and home, but also in the
coasting trade, which included the portable and very paying item of
opium. English merchants and shipowners did not, of course, resign
their share in the China trade without a struggle; but they were
fighting on the defensive, and under the disadvantages incidental to
that condition of warfare. Every improvement they introduced in the
efficiency of their ships in order to cope with the advances of their
rivals was promptly followed by a counter-move which gave the
wide-awake Americans again the lead. About 1845 an important step
forward was taken in the despatch of a new type of vessel from the
United States to China which surpassed in speed the newest and best
English ships. The British reply to this was the building of clippers,
initiated in 1846 by Messrs Hall of Aberdeen. The first of these, a
small vessel, having proved successful in competing for the coasting
trade of China, larger ships of the clipper type were constructed, and
so the seesaw went on.

Then emigration to the United States, chiefly from Ireland, made
demands on the available tonnage which was indifferently met by
vessels unfit for the work, and the American builders were not slow to
see the advantage of placing a superior class of vessel on this
important Atlantic service.

Following close on this salutary competition--East and West--came one
of the epoch-making events just alluded to, the gold-mining in
California, which more decisively than ever threw the advantage in the
shipping contest on the side of the United States. The ocean was the
true route to California for emigrants and material; but the voyage
was long, and impatience of intervening space being the ruling temper
of gold-seekers, the shortening of the time of transit became a crying
want for the living cargoes, and scarcely less for the perishable
provisions which the new ships were designed to carry. Speed, comfort,
and capacity had therefore to be combined in a way which had never
before been attempted. The result was the historical American clipper
of the middle of the century, beautiful to look on with her cloud of
white cotton canvas, covering every ocean highway. These were vessels
of large capacity, carrying one-half more dead-weight than their
registered tonnage;[28] built and rigged like yachts, and attaining a
speed never before reached on the high seas. The pioneer of this fine
fleet made the voyage from New York to San Francisco, a "coasting
voyage" from which foreign flags were excluded, and returned direct in
ballast, the owners realising a handsome profit on the outward passage
alone. The Americans not only had the Californian trade practically
in their own hands, but were prompt to turn the advantage which that
gave them to profitable account in the competition for the trade of
China. The ships, when empty, sailed across the Pacific, loading, at
Canton or Shanghai, tea and other produce for London or New York, the
three-cornered voyage occupying little more time than the direct route
to China and back to which English ships were then confined. As the
American clippers earned on the round about a third more freight than
English ships could obtain on their out-and-home voyage, competition
bore very hard on the latter. Larger and finer ships were constantly
being added to the American fleet until they almost monopolised the
trade not only between New York and San Francisco, but also between
China and Great Britain. British shipping was, in fact, reduced to the
greatest depression, the falling off in the supply of new tonnage
being almost commensurate with the increase of that of the United
States. A phenomenal advance was recorded also in the entries of
foreign ships into British ports to the displacement of British-owned
tonnage.

It was at this most critical juncture that the heroic remedy of repeal
of the Navigation Laws in 1850 consigned British shipowners to
absolute despair; for if they could not hold their own while protected
by these laws, how were they to survive the removal of the last
barrier from the competition of the whole world? But the darkest hour
was, as often happens, that before the dawn. The withdrawal of
protective legislation proved the turning-point in the fortunes of the
British shipowner. In part it was an efficient cause, inasmuch as it
threw the shipowner entirely on his own resources for his existence.
He had to look to improvements in the efficiency and economy of his
ships, for which it must be admitted there was considerable room.
There were many conservative prejudices to be got rid of--that one,
for example, which held it dangerous to have less than one foot in
breadth to four in length, the adherence to which rendered British
ships oval tubs compared with the American, which had for many years
been proving the superiority of five and even six to one. The English
axiom, which had so long resisted plain reason, had at last to yield
to necessity. And so with many other antiquated conditions, including
the quality and qualifications of masters, officers, and seamen.

The exertions made in Great Britain to improve merchant shipping were
at once stimulated and immeasurably assisted by the gold discoveries
in Australia, an island in the South Pacific more absolutely dependent
on sea communication than San Francisco on the American continent had
been. It was, moreover, in British territory, where no exclusive
privileges could be enjoyed, and where competition was entirely
unfettered. Of course the clipper fleet of the United States was
prepared to do for Australia what it had done so well for California;
but the prospect of the carrying trade between Great Britain and her
colonies falling into alien hands aroused the spirit of the English to
make a supreme effort to at least hold their own, if not to recover
lost ground.

The seven seas soon became alive with rival clipper ships of great
size and power, and the newspapers chronicled the runs they made to
Australia and California in days, as they now record the hours
consumed on steamer voyages across the Atlantic. Ancient barriers
seemed to be submerged, and fusion of the ocean traffic of the world
into one great whole opened the way to a new dispensation in the
history of merchant shipping. Tonnage was tonnage all the world over,
and became subject to the comprehensive control in which the gold and
silver produced in distant countries was held by the great financial
centres. But the ocean telegraph was not yet, and for twenty years
more many gaps were left in the system of ocean communications, whence
resulted seasons of plethora alternating with scarcity in particular
lines of traffic.

There was probably no trade in which the overflow of the new output of
tonnage was more quickly felt than in that of China. It became a
common custom for vessels of moderate size which had carried goods and
emigrants to Australia and California, whence no return cargoes were
at that period to be had, to proceed to India or China in
ballast--"seeking." This was a source of tonnage supply which the
merchants resident in those countries had no means of reckoning upon,
though such a far-reaching calculation might not be beyond the powers
of a clear head posted at one of the foci of the commercial world. An
example may be quoted illustrative of the local tonnage famine which
occasionally prevailed during that transition period. An English ship
arrived in ballast at Hongkong from Sydney in 1854. The owner's local
agent, or "consignee," recommended the captain to proceed at once
north to Shanghai, where, according to latest advices, he would be
sure to obtain a lading at a high rate of freight. The cautious
skipper demurred to taking such a risk, and refused to move unless the
agent would guarantee him £6, 10s. per ton for a full cargo for
London. This was agreed. The ship reached the loading port at a moment
when there was no tonnage available and much produce waiting shipment,
and she was immediately filled up at about £7 or £8 per ton. It fell
to the lot of this particular vessel, by the way, to carry a mail from
Hongkong to Shanghai, the P. and O. Company's service being then only
monthly, and no other steamer being on the line. It was just after the
outbreak of the war with Russia. About a couple of days after the
departure of the Akbar--for that was her name--when it was considered
quite safe to do so, a resident American merchant, unable to contain
himself, boasted of having sent by this English vessel the despatches
of the Russian admiral under sealed cover to a sure hand in Shanghai.
The recipient of this confidence, like a good patriot, reported the
circumstance promptly to the governor of the colony, and he to the
senior naval officer, who with no less promptitude ordered a steam
sloop, the Rattler, to proceed in chase of the ship. The pursuit was
successful; the Russian despatches were taken out and brought back to
Hongkong, where they were submitted to the polyglot governor, Sir John
Bowring.

Another incident of the same period will show how it was possible for
a bold operator to exploit the tonnage of the world on a considerable
scale without the aid of the telegraph, or even of rapid communication
by letter. One such operator in London, reckoning up the prospective
supply and demand of tonnage throughout the world, foresaw this very
scarcity in China of which we have just given an illustration. He
thereupon proceeded to charter ships under various flags and engaged
in distant voyages to proceed in ballast to the China ports, there to
load cargoes for Europe. The wisdom of the operation was far from
clear to the charterer's agents in China when they heard of ships
coming to them from the four quarters of the world at a time when
freights were low, with but little prospect of improvement, so far as
they could see; but their outlook was circumscribed. Though as the
ships began to arrive the difficulty of providing profitable
freightage seemed to presage the ruin of the venture, yet subsequent
arrivals justified the prevision of its author by earning for him
highly remunerative freights. The tide had really risen as it had been
foreseen; but it soon receded, and before the last charter had been
fulfilled the time-factor, which is fatal to so many well-laid
schemes, interposed, and probably caused the early profits to be
swallowed up in the final losses.

The bulk of the China traffic, however, was carried not by these
erratic outsiders but by the regular traders, which loaded in London,
Liverpool, or New York with manufactured goods, coal, and metals, and
returned from China with tea, silk, and other produce. It must have
been a profitable business, for the average freight homeward in the
'Forties and 'Fifties seems to have been about £5 per ton; and if we
allow even one-third of that for the outward voyage, it would give the
shipowner somewhere about £7 for the round voyage, which was
accomplished with ease within the twelve months. It must be
remembered, however, that the expenses of running were proportionately
high on the small vessels which were then in the trade. In the course
of time, when speed and facilities of despatch at home and abroad had
been further improved, the clippers from London took in Australia in
the outward voyage by way of filling up the time until the tea crop
was brought to market.

When the great increase in the export of silk took place a special
rate was paid on it to favourite ships on account of its high value.
But though this precious article could afford, when necessary, extreme
rates of freight, its total bulk was too small--about one-tenth of
that of tea--to affect seriously the general carrying trade of China.
A certain quantity was regularly shipped by the "overland route"--that
is, by P. and O. Company's steamers to Suez, and thence by rail to
Alexandria, to be there reshipped for its ultimate destination,
Marseilles or Southampton. But the capacity of the steamers was so
small that only a _pro rata_ allotment of space was made to
applicants, and the freight charged for it was at the rate of £25 per
ton. Under exceptional conditions one sailing ship in the year 1856
carried a silk cargo of 6000 bales, valued at £750,000 sterling, which
was said to be the largest amount ever ventured, up to that time, in
any merchant vessel. It was so unexpectedly large that the shippers
were unable fully to cover their risk by insurance. A singular
fatality attended the outset of this voyage, showing the fallibility
of human judgment even under the most favourable circumstances. The
commander of this ship had been perhaps the most successful in the
China trade, and it was the extraordinary confidence that was placed
in his judgment that induced the merchants to intrust to his care
merchandise of such enormous value. Though much impressed with the
sense of personal responsibility for its safety, he was yet tempted by
a fine starlit night to break ground from the anchorage at Shanghai
and drop down the river to Wusung, where he touched on the well-known
bar, and was passed by the outward-bound mail-steamer the following
morning. The ship was of course reported "on shore," and so the
letters ordering insurance which the mail-steamer carried were
rendered useless. The master, though the ship had lain but a few hours
on soft mud, dared not proceed to sea with such a valuable cargo
without examining the ship's bottom. To do this he had to be towed
back to Shanghai, fourteen miles by river, discharge, strip off the
copper, replace it, reload the cargo, and recommence the voyage. It
proved much the longest she had ever made, and there was great anxiety
among the merchants, especially among those of them who were only
partially insured. But as fate would have it, while the ship was on
the high seas her cargo was growing in value, the silk famine in
Europe having in the mean time clearly declared itself; so that what
with the delay of a month or two at the start and several weeks more
on the passage, a time was gained for sufficient profit to accrue on
the silk to lay the foundation of several respectable fortunes, and
the commander, to whose error of judgment the result was due, was
received in London with acclamation and with substantial gratuities
from some of the fortunate owners of his cargo. The lucky craft was
the Challenger, Captain Killick, which had distinguished herself in
racing against the American clipper Nightingale in 1852 and 1863, and
was the first sailing-vessel to load tea at Hankow in 1863,--a
historic ship.

During the time of the deepest gloom in shipping circles, consequent
on the repeal of the Navigation Laws, at a meeting where the ruin of
the industry was proclaimed in chorus by the shipowners present, one
man had the courage to rise up and stem the current of depression.
"The British shipowners have at last sat down to play a fair and open
game with the Americans, and, by Jove! we will trump them," were the
words of Mr Richard Green, the eminent shipbuilder of Blackwall, as
quoted by Mr W. S. Lindsay in his 'History of Merchant Shipping.' Mr
Lindsay adds that Mr Green was as good as his word, for shortly after
he built, to the order of Mr Hamilton Lindsay, a China merchant, the
ship Challenger, of 600 or 700 tons, expressly to match the American
Challenge, more than double her size, and thought to be the fastest
ship then afloat. Though the two never met, the performances of the
English, whether for speed or for dry carrying, quite eclipsed the
American ship. It was with another competitor that the pioneer
Blackwall clipper tried conclusions, and the circumstance suggests a
somewhat whimsical association of the evolution of the China clipper
with the Great Exhibition. A ship of exquisite model and finish had
been built in America for the purpose of conveying visitors to that
great gathering. She was put into the China trade, for which by her
size she was well suited. Whether by prearrangement or not, she met
the Challenger in 1852 in Shanghai, where they were both laden with
tea simultaneously. Immense excitement was aroused, which took the
usual form of heavy wagers between the respective partisans on the
issue of the race to London. It was a close thing, as sportsmen say,
the British ship coming in two days ahead of her rival. Dissatisfied,
as the owner of a yacht or of a racehorse is apt to be with his
defeat, certain changes were made by the owners of the Nightingale in
her equipment for the next year's voyage. The race was again run from
the same port, on the same conditions--and with the same result, only
still more in favour of the English ship.

A general excitement about such a trivial matter as the relative speed
of two ships was only to be accounted for by the awakening
consciousness of the significance of the English shipping revival
which was then beginning. The interest extended much beyond the circle
of those directly concerned. The deck of a mail steamer, to take an
instance, became suddenly animated as the signals of a sailing-vessel
were read out. Speaking a ship at sea was no such unusual occurrence,
but when the name of Challenger was passed round, passengers and crew
rushed to the side, gazing intently on the shapely black hull and
white sails reflecting the morning sun. She was in the Straits of
Malacca, on her way back to China to run her second heat. A young man
among the passengers betraying ignorance of the cause of the commotion
felt as small as if unable to name the last Derby winner. The world at
that time seemed to have grown young. Imagination was directed to a
dawn gilded with promise which the sequel has surely not belied!

Thus the China Sea became a principal battle-ground whereon the
struggle for ascendancy between the ships of Great Britain and the
United States was most strenuously fought out. It was, as Mr Green
said, a fair and open contest, alike creditable to both sides, and an
unmixed benefit to the world at large. The energy of the English
shipping interest was thoroughly aroused, and the shipowners and
shipbuilders of Scotland came speedily to the front. In a few years
after the issue was joined between the United States and Great
Britain, the shipbuilders of the latter country found a potent
auxiliary in iron, which began to be used for sailing-ships.[29] The
vessel that led the way in this innovation, combining great speed with
the other conditions of success, was the Lord of the Isles, Captain
Maxton, of Greenock, which distinguished herself by beating two of the
fastest American clippers of twice her size in the run from Foochow to
London in 1856. The gradual introduction of steam on long voyages,
which followed the free use of iron, was also to the advantage of the
British competitors; and thus from a combination of favouring
circumstances and dogged efforts to turn them to account, the
ascendancy of British shipping was finally established.

* * * * *

In sketching the performances of these vessels we have somewhat
anticipated the advent of that famous fleet of tea clippers which
commanded the traffic of the Far East for something like fifteen
years. For the beginnings of that struggle we have to go back to the
year 1851, when the Leith clipper Ganges raced two Americans, the
Flying Cloud and Bald Eagle, from China to London, finishing up with
an interesting tack-and-tack contest up Channel from Weymouth, the
English ship passing Dungeness six hours ahead. At that period the
odds in mere numbers were so overwhelming against the English vessels
that such occasional victories as the above were calculated to inspire
the builders with courage to persevere. The Aberdeen clippers,
Stornoway, Chrysolite, and Cairngorm, worthily followed the
London-built Challenger in disputing the prize of speed with the best
of their American contemporaries; and after the race of 1856, won, as
has been mentioned, by the iron ship Lord of the Isles of Greenock,
the American flag was practically eliminated from the annual contest.
Competition, however, by no means slackened on that account, but
rather increased in intensity. Past achievements opened the eyes of
those interested to the possibilities of indefinite improvement in the
build, rig, and equipment of ships, so that the idea took root and
became a passion. Each year brought forth something new, giving birth
in the following year to something still newer, until a type of ship
was evolved which seemed to be the acme of design and execution.
British clippers raced against each other for the blue ribbon of the
ocean with as great zest as they had ever done when other flags were
in the field.

The competition for speed received a great stimulus from the opening
of Foochow as a regular tea-shipping port in 1856. The port had been
hindered by official restrictions from enjoying its natural advantages
at an earlier period, and it was mainly due to the enterprise of the
leading American house that these obstacles were at last removed and
the produce of the Bohea hills diverted to its proper outlet. The
event marked an epoch in the tea trade; for Foochow being so much
closer to the plantations than the other two ports, it became possible
to put on board there the first growth of the season with a prospect
of landing the new teas in London a couple of months earlier than the
trade had been accustomed to. It may be mentioned as one of the
curiosities of conservatism that this very circumstance was used to
the commercial prejudice of shipments from the new port. It was
revolutionising the established routine of the trade, would interfere
with the summer holidays, and it was gravely argued that October was
the very earliest time when the London buyers could be induced to
attend to the tea-market. But the fragrance of the new tea was
irresistible in dispersing such cobwebs. So far from its coming too
early to market, the best shipbuilders in the world were soon engaged
in constructing ships that would accelerate the arrival of the new tea
by as much as a couple of days. And so hungry was the trade that
special arrangements were made to facilitate the brokers obtaining
samples to sell by before the vessel passed Gravesend, and he would be
an obscure grocer who was not able to display in his shop window a
tea-chest bearing the name of the clipper on the day following her
arrival in the dock. The annual tea-race from Foochow thus became one
of the events of the year. Premiums were paid to the winner, and
sliding scales of freight were in course of time introduced, graduated
by the number of days on passage.

No better proof could be adduced of the high excellence of the ships
as well as of the good seamanship of their commanders than the
exceeding closeness of the running on that long ocean voyage of twelve
thousand miles. Several times it happened that vessels starting
together would see nothing of each other during the hundred days'
passage until the fog lifting in the Downs would reveal them close
together, from which point the winning of the race depended on the
pilot or the tug. Of the great race of 1866 Mr W. S. Lindsay, from
whose valuable work on Merchant Shipping we have drawn freely for
these details, says: "This race excited extraordinary interest among
all persons engaged in maritime affairs. Five ships started--the
Ariel, Taeping, Serica, Fiery Cross, and Taitsing. The three first
left Foochow on the same day, but lost sight of each other for the
whole voyage until they reached the English Channel, where they again
met, arriving in the Thames within a few hours of each other." Very
fast passages continued to be made after that time. The Ariel and
Spindrift raced in 1868, and the Titania made a quick run in 1871; but
Mr Lindsay awards the palm to the Sir Lancelot and Thermopylæ as "the
two fastest sailing-ships that ever traversed the ocean." The former
vessel, 886 tons register, made the run from Foochow to London in
ninety days in 1868, and an interesting fact is recorded by the owners
of that fine ship bearing on the propelling power of sails. Many
experienced navigators had during the clipper-racing entertained
misgivings as to the value of the excessive amount of sail and the
heavy rig which were deemed necessary to the equipment of a clipper.
The ships, they said, "buried themselves under the press of canvas."
Writing seven years after the performance just mentioned, the owner
of the Sir Lancelot said: "After the mania for China clipper-sailing I
had 8 feet cut off from all the lower masts, and reduced the masts
aloft and the yards in proportion. Yet with that (and no doubt a
proportionately reduced crew) she maintained her speed undiminished."
This was not an uncommon experience.[30]

It is not to be supposed that the produce of China or the imports into
the country were all carried by clipper ships. Theirs was a special
service reserved for the most valuable produce and for the first few
weeks of the season. After that fitful fever the trade of the year
settled down to what may be called daily-bread conditions, when ships
with moderate speed, large capacity, and frugally sailed, made steady
and substantial profits for their owners. It is a commonly accepted
maxim that the race--for profits, at all events--is not always to the
swift. It was a saying of Mr Green, whose firm owned a large fleet of
ships in the Australian and Indian trade, that in his balance-sheet
for the year he found that his slow ships had paid for his fast ones.
Nor did this economic rule lose its validity when steam came to
supersede sail.

The clippers proper had not had a clear run of fifteen years when
steamers began to trespass on their preserves. The possibility of a
successful steam voyage round the Cape began to be proved in 1864,
and was demonstrated in 1866, when Mr Alfred Holt of Liverpool first
established his "blue-funnel" line, beginning with the Ajax, Achilles,
and Agamemnon. But though sailing clippers were displaced, the
sporting element in the China trade was not extinguished. The opening
of the Yangtze revived the interest in early arrivals of tea by
bringing the "black leafs" of Hunan and Hupeh to the sea nearly as
soon as the "red leafs," whose outlet was Foochow. The produce of the
central provinces up till 1861 was conveyed by a slow and expensive
route, a considerable portion of it on the backs of porters, to
Canton. Hankow when opened became at once the entrepot for these teas,
and sea-going ships began to load their cargoes in the very heart of
the Chinese empire. For some years there had been two sets of
races--one from Foochow and one from Hankow--which took the wind out
of each other's sails, and the sport became somewhat stale.

It was the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and the consequent
improvements in the construction of steamships, that gave its full
value to the Yangtze as a trade route. For then ocean steamers loaded
at Hankow with all the advantages of the short route and convenient
coaling-stations, and the old excitement of the Foochow racing was
revived under a still higher pressure. Every year witnessed some new
design for combining the maximum cargo and coal stowage with the
maximum speed, so that new tea, which but a few years before was
landed in November, now came to market early in July. The last great
race occurred in 1883 between the Glenogle and Stirling Castle. By
that time Indian tea was rapidly gaining the ascendant in the great
consuming marts, displacing the Chinese article, which could no longer
afford the prestige of being carried by steamers built and run
regardless of expense. Thenceforth all Far Eastern produce found an
everyday level; merchandise was carried to and fro by regular lines,
with measured intervals of sailing, all the year round, freights were
fixed by common agreement, and the trade assumed a character of an
omnibus traffic on a large scale.

The Suez Canal produced an immense lateral extension of trade with
China by bringing the Black Sea, Mediterranean, and North Sea ports
into direct communication with the ports of the Far East. The Russian
volunteer fleet, composed of very large and swift steamers, each
capable of conveying 2000 troops, carried tea direct from Hankow to
Odessa. Trade with Marseilles and Genoa was developed by British and
German enterprise as well as by the Messageries Maritimes of France.
Antwerp, Bremen, and Hamburg became the terminal ports for important
lines of steamers. The mercantile navy of Japan had not risen into
general notice during the earlier time with which we are principally
concerned, and it would deserve a treatise by itself.

* * * * *

By a process of natural selection native shipping in China and Japan
has been extensively superseded by foreign, and an immense dislocation
of capital has in consequence taken place. The effect of this has been
severely felt on the China coast, especially in such large shipping
ports as Taku, Shanghai, and Ningpo, where there were in former days
large and prosperous shipowning communities. The disturbance has
probably been much less marked in Japan, owing to the greater agility
of the people in adapting themselves to inevitable changes. Certain it
is that in both countries there is still a large junk fleet employed
in the coasting trade, being protected against foreign as well as
steam competition by their light draught and their privilege of
trading at ports not opened to foreign trade.

The temptation to evade the prohibition of foreign flags led in former
days to sundry bizarre effects on the coast of China. The natives,
finding it to their advantage to employ foreign vessels, exercised
their ingenuity in making them look like Chinese craft. This would at
first sight appear no easy matter, seeing that the Chinese junks
carried no yards and their hulls were of a construction as different
from that of a modern ship as was possible for two things to be which
were intended for the same purpose. The junks possessed certain
qualities conducive to buoyancy and safety, such as water-tight
bulkheads, which at once strengthened the hull and minimised the
danger of sinking. But their sailing properties, except with the wind
"free," were beneath contempt. Their weatherly and seaworthy qualities
commended vessels of foreign construction to the Chinese traders,
while the talisman of the flag was deemed by them a protection against
pirates, and perhaps also, on occasion, against official inquisition.
Probably what on the whole the native owner or charterer would have
preferred was that his ship should pass for foreign at sea and for
native in port. To this end in some cases resort was had to
hermaphrodite rigging, and very generally to two projecting boards,
one on each side of the figurehead, bearing the staring Chinese eye,
such as the junks south of the Yangtze carry. The open eye on the
ship's bow was to enable the Chinese port officials to close theirs to
the unauthorised presence of strangers, and thus everything was
arranged in the manner so dear to the Chinese character.

In the south of China the advantage of the flag was sought without the
foreign appearance of the vessel. The foreign flag was hoisted on
native-built small craft, a large fleet of which hailed from Macao
under Portuguese colours, and were from time to time guilty of great
irregularities on the coast. The Chinese of Hongkong, British subjects
born and bred, registered their vessels and received colonial sailing
letters, renewable at frequent intervals, as a check on bad behaviour.
With these papers short trips were made along the south coast, and a
local trade was carried on in the estuary of the Canton river. These
vessels of about 100 or 200 tons burthen were called "lorchas," of
which we shall hear more in subsequent chapters.

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES:

[27] For interesting details of the smuggling organisation which
lasted up to the middle of the present century, see 'Smuggling Days
and Smuggling Ways,' by the Hon. Henry N. Shore, R.N.

[28] The modern ship carries 70 to 75 per cent of dead-weight over her
registered tonnage, and of weight and measurement combined about
double.

[29] The American and British clippers were originally built of wood
sheathed with metal. After that came trial of iron ships coated with
tallow, but finally at the climax of the sailing clippers' notable
races they were all of composite construction--_i.e._, iron frames
planked with wood and sheathed with yellow metal. This type of vessel
(now out of date) was the essential feature of the fastest sailing
China clippers. Thereupon followed the iron and steel steamship as the
permanent carrier, and the white-winged argosies were no more!

[30] Mr James MacCunn of Greenock says that all these racing clippers,
which were practically the same size, carried double crews, numbering
about thirty-three all told, equal to that of a 2500-tons merchantman
of to-day. The Sir Lancelot, besides the shingle ballast below the
tea, carried 100 tons fitted kentledge in the limbers stowed between
skin and ceiling, whereby great "stiffness" was ensured--a factor of
much value in beating down the China Sea against the monsoon, and at
other times in "carrying on" under a heavy press of canvas.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE TRADERS.

I. FOREIGN.

Their relations to their official representatives -- And to
the trading interests of their own countries -- Their unity
-- High character -- Liberality -- Breadth of view.

In the preceding portions of this narrative it has been shown how much
the character of the principal officials on both sides influenced the
progress of events. There was, however, yet another factor which
contributed in a lesser degree and in a different manner to the
general result which ought not to be entirely omitted from
consideration, and that was the personal qualities and traditional
characteristics of the two trading communities, foreign and Chinese.
It was they who created the subject-matter of all foreign relations,
and stood in the breach in all the struggles between foreign and
native officials. It was their persons and their fortunes which were
ever at stake; it was they who first felt the shock of disturbance,
and were the first to reap the fruits of peace.

The relation of the foreign mercantile community to their official
representatives was not always free from friction, because the same
high authority which enjoined on the officials the protection of the
persons and the promotion of the interests of the lay community
empowered them also to rule over these their _protégés_, and to apply
to them an arbitrary discipline in accordance with what they conceived
to be the exigencies of the time. Duty in such circumstances must
often have assumed a divided aspect, and rules of action must
frequently have been put to a severe strain; nor is it surprising
that, owing to these peculiar relationships, the resident communities
should not have been able on all occasions to see eye to eye with the
agents of their Governments.

In their national and representative character the China merchants
were wont at different crises to have moral burdens laid on them which
did not properly fit their shoulders. They were little affected by the
shallow moralism of the pulpit, which, taken literally, would have
counselled general liquidation and the distribution of the proceeds
among the poor, leaving the common creditor out of account; but
official sermons also were on certain occasions preached to, or at,
the merchants, implying some obligation on their part to sacrifice
individual advantage to the greater good of the greater number. Were
there no other answer to such altruistic monitions, it would be
sufficient to plead that under such theories of duty commerce could
not exist, and its political accessories would become superfluous. No
road to commercial prosperity has been discovered which could dispense
with the prime motive for the exertion which makes for progress--to
wit, individual ambition, cupidity, or by whatever term we choose to
designate the driving power of the complex machine of civilised life.
Mammon is, after all, a divinity whose worship is as universal as
that of Eros, and is scarcely less essential to the preservation of
the race. Nor is it by collective, but by strictly individual,
offerings that these deities are propitiated, and the high purposes of
humanity subserved. It is no reproach, therefore, to the China
merchants that they should have seized every opportunity for gain,
totally irrespective of the general policy of their country. It was
not for them to construe portents, but to improve the shining hour.
And if it should at any time happen that the action of private
persons, impelled by the passion for gain, embarrassed a diplomatist
in his efforts to bring about some grand international combination,
the fault was clearly his who omitted to take account of the ruling
factor in all economic problems. The trade was not made for Government
policy, but the policy for the trade, whose life-blood was absolute
liberty of action and a free course for individual initiative. The
success of British trade as a whole could only be the aggregate of the
separate successes not otherwise attainable than by each member of the
mercantile fraternity performing his own part with singleness of
purpose. Nothing certainly could ever justify any trader in foregoing
a chance of gain for the sake of an ideal benefit to the community,
even if it were likely to be realised. A distinction must be drawn
between the tradesman and the statesman. Though their functions may
sometimes overlap, their respective duties to the State are of a
different though complementary character.

To the charge which from time to time has been levelled at the China
merchants, that they were too narrow and too selfish, it may be
plausibly replied that, on the contrary, they were if anything too
broad; for their individual interests were not so bound up with
general progress as are the interests of colonists in a new country,
where co-operation is essential. Progress meant, to the China
merchants, the admitting of the flood of competition, which they were
in no condition to meet. The general interests of the country required
the opening of new markets; in a lesser degree the interests of the
manufacturing section required the same thing; but the interests of
the merchants, albeit they appeared to represent their country and its
industries, were in fact opposed to expansion. Yet so strong in them
was the race instinct for progress that their private advantage has
oftentimes actually given way to it, so that we have seen throughout
the developments of foreign intercourse with China the resident
merchants placing themselves in the van in helping to let loose the
avalanche which overwhelmed them and brought fresh adventurers to
occupy the ground.

Nor has the relation of the merchants, even to the operations in which
they were engaged, been always clearly understood. Although they
personified their national trade in the eyes of the world, the
merchants were never anything more than the vehicles for its
distribution, having no interest in its general extension, though a
powerful interest in the increase of their individual share. The
productions which provided the livelihood of many thousands of people
in China, and perhaps of a still larger number in Great Britain and
other manufacturing countries, did not concern them. A percentage by
way of toll on merchandise passing through their warehouses was the
limit of their ambition. A clear distinction should therefore be
drawn between the merchant and the producer or manufacturer; on which
point some observations of Wingrove Cooke[31] are worth quoting:--

"The calculations of the merchants do not extend beyond their own
business. Why should they? Fortunately for himself, the merchant's
optics are those of the lynx rather than those of the eagle. An
extremely far-sighted commercial man must always run risks of
bankruptcy, for the most absolutely certain sequences are often the
most uncertain in point of time." The same writer, however, comments
on the ignorance and narrowness of both British traders and
manufacturers, and their failure to avail themselves of the
opportunities offered to them of exploiting the trading resources of
the Chinese. "There is no spirit of inquiry abroad," he says, "no
energy at work, no notion of distracting the eye for a moment from
watching those eternal shirtings, no thought whether you cannot make
better shift with some other class of goods. Manchester made a great
blind effort when the ports were opened, and that effort failed. Since
then she has fallen into an apathy, and trusts to the chapter of
accidents." As for the merchants on whom manufacturers relied to push
the sale of their wares, "they come out here," he says, "to make
fortunes in from five to seven years, not to force English calicoes up
into remote places. Their work is to buy Chinese produce, but," he
goes on, "if the English manufacturer wants extraordinary exertion,
carefully collected information, and persevering up-country
enterprise--and this is what he does want--he must do it himself. The
British export trade will not maintain mercantile houses, but it would
pay for travelling agents acting in immediate connection with the home
manufacturers, who should keep their principals at home well informed,
and who should work their operations through the established houses
here. The evil is that British goods are not brought under the eyes of
the Chinaman of the interior cities."

The inaccuracies of some of these comments need not obscure the shrewd
and prophetic character of the general advice tendered to the British
manufacturers. After an interval of forty years they have begun to act
upon it, and though their progress has as yet been slow, they are
taking to heart another portion of Mr Cooke's advice, that "all
dealing with the interior of China is impossible unless your agents
speak the language of the people."

A certain divergence between the official and non-official view of
affairs had begun to show itself in the period before the war. Before
the close of the East India Company's monopoly the independent
merchants perceived that their interests, as well as those of the
Company itself, were prejudiced by the truckling tactics of its
agents, and though few in number, the mercantile community began to
give utterance to their grievances and to show they had a mind of
their own on public commercial policy. As the whole position of
foreigners in China rested on premisses which were essentially false,
disappointment, irritation, and alarm were chronic. Every one
concerned, official and unofficial, was aggrieved thereby, while no
one was disposed to accept blame for the grievance. A tendency to
recrimination was the natural consequence. When their representatives
failed to protect them against the aggressions of the Chinese the
merchants complained, while the officials in their turn were not
indisposed to retort by alleging provocative or injudicious conduct on
the part of the merchants themselves as contributory to the
ever-recurrent difficulties. Through the retrospective vista of two
generations it is easy now to see where both parties were at
fault--the merchants in making too little account of the difficulties
under which their representatives were labouring, and the officials in
failing to perceive that the causes of their disagreements with the
Chinese lay altogether deeper than the casual imprudence of any
private individual, even if that could be established. The despatches
of the earlier "superintendents," notably those of Sir George
Robinson, betray a certain jealousy of the political influence
supposed to be wielded by the mercantile community of Canton working
through their associations in England, and the superintendents seemed
therefore concerned to cast discredit on mercantile opinion. It would
have been strange enough, had it been true, that an isolated community
of a hundred individuals should be torn by faction, yet it is a fact
that on their assumed disagreements an argument was based for
invalidating the representations which they occasionally made to the
Home Government. Their views were disparaged, their motives impugned,
and their short-sighted selfishness deplored. The note struck in 1835
has been maintained with variations down almost to our own day,--a
circumstance which has to be borne in mind by those who aim at a fair
appreciation of British relations with China during the last sixty
years.

Far, however, from being a disunited flock, the mercantile body in
China generally have on the whole been singularly unanimous in their
views of the political transactions with which their interests were
bound up; while as to the old community of Canton, no epithet could be
less appropriate than one which would imply discord. Concord was the
enforced effect of their circumstances. Imprisoned within a narrow
space, surrounded by a hostile people, exposed to a constant common
peril, the foreign residents in Canton were bound to each other by the
mere instinct of self-preservation. They became, in fact, what Nelson
called his captains, a "band of brothers." The exclusion of females up
till 1842, and the deterrent conditions of married life there even
under the treaty, made it essentially a bachelor community, living
almost like one family, or as comrades in a campaign. Of the
disinterested hospitality and good-fellowship which continue to this
day, even in the maturity of their domestic development, to
characterise the foreign communities in China, the germ is doubtless
to be discovered in that primitive society which oscillated between
Canton and Macao during the thirty years which ended in 1856, in which
year their factories were for the last time destroyed, and the old
life finally broken up.

But there is something more to be credited to these early residents
than the mutual loyalty prescribed for them by the peculiar conditions
of their life. They exemplified in a special degree the true temper
and feelings of gentlemen,--a moral product with which local
conditions had also, no doubt, something to do. They lived in glass
houses, with open doors; they could by no means get away from one
another, or evade a mutual observation which was constant and
searching. Whatever standards, therefore, were recognised by the
community, the individual members were constrained to live up to them
in a society where words and deeds lay open to the collective
criticism. And the standard was really a high one. Truth, honour,
courage, generosity, nobility, were qualities common to the whole
body; and those who were not so endowed by birthright could not help
assuming the virtue they did not possess, and, through practice,
making it eventually their own. Black sheep there were, no doubt, but
being never whitewashed, they did not infect the flock, as happens in
more advanced communities.

These intimate conditions favouring the formation of character were
powerfully reinforced by the one feature of European life in China
which was external to the residents, their contact with the
surrounding mass of Chinese. The effect of intercourse with so-called
inferior races is a question of much complexity, and large
generalisations on such subjects are unsafe, each case being best
considered on its proper merits. In their intercourse with the
Chinese, certain points stood out like pillars of adamant to fix the
principles by which the foreign residents were obliged to regulate
their bearing towards the natives. In the first place, the strangers
formed units hemmed in and pressed upon by thousands; therefore they
must magnify themselves by maintaining an invincible prestige, they
must in the eyes of that alien world always be heroes, and they must
present a united front. Extending the same principles from the
material to the moral sphere, the foreigners must maintain the
reputation of their caste for probity, liberality, and trustworthiness.
Their word must be as good as their bond; they must on no account
demean themselves before the heathen, nor tolerate any temptation from
a Chinese source to take unfair advantage of their own kind, the
Caucasian or Christian, or by whatever term we may indicate the white
man. Whatever their private differences, no white man must permit
himself to acquiesce in the disparagement of his own people in the
view of the people of the country. They must be, one and all, above
suspicion. Such were some of the considerations which were effective
in maintaining the character of Europeans in China. Although
association with a race so alien as the Chinese, with such different
moral standards, must have had the usual deteriorating effects of such
contact, yet the positive gain in the formation of character from the
practice of such maxims of conduct as those above indicated probably
left a balance of advantage with the China merchants.

The case would be imperfectly stated were mention not made of the
process of natural selection which constituted the merchants a body of
picked men. China was a remote country. It offered neither the
facility of access nor the scope for adventure which in more recent
times have attracted such streams of emigration to distant parts of
the world. The mercantile body was a close corporation, automatically
protected by barriers very difficult to surmount. The voyage itself
occupied six months. Letters were rarely answered within a year. Hence
all the machinery of business had to be arranged with a large
prescience. Even after the opening of the overland route to Suez
communication with China was maintained by sailing-ships up till 1845,
when the Lady Mary Wood, the first steamer of the P. and O. Company,
reached Hongkong, with no accommodation for more than a few
passengers, and carrying no more cargo than a good-sized lighter. And
later still, when steamers carried the mails fortnightly to China, the
expense of the trip was so great that only a chosen few could afford
it. It took £150 to £170 to land a single man in Hongkong, and in
those days when extensive outfits were thought necessary, probably as
much more had to be laid out in that way. The merchants who
established themselves in China after the opening of the trade were
either themselves men of large means, or they were the confidential
representatives of English and American houses of great position.
There were no local banks, operations extended over one or two years,
an immense outlay of capital was required, and credit had to be
maintained at an exceedingly high level, not only as between the
merchants in China and their correspondents in London, Liverpool, New
York, and Boston, but between both and the financial centre of the
world. Through such a winnowing-machine only good grain could pass. It
was a natural result that the English and American merchants both in
China and India should have been superior as a class to the average of
other commercial communities. And what was true of partners and heads
of houses was no less so of their "assistants." There were no
"clerks," as the term is commonly used in England, except Portuguese
hailing from the neighbouring settlement of Macao. The young men sent
from England were selected with as much care as it was possible to
bestow, for they were precious. Not only were they costly, but it
might take a year to make good casualties. Besides, in countries
situated as China was then, where contingencies of health were never
out of mind, it was not worth while to send out one who was a clerk
and nothing more. There must be potential capacity as well, since it
could never be foreseen how soon emergencies might arise which would
require him to assume the most responsible duties. Hence every new
hand engaged must enjoy the fullest confidence both of his immediate
employers and of the home firm to which they were affiliated.

As might be expected under such circumstances, family connections
played a large part in the selection, and the tendency of the whole
system was to minimise the gulf which in advanced societies separates
the master from the man. In education and culture they were equals, as
a consequence of which the reins of discipline might be held lightly,
all service being willingly and intelligently rendered. The system of
devolution was so fully developed that the assistant was practically
master in his own department, for the success of which he was as
zealous as the head. The "mess" _régime_ under which in most houses
the whole staff, employers and employees, sat at one table, tended
strongly in the direction of a common social level.

What still further contributed much to raise the position of
assistants was the tradition which the merchants both in India and
China inherited from the East India Company of what may be called
pampering their employees. They were permitted to carry on trade on
their own account, in the same commodities and with the same buyers
and sellers, in which they possessed advantages over their employers
in having all the firm's information at command with the privilege of
using its machinery free of cost. The abuses to which such a system
was liable are too obvious to be dwelt upon; but to be himself a
merchant, sometimes more successful than his principal, though without
his responsibilities, certainly did not detract from the social status
of the assistant.

Sixty years ago the China community was composed of men in the prime
of life. The average age was probably not over thirty--a man of forty
was a grey-beard. In this respect an evolutionary change has come over
the scene, and the average age of the adult residents must have risen
by at least ten years. But the China community in all its stages of
development has maintained the colonial characteristic of buoyancy and
hopefulness. Reverses of fortune never appalled its members. Having
been early accustomed to the alternations of fat years and lean, a
disastrous season was to them but the presage of a bountiful one to
follow; while a succession of bad years made the reaction only the
more certain. This wellspring of hope has often helped the China
merchants to carry the freshness of spring even into the snows of
winter. The nature of their pursuits, moreover, fostered a
comprehensive spirit. Trained in the school of wholesale dealing, and
habituated to work on large curves, the China merchants have all
through felt the blood of the merchant princes in their veins, and it
has even been alleged to their disadvantage that, like the scions of
decayed families the world over, the pomp and circumstance were
maintained after the material basis had in the natural course of
affairs vanished. Nay, more, that the grandiose ideas appropriate to
the heirs of a protected system have disqualified them for the contest
in small things which the latter days have brought upon them.

Of that restricted, protected, quasi-aristocratic, half-socialistic
society some of the traditions and spirit remain; but the structure
itself could not possibly withstand the aggression of modern progress,
and it has been swept away. New elements have entered into the
composition of the mercantile and general society of the Far East, its
basis has been widened and its relations with the great world
multiplied. In innumerable ways there has been improvement, not the
least being the development of family life and the more enduring
attachment to the soil which is the result of prolonged residence.
Living, if less luxurious, is vastly more comfortable, more refined,
and more civilised, and men and women without serious sacrifices make
their home in a country which in the earlier days was but a scene of
temporary exile. Charities abound which were not before needed; the
channels of humanity have broadened, though it cannot be said at the
cost of depth, for whatever else may have changed, the generosity of
the foreign communities remains as princely as in the good old days.

Yet is it permissible to regret some of the robuster virtues of the
generation that is past. The European solidarity _vis-à-vis_ the
Chinese world, which continued practically unbroken into the eighth
decade of the century, a tower of moral strength to foreigners and an
object of respect to the Chinese, has now been thrown down. Not only
in private adventures have foreigners in their heat of competition let
themselves down to the level of Chinese tactics, but great financial
syndicates have immersed themselves in intrigues which either did not
tempt the men of the previous generation or tempted them in vain; and
even the Great Powers themselves have descended into the inglorious
arena, where decency is discarded like the superfluous garments of the
gladiator, and where falsity, ultra-Chinese in quality, masquerades in
Christian garb. The moral ascendancy of Christendom has been in a
hundred ways shamelessly prostituted, leaving little visible
distinction between the West and the East but superior energy and
military force.

Take them for all in all, the China merchants have been in their day
and generation no unworthy representatives of their country's
interests and policy, its manhood and character. Their patriotism has
not been toned down but expanded and rationalised by cosmopolitan
associations, and by contact with a type of national life differing
diametrically from their own. Breadth and moderation have resulted
from these conditions, and a habit of tempering the exigencies of the
day by the larger consideration of international problems has been
characteristic of the mercantile bodies in China from first to last.
And though statesmanship lies outside the range of busy men of
commerce, it must be said in justice to the merchants of China that
they have been consistently loyal to an ideal policy, higher in its
aims and more practical in its operation than that which any line of
Western statesmen, save those of Russia, has been able to follow. It
had been better if the continuous prognostications of such a compact
body of opinion had been more heeded.

II. CHINESE.

Business aptitude -- High standard of commercial ethics --
Circumstances hindering great accumulations.

As it requires two to make a bargain, it would be an imperfect account
of the China trade which omitted such an important element as the
efficiency of the native trader. To him is due the fact that the
foreign commerce of his country, when uninterfered with by the
officials of his Government, has been made so easy for the various
parties concerned in it. Of all the accomplishments the Chinese nation
has acquired during the long millenniums of its history, there is none
in which it has attained to such perfect mastery as in the science of
buying and selling. The Chinese possess the Jews' passion for
exchange. All classes, from the peasant to the prince, think in money,
and the instinct of appraisement supplies to them the place of a ready
reckoner, continuously converting objects and opportunities into cash.
Thus surveying mankind and all its achievements with the eye of an
auctioneer, invisible note-book in hand, external impressions
translate themselves automatically into the language of the
market-place, so that it comes as natural to the Chinaman as to the
modern American, or to any other commercial people, to reduce all
forms of appreciation to the common measure of the dollar. A people
imbued with such habits of mind are traders by intuition. If they have
much to learn from foreigners, they have also much to teach them; and
the fact that at no spot within the vast empire of China would one
fail to find ready-made and eager men of business is a happy augury
for the extended intercourse which may be developed in the future,
while at the same time it affords the clearest indication of the true
avenue to sympathetic relations with the Chinese. In every detail of
handling and moving commodities, from the moment they leave the hands
of the producer in his garden-patch to the time when they reach the
ultimate consumer perhaps a thousand miles away, the Chinese trader is
an expert. Times and seasons have been elaborately mapped out, the
clue laid unerringly through labyrinthine currencies, weights, and
measures which to the stranger seem a hopeless tangle, and elaborate
trade customs evolved appropriate to the requirements of a
myriad-sided commerce, until the simplest operation has been invested
with a kind of ritual observance, the effect of the whole being to
cause the complex wheels to run both swiftly and smoothly.

To crown all, there is to be noted, as the highest condition of
successful trade, the evolution of commercial probity, which, though
no monopoly of the Chinese merchants, is one of their distinguishing
characteristics. It is that element which, in the generations before
the treaties, enabled so large a commerce to be carried on with
foreigners without anxiety, without friction, and almost without
precaution. It has also led to the happiest personal relations between
foreigners and the native trader.

When the business of the season was over [says Mr
Hunter][32] contracts were made with the Hong merchants for
the next season. They consisted of teas of certain
qualities and kinds, sometimes at fixed prices, sometimes
at the prices which should be current at the time of the
arrival of the teas. No other record of these contracts was
ever made than by each party booking them, no written
agreements were drawn up, nothing was sealed or attested. A
wilful breach of contract never took place, and as regards
quality and quantity the Hong merchants fulfilled their
part with scrupulous honesty and care.

The Chinese merchant, moreover, has been always noted for what he
himself graphically calls his large-heartedness, which is exemplified
by liberality in all his dealings, tenacity as to all that is material
with comparative disregard of trifles, never letting a transaction
fall through on account of punctilio, yielding to the prejudices of
others wherever it can be done without substantial disadvantage, a
"sweet reasonableness," if the phrase may be borrowed for such a
purpose, which obviates disputation, and the manliness which does not
repine at the consequences of an unfortunate contract. Judicial
procedure being an abomination to respectable Chinese, their security
in commercial dealings is based as much upon reason, good faith, and
non-repudiation as that of the Western nations is upon verbal finesse
in the construction of covenants.

Two systems so diametrically opposed can hardly admit of real
amalgamation without sacrifice of the saving principle of both. And
if, in the period immediately succeeding the retirement of the East
India Company, perfect harmony prevailed between the Chinese and the
foreign merchant, the result was apparently attained by the foreigners
practically falling in with the principles and the commercial ethics
of the Chinese, to which nothing has yet been found superior. The
Chinese aptitude for business, indeed, exerted a peculiar influence
over their foreign colleagues. The efficiency and alacrity of the
native merchants and their staff were such that the foreigners fell
into the way of leaving to them the principal share in managing the
details of the business. When the venerable, but unnatural, Co-hong
system of Old Canton was superseded by the compradoric, the connection
between the foreign firm and their native staff became so intimate
that it was scarcely possible to distinguish between the two, and
misunderstandings have not unfrequently arisen through third parties
mistaking the principal for the agent and the agent for the principal.

Such a relationship could not but foster in some cases a certain
lordly abstraction on the part of the foreign merchant, to which
climatic conditions powerfully contributed. The factotum, in short,
became a minister of luxury, everywhere a demoralising influence, and
thus there was a constant tendency for the Chinese to gain the upper
hand,--to be the master in effect though the servant in name. The
comprador was always consulted, and if the employer ventured to omit
this formality the resulting transaction would almost certainly come
to grief through inexplicable causes. Seldom, however, was his advice
rejected, while many of the largest operations were of his initiation.
Unlimited confidence was the rule on both sides, which often took the
concrete form of considerable indebtedness, now on the one side now on
the other, and was regularly shown in the despatch of large amounts of
specie into the far interior of the country for the purchase of tea
and silk in the districts of their growth. For many years the old
practice was followed of contracting for produce as soon as
marketable, and sometimes even before. During three or four months, in
the case of tea, large funds belonging to foreign merchants were in
the hands of native agents far beyond the reach of the owners, who
could exercise no sort of supervision over the proceedings of their
agents. The funds were in every case safely returned in the form of
produce purchased, which was entered to the foreign merchant at a
price arbitrarily fixed by the comprador to cover all expenses. Under
such a _régime_ it would have needed no great perspicacity, one would
imagine, to foretell in which pocket the profits of trading would
eventually lodge. As a matter of fact, the comprador generally grew
rich at the expense of his employer. All the while the sincerest
friendship existed between them, often descending to the second or
third generation.[33]

It would be natural to suppose that in such an extensive commercial
field as the empire of China, exploited by such competent traders,
large accumulations of wealth would be the result. Yet after making
due allowance for inducements to concealment, the wealth even of the
richest families probably falls far short of that which is not
uncommon in Western countries. Several reasons might be adduced for
the limitation, chiefly the family system, which necessitates constant
redistribution, and which subjects every successful man to the
attentions of a swarm of parasites, who, besides devouring his
substance with riotous living, have the further opportunity of ruining
his enterprises by their malfeasance. Yet although individual wealth
may, from these and other causes, be confined within very moderate
limits, the control of capital for legitimate business is ample. Owing
to the co-operative system under which the financiers of the country
support and guarantee each other, credit stands very high, enabling
the widely ramified commerce of the empire to be carried on upon a
very small nucleus of cash capital. The banking organisation of China
is wonderfully complete, bills of exchange being currently negotiable
between the most distant points of the empire, the circulation of
merchandise maintaining the equilibrium with comparatively little
assistance from the precious metals.

The true characteristics of a people probably stand out in a clearer
light when they are segregated from the conventionalities of their
home and forced to accommodate themselves to unaccustomed conditions.
Following the Chinese to the various commercial colonies which they
have done so much to develop, it will be found that they have carried
with them into their voluntary exile the best elements of their
commercial success in their mother country. The great emporium of
Maimaichên, on the Siberian frontier near Kiachta, is an old
commercial settlement mostly composed of natives of the province of
Shansi, occupying positions of the highest respect both financially
and socially. The streets of the town are regular, wide, and
moderately clean. The houses are solid, tidy, and tasteful, with
pretty little courtyards, ornamental door-screens, and so forth, the
style of the whole being described as superior to what is seen in the
large cities within China proper. The very conditions of exile seem
favourable to a higher scale of living, free alike from the incubus of
thriftless relations and from the malign espionage of Government
officials.

In the Philippine Islands and in Java the Chinese emigrants from the
southern provinces have been the life and soul of the trade and
industry of these places. So also in the British dominions, as at
Singapore and Penang, which are practically Chinese Colonies under the
British flag. Hongkong and the Burmese ports are of course no
exceptions.

The description given by Mr Thomson[34] of the Chinese in Penang would
apply equally to every part of the world in which the Chinese have
been permitted to settle:--

Should you, my reader, ever settle in Penang, you will be
there introduced to a Chinese contractor who will sign a
document to do anything. His costume will tell you that he
is a man of inexpensive yet cleanly habits. He will build
you a house after any design you choose, and within so many
days, subject to a fine should he exceed the stipulated
time. He will furnish you with a minute specification, in
which everything, to the last nail, will be included. He
has a brother who will contract to make every article of
furniture you require, either from drawings or from models.
He has another brother who will fit you and your good lady
with all sorts of clothing, and yet a third relative who
will find servants, and contract to supply you with all the
native and European delicacies in the market upon condition
that his monthly bills are regularly honoured.

It is, indeed, to Chinamen that the foreign resident is
indebted for almost all his comforts, and for the profusion
of luxuries which surround his wonderfully European-looking
home on this distant island.

The Chinese are everywhere found enterprising and trustworthy men of
business. Europeans, worried by the exhaustless refinements of the
Marwarree or Bengali, find business with the Chinese in the Straits
Settlements a positive luxury. Nor have the persecutions of the race
in the United States and in self-governing British colonies wholly
extinguished the spark of honour which the Chinese carry with them
into distant lands. An old "'Forty-niner," since deceased, related to
the writer some striking experiences of his own during a long
commercial career in San Francisco. A Chinese with whom he had
dealings disappeared from the scene, leaving a debt to Mr Forbes of
several thousand dollars. The account became an eyesore in the books,
and the amount was formally "written off" and forgotten. Some years
after, Mr Forbes was surprised by a visit from a weather-beaten
Chinese, who revealed himself as the delinquent Ah Sin and asked for
his account. Demurring to the trouble of exhuming old ledgers, Mr
Forbes asked Ah Sin incredulously if he was going to pay. "Why,
certainly," said the debtor. The account was thereupon rendered to him
with interest, and after a careful examination and making some
corrections, Ah Sin undid his belt and tabled the money to the last
cent, thereupon vanishing into space whence he had come.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] China in 1857-58. Routledge.

[32] The Fankwae at Canton.

[33] Apart from their liberality in the conduct of business, the
generosity of the Chinese mercantile class, their gratitude for past
favours, are so remarkable as to be incomprehensible to the Western
mind. An account of them would read like a "fairy tale."

[34] The Straits of Malacca, &c. By J. Thomson.

CHAPTER XIV.

HONGKONG.

Two British landmarks -- Chinese customs and Hongkong --
Choice of the island -- Vitality of colony -- Asylum for
malefactors -- Chinese official hostility -- Commanding
commercial position -- Crown Colony government --
Management of Chinese population -- Their improvement --
English education -- Material progress -- Industrial
institutions -- Accession of territory.

The past sixty years of war and peace in China have left two landmarks
as concrete embodiments of British policy--the Chinese maritime
customs and the colony of Hongkong. These are documents which testify
in indelible characters both to the motives and to the methods of
British expansion throughout the world. For good and for evil their
record cannot be explained away. Both institutions are typically
English, inasmuch as they are not the fulfilment of a dream or the
working out of preconcerted schemes, but growths spontaneously
generated out of the local conditions, much like that of the British
empire itself, and with scarcely more conscious foresight on the part
of those who helped to rear the edifice.

The relation of the British empire to the world, which defies
definition, is only revealed in scattered object-lessons. India throws
some light upon it--the colonies much more; and though in some
respects unique in its character, Hongkong in its degree stands
before the world as a realisation of the British ideal, with its
faults and blunders as well as with its excellences and successes.

The want of a British station on the China coast had long been felt,
and during the ten years which preceded the cession innumerable
proposals were thrown out, some of which distinctly indicated Hongkong
itself as supplying the desideratum. But as to the status of the new
port the various suggestions made neutralised each other, until the
course of events removed the question out of the region of discussion
and placed it in the lap of destiny.

The earliest English visitors to the island described it as inhabited
by a few weather-beaten fishermen, who were seen spreading their nets
and drying their catch on the rocks. Cultivation was restricted to
small patches of rice, sweet-potatoes, and buckwheat. The abundance of
fern gave it in places an appearance of verdure, but it was on the
whole a treeless, rugged, barren block of granite. The gentlemen of
Lord Amherst's suite in 1816, who have left this record, made another
significant observation. The precipitous island, twelve miles long,
with its deep-water inlets, formed one side of a land-locked harbour,
which they called Hongkong Sound, capable of sheltering any number of
ships of the largest size. Into this commodious haven the English
fugitives, driven first from Canton and then from Macao, by the
drastic decree of the Chinese authorities in 1839, found a refuge for
their ships, and afterwards a footing on shore for themselves. Stern
necessity and not their wills sent them thither. The same necessity
ordained that the little band, once lodged there, should take root,
and growth followed as the natural result of the inherent vitality of
the organism. As Dr Eitel well points out, this small social body did
not originate in Hongkong: it had had a long preparatory history in
Macao, and in the Canton factories, and may be considered, therefore,
in the light of a healthy swarm from the older hives.

During the first few years of the occupation the selection of the
station was the subject of a good deal of cheap criticism in the
press. A commercial disappointment and a political failure, it was
suggested by some that the place should be abandoned. It was
contrasted unfavourably with the island of Chusan, which had been
receded to China under the same treaty which had ceded Hongkong to
Great Britain; and even as late as 1858 Lord Elgin exclaimed, "How
anybody in their senses could have preferred Hongkong to Chusan seems
incredible."

But, in point of fact, there had been little or no conscious choice in
the matter. The position may be said to have chosen itself, since no
alternative was left to the first British settlers. As for Chusan, it
had been occupied and abandoned several times. The East India Company
had an establishment there in the beginning of the eighteenth century,
and if that station was finally given up either on its merits or in
favour of Hongkong, it was certainly not without experience of the
value of the more northerly position. Whatever hypothetical
advantages, commercial or otherwise, might have accrued from the
retention of Chusan, the actual position attained by Hongkong as an
emporium of trade, a centre of industry, and one of the great shipping
ports in the world, furnishes an unanswerable defence both of the
choice of the site and the political structure which has been erected
on it. Canton being at once the centre of foreign trade and the focus
of Chinese hostility, vicinity to that city was an indispensable
condition of the location of the British entrepot, and the place of
arms from which commerce could be defended. And it would be hard even
now to point to any spot on the Chinese coast which fulfilled the
conditions so well as Hongkong.

The course of its development did not run smooth. It was not to be
expected. The experiment of planting a British station in contact with
the most energetic as well as the most turbulent section of the
population of China was not likely to be carried out without mistakes,
and many have been committed. Indeed, from the day of its birth down
to the present time domestic dissensions and recriminations respecting
the management of its affairs have never ceased.

This was inevitable in a political microcosm having neither diversity
of interest nor atmospheric space to soften the perspective. The
entire interests of the colony were comprised within the focal
distance of myopic vision. Molehills thus became mountains, and the
mote in each brother's eye assumed the dimensions of animalcula seen
through a microscope. The bitter feuds between the heads of the
several departments of the lilliputian Government which prevailed
during the first twenty years must have been fatal to any young colony
if its progress had depended on the wisdom of its rulers. Happily a
higher law governs all these things.

Freedom carried with it the necessary consequences, and for many years
the new colony was a tempting Alsatia for Chinese malefactors, an
asylum for pirates, who put on and off that character with wonderful
facility, and could hatch their plots there fearless of surveillance.
When the Taiping rebellion was at its height, piracy became so mixed
with insurrection that the two were not distinguishable, and it
required both firmness and vigilance on the part of the authorities to
prevent the harbour of Hongkong becoming the scene of naval
engagements between the belligerents. During the hostilities of
1857-58 a species of dacoity was practised with impunity by Chinese,
who were tempted by rewards for the heads of Englishmen offered by the
authorities of Canton.

It cannot, therefore, be denied that the immigrants from the mainland
in the first and even the second decade of its existence were leavened
with an undesirable element, causing anxiety to the responsible
rulers.

The Chinese authorities, as was natural, waged relentless war on the
colony from its birth. Though compelled formally to admit that the
island and its dependencies were a British possession, they still
maintained a secret authority over the Chinese who settled there, and
even attempted to levy taxes. As they could not lay hands on its
trade, except the valuable portion of it which was carried on by
native craft, they left no stone unturned to destroy that. By skilful
diplomacy, for which they are entitled to the highest credit, they
obtained control over the merchant junks trading to Hongkong, and
imposed restrictions on them calculated to render their traffic
impossible. By the same treaty they obtained the appointment of a
British officer as Chinese revenue agent in Hongkong--a concession,
however, disallowed by the good sense of the British Government. But
the Chinese were very tenacious of the idea of making Hongkong a
customs station, never relaxing their efforts for forty years, until
the convention of 1886 at last rewarded their perseverance by a
partial fulfilment of their hopes.

For reasons which, if not very lofty, are yet very human, the
diplomatic and consular agents of Great Britain have never looked
sympathetically on the colony--indeed have often sided with the
Chinese in their attempts to curtail its rights.

Nor has the Home Government itself always treated the small colony
with parental consideration. Before it was out of swaddling-clothes
the Treasury ogre began to open his mouth and, like the East India
Company, demand remittances. A military establishment was maintained
on the island, not for the benefit of the residents, but for the
security of a strategical position in the imperial system. The
colonists were mulcted in a substantial share of the cost, which the
governor was instructed to wring out of them. The defences themselves,
however, were neglected, and allowed to grow obsolete and useless,
and, if we mistake not, it was the civil community, and not the
Government, that insisted on their being modernised. The compromise
eventually arrived at was, that the colonists provided the guns and
the imperial Government the forts. An interesting parallel to this was
the case of Gibraltar, which possessed no dock until the civil
community by sheer persistence, extending over many years, at length
overcame the reluctance of the British Government to provide so
essential an adjunct to its naval establishment. The colony had
suffered much from the war with China, but the Home Government refused
it any participation in the indemnity extorted from the Chinese.

But these and other drawbacks were counterbalanced, and eventually
remedied, by the advantages offered by a free port and a safe harbour.
Standing in the fair way of all Eastern commerce, which pays willing
tribute to the colony, Hongkong attracted trade from all quarters in a
steadily increasing volume, and became the pivot for the whole ocean
traffic of the Far East.[35] The tide of prosperity could not be
stayed--it invaded every section of the community. The character of
the Chinese population was continuously raised. The best of them
accumulated wealth: the poorest found remunerative employment for
their labour. Crime, with which the colony had been tainted,
diminished as much through the expulsive power of material prosperity
as from the judicious measures of the executive Government, for the
credit must not be denied to successive administrators for the
improvement in the condition of the colony. Among those none was more
deserving of praise than Sir Richard MacDonnell (1865-72), who on
catching sight, as he entered the harbour, of an enormous building,
which he was told was the jail, remarked, "I will not fill that, but
stop the crime;" and he was nearly as good as his word,--a terror to
evil-doers.

A Crown colony is the form of government which challenges the most
pungent criticism. The elected members of its legislature, being a
minority, can only in the last resort acquiesce in the decisions of
the official majority who constitute the executive Government. Such a
minority, however, is by no means wanting in influence, for it is,
after all, publicity which is the safeguard of popular liberty. The
freedom of speech enjoyed by an Opposition which has no fear of the
responsibility of office before its eyes widens the scope of its
criticisms, and imparts a refreshing vigour to the invective of those
of its members who possess the courage of their convictions. It
reaches the popular ear, and the apprehension of an adverse public
opinion so stimulated can never fail to have its effect on the acts of
the Administration. Under such a _régime_ it seems natural that, other
things being equal, each governor in turn should be esteemed the worst
who has borne rule in the colony, and in any case his merits are never
likely to be fairly gauged by any local contemporary estimate. King
Stork, though fair and far-seeing, may be more obnoxious to criticism
than King Log, who makes things pleasant during his official term.

Hongkong being established as a free port, the functions of Government
were practically limited to internal administration, and the question
of greatest importance was the control of the Chinese population which
poured in. This was a new problem. Chinese communities had, indeed,
settled under foreign rule before, as in the Straits Settlements, in
Java, and in Manila, but at such distances from their home as rendered
the settlers amenable to any local regulations which might be imposed
on them. Distance even acted as a strainer, keeping back the dregs.
But Hongkong was nearer to China than the Isle of Wight is to
Hampshire. Evil-doers could come and go at will. It could be overrun
in the night and evacuated in the morning. Spies were as
uncontrollable as house-flies, and whenever it suited the Chinese
Government to be hostile, they proved their power to establish such a
reign of terror in the colony that it was dangerous to stray beyond
the beat of the armed policeman. Clearly it was of primary importance
to come to terms with the native community, to reduce them to
discipline, to encourage the good and discourage the bad among the
Chinese settlers. As their numbers increased the public health
demanded a yet stricter supervision of their habits. Sanitary science
had scarcely dawned when the colony was founded, and its teachings had
to be applied, as they came to light, to conditions of life which had
been allowed to grow up in independence of its requirements. To
tolerate native customs, domestic habits, and manner of living, while
providing for the general wellbeing of a community in a climate which
at its best is debilitating, taxed the resources of the British
executive, and of course gave rise to perpetual recrimination. But the
thing has been accomplished. Successive conflagrations have
co-operated with the march of sanitary reform and the advance in their
worldly circumstances in so improving the dwellings of the population,
that their housing now compares not unfavourably with that of the
native cities of India. The Southern Chinese are naturally cleanly,
and appreciative of good order when it is judiciously introduced
among them, even from a foreign source.

A more complex question was that of bringing an alien population such
as the Chinese within the moral pale of English law, for law is vain
unless it appeals to the public conscience. The imposition of foreign
statutes on a race nursed on oral tradition and restrained from
misdoing by bonds invisible to their masters was not an undertaking
for which success could be safely foretold. The effect of a similar
proceeding on the subtle natives of India has been described as
"substituting for a recognised morality a mere game of skill, at which
the natives can give us long odds and beat us." "The mercantile and
money-lending classes in India," says Mr S. S. Thorburn, "delight in
the intricacy and surprises of a good case in court." With the Chinese
it has been otherwise. The population of Hongkong have so far
assimilated the foreign law that, whether or not it satisfies their
innate sense of right, it at least governs their external conduct, and
crime has been reduced very low: as for litigation, it is
comparatively rare; it is disreputable, and has no place in the
Chinese commercial economy.

The best proofs of their acceptance of colonial rule is the constantly
increasing numbers of the Chinese residents; the concentration of
their trading capital there; their investments in real estate and in
local industries; their identification with the general interests of
the colony, and their adopting it as a home instead of a place of
temporary exile. The means employed to conciliate the Chinese must be
deemed on the whole to have been successful. There was first police
supervision, then official protection under a succession of qualified
officers, then representation in the Colonial Legislature and on the
commission of the peace. The colonial executive has wisely left to the
Chinese a large measure of a kind of self-government which is far more
effective than anything that could find its expression in votes of the
Legislature. The administration of purely Chinese affairs by native
committees, with a firm ruling hand over their proceedings, seems to
fulfil every purpose of government. The aim has been throughout to
ascertain and to gratify, when practicable, the reasonable wants of
the Chinese, who have responded to these advances by an exhibition of
public spirit which no society could excel. It is doubtful whether in
the wide dominion of the Queen there are 250,000 souls more
appreciative of orderly government than the denizens of the whilom
nest of pirates and cut-throats--Hongkong.

As an educational centre Hongkong fulfils a function whose value is
difficult to estimate. From the foundation of the colony the subject
engaged the attention of the executive Government, as well as of
different sections of the civil community. The missionary bodies were
naturally very early in the field, and there was for a good many years
frank co-operation between them and the mercantile community in
promoting schools both for natives and Europeans. In time, however,
either their aims were found to diverge or else their estimate of
achievement differed, and many of the missionary teaching
establishments were left without support.

After an interval of languor, however, new life was infused into the
educational schemes of the colony. The emulation of religious sects
and the common desire to bring the lambs of the flock into their
respective folds inspired the efforts of the propagandists, their zeal
reacting on the colonial Government itself with the most gratifying
results, so far at least as the extension of the field of their common
efforts was concerned.

The Chinese had imported their own school systems, while taking full
advantage of the educational facilities provided by the Government and
the Christian bodies. Being an intellectual race, they are well able
to assimilate the best that Christendom has to offer them. But the
colonial system contents itself with a sound practical commercial
education, which has equipped vast numbers of Chinese for the work of
clerks, interpreters, and so forth, and has thus been the means of
spreading the knowledge of the English language over the coast of
China, and of providing a medium of communication between the native
and European mind.

The material progress of Hongkong speaks volumes for the energy of its
community. The precipitous character of the island left scarcely a
foothold for business or residential settlement. The strip which
formed the strand front of the city of Victoria afforded room for but
one street, forcing extensions up the rugged face of the hill which
soon was laid out in zig-zag terraces: foundations for the houses are
scarped out of the rock, giving them the appearance of citadels. The
locality being subject to torrential rains, streets and roads had to
be made with a finished solidity which is perhaps unmatched. Bridges,
culverts, and gutters all being constructed of hewn granite and fitted
with impervious cement, the storm-waters are carried off as clean as
from a ship's deck. These municipal works were not achieved without
great expense and skilfully directed labour, of which an unlimited
supply can always be depended on. And the credit of their achievement
must be equally divided between the Government and the civil
community.

The island is badly situated as regards its water-supply, which has
necessitated the excavation of immense reservoirs on the side farthest
from the town, the aqueduct being tunnelled for over a mile through a
solid granite mass. These and other engineering works have rendered
Hongkong the envy of the older colonies in the Far East. No less so
the palatial architecture in which the one natural product of the
island has been turned to the most effective account. The quarrying of
granite blocks, in which the Chinese are as great adepts as they are
in dressing the stones for building, has been so extensive as visibly
to alter the profile of the island.

A great deficiency of the island as a commercial site being the
absence of level ground, the enterprise of the colonists has been
incessantly directed towards supplying the want. Successive
reclamations on the sea-front, costing of course large sums of money,
have so enlarged the building area that the great thoroughfare called
Queen's Road now runs along the back instead of the front of a new
city, the finest buildings of all being the most recent, standing upon
the newly reclaimed land. It is characteristic of such improvements,
that, while in course of execution, they should be deemed senseless
extravagance, due to the ambition of some speculator or the caprice of
some idealist, thus perpetually illustrating the truth of the Scottish
saying, "Fules and bairns should never see a thing half done."
Hongkong has been no exception to so universal a rule.

The industrial enterprise of the colony has fully kept pace with its
progress in other respects. The Chinese quarter resembles nothing so
much as a colony of busy ants, where every kind of handicraft is plied
with such diligence, day in and day out, as the Chinese alone seem
capable of. The more imposing works conducted by foreigners occupy a
prominent place in the whole economy of the Far East. Engineering and
shipbuilding have always been carried on in the colony. Graving-docks
capable of accommodating modern battleships, and of executing any
repairs or renewals required by them as efficiently as could be done
in any part of the world, constitute Hongkong a rendezvous for the
navies of all nations. Manufactures of various kinds flourish on the
island. Besides cotton-mills, some of the largest sugar-refineries in
the world, fitted with the most modern improvements, work up the raw
material from Southern China, Formosa, the Philippines, and other
sugar-growing countries in the Eastern Archipelago, thus furnishing a
substantial item of export to the Australian colonies and other parts
of the world. The colony has thereby created for itself a commerce of
its own, while its strategical situation has enabled it to retain the
character of a pivot on which all Far Eastern commerce turns.

This pivotal position alone, and not the local resources of the place,
enabled the colony to found one of the most successful financial
organisations of the modern world. The Hongkong and Shanghai Bank has
had a history not dissimilar from that of the colony as a whole, one
of success followed by periods of alternate depression and elation.
Now in the trough of the wave and now on its crest, the bank has
worked its way by inherent vitality through all vicissitudes of good
or bad fortune, until it has gone near to monopolising the exchange
business of the Far East, and has become the recognised medium between
the money-market of London and the financial needs of the Imperial
Chinese administration.

It should not be overlooked as a condition of its success that the
great Hongkong Bank, like all other successful joint-stock
enterprises, whether in Hongkong or in China, has from its origin
borne a broad international character. Though legally domiciled in a
British possession, representative men of all nationalities sit on its
board and take their turn in the chairmanship as it comes round. The
international character, indeed, may be cited as one of the elements
of the success of the colony itself. No disability of any kind
attaches to alien settlers, not even exclusion from the jury panel.
They are free to acquire property, to carry on business, to indulge
their whims, and to avail themselves of all the resources of the
colony, and enjoy the full protection of person and property which
natural-born British subjects possess. They come and go at their
pleasure, no questions asked, no luggage examined, no permits required
for any purpose whatever coming within the scope of ordinary life. Nor
are they even asked whether they appreciate these advantages or not;
in fact they are as free to criticise the institutions under which
they live as if they had borne their part in creating them, which, in
fact, they have done, and this it is which marks the vitality of the
British system, whether in the mother country or in its distant
dependencies.

The exceedingly cramped conditions of life on the island having proved
such an obstacle to its development, the acquisition of a portion of
the mainland forming one side of the harbour was at an early period
spoken of as a desideratum for the colony. The idea took no practical
shape, however, until the occupation of Canton by the Allied forces
under the administration of Consul Parkes; and it is one of the most
noteworthy achievements of that indefatigable man that, during the
time when Great Britain was in fact at war with the Government of
China, he should have succeeded, on his own initiative, in obtaining
from the governor of the city a lease of a portion of land at Kowloon,
which was subsequently confirmed by the convention of Peking in 1860.
The improvement of artillery and other means of attack on sea-forts
left the island very vulnerable, and the measures taken by the various
European Powers to establish naval stations on the Chinese coast,
together with the efforts which the country itself was making to
become a modern military Power, rendered it a matter of absolute
necessity, for the preservation of the island, that a sufficient area
of the adjacent territory should be included within its defences.
Following the example set by Germany and Russia, the British
Government concluded an arrangement with the Government of China by
which the needed extension was secured to Great Britain under a
ninety-nine years lease. A convention embodying this agreement was
signed at Peking in June 1898.

FOOTNOTE:

[35] The tonnage entered and cleared for the year 1898 amounted to
17,265,780, of which one-half was under the British flag.

CHAPTER XV.

MACAO.

Contrast with Hongkong -- An interesting survival --
Trading facilities -- Relations with Chinese Government --
Creditable to both parties -- Successful resistance to the
Dutch -- Portuguese expulsion from Japan -- English trading
competitors enjoy hospitality of Macao -- Trade with Canton
-- Hongkong becomes a rival -- Macao eclipsed -- Gambling,
Coolie trade, Piracy -- Population -- Cradle of many
improvements -- Distinguished names.

The three hours' transit from Hongkong to Macao carries one into
another world. The incessant scream of steam-launches which plough the
harbour in all directions night and day gives place to the drowsy
chime of church bells, and instead of the throng of busy men, one
meets a solitary black mantilla walking demurely in the middle of a
crooked and silent street. Perhaps nowhere is the modern world with
its clamour thrown into such immediate contrast with that which
belongs to the past.

The settlement of Macao is a monument of Chinese toleration and of
Portuguese tenacity. The Portuguese learnt at an early stage of their
intercourse the use of the master-key to good relations with the
Chinese authorities. It was to minister freely to their cupidity,
which the Portuguese could well afford to do out of the profits of
their trading. To "maintain ourselves in this place we must spend
much with the Chinese heathen," as they themselves said in 1593 in a
letter to Philip I. Macao is, besides, an interesting relic of that
heroic age when a new heaven and a new earth became the dream of
European adventurers. The spot was excellently well suited for the
purposes, commercial and propagandist, which it was destined to serve;
for in spite of the crimes and cruelties of the sixteenth century
argonauts, the religious element was strongly represented in all their
enterprises.[36] Situated outside the river proper, though within its
wide estuary, and open to the sea, the settlement yet communicates by
an inner passage or branch of the Pearl river with the city of Canton.
It possesses two sheltered harbours adequate to the nautical
requirements of the Middle Ages.

The small peninsula of Macao combined business conveniences with
salubrity of climate in a degree absolutely unrivalled in the torrid
zone. Its picturesque scenery was always found refreshing to the eye
wearied by long contemplation of brick walls, malarious swamps, or the
monotonous glare of the melancholy ocean. From the Chinese point of
view, also, it was an ideal location for strangers, since they could
be thus kept out of sight, isolated like a ship in quarantine, and put
under effective restraint. The situation lent itself to the
traditional Chinese tactics of controlling barbarians by stopping
their food-supply, a form of discipline of which the efficacy had been
proved at an early period in the history of the colony. The Chinese
adopted all the measures they could think of to confine traders to
Macao, where certain indulgences were held out to them, subject to
good behaviour.

The Portuguese adventurers of the early sixteenth century, to whom the
modern world owes so much, did well in pitching on this "gem of the
orient earth and open sea" as a link in their chain of trading
stations, which extended from the coasts of Africa to the Japanese
islands. To trade as such the Chinese Government never seem to have
had any objection, nor, would it appear, to foreigners as such. So
long as there was nought to fear from their presence, the ancient
maxim of cherishing men from afar could be followed without reserve,
for the Chinese are by nature not an unkindly people. Tradition,
indeed, claims for the settlement of foreigners in the Cantonese
archipelago a purely hospitable origin, a storm-beaten vessel having
in the year 1517 received permission from the local authorities to
repair damages and dry her cargo there. The Portuguese frequented
several harbours before they settled at Macao, their principal station
being the island of Sanchuan, where Xavier was buried. About the
middle of the sixteenth century, the city of Canton being besieged by
a large piratical force whose base of operations was Macao, the high
provincial authorities in their extremity sought the aid of the
Portuguese, who came promptly to the rescue of the city, defeated the
pirates, and captured their stronghold. Moved by mixed feelings of
gratitude and policy, the Canton authorities thereupon sanctioned the
Portuguese occupation of Macao, not ill-pleased to set up at that
strategic point so effective a counterpoise to the native pirates.

It said as much for the tact of the Portuguese as for the forbearance
of the Chinese authorities that such an isolated position as that of
Macao should have been held without force, and only on the prestige of
past achievements, on terms of mutual amity, for nearly four hundred
years. The Portuguese squatters paid to the Chinese Government a
ground-rent of about £150 per annum, in consideration of which they
enjoyed practical independence. "The merchants, fully aware that their
settlement at Macao was due neither to any conquest, nor as a return
for services by co-operating in destruction of pirates, bore in mind
two principles--to be on good terms with the provincial authorities,
and to improve as much as possible their exclusive trade with China."
The forms of administrative authority were indeed maintained by the
Chinese, their permission being required to reside and to build houses
and so forth--regulations which were more vexatious, perhaps, in
theory than in fact. The exercise of Chinese jurisdiction over the
person was asserted with moderation as regards the Portuguese, though
full authority was maintained over the native population. The
Portuguese, however, became dissatisfied with the relationship which
had worked smoothly for three hundred years, and when the
treaty-making era arrived they sought means to improve their status.
By persistent efforts they gradually freed themselves from the
overlordship of China, this object being finally attained by good
diplomacy in 1887, when the Imperial Government ceded to Portugal
sovereign rights over Macao in consideration of assistance rendered by
the colony in the collection of the Chinese opium revenue.

Macao did not escape the fortunes of the long war of commercial
supremacy which was waged between Holland and Portugal, but the colony
successfully resisted two attempts to reduce it in 1622 and 1627. Its
resources at that period enabled the diminutive settlement even to
play some part in the game of empire in China itself, for we are told
that a force of 400 men from India, under the command of two
Portuguese officers, proceeded by land to Peking to support the last
Ming emperor in his struggle with the invading Manchus. These
auxiliaries returned whence they came without seeing active service.

Although the Dutch failed to take military possession of Macao, they
took other trading colonies, and succeeded eventually in wresting from
the Portuguese their Asiatic commerce. They supplanted them entirely
in Japan, whose "gold and spoils" had greatly enriched the colony.
Being expelled, not without reason, in 1662, the Portuguese fugitives
from Japan retired to Macao.

Other competitors also began to appear and to assert their right to
participate in the trade of the Far East, and Macao became the
hostelry for merchants of all nations, who carried on business with
the great Chinese emporium, Canton. Chief among these guests were the
Dutch and English East India Companies, both of which maintained
establishments at Macao for some two hundred years.

The English Company had made use of the Macao anchorage first under a
treaty with the viceroy of Goa, and subsequently under Cromwell's
treaty with the Portuguese Government in 1654, which permitted English
ships to enter all the ports in the Portuguese Indies. Before the
close of the seventeenth century ships were despatched direct from
England to Macao. The English adventurers were not satisfied with the
privilege of anchoring so far from the great emporium, but direct
trade with Canton had yet to be fought for. The energetic Captain
Weddell, commanding the ship London, in 1655 met the obstructive
tactics of the Cantonese authorities by bombarding the Bogue forts and
forcing his way up the river, after which he was received in friendly
audience by the viceroy, and was granted full participation in the
Canton trade, much to the chagrin, it is said, of the jealous Macao
merchants.

The loss of its own direct commerce was thus compensated for by the
tribute which the Portuguese colony was able to levy upon the general
trade of China, by whomsoever carried on. Massive houses, with immense
verandahs running all round them, and spacious and cool interior
recesses, attest to this day the ancient glory of Macao. Though now
neglected, and perhaps converted to baser uses, they afford a glimpse
of the easy life led by the Company's agents and the merchants in the
days before the treaty. During the business season, which was in the
cool months, the whole mercantile community repaired to the factories
at Canton while the ships lay at the deep-water anchorage of Whampoa,
and between these two points the work of the year was done--arduous
enough, no doubt, while it lasted. In spite of some contemporary
testimony to the contrary, one can hardly conceive the quasi-imprisonment
within the Canton factories as a kind of life to be enjoyed, but only
as one to be endured for an object. At any rate, when the last cargo
of tea had been shipped off the scene was like the break-up of a
school. The merchants and their whole establishment betook themselves
to their sumptuous river barges, and glided down the stream to Macao,
where the luxury of a long holiday awaited them. Once at least in
every year the foreigners were in full accord with the Chinese
authorities, who sternly forbade loitering, and kept up the form of
peremptorily sending the merchants away as soon as their business had
been done. Nevertheless, those who desired to remain found no
difficulty.

The Portuguese colony, whether or not under compulsion, played an
ungracious part in the troubles which preceded the outbreak of war
between Great Britain and China. To evict from their houses a company
of helpless people and drive them to sea, even at the bidding of an
oriental tyrant, was a proceeding little in keeping with the
traditions of Lusitanian chivalry. But Englishmen may very well
forgive the Portuguese this act of inhumanity, since it compelled the
fugitives to seek a home of their own in the Canton waters, destined
to eclipse the fading glories of "la cidade do nome de Deos da Macao."

The treaty of 1842, which enabled British merchants to set up house
for themselves, deprived Macao of a large portion of its revenue; but
even under this eclipse the era of its prosperity did not then come
quite to an end.

The occupation of Hongkong supplied to British traders all the wants
which Macao had previously furnished, accompanied by a security which
the Portuguese Administration was unable to confer. Its harbour was
incomparably superior, fulfilling all the requirements of a modern
seaport. These advantages were irresistible; nevertheless, the
merchants vacated with evident reluctance the roomy mansions in which
the pleasantest part of their lives had been spent. Several of them
retained possession of their Macao homes, using them for purposes of
recreation. "Dent's comfortable quarters at Macao" afforded an
agreeable retreat for Admiral Keppel, and no doubt many others of the
nautical brotherhood before and after his time; for the sea-breezes of
Macao were almost as great a relief to the denizens of Queen's Road as
to the community which, after the treaty, was permanently quartered in
the Canton factories. To this day Macao, well served by fast and
commodious steamers, remains a favoured resort for week-end tourist
parties, picnics, honeymoons, and the like.

[Illustration: DENT'S VERANDAH, MACAO.]

The population of Macao is estimated at 75,000 Chinese and under 4000
Portuguese, of whom the percentage of pure blood is not large. The
so-called Portuguese of the Chinese coast differ from those of Goa as
the Chinese differ from the Indian natives. They supply a want in the
general economy: in China, as clerks, for whose work they have, like
the indispensable babu, a natural aptitude; in India, as domestic and
personal servants. With the increase of typewriting and the practice
of dictation in mercantile establishments the clerical services of
the Macaese are likely to assume less importance. They are good
Catholics, smoke cigarettes, and are harmless.

Though for many years Macao suffered depression from the loss of its
foreign trade, its natural advantages in course of time attracted to
it new branches of industry, which to some extent revived its drooping
prosperity. Foreign and native merchants found it convenient to
conduct a certain portion of their trade in tea and silk and other
articles in the quiet old city, where burdens were light and labour
abundant. Traffic of a less desirable character found also its natural
domicile in the colony. It became the headquarters of the lucrative
coolie trade, which there for many years found an asylum where it
feared no law, human or divine. To the credit of the Portuguese
Government, however, this traffic was abolished in 1874. Opium and
gambling licences now provide the chief contributions to a colonial
revenue, the surplus of which over expenditure furnishes a respectable
annual tribute to the needy mother country.

There is yet another species of enterprise historically associated
with the colony which cannot be altogether omitted, though it should
be mentioned with the extenuating circumstances. Piracy, as we have
seen, was rampant on the coasts of Asia, as it was also in Europe,
before Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape; and it was not to be expected
in an age when successful buccaneers in the Atlantic were earning
distinction by harassing the common enemy Spain, that an isolated
colony in remote Asia, detached from Europe a century and a half
earlier, should have anticipated the ethical refinements of the
awakening conscience of Christendom. Slavery itself was tolerated
among the most enlightened races until the middle of the present
century, and if the Macaese did feel a sneaking toleration for
mitigated forms of it, as well as for other species of criminality
which flourished all round them, it must be admitted the temptation
lay very near to their hand. They had been brought up for centuries in
close familiarity with the practices of the sea-rover. Though it
cannot be said that piracy ever took rank as a domestic institution in
patriarchal Macao, yet the openings for young men were much restricted
by family custom, and instances have been reported of improvident sons
laying unfilial hands on their fathers' junks on the coast with a view
to rectifying the balance of the family finance. Whether or not such
modes of redress were ever actually carried into effect, the fact that
legends of this character should have woven themselves into the tissue
of local gossip within comparatively recent times, and in connection
with well-known names, indicates a state of feeling which should be
allowed for in considering the relation of Macao to Chinese piracy.

The influence of Macao on the history of foreign relations with China
extended much beyond the sphere of mere commercial interests. For
three hundred years it was for foreigners the gate of the Chinese
empire, and all influences, good and bad, which came from without were
infiltrated through that narrow opening, which also served as the
medium through which China was revealed to the Western world. It was
in Macao that the first lighthouse was erected, a symbol of the
illuminating mission of foreigners in China. It was there also that
the first printing-press was set up, employing movable type instead of
the stereotype wooden blocks used by the Chinese. From that press was
issued Morrison's famous Dictionary, and for a long series of years
the Chinese Repository, a perfect storehouse of authentic information
concerning the Chinese empire, conducted chiefly by English and
American missionaries. The first foreign hospital in China was opened
at Macao, and there vaccination was first practised. It was from Macao
that the father of China missions, Matteo Ricci, started on his
adventurous journey through the interior of the country in the
sixteenth century, ultimately reaching the capital, where he
established an influence over the Imperial Court scarcely less than
miraculous, thus laying the foundation-stone of the Catholic
propaganda in China. The little Portuguese settlement has therefore
played no mean part in the changes which have taken place in the great
empire of China.

Of the personages associated with its history, the most brilliant, or
at least the best known, was St Francis Xavier, the apostle of the
Indies,--a man of so magnetic a character that he was credited with
the miraculous gift of tongues, while as a matter of fact he seems not
to have been even an ordinarily good linguist, speaking to the natives
of the Far East only through an interpreter. Xavier died and was
buried in the neighbouring island of Sanchuan, whence his remains were
transferred first to Macao itself and afterwards to Goa. The names of
Xavier and Ricci cast a halo over the first century of the existence
of Macao. Another of the earlier residents of world-wide fame was the
poet Camöens, who in a grotto formed of granite blocks tumbled
together by nature, almost washed by the sea, sat and wrote the
Portuguese epic 'The Lusiad,' celebrating the adventures of the great
navigator Vasco da Gama. Of names belonging to the present century, or
the English period, two only need be mentioned here. One was Robert
Morrison, the father of English sinology, who was sent to China by the
London Missionary Society in 1807. This remarkable man had mastered
the initial difficulties of the Chinese language before leaving
England. This he accomplished by the aid of a young Cantonese, and by
diligent study of MSS. in the British Museum, and of a MS.
Latin-Chinese dictionary lent to him by the Royal Society. His teacher
accompanied him on the long voyage to China, during which Morrison
laboured "from morning to midnight." In Canton a Pekingese teacher, a
Catholic convert, was obtained, and the study of Chinese was carried
on assiduously. The most enduring monument of these labours was the
Chinese-English dictionary, which was printed by the East India
Company at a cost of £15,000. This standard work has been the fountain
from which all students of Chinese have drawn since his time.

Art has had but one representative, an Irish gentleman named George
Chinnery, who resided in Macao from 1825 till his death in 1852. Of Mr
Chinnery's drawings and paintings there are many scattered
collections, on some of which we have been able to draw for the
illustrations in these volumes.

[Illustration: GEORGE CHINNERY.
(_From an oil-painting by himself._)]

FOOTNOTE:

[36] Nomenclature alone sufficiently attests this fact--whether of the
ships that carried them or of the lands they christened, as Natal,
Trinidad, &c. The gigantic cross carved in the granite face of Table
Mountain (it is said) by Vasco da Gama proclaimed to the wide ocean
the sanctity of his mission. English adventurers were strongly imbued
with the same pious spirit. Down to our own day marine policies open
with the words, "In the name of God, Amen"; while the bill of lading,
which within the past generation has become packed with clauses like a
composite Act of Parliament--all tending to absolve the owner from
responsibility as carrier--formerly began with the words, "Shipped by
the grace of God," and ended with the prayer that "God would send the
good ship to her desired port in safety."

CHAPTER XVI.

PIRACY.

Association with Hongkong and Macao -- Activity of British
navy in suppressing piracy -- Its historic importance --
Government relations with pirates -- The convoy system --
Gross abuse -- Hongkong legislation -- Progress of steam
navigation -- Fatal to piracy.

A factor which has done so much to shape commercial intercourse with
China as piracy cannot be properly ignored in a survey like the
present. The settlements of Hongkong and Macao were forced into
contact with this time-honoured institution, for these places are
situated as near to the piratical centre as they are to that of the
typhoon zone. From the time of the first war down to quite recent
years the British squadron on the China station was almost engrossed
in the two duties of surveying the coast and rivers, and of repressing
piracy,--services which were not interrupted even during the progress
of a war with the Imperial Government. Both proceedings were
anomalous, being a usurpation of the sovereign functions of the
Chinese Government. That Government, however, never evinced more than
a languid interest in operations against its piratical subjects.
Piracy, as such, seems indeed to have enjoyed that fatalistic
toleration which the Chinese Government and people are wont to extend
to every species of abuse, on the principle that what cannot be cured
must be endured. Nor is China the only country where banditti have
established with their future victims a conventional relation like
that of certain predatory animals which are said to live on easy terms
with the creatures destined to become their prey. Successful leaders,
whether of brigands or of sea-rovers, have from time to time attained
high political status in the empire. Wingrove Cooke says:--

Whenever anything occurs of historic importance we always
find that some bandit has had a hand in it. The land was
always full of them. When the Tartars possessed themselves
of China, one of these bandit chiefs had just possessed
himself of Peking, and the last of the Ming race had just
hanged himself. It was a pirate who drove the Dutch out of
Formosa; the son of a "celebrated pirate" who helped the
Cantonese to defend their city against the Tartars; and it
was a pirate who the other day destroyed the Portuguese
piratical fleet at Ningpo. In all ages and at all times
China has been coasted by pirates and traversed by bands of
robbers.

In the 'Peking Gazette,' which he quotes, the Imperial Government
itself thus describes the rule of the robbers:--

They carry off persons in order to extort ransoms for them;
they falsely assume the characters of police officers; they
build fast boats professedly to guard the grain-fields, and
into these they put from ten to twenty men, who cruise
along the rivers, violently plundering the boats of
travellers, or forcibly carrying off the wives and
daughters of the _tanka_ boat people. The inhabitants of
the villages and hamlets fear these robbers as they would
tigers, and do not offer them any resistance. The
husbandman must pay these robbers a charge, else as soon as
his crop is ripe it is plundered, and the whole field laid
bare. In the precincts of the metropolis they set fire to
places during the night, that, under pretence of saving and
defending, they may plunder and carry off.

When it suits the Government to enlist rebels or robbers in its
service it condones their misdeeds, and confers on them rank and
honour. The chief of the Black Flags, who kept up a guerilla war
against the French in Tongking, was a recent case in point, as was
also, if report speaks truly, the late gallant Admiral Ting, who
perished in the Chinese forlorn-hope at Weihai-wei in 1895. The
relationship between the authorities and the freebooters is often of
so equivocal a character, that foreign naval officers in their crusade
against pirates may have failed at times to make the proper
discrimination. Vessels seized as pirates occasionally escaped the
fate which should have awaited them by proving themselves revenue
protectors. But if the Government ever suffered from cases of mistaken
identity, the balance was handsomely redressed; for piracy and
smuggling being ingeniously blended, the forces of the British colony
might in their turn be induced, by information supplied by the Chinese
authorities, to act as revenue cruisers, under the belief that they
were being led against pirates. The hard fights resulting in the
destruction of piratical fleets bearing all the evidences of
criminality were, however, too frequent to permit any doubt as to the
general character of the craft so treated.

But the anti-piratical agency was not confined to the commissioned
officers of her Majesty's navy. Foreigners of all nations were drawn
into the coasting traffic, in various capacities, as an antidote to
piracy, with benefit, no doubt, to legitimate trade, yet not without
some serious drawbacks. Dr Eitel tells us that during the first decade
after the war the waters of Hongkong swarmed with pirates, that the
whole coast-line was under the control of a blackmailing confederacy,
and that the peaceful trading junk was obliged to be heavily armed, so
that externally there was nothing to distinguish a trader from a
pirate. During this period European seamen took service with the
native pirates who made Hongkong their headquarters, whence they drew
their supplies, and where they kept themselves informed as to the
movements of valuable merchandise and of war-vessels. Foreigners were
enlisted also in the service of the honest trader; Chinese merchants
began to charter small European sailing-vessels for coasting voyages,
whereby they gained the protection of a European flag, the prestige of
a European crew, and the better sea-going qualities of a European
vessel. Steamers also began to be employed to convoy the native junks.

The extension of the convoy system brought in its train the most
terrible abuses, the class of foreigners so employed being as ready to
sell their services to the pirates as to the merchants, and to turn
from protector to oppressor of the honest trader with as much facility
as Chinese fishermen and pirates interchange their respective parts.
Many tragedies were enacted along the coast and rivers of China--many
more, no doubt, than ever became known to the foreign public. Mr
Medhurst, consul at Shanghai, said that the foreigners employed by the
Chinese to protect their property on the water were guilty of
atrocities of all kinds in the inner waters, which the Chinese
authorities and people were unable to prevent. And Mr Adkins, consul
at Chinkiang on the Yangtze, reported in the same year, 1862, a
series of brutal murders committed by foreigners on the river, with
which the native authorities declined to interfere. The criminals, not
being amenable to any jurisdiction but their own, were thus left free
to commit their outrages, unless some representative of their own
country happened to be on the spot. The Taiping rebellion attracted
desperate characters from all quarters, to whom it was a matter of
indifference under what flag they served--pillage being their sole
inducement. The only conspicuous case of trial of a foreigner for
piracy was that of a young American, Eli Boggs, who was condemned in
the Supreme Court of Hongkong in 1857, and sentenced to transportation
for life. From such experiences it is to be apprehended that should
any part of the Chinese empire become disorganised, lawless foreigners
will be a more terrible scourge to the inhabitants than even the
native pirates and bandits.

Of the abuses developed by the convoy system, and of the character of
the foreigners concerned therein, a graphic yet matter-of-fact account
is given by Wingrove Cooke. As the state of rampant lawlessness which
prevailed at the time on the China coast, and the traditional attitude
of the Government towards freebooters, are so perfectly illustrated in
his concise narrative of the destruction of a Portuguese convoy, no
apology is needed for quoting a passage or two from Mr Cooke's letter
dated Ningpo, August 24, 1857:--

The fishing-boats which ply off the mouth of the river Yung
pay convoy duties to the extent of 50,000 dollars a-year;
and the wood-junks that ply between Ningpo and Foochow, and
the other native craft, raise the annual payment for
protection to 200,000 dollars (£70,000) annually. These
figures are startling, but I have taken pains to ascertain
their correctness.

The vessels employed in this convoy service were Portuguese
lorchas. These vessels were well armed and equipped. There
were no mandarin junks and no Portuguese ships of war to
cope with them or control them, and they became masters of
this part of the coast. It is in the nature of things that
these privateers should abuse their power. They are accused
of the most frightful atrocities. It is alleged that they
made descents upon villages, carried off the women,
murdered the men, and burnt the habitations. They became
infinitely greater scourges than the pirates they were paid
to repel. It is alleged, also, that complaints to the
Portuguese consul were vain; that Portuguese sailors taken
red-handed and handed over to this consul were suffered to
escape from the consular prison. Rightly or wrongly, the
Chinese thought that the consul was in complicity with the
ruffians who were acting both as convoy and as pirates....
The leader of the pirate fleet was--I am going back now to
a time three years ago--a Cantonese named A'Pak. The
authorities at Ningpo, in their weakness, determined to
make terms with him rather than submit to the tyranny of
the Portuguese.

A'Pak was made a mandarin of the third class; and his
fleet--not altogether taken into Government pay, for that
the Chinese could not afford--was nominally made over to
A'Pak's brother.... After a few of these very sanguinary
provocations, A'Pak--not, it is believed, without the
concurrence of the Taotai of Ningpo--determined to destroy
this Portuguese convoy fleet.

For this purpose A'Pak's brother collected his snake-boats
and convoy junks from along the whole coast, and assembled
about twenty of them, and perhaps 500 men. The Portuguese
were not long in hearing of these preparations, but they
seem to have been struck with panic. Some of their vessels
went south, some were taken at the mouth of the river.
Seven lorchas took refuge up the river, opposite the
Portuguese consulate. The sailors on board these lorchas
landed some of their big guns, and put the consulate in a
state of defence, and perhaps hoped that the neighbourhood
of the European houses and the character of the consulate
would prevent an attack. Not so. On the day I have above
mentioned the Canton fleet came up the river. The
Portuguese consul immediately fled. The lorchas fired one
broadside at them as they approached, and then the crews
deserted their vessels and made for the shore. About 200
Cantonese, accompanied by a few Europeans, followed these
140 Portuguese and Manila-men ashore. A fight took place in
the streets. It was of very short duration, for the
Portuguese behaved in the most dastardly manner. The
Manila-men showed some spirit, but the Portuguese could not
even persuade themselves to fight for their lives behind
the walls of their consulate. The fortified house was taken
and sacked by these Chinamen, the Portuguese were pursued
among the tombs, where they sought refuge, and forty of
them were shot down, or hunted and butchered with
spears....

Merciless as this massacre was, and little as is the choice
between the two sets of combatants, it must be owned that
the Cantonese acted with purpose and discipline. Three
trading Portuguese lorchas which lay in the river with
their flags flying were not molested; and no European, not
a Portuguese, was even insulted by the infuriated butchers.
The stories current of Souero and his Portuguese followers
rivalled the worst of the tales of the buccaneers, and
public opinion in Ningpo and the foreign settlement was
strongly in favour of the Cantonese.

But if Hongkong was the centre of piratical organisation, it was also
the centre of effort to put it down. The exploits of her Majesty's
ships, destroying many thousands of heavily-armed piratical junks,
were loyally supplemented by the legislation and the police of the
Colonial Government, which were continuously directed towards the
extermination of piracy. These measures, however, did not appear to
make any material impression on the pest. As part of his general
policy of suppressing crime, the most drastic steps were taken by Sir
Richard MacDonnell against pirates. He struck at the root of the evil
within the colony itself by penalising the receivers of stolen goods,
and by a stricter surveillance over all Chinese vessels frequenting
the harbour. He also endeavoured to secure the co-operation of the
Chinese Government, without which no permanent success could be hoped
for. This was not, indeed, the first time that Chinese co-operation
had been invoked. In one of the hardest fought actions against a
piratical stronghold--that of Sheipu Bay, near Ningpo, in 1856--her
Majesty's brig Bittern was towed into action through the bottle-neck
of the bay by a Chinese-owned steamer. But the assistance rendered to
the Government of Hongkong by the steam-cruisers of the Chinese
customs service was of too ambiguous a character to be of real use,
smugglers rather than pirates being the object of the Chinese
pursuit--smugglers of whom the high Chinese officials had good reason
to be jealous.

The result of the police activity and of regulations for the coast
traffic was a great diminution in the number of piracy cases brought
before colonial magistrates. This, however, by itself was not
conclusive as to the actual decrease of the crime, for it may only
have indicated a change of strategy forced on the pirates by the
vigorous action of the Colonial Government. Foreign vessels were by no
means exempt from the attentions of the piratical fleets, though they
seldom fell a prey to open assault at sea. A different form of tactics
was resorted to where foreigners were the object of attack: it was to
embark as passengers a number of the gang with arms secreted, who rose
at a signal and massacred the ship's officers. Even after steam
vessels had virtually superseded sailers on the coast this device was
too often successful through want of care on the part of the master.
These attacks were carried out with great skill and daring, sometimes
on the short passage of forty miles between Hongkong and Macao, and in
several instances almost within the harbour limits of Hongkong itself.

While awarding full credit to the indefatigable exertions of the
British squadron in China--the only one that ever troubled itself in
such matters--and to the unremitting efforts of the colony of
Hongkong, the reduction, if not the extinction, of armed piracy on the
coast of China must be attributed largely to the commercial
development, in which the extension of the use of steam has played the
principal part. Organised by foreigners, and employed by Chinese,
lines of powerful steamers have gradually monopolised the valuable
traffic, thus rendering the calling of the buccaneer obsolete and
profitless. Foreign traders, however, do well not to forget the debt
they owe to the institution which they have superseded. But for the
pirates, and the scarcely less piratical exactions of officials, the
Chinese would not have sought the assistance and the protection of
foreign men, foreign ships, or foreign steamers. Piracy has thus not
only worked towards its own cure, but has helped to inaugurate an era
of prosperous trade, based on the consolidation of the interests of
Chinese and foreigners, such as may foreshadow further developments in
which the same elements of success may continue in fruitful
combination.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE ARROW WAR, 1856-1860.

Lorchas -- Outrage on the Arrow -- Question of access to
city -- Tone of British Foreign Office -- Firm tone of
British Government -- Destruction of Canton factories and
flight of foreign residents -- Operations in river.

From the earliest days of the British occupation it had been the aim
of the Canton authorities to destroy the "junk" trade of Hongkong by
obstructive regulations, for which the supplementary treaty of 1843
afforded them a certain warrant. But as the Chinese began to settle in
large numbers on the island the claims of free commerce asserted
themselves, and gradually made headway against the restrictive schemes
of the mandarins. The Government fostered the legitimate commercial
ambition of the Chinese colonists by passing ordinances whereby they
were enabled to register vessels of their own, sail them under the
British flag, and trade to such ports as were open to British
shipping. Certificates of registry were granted only to men of
substance and respectability who were lessees of Crown land in the
colony. The class of vessel for which colonial registers were granted
was of native build and rig, more or less modified, of good sea-going
qualities, known by the local name of lorcha. Naturally the Canton
authorities looked askance at any measure aimed at the liberation of
trade, and so truculent an imperial commissioner as Yeh was not likely
to miss an opportunity of wreaking vengeance on the "native-born" who
dared to exercise privileges derived from residence in the hateful
colony.

One of these registered vessels was the Arrow, commanded by an
Englishman and manned by Chinese. This vessel was in the course of her
traffic boarded at Canton at midday on October 8, 1856, by order of
the Chinese authorities, with marked official ostentation, her crew
forcibly carried off on a charge, according to a Chinese version, "of
being in collusion with barbarians," and her ensign hauled down. How
this outrage on the British flag was perpetrated, how resisted, and
what came of it, have been so often set forth that there is no need to
dwell upon the details here. The traditional insolence of the Chinese
was reasserted in all its virulence, as in the days of Commissioner
Lin, and once more the British agents were confronted with the dilemma
of aggravating past griefs by submission or of putting their foot down
and ending them. A single-minded and courageous man was in charge of
British interests in Canton, and, left with a free hand, there could
be no doubting the line Mr Parkes would take. The decision, however,
lay with Sir John Bowring, governor of Hongkong, her Majesty's
plenipotentiary and superintendent of trade, and with the naval
commander-in-chief, Sir Michael Seymour.

We have seen that the likelihood of sooner or later having to clear
accounts with the authorities of Canton had not been absent from the
mind of her Majesty's Government for some years previously, though by
no initial act of their own would they have brought the question to a
crisis. If the governor entertained doubts whether the Arrow insult
furnished adequate provocation, his decision was materially helped by
the deadlock in relations which followed. A simple _amende_ for the
indignity offered to the flag was asked for, such as the Chinese were
adepts in devising without "losing face"; but all discussion was
refused; the viceroy would not admit any foreign official to a
personal conference. The small Arrow question thus became merged in
the larger one of access to the city, and to the provincial
authorities, which had on various pretexts been denied to the British
representatives in contravention of the treaty of 1842.

It happened that the question had lately assumed a somewhat definite
place in the agenda of the British plenipotentiary. Lord Clarendon had
in 1854 instructed Sir John Bowring to take any opportunity of
bringing the "city question" to a solution, and Sir John addressed a
long despatch to Commissioner Yeh on the subject in April of that
year. It had no effect, and was followed up a few months later by an
effort in another direction. The turbulent character of the Cantonese
people and the impracticable arrogance of the imperial officers who
successively held office there had often prompted an appeal to Cæsar,
and more than one attempt had been made in times gone by to submit the
Canton grievances to the judgment of the Imperial Court. These
attempts were inspired by a total misconception of the relations
between the provinces and the capital. In the year 1854, however, it
was decided to renew the effort to open direct communications with the
Imperial Government. And circumstances seemed to promise a more
favourable issue to the mission than had attended preceding ones. The
time had come when a revision of the tariff and commercial articles of
the treaties might be claimed, and besides the standing grievance at
Canton there were sundry matters in connection with the fulfilment of
the treaties which together constituted a justifying pretext for an
unarmed expedition to the Peiho. The chances of a favourable reception
were thought to be strengthened by the combination of the Treaty
Powers. Sir John Bowring and the American Minister, Mr McLane,
accordingly went together, with a competent staff of interpreters, to
Tientsin, where they were soon followed by the French secretary of
Legation.

High officials were appointed to treat with them, because it was
feared that if some courtesy were not shown them the barbarians would
return south and join the rebels, who were then threatening the
southern provinces. But the net result of the mission was that it was
allowed to depart in peace. Lord Elgin, commenting on the proceedings,
sums up the instructions to the Chinese officials, gathered from the
secret reports afterwards discovered, as, "Get rid of the barbarians,"
which would be an equally exhaustive rendering of all the instructions
ever given to Chinese plenipotentiaries. On the occasion of this visit
to the Peiho the foreign plenipotentiaries resorted, as had been done
on sundry previous occasions, to the oriental custom of approaching a
great man gift in hand. In the depleted condition of the imperial
treasury they calculated that the recovery of the duties unpaid
during the recent interregnum at Shanghai would be a tempting bait to
the Peking Government. The offer, however, could not, it would appear,
be intelligibly conveyed to the minds of the northern functionaries:
unacquainted with commercial affairs, and misconstruing the proposal
as a plea for the forgiveness of arrears, they at once conceded the
sop to Cerberus, pleased to have such a convenient way of closing the
mouths of the barbarians.

In December following a favourable opportunity seemed to present
itself for renewing the attack on the exclusiveness of Canton. The
Taiping rebels had blockaded the river, and in a "pitched battle"
defeated the imperialist fleet and were actually threatening the city.
In this emergency Yeh implored the aid of the English forces. Sir John
Bowring thereupon proceeded to Canton with a naval force of five ships
to protect the foreign factories, the presence of the squadron having
at the same time the desired deterrent effect on the rebels, who
withdrew their forces. Now at last the governor felt confident that
the barrier to intercourse was removed, and he applied to the viceroy
for an interview; but Yeh remained obdurate, refused audience as
before, and with all the old contumely. Precisely the same thing had
happened in the north in 1853, when the governor of Kiangsu applied
through Consul Alcock to the superintendent of trade, Sir George
Bonham, for the assistance of one of her Majesty's ships in defending
Nanking against the expected attack of the Taipings. Divers
communications of like tenor had, during several months, led up to
this definite application. The appeal was most urgent, and yet in the
title given to her Majesty's plenipotentiary the two important
characters had been omitted, indicating that his power emanated from
the ruler of an "independent sovereign state." "Such an omission,"
remarked Mr Alcock, "is characteristic of the race we have to deal
with, for even in a time of danger to the national existence they
cannot suppress their arrogance and contempt for barbarians." Arrogant
and contemptuous of course they were, and yet it may perhaps be
questioned whether such terms fully explain the mutilation of the
plenipotentiary's official titles. Although they had been compelled by
mechanical force to accord titles implying equality to foreign
officials, yet in the innermost conviction of the Chinese an
independent sovereign State was at that time almost unthinkable, and
could only be expressed by a solecism. If, therefore, we ask how an
imperial commissioner could demean himself by soliciting protection
from the barbarians to whom he was denying the scantiest courtesy, we
have to consider the point of view from which China had from time
immemorial and without challenge regarded all the outer States. For it
is the point of view that is paradoxical. To Yeh, considering
barbarians merely as refractory subjects, there was no inconsistence
in commanding their aid, while denying their requests. The position is
analogous to that of Ultramontanes, who claim tolerance for themselves
in heretical communities by a divine right which excludes the idea of
reciprocity. This key to the history of foreign intercourse with China
is too often forgotten.

Nothing daunted, Sir John returned to the charge in June 1855, on the
occasion of the appointment of the new consul, Mr Alcock, whom he
asked permission to introduce to the Imperial Commissioner. His letter
was not even acknowledged for a month, and then in the usual
contemptuous terms.

So far, indeed, from Yeh's being mollified by the assistance
indirectly accorded to him in defending the city from rebel attack, or
by the succession of respectful appeals made to him by Sir John
Bowring, a new campaign of aggression was inaugurated against the
lives and liberties of the foreign residents in Canton. This followed
the traditional course. Inflammatory placards denouncing foreigners,
and holding them up to the odium of the populace, were extensively
posted about the city and suburbs in the summer of 1856. These, as
usual, were followed by personal attacks on isolated Englishmen found
defenceless, and, following the precedents of ten years before, the
outbreaks of anti-foreign feeling in Canton found their echo also in
Foochow, where an American gentleman met his death in a riot which was
got up there in July. So serious was the situation becoming that Mr
Consul Parkes, who had succeeded Mr Alcock in June, solemnly warned
the Imperial Commissioner that such acts, if not promptly
discountenanced by the authorities (who of course were well known to
be the instigators), must inevitably lead to deplorable consequences.
The Chinese reply to this remonstrance was the outrage on the lorcha
Arrow. To isolate that incident, therefore, would be wholly to miss
the significance of it: it would be to mistake the match for the mine.

Those who were on the spot and familiar with antecedent events could
have no doubt whatever that, in condoning the present insults, the
British authorities would have invited greater and always greater, as
in the days of Lin. The tone of recent despatches from the Foreign
Office fortified the governor in taking a strong resolution; the
clearness of Consul Parkes' view made also a deep impression on him;
and yet another factor should not be altogether overlooked which
contributed its share in bringing the two responsible officials to a
definite decision. It was not an unknown phenomenon in public life
that two functionaries whose co-operation was essential should
mistrust each other. This was distinctly the case with Sir John
Bowring and Sir Michael Seymour. They needed some connecting medium to
make them mutually intelligible, and it was found in the influence of
local public opinion. The mercantile community, which for twenty
years, or as long as they had had utterance, had never wavered in the
conviction that in strength alone lay their safety, were to a man for
vigorous measures at Canton. And it happened that, scarcely perceived
either by themselves or by the other parties concerned, they possessed
a special channel for bringing the force of their views to bear on the
two responsible men. Sir John Bowring had himself deplored "the
enormous influence wielded by the great and opulent commercial houses"
when adverse to his projects. He was now to experience that influence
in another sense, without perhaps recognising it, for when the wind is
fair it makes slight impression on those whose sails it fills.

Among the business houses in China two stood pre-eminent. One had a
son of the plenipotentiary for partner; both were noted for their
princely hospitality, especially to officers of the navy. "Those
princely merchants, Dent & Co., as well as Matheson," writes Admiral
Keppel in his Diary, "kept open house. They lived in palaces." One of
the two buildings occupied by the former firm, "Kiying House," which
some twenty years later became the Hongkong Hotel, was as good as a
naval club for all ranks, while admirals and post-captains found snug
anchorage within the adjoining domain of the seniors of the firm. The
two great houses did not always pull together, but on this occasion
their separate action, converging on a single point, was more
effectual than any half-hearted combination could have been. Night
after night was the question of Canton discussed with slow
deliberation and accumulating emphasis in the executive and the
administrative, the naval and the political, camps respectively.
Conviction was imbibed with the claret and cheroots, and it was not
altogether without reason that what followed has sometimes been called
the "Merchants' War."

The die was cast. The great Canton bubble, the bugbear of a succession
of British Governments and representatives, was at last to be pricked,
though with a delay which, however regrettable at the time, perhaps
conduced to greater thoroughness in the long-run. Those of our readers
who desire to trace the various operations against Canton during the
twelve months which followed cannot do better than consult Mr Stanley
Lane-Poole's 'Life of Sir Harry Parkes,' the volume of 'Times'
correspondence by that sage observer and vivacious narrator, Mr
Wingrove Cooke, and the delightful sailors book recently published by
Vice-Admiral Sir W. R. Kennedy. The campaign unfolded itself in a
drama of surprises. The force at the admiral's disposal being too
small to follow up the initial movement against the city, which gave
no sign of yielding by first intention, Sir Michael Seymour had to
content himself with intimating to the Viceroy Yeh that,
notwithstanding his Excellency's interdict, he had, with a guard of
bluejackets, visited the Viceregal Yamên; and with keeping hostilities
alive by a blockade of the river while awaiting reinforcements.

The Arrow incident occurred in October. In December the foreign
factories were burned by the Chinese, and the Viceroy Yeh issued
proclamations offering rewards for English heads. The mercantile
community retired to Hongkong, a few to the quieter retreat of Macao.
The vengeance of Commissioner Yeh pursued them exactly as that of
Commissioner Lin had done in 1839. Assassinations were not infrequent
on the outskirts of the city of Victoria; and in January 1857 the
principal baker in the colony was induced to put a sack of arsenic
into his morning supply of bread, which only failed of its effect
through the excess of the dose acting as an emetic.

The early portion of the year 1857 was enlivened by active operations
in hunting out Chinese war-junks in the various creeks and branches of
the river, commenced by Commodore Elliot and continued on a brilliant
scale by Commodore H. Keppel, who arrived opportunely in the frigate
Raleigh, of which he speaks with so much pride and affection in his
Memoirs. That fine vessel, however, was lost on a rock approaching
Macao, sinking in shallow water in the act of saluting the French
flag, a war vessel of that nationality having been descried in the
anchorage. The commodore and his officers and crew, thus detached,
were soon accommodated with small craft good for river service, and in
a very short time they made a memorable cutting-out expedition as far
as the city of Fatshan, destroying formidable and well-posted fleets
of war-junks in what the commodore described as "one of the prettiest
boat actions recorded in naval history." Sir W. Kennedy served as a
midshipman in those expeditions, and his descriptions supply a
much-needed supplement to that of the Admiral of the Fleet, correcting
it in some particulars and filling in the gaps in a wonderfully
realistic manner. No adequate estimate can be formed of the importance
of the year's operations in the Canton river without reading Admiral
Kennedy's brilliant but simple story.

The Canton imbroglio made the kind of impression that such occurrences
are apt to do in England. The merits of the case being usually
ignored, the bare incidents furnish convenient weapons with which to
assail the Government that happens to be in office. Under such
conditions statements can be made and arguments applied with all the
freedom of a debating club. The Arrow trouble occasioned a temporary
fusion of the most incongruous elements in English politics. When Lord
Derby, Lord Lyndhurst, Bishop Wilberforce, Mr Cobden, Mr Bright, Mr
Gladstone, and Mr Disraeli were found banded together as one man, it
was neither common knowledge nor any sincere interest in the question
at issue, but "unanimosity" towards the Premier, that inspired them.
The Opposition orators took their brief from the published despatches
of Commissioner Yeh, which they assumed as the starting-point of the
China question, and found no difficulty whatever in discovering all
the nobility and good faith on the Chinese side, the perfidy and
brutality on the side of the British representative. Though successful
in carrying a vote of censure on the Government, the attitude of the
Coalition did not impress the public, and Lord Palmerston's appeal to
the electorate was responded to by his being returned to power by a
large majority.

How very little the question itself affected public men in England may
be inferred from the notices of it in the Memoirs, since published, of
leading statesmen of the period. The fate of China, or of British
commerce there, was not in their minds at all, their horizon being
bounded by the immediate fate of the Ministry, to them the be-all and
end-all of national policy. What deplorable consequences all over the
world have arisen from the insouciance of British statesmen as regards
all matters outside the arena of their party conflicts!

Sir John Bowring was made the scapegoat of the war. A philosophical
Radical, he had been president of the Peace Society, and his quondam
friends could not forgive a doctrinaire who yielded to the stern logic
of facts. As consul at Canton he had had better opportunities of
studying the question of intercourse with the Chinese than any holder
of his office either before or since his time. No one had worked more
persistently for the exercise of the right of entry into Canton.
Superseded in the office of plenipotentiary by the appointment of the
Earl of Elgin as High Commissioner for Great Britain, Sir John Bowring
remained Governor of Hongkong, and it fell to him to "do the honours"
to his successor, from whom he received scant consideration. Indeed
Lord Elgin made no secret of his aversion to the colony and all its
concerns, and marked his feeling towards the governor by determining
that he should never see the city of Canton--that Promised Land so
soon to be opened to the world through Sir John's instrumentality.

I. THE EARL OF ELGIN AND HIS MISSION.

Capture of Canton -- The Treaty of Tientsin -- Comments on
the treaty -- Sequel to the treaty -- Omission to visit
Peking -- Comments thereon -- How to deal with Chinese --
Commissioners to Shanghai to negotiate the tariff -- Two
pressing questions to be settled -- Delay of Commissioners'
arrival -- Resentment of Lord Elgin and change of tactics
re Canton -- Canton question same as Chinese question --
Chinese demand for abandonment of Resident Minister -- Lord
Elgin's assent -- Comments thereon -- Treaty with Japan --
The Taku disaster.

The transports bringing the troops from England were meanwhile
hurrying at top speed--not in those days a very high one--round the
Cape of Good Hope, and the navy was being reinforced by several
powerful ships, including the mosquito squadron of gunboats which were
destined to play so useful a part, first in the operations of war, and
subsequently in patrolling the coast and rivers for the protection of
peaceful traders. Lord Elgin's arrival in Hongkong, coinciding in time
with that of the frigates Shannon, commanded by Sir William Peel, and
Pearl, Captain Sotheby, put heart into the long-suffering British
community at the port. But sinister news from India had reached Lord
Elgin on his voyage to China, in consequence of which, and on the
urgent request of the Governor-General, he took on himself to
intercept the troopships wherever they could be met with, and turn
their course to Calcutta. Before he had been many days in Hongkong,
foreseeing an indefinite period of inaction in China, and being
obliged in any case to wait the arrival of his French colleague,
without whom no French co-operation could be had, Lord Elgin
determined to proceed himself to Calcutta, taking with him the two
frigates Shannon and Pearl. This welcome reinforcement not only
arrived opportunely in India, but, as is well known, did heroic
service in throwing back the tide of mutiny.

Fortune seemed in all this to be favouring the Chinese, nothing more
hurtful threatening them than a passive blockade of the Canton river
and its branches. But a fresh expedition was promptly despatched from
England to take the place of that which had been diverted to India. A
body of 1500 marines arrived in the autumn, and on them, supplemented
by the Hongkong garrison, devolved the duty of bringing China to
terms, the navy, of course, being the essential arm in all these
operations.

Lord Elgin returned to China in ample time to meet the French
plenipotentiary, Baron Gros. His lordship's policy had from the first
been an interesting theme for speculation, not less so as the time for
putting it in force drew near. It had been surmised that his object
would be to leave Canton alone, and set out on another wild-goose
chase to the north. That so futile a scheme should not be carried out
without at least a protest, the mercantile community met Lord Elgin on
his arrival in June with an address couched in the following terms:--

We venture upon no opinion at present respecting the
readjustment of our relations with the empire at large,
though always prepared to hold our advice and experience at
your lordship's command; but upon that branch of the
question which we distinguish as the "Canton difficulty" we
would take this, the earliest opportunity, of recording our
opinion--an opinion founded upon long, reluctant, and, we
may add, traditional experience--that any compromise of it,
or any sort of settlement which shall stop short of the
complete humiliation of the Cantonese,--which shall fail to
teach them a wholesome respect for the obligations of their
own Government in its relations with independent Powers,
and a more hospitable reception of the foreigner who
resorts to their shores for the peaceable purposes of
trade,--will only result in further suffering to themselves
and further disastrous interruptions to us.

Many of us have already been heavy sufferers by the present
difficulty. It must be apparent to your lordship that our
best interests lie upon the side of peace, and upon the
earliest solid peace that can be obtained. But,
notwithstanding this, we would most earnestly deprecate any
settlement of the question which should not have eliminated
from it the very last element of future disorder.

The meaning of these weighty words, as interpreted by Wingrove Cooke,
was, "You must take Canton, my lord, and negotiate at Peking with
Canton in your possession." And he adds, "Such is the opinion of every
one here, from the highest to the lowest." We learn from his private
letters that it was by no means the opinion of the new plenipotentiary.
"The course I am about to follow," he writes, "does not square with
the views of the merchants." Yet his reply to their address was so
diplomatic that he was able to say "it gave them for the moment
wonderful satisfaction." The editor of Lord Elgin's letters suppresses
the rest of the sentence. The new plenipotentiary hoped even "to
conclude a treaty in Shanghai, and hasten home afterwards,"--a hope
which could only coexist with an entire disregard of our whole
previous experience in China; almost, one might argue, with an entire
ignorance of the record.[37]

On his return from India, however, and on the assembling of the Allied
forces, he found that the course prescribed by history and
common-sense was, after all, the only practical one to follow, and
that was to commence hostilities at Canton. Yet Lord Elgin seems to
have submitted to the inexorable demands of circumstances with no very
good grace. Indeed his attitude towards the Canton overture and his
mission generally was decidedly anomalous. The two leading ideas
running through the published portion of his correspondence were, "It
revolts me, but I do it"; and, "Get the wretched business over and
hurry home." Lord Elgin's mental constitution, as such, is of no
interest to us except as it affected his acts and left its impress on
the national interests in China. From that point of view, however, it
is public property, and as much an ingredient in the history as any
other quality of the makers of it. First, we find him at variance with
the Government which commissioned him, in that he speaks with shame of
his mission: "That wretched question of the Arrow is a scandal to us."
Why? Her Majesty's Government had deliberated maturely on the Arrow
question, had referred it to their law officers, had concluded it was
a good case, and had written unreservedly in that sense to their
representative in China. Was it, then, greater knowledge, or superior
judgment, that inspired Lord Elgin to an opposite opinion? And in
either case would it not have been better to have had the point
cleared up before undertaking the mission?

But, in point of fact, the Arrow question was not the question with
which Lord Elgin had to deal, as it had long before been merged, as we
have said, into the much larger one of our official relations with
China.

The truth seems to be that Lord Elgin came to China filled with the
conviction that in all our disputes the Chinese had been the oppressed
and we the oppressors. Of our intercourse with them he had nothing
more complimentary or more definite to say than that it was
"scandalous." For his own countrymen he had never a good word, for the
Chinese nothing but good--until they came into collision with himself,
when they at once became "fools and tricksters." Having assembled a
hostile force in front of Canton, he writes, December 22, 1857, "I
never felt so ashamed of myself in my life.... When I look at that
town I feel that I am earning for myself a place in the Litany
immediately after 'plague, pestilence, and famine.'" Becoming
gradually reconciled to events, however, he writes, "If we can take
the city without much massacre I shall think the job a good one,
because no doubt the relations of the Cantonese with the foreign
population were very unsatisfactory." But why "massacre," much or
little? It was but a phantasy of his own he was thus deprecating. The
curious point is, however, that Lord Elgin imagined that everybody was
bent on this massacre except himself, and when all was over, and
"there never was a Chinese town which suffered so little by the
occupation of a hostile force," he appropriates the whole credit for
this satisfactory issue! "If," he writes, "Yeh had surrendered on the
mild demand made upon him, I should have brought on my head the
imprecations both of the navy and the army, and of the civilians, the
time being given by the missionaries and the women." An insinuation so
purely hypothetical and so sweeping would not be seriously considered
in any relation of life whatsoever; but no one who knows either the
navy or the army would hesitate to affirm that the humanity of every
officer and man in these services was as much beyond reproach as Lord
Elgin's own, albeit it might assume a different form of expression.
When the city, "doomed to destruction from the folly of its own rulers
and the vanity and levity of ours," had been occupied, and the bugbear
of massacre had vanished, the object of Lord Elgin's sympathies became
shifted: "I could not help feeling melancholy when I thought that we
were so ruthlessly destroying"--not the place or the people, but--"the
prestige of a place which has been for so many centuries intact and
undefiled by the stranger." Had he written this after witnessing some
of the horrors of the city described by Wingrove Cooke, possibly these
regrets for its defilement might have been less poignant. But though
reverence for the mere antiquity of China is a most salutary lesson to
inculcate in these our days, it is pathetic to see the particular man
whose mission was to humble her historical prestige tortured by
compunctions for what he is doing. One is tempted to wish the "job"
had been intrusted to more commonplace hands.

Some of those English officials by whose vanity and levity the "city
was doomed to destruction" were also writing their private letters,
and this was the purport. "I confidently hope," wrote Mr Parkes,
before Lord Elgin's first arrival in China, "that a satisfactory
adjustment of all difficulties may be attained with a slight effusion
of blood. Canton, it is true, must fall. I see no hope of any
arrangement being arrived at without this primary step being effected,
but I trust that with the fall of that city hostilities may end, and
that the emperor may then consent to receive a representative at
Peking." However, as soon as he gets to actual business with the
Chinese, Lord Elgin finds that he also has to be stern even as others.
As early as January 10, 1858, a week after the occupation of the city,
"I addressed the governor in a pretty arrogant tone. I did so out of
kindness, as I now know what fools they are, and what calamities they
bring upon themselves, or rather on the wretched people, by their
pride and trickery." But what the novice was only beginning to find
out the veterans had learned years before.[38]

His attitude to his countrymen generally is scarcely less censorious
than towards the officials who had borne, and were yet to bear, the
burden and heat of the day in China. From Calcutta he wrote:--

It is a terrible business being among inferior races. I
have seldom from man or woman since I came to the East
heard a sentence which was reconcilable with the hypothesis
that Christianity had ever come into the world.
Detestation, contempt, ferocity, vengeance, whether
Chinamen or Indians be the object.

From China:--

The whole world just now is raving mad with a passion for
killing and slaying, and it is difficult for a person in
his sober senses, like myself, to keep his own among them.

Again:--

I have seen more to disgust me with my fellow-countrymen
than I saw during the whole course of my previous life....
I have an instinct in me which loves righteousness and
hates iniquity, and all this keeps me in a perpetual
boil.... The tone of the two or three men connected with
mercantile houses in China whom I find on board is all for
blood and massacre on a great scale.

The perennial fallacy that underlies the "one-righteous-man" theory
from the days of Elijah the Tishbite downwards, and the ineptitude of
all indiscriminate invective, would be sufficient answer to such
sweeping maledictions. Below these ebullitions of the surface,
however, there lay a grave misgiving in Lord Elgin's mind concerning
his mission as a whole, in which many thoughtful people must have
shared: "Whose work are we engaged in when we burst thus with hideous
violence and brutal energy into these darkest and most mysterious
recesses of the traditions of the past?" This was written at Tientsin
after the passage of the forts, and it is well worth recalling, now
that the vultures of Europe are wheeling round the moribund empire.

Canton city was occupied by the Allies on January 2, 1858.
Commissioner Yeh was captured, carried on board the paddle-sloop
Inflexible, and conveyed to Calcutta, where he eventually died. His
absence made it easier to deal with the other authorities. He is
perhaps the only Chinese official who has ever been made personally
responsible for attacks on foreigners.

A provisional government was established under three commissioners
nominated by the Allied commanders-in-chief, though in fact the labour
and responsibility rested solely on one of the three, Mr Parkes.
Having induced the native governor, Pikwei, to resume his functions
and administer the affairs of the city, under supervision, order was
partially established, and the chiefs, diplomatic and military,
withdrew--much too abruptly, it was generally thought--to prepare an
expedition to the north.

But the commissioners were left with inadequate forces to maintain
order, fettered as they were by instructions which rendered them
immobile. The British admiral, after nearly a year and a half's
experience in the river, might have known something of the Canton
problem, while the Allied plenipotentiaries apparently understood
nothing of it. This was shown by what contemporary opinion designated
Lord Elgin's "first symptom of weakness." When the figurehead Pikwei
was brought from his prison to be invested with authority under the
Allied commanders he coolly claimed precedence of the English admiral
and general, and Lord Elgin, contrary to his own pre-arrangement of
seats, &c., conceded the claim, thereby striking the keynote of the
relations which were to exist between the Allied commissioners and the
Chinese officials. Lord Elgin had occasion to remember this when, in
1860, Prince Kung tried to lead him into a similar trap, whereby he
himself would have been relegated to a second place. The result of
these arrangements was very much what might have been expected.
Finding the foreign garrison passive, the turbulent elements in the
city and the surrounding villages soon began to fan the embers of
their former fires. They refused to consider themselves conquered, and
set about reorganising their forces as they had done on previous
occasions, and, beginning with secret schemes of assassination, they
became emboldened by impunity, and by-and-by mustered courage to
attack and annoy the garrison of the city, which was as helpless to
repel insults as the mounted sentries at the Horse Guards. The army of
occupation was besieged, the prestige of the capture of the city was
in a few months wholly dissipated, and the officials and gentry
affected to believe that the barbarians were only in the river, their
presence in the city being ostentatiously ignored in public
correspondence. During the whole of the year 1858 the cry went up
continuously from the commissioners and military commanders, but it
remained practically unheeded by the chiefs in the far north, except
in so far that they drew still shorter the tether of the beleaguered
force, in order that they might avoid all possible collision with
their Chinese assailants. Lord Elgin at first deemed the turbulence at
Canton a good reason for effecting a speedy settlement with the
Imperial Government; but, as we shall see presently, that settlement
when made had no influence at all upon either the Government
officials or the gentry and populace of that city. The solution of the
Canton problem was found in an entirely different direction.

It may be mentioned here that besides the administration of the city,
several important matters of business were arranged during the
commissionership of Mr Parkes. There was the question of the site at
Shameen for the future residence of foreigners; and the regulation of
coolie emigration, which had been carried on in an unsatisfactory
manner; and last, not least, the first lease of Kowloon, on the
mainland facing Hongkong, and forming one side of the harbour. This
important concession, as already said, was negotiated on the sole
initiative of Mr Parkes, the military authorities being talked into it
afterwards. It was the first response to the demand of Wingrove Cooke,
Why we had not taken possession of the peninsula of Kowloon, for "if
any other Powers should do so--and what is to prevent them--the
harbour of Hongkong is lost to us." Several important exploratory
expeditions were also undertaken in 1859, in which Parkes was
everywhere warmly received by officials and people, one of these
excursions being far up the West river, the opening of which, however,
to foreign trade remained in abeyance for forty years thereafter.

[Illustration: ROADS AND WATERWAYS BETWEEN PEKING AND TIENTSIN.]

The next object of the plenipotentiaries, of course, was to negotiate
at Peking, or wherever properly accredited negotiators could be met
with, Canton being held in pledge. Progress was slow, because the
fleet was so largely composed of sailing-vessels, which must wait for
the fair monsoon; and the plenipotentiaries did not assemble within
the river Peiho--the forts at its mouth having been silenced and the
guns captured--until June. There followed Lord Elgin to Tientsin the
French, American, and Russian Ministers, all bent on making treaties
and on observing each other. The resources of Chinese resistance
having been provisionally exhausted, imperial commissioners came to
arrest the further progress of the foreigners by negotiations, or, to
speak with strict accuracy, to concede the minimum that was necessary
to induce them to depart. Such, we may be sure, was the beginning and
the end of their instructions then, as it was afterwards. The work of
negotiation, so far as the form went, seems to have fallen to Mr H. N.
Lay, whose place was very soon to know him no more; but, in the words
of Lord Elgin, "anybody could have made the treaty."

The contents of the treaty, signed June 26, 1858, fulfilled the
instructions of Lord Clarendon, and the commercial articles which
constituted its main body corresponded substantially with the
desiderata of the merchants as set forth in their memorials in
response to the invitation of Lord Elgin, the treaty going in advance
of their demands on certain points and falling short of them on
others. Opium was not mentioned, but was afterwards placed on the
tariff; and a toleration clause for the Christian religion was
inserted, without much apparent consideration for the consequences
involved in it. A special memorandum from Consul Alcock, called for by
the Foreign Office, had dwelt mainly on the precautions which should
accompany the exercise of such new privileges as promiscuous residence
in the interior; but, excepting in the case of merchants, where little
or no risk was involved, the warnings of Mr Alcock were unheeded alike
in the text of the treaty and in the subsidiary regulations.

"The most important matter gained by the treaty," however, in the
opinion of Lord Elgin, was "the resident Minister at Peking," "without
which," wrote Mr Parkes, "the treaty was not worth a straw." And
substituting "lost" for "gained," such was also the opinion of the
Chinese negotiators. It was, indeed, the universal opinion. Diplomatic
representation at Peking might be fairly considered to have been the
primary object of the war of 1857-58, as commercial extension and
access to Canton had been that of 1839-42. And when "the miserable war
was finished" and "his liberty regained" Lord Elgin cleared out his
force, bag and baggage, as if he had been escaping from something,
leaving not a trace behind.

As this move constituted a veritable crisis in Anglo-Chinese
relations, it seems advisable for a moment to consider its bearings.
Judging after the event, it is of course easy to perceive the fatal
error of Lord Elgin in hurrying away from the Peiho. A fair criticism
of his policy will confine itself strictly to the circumstances as
known at the time. His experience had so closely resembled that of his
predecessors, that he was aware that the Chinese were "yielding
nothing to reason and everything to fear." He had seen with his own
eyes the Queen's ratifications of previous treaties exhumed from a
collection of miscellaneous papers in Canton, they being, as
Commissioner Yeh remarked, not worth sending to Peking; he knew that
the treaty of Nanking had been observed by the Chinese only as far as
force or fear compelled them, and that its crucial stipulation had
been for many years evaded, and then with unmasked arrogance
repudiated; he knew that the very war in which he had been engaged,
and his whole mission to China, were caused and provoked by the
refusal of the provincial authorities to admit his predecessors or
himself within the walls of Canton. In his own ultimatum to
Commissioner Yeh, Lord Elgin had asked no more than the execution of
the treaty of Nanking, which included access to the city of Canton,
and compensation for damage to British property. Yet the Chinese
Government, dreading war as they did, had notwithstanding incurred its
hazards rather than open the gates of a distant provincial city. How,
then, were they likely to regard the, to them, infinitely greater
outrage of resident foreign Ministers in the sacred capital itself?
This demand was practically the only one against which the Chinese
commissioners made a stand. When everything had been written down
ready for signature they drew back, saying it was as much as their
heads were worth to subscribe such a condition. The answer was a
peremptory threat to march on Peking, whereupon the commissioners
signed the paper without another word. The crisis did not last
twenty-four hours. No one could believe that a miracle of conversion
had been wrought in that time, or that the enforced signature of the
Imperial Commissioners had changed a fundamental principle of Chinese
policy. What, under these circumstances, was the "present value" of
the treaty? Was it so much as conceivable that it would be voluntarily
carried out? Was it not evident rather that it was signed under
_duresse_ solely with the immediate view of getting the barbarians out
of doors and leaving the key within? What said the imperial decree
published in the 'Peking Gazette'? "The barbarians[39] had come
headlong with their ships to Tientsin. Moved by the commands of
Kweiliang and his colleagues, they have now weighed anchor and stood
out to sea." If our former treaty needed a material guarantee for its
execution, how much more this one? The test of good faith was in Lord
Elgin's own hands; he should clearly have applied it, and presented
himself at Peking for audience of the emperor. Perhaps it would have
been refused, in which case he would have at least known where he
stood. A campaign against Peking would have been easy with the handy
force he possessed, or at the worst he could have occupied Tientsin
and the Taku forts until all questions were settled.

This was the view generally held at the time both by officials and the
lay community in China, before any untoward consequences had revealed
themselves. It was strongly expressed by Parkes, who deplored "the
ominous omission that Lord Elgin had gone away to Japan without
entering Peking or having an audience with the emperor." We have not
the advantage of knowing what Wingrove Cooke would have said of it,
but we may infer the prevailing opinion by what another newspaper
correspondent wrote from Shanghai on the receipt of the first news of
the signing of the treaty:--

SHANGHAI, _July 13, 1858_.[40]

The "Chinese War," properly so called, has now reached its
termination, and the fleet in the Gulf of Pechili is
dispersing. Lord Elgin arrived here yesterday with the new
treaty, which his brother, the Hon. F. Bruce, carries home
by the present mail. The document will not be published
until it is ratified by the Queen, but in the mean time the
chief points of it may be tolerably well guessed at. The
diplomatists are confident that the new treaty will "give
satisfaction." That is saying a good deal, but how could it
be otherwise than satisfactory? The emperor was so
terror-struck by our audacious advance on Tientsin, that he
was ready to concede everything we wanted rather than see
us approach any nearer to his capital. There could have
been but little discussion--the ambassadors had simply to
make their terms. The new treaty, then, provides for
indemnification for losses at Canton, a contribution
towards the expenses of the war (for which Canton is held
as a guarantee), the opening of more ports for trade,
freedom of access to the interior, toleration for
Christians, and a resident Minister at Peking. The only
omission seems to be that Lord Elgin did not himself go to
Peking; for unless the right of residence at the capital
receives a practical recognition from the Chinese
Government at once, it will certainly lead to vexatious
discussion whenever we wish to exercise it. The right of
entry into Canton, conceded by the treaty of Nanking, but
not insisted on through the timidity of our
representatives, ought to have taught us a useful lesson.
While the emperor is in a state of alarm anything may be
done with him, but when the pressure is removed and the
fleet dispersed, Pharaoh's heart will certainly be
hardened, and then Chinese ingenuity will be employed in
evading as many of the provisions of the treaty as they
dare. Let us hope, however, that when the weather cools a
little and the thing can be done comfortably, Lord Elgin
may still pay a friendly visit to his new allies at their
headquarters [which he more than once threatened to do].

Such was contemporary opinion unbiassed as yet by visible effects.
When the tragedy took place a year later, of course people spoke out
more clearly. Parkes then wrote:--

The Chinese Government never intended, nor do they intend,
if they can avoid it, to carry out the Elgin treaty. It was
granted by them against their will, and we omitted all
precautions necessary to ensure its being carried out--I
mean, in quitting Tientsin as we did in July 1858, instead
of remaining there until the treaty had been actually
carried into effect. You will recollect in what a hurry the
admiral and Lord Elgin, one and all, were to leave and run
off to recreate in Japan and elsewhere. By that step they
just undid all they had previously done.

Writing eighteen months after the event, and six months after the Taku
repulse, Laurence Oliphant fully confirmed the views of Parkes. "The
political importance," he observed, "of such an achievement"--_i.e._,
a march to Peking--"it is impossible to overestimate. The much-vexed
question of the reception of a British Minister at the capital would
have been set at rest for ever." He then goes on to give a number of
exculpatory reasons for the omission, which would have been more
convincing had they been stated by Lord Elgin himself in despatches
written at the time.

Nor was Lord Elgin's own explanation to the House of Lords any more
satisfying. "In point of fact," he said, "I was never charged with the
ratification of the treaty. The treaty was never placed in my
possession. I never had the option of going to Peking." If his
lordship had had a better case he would never have elected to rest his
vindication on a piece of verbal finesse. Yet this speech gave their
Lordships for the moment "wonderful satisfaction."[41]

The omission to consummate the treaty was followed a few months later
by an act of commission of which it is difficult to render any clear
account, and which Oliphant in his 'Narrative' makes no attempt to
explain, merely reproducing the official despatches. Before leaving
China Lord Elgin pulled the key-stone from the arch of his own work,
reducing the treaty to that condition which Parkes had described as
"not worth a straw." At the instance of the Chinese commissioners he
moved her Majesty's Government to suspend the operation of "the most
important" article in it, the residence of a British Minister in
Peking. It is needless to follow the arguments, utterly unreal and
having no root either in history or in experience, by which this fatal
course was urged upon the Government, for they were of the same
species as those which had induced her Majesty's Ministers to
tolerate for fourteen years the exclusion of their representatives
from Canton, the right to enter which city had just been recovered by
force. It is most instructive to mark, as the key to many failures,
how, like successive generations of youth, successive British agents
in China have failed to profit by the experience of their
predecessors, and have had in so many cases to buy their own at the
expense of their country; for we see still the same thing indefinitely
repeating itself, like a recurring decimal. Even at this the end of
the nineteenth century we seem as far off as ever from laying hold of
any saving principle, though it stares at us out of the whole panorama
of our intercourse. Lord Elgin's procedure afforded at once the best
example what to do and the clearest warning what to avoid in China,
and it is the most useful for future guidance for the reason that
effect followed cause as closely as report follows flash. It was his
fate, much against his will apparently, to wage war on China in order
to revindicate a right which had lapsed through the weakness and
wrong-headedness of certain British representatives; yet in the
closing act of a perfectly successful war he commits the self-same
error on a more comprehensive scale, entailing on some future
Government and plenipotentiary the necessity of making yet another war
on China to recover what he was giving away. What is the explanation
of this continuous repetition of the same mistake? It would seem that,
knowing nothing of the Chinese, yet imagining they know something, the
representatives of Great Britain and of other Powers, notably the
United States, have been in the habit of evolving from their own
consciousness and keeping by them a subjective Chinaman with whom
they play "dummy," and of course "score horribly," as the most recent
diplomatic slang has it. Their despatches are full of this game--of
reckoning without their host, who, when brought to book, turns out to
be a wholly different personage from the intelligent automaton kept
for Cabinet use. Then, under the shock of this discovery,
denunciations of treachery--black, base, and so forth--relieve the
feelings of the foiled diplomat, while the substance of his previous
triumph has quite eluded him. To this kind of illusion Lord Elgin was
by temperament more predisposed than perhaps any of his predecessors
save Captain Elliot. Though convinced by his first encounter that
Chinese statesmen were "fools and tricksters," the simulacrum soon
asserted supremacy over the actuality of experience, and to the honour
of the very persons so stigmatised he committed the interests of his
country, abandoning all the securities which he held in his hand.

But what, then, is the secret of dealing with the Chinese which so
many able men, not certainly intending to make failures, have missed?
This interesting question is thus partially answered by Wingrove
Cooke. "The result of all I hear and see," he wrote, "is a settled
conviction that at present we know nothing--absolutely nothing--of the
nature of those elements which are at work inside China. Crotchets,
&c., are rife, but they are all the offspring of vain imaginings, not
sober deductions from facts.... Treat John Chinaman as a man, and
exact from him the duties of a civilised man, and you will have no
more trouble with him." Which is but a paraphrase of Lord
Palmerston's prescription to consider the Chinese as "not greatly
different from the rest of mankind." Such, however, has always been
too simple a formula for the smaller minds. They would complicate it
by trying, with ludicrous effect, to get behind the brain of the
Chinese and play their opponent's hand as well as their own. Probably
it matters less on what particular footing we deal with the Chinese
than the consistency with which we adhere to it. To treat them as
_protégés_, and excuse them as minors or imbeciles while yet allowing
them the full licence and privileges of the adult and the sane, is
manifestly absurd. To treat them as dependent and independent at the
same time can lead to nothing but confusion and violent injustice. To
allow engagements with them to become waste paper is the surest road
to their ruin and our discomfiture. To let our Yea be Yea, and our
Nay, Nay, is as much the Law and the Prophets in China as it is
throughout the world of diplomacy. To this simplicity Lord Elgin had
attained, at least in theory, when he told the merchants of Shanghai
that in dealing with Chinese officials he had "been guided by two
simple rules of action. I have never preferred a demand which I did
not believe to be both moderate and just, and from a demand so
preferred I have never receded."

What misgiving troubled the repose of Lord Elgin as to the good faith
of the Imperial Government on which he had ventured so much, may be
partly inferred from his avidity in catching at any straw which might
support his faith. Hearing that "his friends the two Imperial
Commissioners" who had signed the treaty were appointed to meet him in
Shanghai to arrange the tariff, Lord Elgin welcomed the news as
"proof that the emperor has made up his mind to accept the treaty."
But as the emperor had already, by imperial decree dated 3rd July, and
communicated in the most formal manner to Lord Elgin, expressly
sanctioned the treaty before the plenipotentiary left Tientsin,
wherefore the anxiety for further proofs of his good intentions? "This
decree was forced out of the emperor," Mr Oliphant tells us, "by Lord
Elgin's pertinacity"--and the threat of bringing up to Tientsin a
regiment of British soldiers then at the mouth of the river! As a
matter of fact, the mission of the two Imperial Commissioners was of
quite another character from that assigned to it by Lord Elgin. The
two men were sent to complete their task of preventing by every means
the advent of the barbarians to Peking, just as Lord Elgin himself
was, two years later, sent back to China to finish his work, which was
to bring the said barbarians into the imperial city. Between two such
missions there could be neither reconciliation nor compromise.

There is authority for stating that the Imperial Commissioners were
expressly sent by the emperor to Shanghai (1) to annul the whole
treaty of Tientsin, and (2) failing the whole, as much of it as
possible, but especially the article providing for a Minister at
Peking. The ostensible purpose of the mission, from the foreign point
of view, was the settlement of the tariff and trade regulations,--about
which, however, the Chinese cared very little,--and delegates were
appointed for this purpose. The labour was conscientiously performed,
on one side at any rate, and the result was highly creditable to the
delegates. It was by insertion in the tariff of imports that opium
became recognised, chiefly, it would appear, at the instance of the
United States Minister, Mr W. B. Reed, who was on the spot.

Apart from the tariff two principal questions occupied the minds of
the negotiators of the treaty--the actual situation at Canton on the
part of the English, and the prospective residence in Peking on the
part of the Chinese. Lord Elgin hoped, by an appeal to the treaty of
peace, to put an end to the hostile proceedings of officials and
people which had harassed the occupying force in Canton with impunity
for nine months. But it was the treaty itself against which officials,
gentry, and braves were making war, just as they had done in the case
of the treaty of 1842. There was no ambiguity about the movement. The
Government was carried on not in Canton but in the neighbouring city
of Fatshan, where the Governor-General Huang, who had been appointed
to succeed Yeh, held his court and issued his decrees. Two months
after the occupation of Canton the puppet whom the Allies had
installed there admitted that the object of the assemblage of braves
was to retake the city. Two months after the signature of the treaty
and its acceptance by the emperor the Governor-General Huang was
publicly offering a reward of $30,000 for the head of Parkes, and was
stimulating the people in every way to expel the foreigners from the
city. All this was in perfect accord both with imperial policy and
with Chinese ethics. It had the full sanction of the emperor, just as
similar operations had formerly had of his father. For the grand
purpose of destroying or impairing the treaty there was no distinction
in the Chinese mind between legitimate and illegitimate, honourable or
treacherous, methods.

Lord Elgin, who had returned from Japan to Shanghai to meet the
Imperial Commissioners in September, disappointed at their
non-arrival, opened communications with them by a threat of returning
to Tientsin and thus saving them the trouble of completing their slow
journey to Shanghai. On their eventual arrival there he opened a
diplomatic campaign against Canton by a demand (October 7) to know
under what authority Huang and the military committees were organising
attacks on the Allies. In reply the Imperial Commissioners naïvely
proposed to promulgate the treaty. This frivolous answer provoked the
rejoinder (October 9) that the treaty had been three months before
publicly sanctioned by imperial decree, that something more than
"documents and professions" were required to satisfy Lord Elgin on a
question of "peace or war," and he demanded the removal of the
Governor-General Huang. The commissioners then said they had denounced
Huang to the throne, and hoped for his removal at no very distant
date. They would also move his Majesty the Emperor to withdraw his
authority from the hostile militia. Canton being thus disposed of, as
he supposed, Lord Elgin proceeded to other business. But the
hostilities at Canton continued without the least abatement for three
months longer, until something more strenuous than diplomatising with
the Imperial Commissioners was resorted to. The British Government had
at last become exasperated, and the Foreign Secretary, Lord
Malmesbury, wrote on October 14 to Lord Elgin, "The most severe
measures against the braves are the only ones which will obtain the
recognition by the Cantonese of the treaty of Tientsin." It was not
long before Lord Elgin himself became converted to the same belief,
for on January 20, 1859, he wrote to General van Straubenzee, after
some successful reprisals he had made on the village braves, that
"advantage should be taken of the cool weather to familiarise the
rural inhabitants of the vicinity of Canton with the presence of our
troops, and to punish severely braves or others who venture to attack
them." By this time also he had realised that the promise on which he
relied in October had been evaded, and he told the Imperial
Commissioners on January 22 that he would "have nothing more to say to
them on Canton matters,--that our soldiers and sailors would take the
braves into their own hands."

The effect of the new tactics was immediate and satisfactory. When the
Allied troops began to move about they were welcomed in the very
hotbeds of hostility. "At Fatshan," writes General van Straubenzee on
January 28, "we were received most courteously by the authorities and
respectfully by the people." A five-days' excursion to Fa Yuen, the
headquarters of the anti-foreign committee, was likewise a perfect
success; and so everywhere throughout the Canton district. Lord Elgin
was now able to assume a bolder tone with the Imperial Commissioners
and address them in still plainer terms.

"The moderation of the Allies," he wrote to them in February, "has
been misunderstood by the officials and gentry by whom the braves are
organised.... This habit of insult and outrage shall be put down with
the strong hand.... It shall be punished by the annihilation of all
who persist in it." There was no need for any such extreme remedy, for
as soon as the burglars realised that the watch-dog had been loosed
they ceased from troubling the household, and fell back on peaceful
and respectable ways of life. "With the cessation of official
instigation," Lord Elgin wrote in March, "hostile feeling on the part
of the inhabitants appears to have subsided," thus falling into line
with Consul Alcock, who wrote: "Clear proof was furnished that the
long-nurtured and often-invoked hostility of the Cantonese was
entirely of fictitious growth, due exclusively to the inclinations of
the mandarins as a part of the policy of the Court of Peking." And
then, too, the difficulty of removing the Governor-General Huang
disappeared. He had, in fact, been unsuccessful in expelling the
barbarians, just as Yeh had been, and the imperial decree superseding
him naturally followed. His presence or absence had then become of no
importance to the Allies, as, had he remained, he would have accepted
the accomplished fact of the foreign supremacy with as good a grace as
the gentry and their braves had done, for they never contemplated
endangering their lives by fighting. Outrages on stragglers,
assassination, kidnapping, and bravado filled up the repertory of
their militant resources, and when these were no longer effective they
retired into private life as if nothing had happened. The officials
were no less acquiescent once they realised that they had a master.

The interest of this Canton episode lies in its relation to the
Chinese question generally. Foreign intercourse with China is marked
by a rhythm so regular that any part of it may be taken as an epitome
of the whole, like a pattern of wall-paper. From Canton we learn that
calculation of national advantage or danger, argument from policy,
even threats which are not believed, are so much "clouds and wind,"
not profitable even as mental exercises. What alone is valid is
concrete fact; not treaties, but the execution of them.

* * * * *

The Imperial Commissioners had in good time presented their own demand
on Lord Elgin, and in most becoming terms, for between preferring and
meeting a request there is all the difference in the world. The two
Chinese signatories of the treaty frankly avowed that they had signed
without scrutiny under military pressure, and that certain
stipulations were highly inconvenient to the Imperial Government,
particularly the right of keeping a Minister in residence in Peking.
Lord Elgin agreed to move his Government, and the Government consented
to waive the right, conditionally. Lord Elgin laid stress on the
retention of the right as a right, forgetting that in China a right
conditionally waived is a right definitely abandoned. Nor only so, but
so far from consolidating what remains, it constitutes a
vantage-ground for demanding further concessions, and in other fields
of international relations besides that of China. Nothing therefore
could have been wider of the mark than any expectation that "the
decision of her Majesty's Government respecting residence in Peking
would induce the Chinese Government to receive in a becoming manner a
representative of her Majesty when he proceeds to the Peiho to
exchange the ratification." Experience pointed to quite the opposite
effect.

These critical remarks are by no means intended either to belittle
Lord Elgin's good work, to depreciate his real statesmanship, or to
scoff at his sensibility and high-mindedness. But his errors being
like a flaw in a steel casting, pregnant with destruction, and as the
same kind of flaw continues to vitiate many of our smaller diplomatic
castings, the China question could not really be understood without
giving proper consideration to them. For the rest, as a despatch
writer Lord Elgin was both copious and able--he did not take a double
first at Oxford for nothing. Still, his writings and orations are
scarcely the source whence one would seek for light and leading on the
Chinese problem. They are vitiated by self-vindication. Many of them
are elaborate efforts to make the worse appear the better reason,
while their political philosophy is based too much on speculative
conceptions where ascertained data were available.

On the last day of July 1858 Lord Elgin with his suite set out on
their memorable voyage to Japan, the narrative of which has been so
skilfully woven by Laurence Oliphant. This episode will claim our
attention later. His lordship came, saw, and conquered--returned to
China in a month crowned with fresh laurels. At Shanghai he saw the
tariff settled, and then performed another pioneer voyage of
prodigious significance. This was up the Yangtze as far as the great
central emporium Hankow. Captain Sherard Osborn was the Palinurus of
that original and venturesome voyage. After that, Lord Elgin bent his
steps towards England; but before leaving China the ghosts of things
done and undone haunted him. "A variety of circumstances lead me to
the conclusion that the Court of Peking is about to play us false,"
was the melancholy epitaph he wrote on his mixed policy, on his honest
attempt to make war with rose-water, and his subordination, on
critical occasions, of judgment to sentiment.

Meantime his brother Frederick, who had carried the Tientsin treaty to
London, was returning with it and the Queen's ratification and his
letter of credence as British Minister to China. The _dénoûment_ of
the plot was now at hand. The real mind of the Chinese Government was
finally declared in the sanguinary reception the new envoy met with at
the entrance of the Peiho in June 1859. Frederick Bruce was generally
considered a man of larger calibre than his elder brother. "In
disposition he was a fine, upright, honourable fellow," writes Sir
Hope Grant, "and in appearance tall and strong made, with a remarkably
good expression of countenance." But it took even him a long time to
fathom the new situation. After his disastrous repulse from the Taku
forts he wrote in August, "I regret much that when the permanent
residence was waived it was not laid down in detail what the reception
of the Minister at Peking was to be." But it was no question of detail
that barred his passage to Peking. It was the settled determination
never to see the face of any foreign Minister; and it seems strange
that it should have taken not only another year but another war
finally to convince the British plenipotentiaries and their Government
that the message of China from first to last, from Peking and Canton,
had been to fling the treaty in their face.

[Illustration: SIR FREDERICK BRUCE.]

II. LORD ELGIN'S SECOND MISSION.

Invasion of Peking -- Convention of Peking -- Establishment
of the British Legation -- Russian and British, a contrast.

The Chinese perfidy at Taku had of course to be avenged. A formidable
expedition was equipped by the Allied Powers, Lord Elgin and Baron
Gros being reappointed as plenipotentiaries. The history of the famous
Peking campaign of 1860, with its tragic incidents, has been impressed
on the world by so many writers, military and civil, most of them
actors in the scenes they depict, that the barest outline of events
may suffice in this place.

In the preliminary agreement between the two Governments, the British
military force was limited to 10,000 effectives; but the number
actually placed in the field exceeded that figure by the consent of
the French, whose forces were between 6000 and 7000. The British
contingent was commanded by General Sir Hope Grant, the French by
General Montauban, afterwards created Count Palikao,--"a fine,
handsome, soldier-like man, apparently under sixty years of age."

The naval forces were commanded respectively by Vice-Admiral Sir James
Hope, "a tall, noble-looking man, with a prepossessing and most
gentlemanlike appearance,"[42] and by Admiral Page, "a superior man
with a great deal of dry humour, but bad-tempered."[43]

The friction arising between Allies working together, waiting for each
other, consulting at every step, taking precedence of each other on
alternate days, at first vexatious, was in the end overcome by the
tact of the commanders on both sides.

The first operation of war was to occupy the harbour of Chusan as an
intermediate base. After that the British force was conveyed in
transports to Talien-wan, where they were disembarked, while the
French were landed at Chefoo, on the opposite shore of the Gulf of
Pechili. At these points preparations were made for the intended
descent on the coast of the province of Chihli, between 200 and 300
miles to the westward. The British force included 1000 cavalry in
splendid condition, and a battery of Armstrong guns, then for the
first time used in active service. The French had no cavalry, the
attempts to import horses from Japan were not successful, and the
scarcity of draught-animals on their side caused great delay in the
sailing of the expedition from the temporary depots. At length on July
26 a fleet of over 200 sail--a magnificent spectacle--carried the two
armies to within twenty miles of the Peiho, where they anchored,
waiting for favourable weather and a minute reconnaissance.

The one piece of strategy in the campaign was the choice of a
landing-place. The Taku forts, which had been strong enough to repulse
Sir James Hope with severe loss a year before, had been further
strengthened, for to the Chinese it was a matter of life and death to
bar the entrance to the Peiho. The chain barrier across the mouth of
the river could not be forced under the concentrated fire of the
forts; only the lightest draught vessels could approach within five
miles; and a frontal attack was not to be thought of. But a decided
difference of opinion between the Allied generals had disclosed
itself as to the mode of procedure. The French commander was
determined to land on the coast to the southward of the forts; the
English was still more resolute in selecting as a landing-place the
mouth of the Peitang river, eight miles northward of Taku. So
irreconcilable were their views that it was agreed that each should go
his own way, only starting simultaneously. After more careful study,
however, General Montauban came to think better of his own scheme, and
proposed to Sir Hope Grant to join him in the landing at Peitang.

So on August 2 the first detachments of 2000 from each army were
disembarked, and the campaign proper commenced. The forts at Peitang
were easily occupied, "a kind old man" pointing out where there were
loaded shells which would explode on foot pressure on a gun-lock laid
so as to fire a train. By means of a raised causeway leading through a
sea of "briny slush," positions were reached whence the Taku forts
could be attacked from the rear. Though bravely defended, the forts on
the left bank were captured, and as they commanded those on the
opposite bank no resistance was offered by the latter. The Peiho was
thus opened for the conveyance of troops and stores to Tientsin, which
was made the base of operations for the advance of the Allied armies
on Peking.

The military movements were hampered by the presence of the two
plenipotentiaries, who stopped on the way to negotiate with the
unbeaten foe. Delay was not the only untoward consequence of these
proceedings. At one moment a military disaster seemed to have been
narrowly escaped. Taking advantage of the singular credulity of the
Allies, the Chinese, while engaging them in friendly negotiations, had
planned to decoy the army into a convenient camping-ground at
Changchia-wan, towards which the troops were marching, when, "To my
surprise," writes the commander-in-chief, "we found a strong Tartar
picket, who retired on our approach; and a little farther on were seen
great bodies of cavalry and infantry, the latter drawn up behind a
large nullah to our right front, displaying a number of banners." In
the meantime the envoys, Parkes, Loch, and other officers, who had
been negotiating with the higher mandarins at Tungchow, a couple of
miles off, were seized and made prisoners with their escort, all being
subsequently cruelly tortured, and most of them massacred, in
accordance with Chinese practice in war.

Sir Hope Grant, finding his army of 4000 men in process of being
hemmed in, attacked and routed the Chinese troops on September 18,
resuming his march on the 21st, when the remainder of his force had
joined him. He had not gone far, however, when the way was again
barred, and another action had to be fought at the bridge Pali-chiao,
ten miles from Peking, where General Montauban distinguished himself,
and whence he derived his title.

Far from owning themselves defeated, the Chinese on the morrow resumed
negotiations as between equals. The Imperial Commissioners who had
mismanaged the affair were replaced by Prince Kung, a brother of the
emperor, who sent letters under a flag of truce, saying he was ready
to come to terms, but "said nothing about our poor prisoners." The
Allied plenipotentiaries declined to treat until the captives should
be returned, whereupon Prince Kung sent another letter saying they
were safe, but would only be sent back on the restitution of the Taku
forts and the evacuation of the river by the Allied fleets.

Lord Elgin had demanded that he should deliver the Queen's letter in
person to the emperor. Prince Kung refused this demand, which Lord
Elgin incontinently abandoned. Waxing bolder, Prince Kung next
threatened that the entry of the Allied forces into the capital would
be followed by the instant massacre of the prisoners. The
plenipotentiaries retorted by intimating that the surrender of
prisoners was a necessary condition of the suspension of hostilities.
A week having been wasted in this vain seesaw, an ultimatum was sent
into Peking on September 30. This was answered by the Chinese inviting
the Allies to retire to Changchia-wan, the scene of the great defeat
of their army, offering to sign the treaty there. And so the contest
was maintained until the Allied artillery was planted within sixty
yards of the north gate, and the hour was about to strike when the
wall was to be battered down.

Most valuable information--the topography of the city--had been
supplied by General Ignatieff, who accompanied the Allies. A map which
he lent to Sir Hope Grant showed every street and house of importance
in Peking, laid down by a scientific member of the Russian mission in
the city. The data had been obtained by traversing the streets in a
cart, from which angles were taken, while an indicator fixed to the
wheel marked the distances covered. Without this plan the attack would
have been made from the south side, as proposed by General Montauban,
which would have involved a march through the commercial or Chinese
quarter, and the surmounting first of the Chinese and then of the
Tartar wall. The map made it clear that from every point of view the
north side offered the most eligible point of attack, where nothing
intervened between a great open plain and the wall of the Manchu city.

Passing over the dramatic incidents of the destruction of the Summer
Palace, an act of calculated vengeance for the murder and maltreatment
of envoys and prisoners, the flight of the emperor on a hunting tour
to Jêho, whence he never returned, the release of the prisoners and
their account of the captivity, the new treaty was signed at the Hall
of Ceremonies on October 22, 1860, by Prince Kung, "a delicate
gentlemanlike man, evidently overcome with fear," and his coadjutor,
Hangki. The treaties of Tientsin were ratified, and some further
indemnities exacted. The special provisions introduced into the French
treaty will be referred to in a subsequent chapter.[44]

The closing scene was marked by a degree of haste somewhat recalling
Tientsin in 1858. The very slow advance on Peking brought the climax
of the campaign unpleasantly close to the season when communication by
water would be shut off by ice; "the weather became bitterly cold,
some of the hills being covered with snow." And Sir Hope Grant's
never-failing counsellor, Ignatieff, with "his usual extreme
kindness," furnished him with the most important information that the
Peiho would soon become frozen up and it would be unsafe to linger in
Peking. Mr Loch's galloping off with the treaty, as shown in the
illustration, was rather typical of the whole business. The treaty
as such was of little consequence--the fulfilment of its provisions
was everything.

[Illustration: MR LOCH DEPARTS FROM PEKING FOR ENGLAND WITH CHINESE
TREATY.]

Some lessons, nevertheless, had been learned in the school of
diplomatic adversity. Peking was not left without a _locum tenens_ of
the Minister, Tientsin was not left without a garrison, and the Taku
forts were occupied by the Allies for a couple of years after the
final conclusion of peace.

"Ring out the old; ring in the new." There seemed a natural fitness in
the Hon. Frederick Bruce succeeding the Earl of Elgin as Minister
plenipotentiary, and there was a dramatic finish in the farewell
ceremonial when the retiring representative of the Queen vacated the
seat of honour, placing therein his younger brother, whom he
introduced to Prince Kung as the accredited agent of Great Britain.
The new era was inaugurated; a real representative of her Britannic
Majesty was installed in the capital of the Son of Heaven.

The season was late, and though two palaces had been granted on lease
for the residences of the British and the French Ministers, many
alterations and repairs were needed to render them fit for occupation,
which could not be effected before the closing of the sea
communication by ice. The Ministers therefore resolved to withdraw
from Peking for the winter, placing their respective legations in
charge of a junior consular officer, Mr Thomas Adkins, who volunteered
to hold the post until the return of the plenipotentiaries in the
following spring.

Mr Adkins was not the only foreign sojourner in the Chinese capital.
There was a French Lazarist priest, Mouilli by name, who, having
successfully concealed himself among his native Christians during the
military advance of the Allies, emerged from his hiding-place on the
triumphant entry of the ambassadors, and showed himself in the streets
in a sedan chair with four bearers. There was the permanent Russian
establishment within the city, with its unbroken record of 173 years.
Originally composed of prisoners taken at the siege of Albazin, it had
become a seminary of the Orthodox Church and a political _vedette_ of
the Russian empire, invaluable to the two masterful diplomatists who
appeared suddenly on the scene in the years 1858 and 1860. The mission
served as a speculum through which Russia could look into the inner
recesses of the Chinese State, while to the Chinese it was a window of
bottle-glass through which the external world was refracted for them.
The Russian Government selects its agents on the principle on which we
select university crews or All-England elevens--namely, the most fit.
So important and far-sighted a scheme as the Peking mission was not
left to chance or the claims of seniority, but was maintained in the
highest efficiency. Its members--six ecclesiastical and four lay--were
changed every ten years. All of them, from the Archimandrite
downwards, were accomplished linguists, speaking Chinese like the
natives, and masters also of the Manchu and Mongol languages. Their
relations with the Chinese officials were unostentatious, yet
brotherly. Few secrets, either of administration, dynastic politics,
or official intrigue, no communications between the Government,
provincial or imperial, and any foreigners, escaped record in the
archives of the Russian mission. The _personnel_ were protected
from outrage or insult by their own tact and their traditional
prestige; and as the Daimios of Japan in their anti-foreign manifestos
declared that every foreigner could be insulted with impunity except
the Russians, so in China the name was a talisman of security. While
the Anglo-French expedition was marching towards Peking the Russian
Secretary, M. Popoff, had occasion to leave that city and pass the
night at a native inn on the road to Tientsin. The place became filled
with the retreating Chinese soldiery, and M. Popoff had the pleasure
of hearing their excited conversation respecting himself. They were
for dragging him out and killing him on the spot, when the landlord
interposed. "That foreigner is a Russian," said he; "it will be
dangerous to lay a hand on him."

[Illustration: MONSEIGNEUR MOUILLI.]

M. Popoff's errand was to meet General Ignatieff, who was making his
way to Peking with the Allied forces. It was of the utmost importance
that he should arrive simultaneously with the French and English
plenipotentiaries in order to save China from her doom. China's
extremity was Russia's opportunity for showing the sincerity of her
long unbroken friendship. The foreigners had come to possess
themselves of the empire and destroy the dynasty. Their ruthless
character was soon to be shown in the burning and pillage of the
Summer Palace. The Chinese Court's apprehension of the impending
calamity was proved by the flight of the emperor to a quasi-inaccessible
retreat. In that terrible crisis no sacrifice would have been deemed
by the imperial family too great to "get rid of the barbarians."
Confirming their own worst fears as to the designs of the invaders,
General Ignatieff revealed to them the only way of salvation. Nothing
would arrest the schemes of the Allies but the intervention of a
strong Power friendly to China. He had it in his power to make such
representations to Baron Gros and Lord Elgin as would induce them to
withdraw their troops. This essential service he offered to the Chinese
for a nominal consideration. Only a rectification of frontier by
inclusion of a sterile region inhabited by robbers and infested by
tigers, where no mandarin could make a living, fit only for a penal
settlement, with a rugged sea-coast where no Chinese sail was ever
seen. Prince Kung jumped at the providential offer of deliverance, and
so that great province called Primorsk, with its 600 miles of coast-line,
which gave to Russia the dominion of the East--"Vladivostock"--was
signed away by the panic-stricken rulers of China. A year later this
transaction cropped up in conversation over the teacups, after the
business of the day had been disposed of, between Prince Kung and a
certain foreign diplomatist, who remarked that there was never the
remotest intention on the part of the Allies of keeping a single
soldier in China after the treaty was made. The Prince looked aghast,
then said solemnly, "Do you mean to say we have been deceived?"
"Utterly," replied the other; and then the dejection of the Prince was
such as the foreigner, who lived to enjoy a twenty-years' acquaintance
with him, declared he never saw in his or any other Chinese
countenance. Thus General Ignatieff, without any force, in the vulgar
sense, of his own, was adroit enough and bold enough to wield the
forces of his belligerent neighbours so as to carry off the only
solid fruit of the war, while fulfilling the obligations of friendship
for China and denouncing her spoilers.

The Russian envoy had not the same incentive to hurry away from Peking
as the other treaty-makers had, for the ice which would imprison them
would afford him the most expeditious road for travel homewards
through Siberia. He was nearly as much relieved as Prince Kung himself
at getting rid of these "barbarians," for then he had the field of
diplomacy all to himself. He made his treaty, and departed during the
winter by the back door, across Mongolia.

Ignatieff was a man well known in English society, and thoroughly
conversant with England. Like most educated Russians, he was affable
and sympathetic--a "charming fellow." He was courteous and
companionable to the _locum tenens_ of the English Legation, and in
taking leave of Mr Adkins expressed the opinion that he would be all
right in his isolation so long as the emperor did not return to
Peking, but in that event his position would not be an enviable one.
However, "if you fear any trouble, go over to the Russian mission:
they will take care of you."

The winter of 1860 left the statesmen of China some food for
reflection. The thundering legions had passed like a tornado which
leaves a great calm behind it. The "still small voice" had also
departed, with a province in his _chemadán_, gained without a shot or
even a shout. Two strongly contrasted foreign types had thus been
simultaneously presented to the astonished Chinese. Can it be doubted
which left the deeper impression?

Preparations were made during the winter for receiving the foreign
Ministers in the spring. A department of Foreign Affairs was created
under the title of "Tsung-li Koh Kwoh She Yu Yamên," or briefly,
"Tsungli-Yamên," the three original members being Prince Kung,
Kweiliang, and Wênsiang. The Yamên was established by imperial decrees
in January; Mr Bruce and M. Bourboulon arrived in March 1861, when
diplomacy proper began, the thread of which will be resumed in a later
section.

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES:

[37] "Verily," writes Wingrove Cooke, "Sir John Bowring, much abused
as he is both here and at home, has taken a more common-sense view of
these matters than the high diplomatists of England and France."

[38] Before the conclusion of his second mission Lord Elgin's opinion
of at least one of those whom at the outset he disparaged had
undergone considerable modification. "Parkes," he wrote in 1860, "is
one of the most remarkable men I ever met for energy, courage, and
ability combined. I do not know where I could find his match."

[39] Lord Elgin protested against the use of this tabooed term, but
took no exception to the statement as to his having obeyed the
commands of the Imperial Commissioners.

[40] 'The Scotsman,' September 18, 1858.

[41] It seems to have been a general opinion at the time that Lord
Elgin was deterred from proceeding to Peking by the protestations of
his learned advisers, who declared that his doing so would "shatter
the empire."

[42] Sir Hope Grant's Journal.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Vol. ii. p. 224.

CHAPTER XVIII.

INTERCOURSE UNDER THE TREATIES OF 1858 AND 1860.

I. THE DIPLOMATIC OVERTURE.

Spontaneous fulfilment of treaties not to be expected --
Retreating attitude of foreign Ministers -- Repression of
British tourists -- Hostility of Pekingese -- Conciliation
fails -- Chinese refuse to conclude treaty with Prussia --
Glimpse of the real truth -- Rooted determination to keep
out foreigners -- Absence of the sovereign -- Female
regents -- Diplomatic forms in abeyance -- Foreign
Ministers' task complicated by assumed guardianship of
China -- Pleasant intercourse with Manchu statesmen.

When Mr Bruce and M. Bourboulon took up their residence in Peking on
March 22, 1861, diplomacy was as yet a white sheet on which it was
their part to trace the first characters. The treaty--for all the
treaties were substantially one--was their charter; its integral
fulfilment their only safety. For as it had not been a bargain of
give-and-take between equals, but an imposition pure and simple by the
strong upon the weak, there would be no spontaneous fulfilment of its
obligations, rather a steady counter-pressure, as of water forcibly
confined seeking out weak spots in the dam. Moreover, the two parties
to the treaty, foreigners and Chinese, were not acquainted with each
other: aims, incentives, temper and character, and the nature of the
considerations by which they respectively would be influenced, were
all obscure. It was an uncertain situation, calling for vigilance and
caution. There can be no doubt the pregnant importance of the first
steps was realised by the representatives on both sides. The thoughts
of the Chinese on that critical occasion can only be inferred from
their acts. Of what was uppermost in the minds of the foreigners, or
at least of the English Minister, we have some slight indications from
the pen of a member of his staff, who, though not himself in the
diplomatic circle, claims to be the authorised chronicler of the early
days of the mission. This pretension is implicitly indorsed by the
fact that the preface to Dr Rennie's book[45] was written in
Government House, Calcutta, whither he followed Lord Elgin in the
capacity of physician. When the Ministers had only been five days in
Peking Dr Rennie wrote as follows: "Now is commencing perhaps the most
difficult part of a permanent English residency at Peking--namely, the
satisfying the Chinese that we are a tolerably harmless and
well-intentioned people, inclined to live with them on terms of amity
rather than the contrary, and that the desire of our Government is
that its subjects should respect, as much as is consistent with
reason, their national prejudices."

Such an immaculate sentiment placed in the very forefront of an
ambassadorial programme, ushered in at the cost of two wars which
shook the foundations of the Chinese empire, leaves something to be
desired as a justification for being in Peking at all. But Dr Rennie
indicates no other purpose for which foreign legations were
established there. He does not get beyond the mere "residency." A
viceroy of India proclaiming at each stage of a "progress" that he was
a man of peace, a bride hoping to lead a passably virtuous life, would
scarcely be more naïve than a foreign Minister's pious aspiration to
behave tolerably well to the Chinese. For where was the "difficulty,"
one is tempted to ask? It is explained by Dr Rennie.

Two English officers, it appears, had made an excursion to the Great
Wall without the necessary consular and local authorisation, and had
further shown "the bad taste, at a date so recent to its destruction,"
to visit the Summer Palace. A formal complaint of these indiscretions
met Mr Bruce on his arrival, and credit must be given to the Chinese
for their appreciation of the tactical value of what Scotswomen call
"the first word of flytin'." They moved the first pawn, and put the
British Minister at once on the defensive. He responded by an
arbitrary exercise of authority whereby Englishmen were prohibited
from visiting Peking. The restriction possessed little direct
importance, since few persons were then affected by it; but as the
opening act of the new diplomacy, its significance could hardly be
overrated. Though "only a little one," it was a recession from the
right conferred on the subjects of all treaty Powers to travel for
business or pleasure not only to Peking, but throughout the Chinese
empire. It was as the tuning-fork to the orchestra.

It is not permissible to suppose that the British Minister had not
good reasons for swerving from the principle of exercising rights,
great and small, for which, as he well knew, experience in China had
been one long, unbroken, cogent argument. Dr Rennie furnishes his
readers with the reason. "The Chinese," he observes, "would seem to
be very sensitive"; and "taking all the circumstances into
consideration, ... the fear that casual visits on the part of
strangers ... may prove antagonistic to the establishment of a
harmonious feeling at the opening of a new era in our intercourse with
the Chinese," the Minister resolved to keep Englishmen (and only them)
out of the capital.

This explanation, like that of the purpose of the Legation itself,
leaves on us a sense of inadequacy. These hyper-sensitive people had
been engaged, only six months before, in torturing and massacring
foreign envoys and prisoners, for which atrocities the destruction and
sack of Yuen-ming-yuen was thought to be not too severe a reprisal.
That the high officials who had committed these cruelties and endured
the penalty should suddenly become so delicate that they could not
bear the thought of a harmless tourist looking upon the ruins of the
palace seems a somewhat fantastical idea. As for the sensitiveness of
the townspeople, Dr Rennie himself had some experience of it three
days after penning the above remarks. "A good deal of shouting and
hooting," he says, was followed by "stones whizzing past me." Then "my
horse was struck by a stone" and bolted. A similar experience befell
another member of the Legation on the same day in another part of the
city. Dr Rennie believed the stones to have been thrown by boys, which
is probable enough. The favourite Chinese official palliation of
outrages on foreigners is to attribute them to youths and poor
ignorant people, which, however, in nowise softens the impact of the
missile. Let us give the Chinese full credit for the virtues they
possess--and they are many--but no one familiar with the streets of
Peking would consider delicacy their predominant characteristic. View
the diplomatic incident how we please, it cannot be denied that the
Chinese drew first blood in the new contest, and at the same time
practically tested the disposition of the invading force.

Another "straw" from Dr Rennie's journal may be noticed as indicating
the set of the current. _Apropos_ of the first commercial case that
had been sent up from the ports to the Minister, he records the
conclusion that "in almost every dispute which arises between
ourselves and the Chinese we are in the first instance in the wrong;
but, unfortunately [for whom?], the Chinese equally invariably adopt
the wrong method of putting matters right," so that "the original
wrong committed by us is entirely lost sight of." The observation
refers exclusively to mercantile affairs, and it was a rather large
generalisation to make after a month's experimental diplomacy in
Peking.

The Minister soon found that his efforts to placate the Chinese
Government were not producing the intended effect. It was not the
"casual visitor" that in any special way annoyed them, but the
foreigner in all his moods and tenses, most of all Mr Bruce himself,
his colleagues and their staff, medical and other, and all that they
stood for. General Ignatieff had not, after all, conjured away the
foreign plague, nor were the Chinese statesmen entirely reassured even
as to their immunity from the military danger. In the month of April
Admiral Hope, Brigadier-General Staveley, and Mr Parkes visited
Peking, and were courteously received; but Prince Kung was visibly
relieved, Dr Rennie tells us, when assured that the admiral was not to
remain there. As for the general, his presence in the vicinity was
inevitable so long as a considerable British and French force remained
in garrison in Tientsin and Taku. Like the Ministers themselves, he
was an unpleasant necessity to be endured as well as may be. But being
thus obliged to tolerate the greater evil, it would appear to Western
reasoning that an admiral more or less in an inland town need not have
so greatly upset Chinese equanimity. Prince Kung, however, was not yet
able to look on such matters with Western eyes. Every foreigner kept
at arm's-length, no matter what his rank or condition, was a gain, as
every locust destroyed is a gain to the peasant.

So when the Prussian envoy, Count Eulenberg, presented himself, the
British Minister vouching for his respectability, for the purpose of
making a treaty on the lines of those already made and ratified, his
efforts were frustrated by every plausible device. The envoy was
relegated to the most distant point at which it was deemed feasible to
stay his progress--namely, Tientsin, where negotiations were
vexatiously protracted during four months. The first and final
sticking-point was the claim to residence in the capital, which the
Chinese absolutely refused to concede. Eventually they agreed to
compound for a deferred entry ten years after signature. This by
haggling was finally reduced to five years, and the treaty was
thereupon concluded in August 1861. The old Canton tactics were thus
revived, as if nothing had happened since 1857.

As the echo of Mr Bruce, Dr Rennie's comment on the proceeding is
worth noting. "Looks very like merely gaining time, in hopes that,
before that period expires, _all foreign residence in the capital_
will be at an end." Here we catch a glimpse of the fundamental truth
underlying all Chinese diplomacy from first to last--the purpose,
never relaxed for an instant, of some day expelling foreigners from
the country. No foreigner could hope to unravel the tangle of Chinese
reasoning so as to comprehend in what manner the exclusion of one
State was to assist in the eviction of the representatives of four
Great Powers already established in the capital; but it may be
inferred from the above remark that Mr Bruce was beginning to perceive
that good behaviour towards the Chinese was not the be-all and end-all
of the functions of a British representative in China. There was
another side. We know, in fact, though Dr Rennie does not record it,
that Mr Bruce began to see the necessity of making a stand against the
reactionary pressure of the Chinese; that he was resolved on bending
the Ministers of the Yamên to his will--being satisfied he could do
it--instead of yielding to theirs in the vain hope of gaining their
confidence.

The grand desideratum had been at last obtained, access to the
capital; but how different the realisation from the anticipation!
There was no sovereign and no Court, only the shell of the nut without
the kernel. And as diplomacy began so it continued, in successive
illusions, partially dispelled, yet clung to with slow-dying hope.

At first sight, no doubt, the task of the foreign representatives
seemed an easy one: they had but to lay down the law to a defeated
Power, to hammer the softened metal. This course would have been as
simple in fact as it was in principle had they been united, and had it
been possible for them to take a simple view of their mission; but
from the first their duty to their respective countries was
complicated, and in varying degrees, by what they conceived to be
their duty towards China. It was inevitable that the attempt to follow
two lines of policy divided by such cleavage should result in a fall
into the crevasse. China, in fact, was too large a subject for either
the treaty Powers or their agents to grasp. She made huge demands on
the humanity, the indulgence, and the protection of the Powers who had
broken down her wall of seclusion, and she had nothing in kind to
offer them in return--neither gratitude nor co-operation, nor even
good faith. For this China could be blamed only in so far as her own
welfare was hindered by her irresponsiveness, for her statesmen were
not far wrong in attributing to any motive rather than pure
philanthropy the obtrusive solicitude of the Western Powers.
International relations even between kindred peoples are in the nature
of things selfish, or worse; and the more they assume an altruistic
mask the more they lie open to suspicion. In this cynical view of the
attitude of her neighbours China has never wavered.

Yet it was not all illusion and Dead Sea apples. Something had been
gained by diplomatic access to the capital. The elaborate insolence of
the Chinese mandarin had been exchanged for the urbanity of the
well-bred Manchu. It became possible to converse. Foreigners were
listened to with attention, and answered with an open countenance. The
change was incalculable. It recalled the days of Lord Macartney and
the Emperor Kienlung, of Sir John Davis's pleasant intercourse with
Kiying, and of the agreeable impression left by the Manchu statesmen
who were concerned from 1841 onwards in the conduct of war or the
conclusion of peace. If to the kindly personal relations which
characterised the earlier years of Peking diplomacy no permanent
tangible result could be definitely ascribed, who can tell what evils
were staved off or calamity averted by these friendly amenities?

In order, however, to appreciate the state of affairs in Peking in
1865, it is necessary to fill the gap in our narrative by an outline
of events following the ratification of the treaty of Tientsin and
Convention of Peking in October 1860.

II. NEW PORTS AND OPENING OF THE YANGTZE.

Seven new coast ports -- Admiral Hope's Yangtze expedition
-- His relations with Taiping rebels -- Hankow, Kiukiang,
and Chinkiang opened to trade -- Panic in Hankow, and
exodus of population for fear of rebels.

The new ports opened to trade--Tientsin, Newchwang, and Chefoo in the
North; Swatow, and two Formosan ports; Kiungchow in Hainan--added
considerably to the range of foreign commerce, and necessitated a
large extension of the foreign customs and of the consular services.
But the most important feature in the new arrangements was the
effective opening of the river Yangtze. It was interesting, as giving
access to the commercial centre of the empire; and as bringing
foreigners into direct contact, possibly conflict, with the Taiping
rebels. For the banks of the great river were at the time checkered
with the alternate strongholds of rebels and imperialists. Trade must
therefore either be carried on on sufferance from both, or be
efficiently protected from the interference of either belligerent.
Obviously this was a matter to be gone about discreetly.

The course and capabilities of the great waterway, and the disposition
of the military forces on its banks, had been well reconnoitred by
Lord Elgin himself in 1858; and the ports to be opened, which were
left unnamed in the treaty, were pretty definitely indicated in the
survey then made. There were to be three in all. Chinkiang, which had
been recently recovered from the rebels, situated at the intersection
of the Imperial Canal and the Yangtze-kiang, was definitely fixed. The
two others farther up river remained to be selected.

The opening of the river was by treaty made contingent on the
restoration of imperial authority on its banks; but as there was
nothing more likely to accelerate that consummation than commercial
traffic on the river, the Chinese Government acquiesced in the British
authorities making the experiment, at their own risk as regarded
possible trouble with the insurgents. The object was to "throw open
the general coasting trade of the river"; and Lord Elgin, on his
departure from China, left the undertaking in the hands of Admiral
Hope, to whom he attached Mr Parkes, withdrawn for the occasion from
his duties as commissioner in Canton.

[Illustration: FIRST BRITISH CONSULATE AT KOLENGSOO, AMOY, 1844.]

The admiral started from Shanghai in advance of Mr Parkes, with a
squadron of light-draught steamers, on February 11, 1861. He carried
an exploring expedition composed of Colonel Sarel, Captain Blakiston,
Mr Shereshewsky, and Dr A. Barton, whose proceedings are reported in
Blakiston's 'Five Months on the Upper Yangtze'; several American
missionaries; two Frenchmen, afterwards distinguished, MM. Eugène
Simon and A. Dupuis, the latter proving the means of eventually giving
Tongking to France; a French military attaché; Lieut.-Colonel
Wolseley, D.A.Q.-M.G.; and a delegation from the Shanghai Chamber of
Commerce, with several private persons. Whether the pilots presumed
upon light draught and steam power, or whether the course of the river
had changed so much since the previous surveys were made, the vessels
got stranded, one after another, in the estuary; and as each grounded
a companion was told off to stand by her, so that before they had got
clear of what is known as the Langshan Crossing (the home of the
famous breed of black poultry) the admiral's tender, the Coromandel,
was the only vessel left in a mobile condition. Not to lose time, the
admiral determined to push on in that non-combatant craft to Nanking,
the rebel capital, and test the temper and intentions of the Taipings.

As the steamer slowly approached the landing-place, in bright sunshine
and a still atmosphere, the batteries on the river front were crowded,
but remained silent.

"What will you do, sir, if they fire?" the admiral was asked.

"Oh, I will just drop down out of range, and send and ask them what
they mean by it," he replied, with deep deliberate utterance, not
unlike Beaconsfield's.

An officer was sent ashore to parley, some rebel officers came on
board, and the prospect of an amicable understanding appeared to be
satisfactory. It was a critical juncture in the history both of the
Taiping movement itself and of foreign relations with it and with
China. Without exaggeration, it may be said that the proximate fate
of the Taipings then lay hidden within the brain of Sir James Hope,
and each occasion of contact between him and them during the next few
months added its definite contribution to the data on which the
momentous decision was ultimately taken. Although he had then no
higher opinion of the Taipings than that they were "an organised band
of robbers," the admiral was resolved to give them fair play; and
since no diplomatic intercourse could be held with insurgents, he
determined to take relations with them under his own supervision
(March 8, 1861). "The principle I shall adopt being that in the
district of country of which they hold possession the Taiping
authorities must be regarded as those of the _de facto_ Government,
... and this principle being likely to lead to the payment of double
duties (to rebels and imperialists) on all trade conducted at places
in their possession, I am desirous of definite instructions on the
subject."

The first point to be settled with the rebel authorities at Nanking
was the non-molestation of British traffic passing up and down the
river within range of their batteries or otherwise, to secure which
object it had been determined to station a ship of war abreast of the
city. The sanction of the Taiping chiefs was wanted to this
arrangement, which, however, without such sanction, it would have been
all the more necessary to insist upon. The second point affected the
general relations between foreign trade and the rebel movement. The
next aim of the admiral was to arrive at an understanding with the
leaders for the neutralisation of Shanghai and Wusung within an area
of thirty miles round these two places.

Not being prepared to enter into definite negotiations until the
arrival of Mr Parkes, who had not yet joined the expedition, Sir James
Hope returned to the squadron which he had left aground in the lower
reaches of the river. But thinking the time and the opportunity might
be usefully employed in gathering some acquaintance with the Taipings
at their headquarters, he landed three volunteers at Nanking, whose
presence he ascertained would not be unwelcome to the authorities
there. They were to remain in the city as the guests of the rebels
till the admiral's return. The party consisted of Lieut.-Colonel
Wolseley, Mr P. J. Hughes, vice-consul designate of Kiukiang, and one
of the Shanghai delegates. They were joined on shore by the Rev.
William Muirhead, missionary, who had reached Nanking by land from
Shanghai. The party was thus a thoroughly representative one. On the
return of the admiral a week later, accompanied by Mr Parkes, the
arrangements for a guard-ship were satisfactorily settled after some
puerile obstruction, and the expedition proceeded on its way up the
river to Hankow, where, as also at Kiukiang and Chinkiang, consular
officers were established; and the Yangtze was declared open by
notification in Shanghai on March 18, 1861.

The expedition was fruitful in information concerning the rebels, all
tending to confirm the purely destructive character of the movement.
Certain incidents of the voyage were also most instructive to the
visitors. While the expedition was still at Hankow the Taipings had
captured a walled city, fifty miles distant, which had been passed by
the squadron on its way up a few days before. The news created a
universal panic throughout the three cities, Wuchang, Hanyang, and
Hankow, and the scene which followed could not be paralleled. It is
thus laconically referred to in the report of the delegates of the
Chamber of Commerce: "The abandonment was most complete, not a house
nor a shop was open, and it became equally impossible to purchase
goods, to check quotations, or pursue inquiries."

One day the deep Han river was so packed with junks that one might
almost walk from bank to bank over their mat coverings. The next day
everything that could float was crowded with fugitive families with
their household stuff huddled precariously on the decks, and such a
fleet as, for number and picturesqueness, was probably never seen,
covered the broad bosom of the Yangtze, making slow headway under sail
against the current.

Mr Parkes, eminently a man of fact, thus describes what he was witness
to:--

Darkness fell upon crowds of the people lying with their
weeping families, and the _débris_ of their property, under
the walls of Wuchang, anxious only to escape from defences
that should have proved their protection.... The noise and
cries attending their embarkation continued throughout the
night, but daylight brought with it a stillness that was
not less impressive than the previous commotion. By that
time all the fugitives had left the shore, and the river,
as far as the eye could reach, was covered with junks and
boats of every description bearing slowly away up-stream
the bulk of the population of three cities, which a few
days before we had computed at 1,000,000 of souls.

Of what came of this and many such another melancholy exodus of
humanity, without resources, ready to brave any death rather than fall
into the hands of the destroyers, there is no record; and the scene
at Hankow, magnified a hundred times, would give an inadequate
conception of the havoc of the fifteen years of the Taiping rebellion.

III. ADMIRAL HOPE'S POLICY TOWARDS INSURGENTS.

Devastation only to be expected of them -- Enforces
neutrality and respect for foreign property -- Thirty-mile
radius round Shanghai -- Hesitancy of British Minister and
Foreign Office -- Overcome by firmness of Admiral --
Capture of Ningpo by rebels -- Arrangements for trade there
-- Bad faith of rebels -- Shanghai to be defended -- Its
dangerous position -- Ravages of rebels -- Offensive
movements against them -- Clearing of the thirty-mile
radius -- Cordial relations between English and French
admirals -- Mr Bruce won over -- The campaign -- Recapture
of Ningpo -- Chinese raise foreign force -- Ward --
Burgevine -- Chinese statesmen who organised the
suppression of the rebellion -- General Gordon takes
command of the "Ever-Victorious Army."

None of the spectators was more profoundly impressed than Admiral
Hope, and the spectacle undoubtedly helped to mature his views on the
demerits of the rebellion. On April 6 he wrote to the Admiralty: "A
period of anarchy, indefinite in duration, appears likely to ensue, in
which the commercial towns of the empire will be destroyed, and its
most productive provinces laid waste. For this state of things, so
destructive to foreign trade, I see no remedy except the recognition
by both parties, if practicable, of the neutrality of the consular
ports, which would then become places of security in which the Chinese
merchants and capitalists could take refuge." And towards the
realisation of this scheme the first step was the obligation laid upon
the rebel Government at Nanking that their forces should not approach
within thirty miles of Shanghai or Wusung. This idea, however, was but
slowly assimilated by her Majesty's Minister at Peking and by the
Government at home, and Lord Russell, while approving generally of the
admiral's policy, stipulated that no force be used except in direct
defence of British property. Mr Bruce wrote able despatches from
Peking, in which the pros and cons, the contingencies and risks, of
alternative courses were so well balanced, that the only practical
conclusion that could possibly issue therefrom was that eventually
arrived at,--to leave the decision to the admiral with a promise of
support, whatever course he might adopt. The Foreign Office and the
Peking Legation, in fact, faithfully represented the orthodox view of
affairs, whereby national policy is primarily reduced to a game of
safety for officials, and to the application of theories and general
principles often having little bearing on the actualities of the case.
The admiral's mind was cast in a different mould. To him the
exigencies of the situation were everything, the official balance very
little, the fear of responsibility nothing. The man on the spot,
seeing clearly the right thing to do and resolved to do it, was bound
in the end to gain the Government to his side, for Governments like a
strong arm to lean on. With men like Sir James Hope there was no risk
of complications arising, for complications arise mostly from the
nervous dread of them, never from going straight and clear to the
objective point. It needed a visit of the admiral to Peking, however,
and the best part of a year's correspondence, to convert the British
Government point by point to his views.

Meantime the Taiping rebels advanced to Ningpo, the defence of which
Mr Bruce had refused to sanction, and they captured the city on
December 9, 1861, after engaging not to do so. The leaders there were
interviewed by the French Admiral Protêt and the English Captain
Corbett with a view to gaining a comprehension of their plans, and "to
prevent the atrocities of which they have hitherto been guilty, and to
endeavour to effect an arrangement by which trade can be conducted
from the town. The French Rear-Admiral Protêt will act in concert with
me," wrote Admiral Hope to Corbett, December 7.

After the capture of the city the admiral instructed Captain Corbett
that if the rebels wished to levy any duties, he was to see that in
amount they did not exceed those stipulated in the imperial tariff.
Arrangements were also made by the three treaty Powers for the
protection of foreign life and the safety of the foreign quarter. The
position was, however, a very difficult one, as the rebels had no idea
of order or of keeping faith. Indeed the problem of protecting British
subjects while observing Lord Russell's neutrality instructions was
fast becoming impossible, for the conventions made with the Taiping
authorities in Nanking were disregarded by them, and Shanghai itself
was threatened.

The admiral's conception of what was required for the protection of
British interests was all the while undergoing steady development, and
in January he wrote that Kiukiang and Hankow had become as essential
to our trade as Shanghai. Writing a month later, he pressed his plans
still more definitely upon the Admiralty. "On every occasion," he said
on February 21, 1862, "on which I have reported the state of Shanghai
since my return here, it has been my duty to bring the devastation and
atrocities committed by the rebels in its immediate vicinity very
prominently under their Lordships' notice. These proceedings have been
conducted at a distance much too close to be consistent with the
respect due to the occupation of the town by French and English
forces, or to leave its supplies of provisions and native trade
unaffected."

The tension was at length relieved by the relaxation of Earl Russell's
restrictions. He had already said that "it might be expedient" to
protect the treaty ports, and that he was "of opinion that we ought to
defend Shanghai and Tientsin as long as our forces [the garrison left
from the Peking campaign] occupied these ports." But now, on March 11,
1862, he took a more practical view of the whole situation, and issued
her Majesty's commands that "Admiral Hope should not only defend
Shanghai and protect the other treaty ports, but also the British flag
and the Yangtze, and generally that British commerce is to have the
aid of her Majesty's ships of war."

During the winter of 1861-62 matters had become very critical in
Shanghai. The rebel chiefs sent an intimation to the foreign consuls
that it was their intention to capture the town, and they proceeded to
burn the villages and ravage the country on both sides of the river
within gun-shot of the military lines. Special local measures of
defence were adopted by the residents, and fugitives in thousands
flocked into the only asylum where their lives were safe. The pressure
of these events led to yet more definite action on the part of Sir
James Hope, who perceived that the effective defence of Shanghai and
its sources of supply involved aggressive movements against the rebels
in order to drive them out of all the places they occupied within the
thirty-mile radius. In all these proceedings the admiral went hand in
hand with his French colleague, and with the commanders of the French
and British military forces. An agreement signed by the four on
February 13, 1862, settled the immediate question of the defence of
the city of Shanghai. An appeal to the British Minister completed his
conversion to a "forward policy." "I strongly recommend," wrote the
admiral on February 22, "that the French and English commanders should
be required by yourself and M. Bourboulon to free the country from
rebels within a line"--specified; and the reply was as hearty and free
from ambiguity as could be wished: "We can no more suffer Shanghai to
be taken by famine or destroyed by insurrection than we can allow it
to be taken by assault; and it requires but little experience in China
to be assured that the effect of remaining on a strict defensive
within the walls is to convince our assailants that we are unable to
meet them in the field."

The plan of campaign was settled in an agreement signed by Sir James
Hope, Admiral Protêt, and Brigadier Staveley, April 22, 1862, and was
carried out to the letter during the early summer and the autumn
following. At an early period of the operations Admiral Protêt was
killed: his loss was deeply lamented, most of all by his British
colleague, with whom relations of exceptional intimacy had sprung up.
"The extent to which I enjoyed his confidence and regard will ever
prove a source of unmingled satisfaction to me," wrote Sir James Hope
on the day of the admiral's death, May 17, 1862, himself at the time
confined to his cabin by wounds.

The rebel forces in Ningpo, who had been on their good behaviour for a
short time, became aggressive and insulting, even going the length of
offering rewards for foreign heads in the good old mandarin fashion.
It is well to remember that even in their unkempt condition, and with
everything to gain from the goodwill of foreigners, the Taiping rebels
lacked nothing of the most arrogant of Chinese assumptions. The
pretensions of the chief far exceeded those of the Emperors of China.
The Taipings required foreigners to be subject to their jurisdiction,
and they habitually applied derogatory terms to foreign countries.
Such things were regarded much as the eccentricities of a lunatic
might be. Nevertheless they were a faithful reflex of what is rooted
in the Chinese mind.

The position of foreigners and the foreign ships there having thus
been rendered intolerable, the city was recaptured from the rebels by
Commander Roderick Dew in the same month--a brilliant feat of arms.
After the capture he wrote: "In the city itself, once the home of half
a million of people, no trace or vestige of an inhabitant could be
seen.... The canals were filled with dead bodies and stagnant filth."
The recapture of Ningpo was the beginning of an Anglo-Franco-Chinese
campaign against the rebels in Chêkiang which was carried on
simultaneously with that round Shanghai.

It is needless to follow in detail the operations which culminated two
years later in the final suppression of the Taiping rebellion; but the
relations which grew up between the British and French commanders on
the one side, and the Chinese military forces which were being
organised on the other, were so fruitful in results as to merit their
being held in particular remembrance. Though the history has been many
times written, it may still not be considered supererogatory to trace
some of the points of contact between the native and foreign motives
and plans of action, and the evolution of the defensive idea which was
the product of the combination.

The Taiping rebellion had devastated the central and southern
provinces many years before the Chinese Government roused itself to a
serious effort to resist it. The movement of repression originated
with the Governor-General of the Hu provinces, whose chief lieutenant
and successor was Tsêng Kwo-fan, Governor-General of Kiangnan at the
time of which we now speak. His brother, Tsêng Kwo-chuan, the Governor
of Chêkiang province, was the military leader, and Li Hung-chang, the
most capable and energetic of them all, was governor of the province
of Kiangsu. The imperialist forces had been gradually closing on
Nanking, and it was thought probable that this hemming-in process
forced the rebels to seek outlets and new feeding-grounds in the
populous districts of Kiangsu and Chêkiang. The rebels had enlisted a
number of foreigners in their ranks, and made great efforts to supply
themselves with foreign arms and ammunition, for which purpose, among
others, communication with the sea was most important for them. Li,
_futai_ (governor), also began to enlist foreigners and raise a
special corps, drilled and armed in foreign fashion, and led by
foreign officers. The foreign agent in this enterprise on the
imperialist side was Frederick Ward, to whom Mr Bruce referred in May
1861 as "a man called Ward, an ex-Californian fillibuster." Within a
year Mr Bruce wrote, "In the Chinese force organised and led by Mr
Ward I see the nucleus of a military organisation which may prove most
valuable in the disturbed state of China." The truth is, "Ward's
force," which became known by its high-flown Chinese title of the
"Ever-Victorious Army," was seized on from its origin by Sir James
Hope, whose encouragement and support were essentially serviceable to
it in its early days. The admiral treated Ward as a comrade, fighting
by his side, and thus giving the new levy a military status. While the
Chinese troops were yet raw he co-operated with them by capturing
positions from the rebels and trusting Ward's men to hold them, on the
assurance of their leader that they were equal to that duty. Ward
himself was an unpretentious, cool, and daring man, reckless of his
own life. During his brief campaign he was riddled with bullets, one
of which entering his mouth destroyed the palate and impaired his
speech, and before long the fatal missile reached its mark. He was
succeeded in the command by his second, Burgevine, who, though a good
soldier, lacked Ward's tact and moderation, and got into trouble with
his paymasters, to whom he used violence and threats. He was deposed
from the command by Governor Li, which brought about a serious crisis,
for the disciplined force of foreigners and Chinese was left without a
head. In this emergency Li applied to the British authorities for the
loan of an officer to command the disciplined force. The
responsibility of the British representatives, naval and military,
became thus extended to finding a suitable Englishman to replace
Burgevine. Their first selection was Captain Holland, R.M., who held
the post for a short time, and was succeeded by Captain C. G. Gordon,
R.E.

Gordon had arrived in China in 1860 in time to share in the last act
of the Peking campaign; he passed the year 1861 at Tientsin, where he
was highly esteemed as a model man and meritorious officer. In the
winter of 1861 he had conferences with Mr Bruce and Prince Kung on the
question of suppressing the rebellion; but none of their ideas, nor
the policy of the British Government, were then sufficiently advanced
to lead to any practical result. Gordon accompanied his corps to
Shanghai in the spring of 1862, and was engaged in the operations for
clearing the thirty-mile radius under General Staveley, who spoke
warmly of his daring reconnoitring services, for which Gordon had been
already distinguished in the Crimea. In the following winter he was
busy surveying and mapping the country which had been reconquered from
the rebels, and in the spring of 1863 he was offered by his chief the
leadership of Ward's force. Gordon's was no doubt the best selection
that could have been made, having regard only to the abilities which
were then recognised in him; for though General Staveley knew him well
both in Tientsin and Shanghai, it is not claimed for him, or any one
else, that he had prescience of those transcendent qualities and that
magnetic power which the subsequent campaign against the rebels was
the means of bringing to light. When Gordon took command of the
"Ever-Victorious," the force had had two years' training and regular
campaigning, and the men were entitled to rank as veteran troops.
Gordon, however, was to infuse new life into the corps by his dynamic
personality and by the diligent use of the regenerative agency of
"Sergeant What's-his-name." The number of foreigners actually employed
in the force is doubtful, but detailed returns of killed and wounded
in the course of a year's operations gave a hundred names. Gordon's
faculty of control was probably more severely tested by his management
of that motley foreign crew than of the whole indigenous force; but
the best of which it was capable was got out of this fortuitous
concourse of men, and under the inspiration of the commander several
names of distinction emerged from the cosmopolitan group.

When Gordon took over the command in March 1863 it was six months
since the thirty-mile radius had been entirely cleared of rebels, and
the first duty of the "Ever-Victorious" was to keep that area clear;
its second to carry the war as far as it was able into the regions
beyond. Its efficiency, especially for this latter purpose, depended
on the support and co-operation of the British and French commanders,
whose troops remained in occupation of the treaty port of Shanghai.
For a time there was danger of a lapse in this co-operation. The
dismissed General Burgevine carried his grievances to Peking, and made
such an impression by his plausible address on the American and
British Ministers there, that Mr Bruce espoused his cause and wrote
strong despatches to the British commander, Staveley (April 10, 1863),
urging the reinstatement of Burgevine and the suppression of Gordon,
to whom it was to be explained that the step was no reflection on him,
&c. Again and again the Minister returned to the charge, both to the
commander in Shanghai and to the Foreign Office at home; but the
Governor Li was firm, and adduced such cogent reasons for the
dismissal of Burgevine that Major-General Brown, who had just
succeeded to the British command, joined Li in resolutely protesting
against the removal of Gordon, whom, it may be remarked, the English
general had never yet seen. The men on the spot prevailed against the
man who was theorising from a distance, and on the worst data
conceivable, the culprit's own account of himself. Mr Bruce, who, as
we have seen, was well acquainted with Gordon, must have had reasons
for his policy not given in his official despatches, for these were
inadequate and narrow for a man of his large capacity.

We have said Major-General Brown had not then seen Gordon. He had
arrived from India in April to relieve General Staveley of the command
of the British troops in China. He was a wiry man and of an active
temperament, and rapidly mastered the situation. Probably to him is
due the credit of the first true perception of what manner of man this
young engineer officer was. General Brown was for a few days after his
arrival a guest in one of the spacious _hongs_ in the Shanghai
settlement, which had a wide verandah, giving access to all the
bedrooms. One morning very early the general, excited by a message
that had just reached him, rushed round in _déshabillé_ calling for
his host with a piece of coarse Chinese paper in his hand. "Do you
know Major Gordon?" he said. "Why, yes, a very nice fellow, and
reported to be a first-rate officer." "But," exclaimed the general,
"he is a genius! Just look what I have received from him from the
front," and he unfolded the whitey-brown paper with some rough
diagrams, and a few not very legible pencil notes indicating his
position and plan of attack on Taitsan (where Captain Holland had been
repulsed) and Kuensan,[46] both cities on the line of communication
with the provincial capital, Soochow. "The man is a genius,"
reiterated the general, "and must be supported." A few days later
another of these cryptic missives arrived, when a similar scene was
repeated with redoubled emphasis. "I tell you that man is a military
genius; that's what I call him, a military genius," said the dapper
little soldier in his vivacious reiterative manner. "I'll support him
for all I am worth." And then he developed his own plan of relieving
the "Ever-Victorious" of garrison duty, leaving the whole
force--secure of its base--free to engage in aggressive operations.
This plan of giving effective support to Gordon's force was carried
out to the letter, as subsequently described by the general in his
official despatches reporting the capture of Taitsan and Kuensan: "I
had a field force acting in conjunction, as a support, moving on the
extreme edge of our boundary, ... which was of great assistance to
Major Gordon in his operations." He adds: "Kuensan having fallen,
Major Gordon now proposes to make it his headquarters; ... and as the
_futai_ intends to make Taitsan his headquarters, I shall bring it
within the boundary, thus giving the imperialists every confidence to
hold it, knowing they could receive support from me at any moment."
How vital to the fortunes of the "Ever-Victorious Army" was this
decided action of General Brown's was seen when, three months later,
General Burgevine had gone over, with a certain following of
malcontents, to the Taipings, a movement which suggested to Gordon
serious misgivings as to the loyalty of the foreigners remaining in
his own force. Burgevine, however, had no success in the rebel camp,
and soon, in a secret interview with Gordon, sued for safe-conduct and
amnesty. Improving his acquaintance, however, with the new commander
of the "Ever-Victorious," Burgevine's next proposal was the bold one
of eliminating as between themselves all questions of conflicting
loyalty to the respective belligerents by throwing over both, and by
joining forces on their own account, to capture Soochow, and there
raise an army to march on Peking. It was a partnership which did in
nowise commend itself to Gordon, but the proposal served to show how
shrewd Li Hung-chang had been in his estimate of the deposed leader.

IV. THE LAY-OSBORN FLOTILLA.

Orders sent through Mr Hart to Mr Lay -- Fleet equipped
under Captain Osborn, R.N. -- Ratification of their
agreements refused in Peking -- Government would not place
foreigners in a position of authority -- Misunderstandings
and final sacrifice of Mr Lay -- Ships paid off and sold --
Crucial question the recapture of Nanking.

The invincible distrust of foreign auxiliaries which dominates Chinese
policy and prevents the empire from ever having an army or a navy,
received another signal illustration in the same year in the great
fiasco of the Lay-Osborn flotilla. Mr H. N. Lay, Inspector-General of
Chinese Maritime Customs, was in England on leave in 1861, his _locum
tenens_ in Peking being Mr (now Sir) Robert Hart. Conferences with the
Chinese Ministers on the naval weakness of the empire resulted in a
very important decision, in consequence of which Mr Hart was empowered
to send to Mr Lay orders for certain armed vessels to be officered and
manned by Englishmen. Mr Lay executed the rather "large order"
according to his lights, engaging Captain Sherard Osborn to command
the fleet, which was equipped on a war-footing. The foreign enlistment
difficulties of the British Government were overcome, as the
Government was by that time ready to go to any length in assisting the
Government of China. The fleet duly arrived in China, and Mr Lay and
Captain Osborn presented themselves in Peking to obtain ratification
of their agreements from the Imperial Government. This was refused,
the force was disbanded, and the ships sold, at a heavy pecuniary
sacrifice to the Chinese, for they made no demur about payment.

The rock on which the scheme seemed to split was the contention of Mr
Lay that the fleet was imperial, and that the commodore should take no
orders from viceroys or provincial authorities, but only from the
emperor, and through Mr Lay himself. This was a shock to the very
edifice of Chinese Government, conceived of as feasible only under the
belief that in its helpless condition the Government must accede to
anything. But the scheme was really impossible. So also, however, was
the alternative of provincialising the naval force, as has been shown
by subsequent failures in the attempt to use the services of British
officers in the Chinese navy. Such an instance of reckoning without
your host was never heard of before or since. It was like a practical
joke on a titanic scale. The ships were actually there, manned,
officered, and armed. It was a dangerous knot, which had to be
promptly cut or untied. Following the line of least resistance, Mr Lay
was made the scapegoat, on whose head the Minister "laid both his
hands"--rather heavily--"confessing over him the iniquities of all,"
and sending him away into the wilderness. In the general interest the
sacrifice of Mr Lay was perhaps the safest way out of the imbroglio,
for he was a pugnacious little man in whose hands despotic power might
have been attended with inconvenience. Nevertheless, the blame of the
failure belonged to all the parties concerned--to Prince Kung,
Wênsiang, Mr Hart, Mr Bruce, and the British Government. They each
entered into the scheme with different ideas, more or less vague,
except Mr Lay's own, which had perforce to be reduced to the definite
when he came to draw up contracts with British naval officers, and to
meet the strict requirements of British law. The Chinese Ministers of
course could have no conception what a foreign-equipped navy really
meant, nor had they probably fully divulged what was really in their
mind; Mr Lay and Mr Hart were young men with large ideas, but without
experience; Mr Bruce was a man of the world who had seen service, and
was, from his position, the most responsible of them all, and
therefore the most culpable in deceiving himself, and allowing the
British Government to be misled. He approved of the project, or it
could never have been carried out. But what was it precisely that he
approved of? He "saw with pleasure that Captain Osborn was about to
reorganise the preventive service" (October 6, 1862), and as late as
February 8, 1863, he wrote to Prince Kung of the "speedy arrival of
the steam flotilla which your Imperial Highness has so wisely
ordered"--as if it were a pair of official boots! Yet on the arrival
of the flotilla it was found that everybody concerned was at
cross-purposes, and the question naturally suggests itself, what steps
her Majesty's Minister had taken to satisfy himself as to the real
intentions of Prince Kung, whether they had been properly transmitted
by Mr Hart and correctly interpreted by Mr Lay and fully communicated
to her Majesty's Government. It appears that Mr Bruce had, in fact,
undergone a change of mind--induced, no doubt, by cogent
considerations--during Mr Lay's final sojourn in Peking. Having
received a message from the Minister urging a stiff attitude with the
Chinese Government and promising the full support of the Legation, Mr
Lay proceeded to the Yamên and laid down the law strongly, as his
manner was, in the full assurance that he had the British Minister at
his back. But after thus burning his boats he found himself abandoned,
for reasons of State which he was unable to appreciate. Such was the
account of the crisis given at the time by Mr Lay himself to a
confidential friend then residing in Peking. For the Chinese
Government the scheme was necessarily a leap in the dark. For the
British Government it involved a violent reversal of recently declared
policy, and on a most important issue. It was consequently a case
where extreme and minute precautions against possible misunderstandings
would not have been superfluous, yet--so far as has yet been made
public, for there is doubtless a missing link in the record--such seem
to have been wholly absent from the inception of the enterprise.

The crux of the question, no doubt, was the position of Nanking. The
lever Mr Lay employed to secure acceptance of his conditions was the
prospect of the immediate capture of the Taiping capital, against
which the provincial Government, represented by the Viceroy Tsêng, his
brother, and the governor of Kiangsu, Li, were expending their forces.
The temptation was exceedingly strong to close with Lay and secure the
services--probably much overrated for that particular object--of the
new flotilla, were it even by recourse to some ambiguous phrase which
might leave a loophole of escape from the agreement when its immediate
object had been served. Something like this might have been attempted
but for the uncompromising attitude of Li Hung-chang, for it was he
who smashed the flotilla scheme. It was true, he allowed, that the
assistance of the ships would enable the viceroy's forces to capture
the city at once; but, he added confidently, we shall succeed in time
by our own resources, and it were better to lose the city and the
province, and even the empire itself, than to place such power as Lay
demanded in the hands of any foreigner. Burgevine was fresh in the
_futai's_ mind--was indeed at that very time in the rebel camp near
him. Li's arguments clinched the matter. The flotilla was never
commissioned. The whole chapter of experiences of the campaign in
Kiangsu has left a vivid impression on the mind of Li Hung-chang: it
was the most interesting period of his life, but no incident of it
imparts such vivacity to his reminiscences as that of the Lay-Osborn
fleet. Nothing warms him to dramatic locution like a reference to that
episode.

V. THE END OF THE REBELLION.

Gordon's brilliant campaign -- His quarrel with Li
Hung-chang -- And reconciliation -- Other French and
English officers co-operate in suppression of rebellion --
Russian aid offered.

Gordon's campaigning lasted one year: it was marked by great
successes, sundry reverses, more than one crisis, and many
discouragements. The famous quarrel with the _futai_ Li was
illustrative of several points of great utility to be borne in mind in
considering the working relations of Eastern and Western peoples; but
perhaps its chief interest lay in its revelation of the independent
and dominating character of Gordon himself, which was his
distinguishing mark through life. After a confused and scarcely
intelligible bargain with the rebel chiefs at Soochow, by which their
lives were to be spared, they were beheaded by order of Li. Gordon
resented this, and, like another Achilles, withdrew to his tent. For
this he was warmly applauded by General Brown, Mr Bruce, and the
Foreign Office, who all denounced Li as the most odious criminal, with
whom no further communication should be held. When, two months later,
Gordon, without consultation with any of these parties, but not
without friendly advice, changed his mind, resumed his friendship with
the governor and active operations in the field, the same chorus of
approval greeted his action as had previously been pronounced of his
inaction. Mr Bruce wrote on February 10, 1864, to Prince Kung, among
other things, that "Major Gordon is to be relieved from any
communication with Governor Li." Within a week Gordon, of his own
motion, had abandoned that position, leaving to the Minister to
explain the change of attitude in any way he pleased, which he did by
resort to that token coinage of diplomatic fiction which serves the
domestic purposes of the craft, but has no market-value outside its
conventional domain. An able explanatory letter from Mr Hart, the new
Inspector-General of Customs, who investigated the transaction on the
spot, would have afforded to the Minister colourable grounds for
"revision" of the earlier judgment, had he been allowed time to avail
himself of it. But Gordon's action forced his hand, and left him no
choice but to acquiesce first and find his reasons afterwards. The
Foreign Office, however, being at a distance, could not be swung back
again so quickly, and they had, on the impulse of the first advices,
withdrawn their sanction for Major Gordon's serving the Chinese at
all. This order reached him after he had, on his own motion,
definitely resigned the service, so that there was no further clashing
of authorities. Though the force contributed materially to the
suppression of the rebellion, the final act, the capture of Nanking,
was left to the unaided resources of the Viceroy Tsêng.

Not the least of Gordon's successes was the peaceable dissolution of
the force when it had done its work; for the establishment was, for
its size, enormously costly, and it was a two-edged sword in the hands
of the Chinese. The "Ever-Victorious Army" was happy in the
opportuneness of its death. A prolonged existence might easily have
dispelled the wonderful prestige it had gained in its short career and
limited scope. Perhaps, after all, its place in history owes
everything to the personality of its last leader, whose legacy to
mankind is not so much a catalogue of achievements as a
life--immortal.

The renown of Gordon and the brilliancy of his exploits have thrown
unduly into the shade the Anglo-Chinese and Franco-Chinese campaign in
the neighbouring province of Chêkiang, which had Ningpo for its sea
base. In their degree these operations were no less essential to the
ultimate overthrow of the rebellion than those in the province of
Kiangsu, and, among many others, the names of Prosper Giquel, who
afterwards managed the arsenal at the Pagoda anchorage, Foochow, and
of the large-hearted bishop, Mgr. Delaplace, afterwards translated to
the metropolitan see, where he died, deserve to be had in remembrance.
Sundry risings in other provinces caused trouble and apprehension; but
we may, for the purposes of this narrative, consider that the year
1864 witnessed the closing scene of the great rebellion.

It would be impossible, within any reasonable space, to follow even in
outline the course of that stupendous devastation, exceeding in its
wanton waste of human life the horrors of the Thirty Years' War in
Germany: our concern has been only with that side of the movement with
which foreign nations were forced into contact, with its political
bearing, and its influence on the position of the Chinese Government.
It happened that only two of the Powers were directly concerned in
offensive operations against the rebels, but in the task of
suppression they had the moral support of them all. Indeed, but for
the French and English activity it seems probable that Russia was
ready single-handed to undertake the whole business. The Russian
Government from time to time signified its approval of the action
taken by the French and English in assisting the Chinese Government to
put down the rebellion. Russia was included in the thanks of the
Chinese to their foreign allies; she had at least furnished material
in the shape of "10,000 rifles and several cannons." These arrived in
Peking, after a protracted journey, at a time when the Russian
Minister deemed it expedient to explain to his British colleagues that
the arms had reference only to the rebellion. Moreover, Russia had, or
professed to have, serious intentions of sending a large force of her
own to co-operate in its suppression. M. Petchroff, a member of the
Russian Legation, spent a month in Shanghai in the autumn of 1862 in
frequent conferences on this subject with the Chinese authorities, the
report of which he carried in person to Admiral Popoff, who was at the
time in Japan. M. Petchroff called upon the British admiral while in
Shanghai, and informed him of this project. It was not carried out, as
Prince Gortchakoff explained to Lord Napier, because the Russian
Government had not force enough available to render effective
assistance, but they wished to show the Chinese that they were in
hearty sympathy with the Anglo-French policy, and might, for moral
effect, show their flag in co-operation, so far as prudence would
allow.

The importance of putting an end to the rebellion, and the value of
foreign aid in doing so, were fully realised by the Peking Government.
Of this the abortive, but costly, Osborn flotilla furnished proof
enough; and the honours bestowed on Gordon by imperial decree were an
expression of the unspeakable relief which was felt in the palace at
the dispelling of the hideous nightmare. A final decree summing up the
movement, in a tone of restrained sincerity not usual in these
conventional documents, says: "Words cannot convey any idea of the
misery and desolation he [the Taiping chief] caused; the measure of
his iniquity was full, and the wrath of both gods and men was roused
against him."

VI. EVACUATION OF CANTON.

Good feeling and compliments on both sides -- Mr Parkes's
able administration of the city.

An event which passed off without the slightest sensation, because
without hitch, was the evacuation of Canton by the Allied troops in
October 1861. Were it only for one clause in the proclamation issued
by the high Chinese authorities on the occasion, this transaction
would form a valuable historical landmark:--

During the occupation of Canton by the allied troops of
England and France during a period of four years, their
conduct has never been otherwise than friendly towards the
military and people of the whole city, and the military and
people having also corresponded with courtesy and
friendship, harmony has been maintained from first to last.
Now that the troops are being withdrawn, the consuls of
England and France will continue to reside within the city,
while the merchants and people of all nations will
constantly pass in and out, or reside therein at their
pleasure. It remains the duty of yourselves, the military
and people, to continue to them the same respectful and
courteous relations that have prevailed during the
occupation.

Compare this with the state of things existing only three years
before! Much of the success of the occupation and its good permanent
results were unquestionably due to the high qualities of Parkes, the
British commissioner, who thus modestly refers to the matter in his
despatch: "The confidence of the people in a strong and inoppressive
Government, added to their own governable character, materially
facilitated the task of maintaining order in a vast and most intricate
city containing a population of upwards of 1,000,000 inhabitants." The
"Canton question" was thus finally disposed of to the satisfaction of
all parties.

VII. DEATH OF THE EMPEROR.

His flight from the capital -- Succession of his son --
Regency of the two empresses -- Prince Kung's sanguinary
_coup d'état_.

Next in importance to the suppression of the Taiping rebellion, the
death of the Emperor Hsienfêng marked the period we are now
considering. That unfortunate monarch, who deserted his capital
against the strongest remonstrances of his advisers, on the approach
of the Allied forces, died at his hiding-place in August 1861, and his
only son was proclaimed in his stead under the style of Tungchih. The
new emperor was a child, and provision had to be made for a regency.
How this regency fell into the hands of two empresses--one the mother
of the young emperor, the other the true widow of the deceased--was
not very well understood by the foreigners then in the capital. Prince
Kung's _coup d'état_, by which the three male members of the regency
were elaborately arraigned and then assassinated, was not organised to
get rid of any imaginary "anti-foreign faction," as was too easily
assumed at the time, but simply and solely to place the empire at the
feet of himself and the emperor's mother. "Parties" in Peking have
always been, and are to this day, a puzzle to foreigners, who, having
seldom at the moment any trustworthy means of informing themselves,
are apt to be carried away by "cries," sometimes got up for the
purpose of misleading them,--for the Chinese are not at all averse
from turning to account the half knowledge on which foreigners are
prone to form their opinions.

VIII. INFLUENCE OF THESE EVENTS ON PROGRESS OF DIPLOMACY.

Inadequacy of foreign diplomacy -- Absence of sovereign --
Allies committed to protection of China -- Coercion
impossible -- Large outlook of Mr Bruce -- The provincial
_versus_ imperial administration -- Attempt to force
Central Government to coerce provincial -- Contemptuous
attitude of Chinese Ministers -- Sir F. Bruce's despair --
He clutches at various straws -- General reaction of
Chinese.

How did these various occurrences influence the progress of diplomatic
relations with the Government? We have seen that diplomacy in Peking
was a venture launched on imported capital, which, meeting with no
indigenous support, was doomed from the first to feed upon itself.
There was no dialect through which the foreign idea could translate
itself to Chinese comprehension, no medium by which Chinese political
conceptions could be made intelligible to the foreigner. When Gordon
could not get his meaning filtered through an interpreter, he called
for a dictionary and put his finger on the word "idiotcy"--and the
most orthodox interpreting could not get much beyond this point in
establishing a common currency for the interchange of national ideas.
The initial difficulty in imposing foreign forms, foreign terms,
foreign procedure--of revolutionising at a stroke a system of
administration petrified by ancient usage--would have existed even if
the statesmen of China had been sincere converts to the innovation.
The contrary was, of course, the case: they were as much opposed to
the new relations as they had been to the military invasion itself. No
help, therefore, was to be expected from the Chinese side in creating
a workable scheme of international intercourse. They desired nothing
of that kind, their ambition soaring no higher than the creation of a
buffer against which external impulsion might expend its force. That
buffer was the Tsungli-Yamên. Foreign diplomacy, therefore, if it were
to subsist at all, must subsist on its own resources, the foundation
of which was force. The force that brought foreigners to Peking must,
either _in esse_ or _in posse_, for an indefinite time keep them there
and render them efficient. Force no doubt would have enabled the
foreign Ministers to bring about even those structural changes in the
Chinese system which were necessary to clear the ground for the
operation of their diplomacy. But if there was one thing more than
another of which Western Governments were determined to convince
themselves, it was that the law of force was finally abrogated in
China; that on a certain day at a certain hour, coincident with the
signing (by force) of a sheet of paper, the spirit of hostility had
departed from the Chinese mind; and that the law of love and reason
was, without preamble, to take the place of that which had brought
about the new relations. Whether believed in or not, this curious
paradox was to be the rule of all future action.

The game that opens with the "king" off the board, and is afterwards
continued with the "queen" protected, is an obviously impossible one.
The foreign Ministers had to do with a Government of irresponsibility,
and instead of teaching its members from the outset to recognise their
new obligations--training them as children, which as regards foreign
matters they really were--the foreign Ministers began by treating the
Chinese Government rather as an infant too delicate for discipline,
with the familiar results of such treatment. The diplomats betrayed so
much anxiety to lure the sovereign back to his palace, that the
Chinese Ministers soon learned to exploit this feeling for their own
ends. That such and such a concession "would have a good effect at
Jêho" was inducement enough to the foreign representatives to waive
one point after another in the transaction of public business. When
the emperor died, after six months of this _régime_ of indulgence, the
position was changed materially for the worse,--for the diplomats had
now a veritable infant on their hands, with a female regent "behind
the curtain." No prospect thenceforth of even the initial formality of
delivering letters of credence until the child should grow up, by
which time many things might happen. Thus the European scheme of
diplomacy, which was to have been imposed bodily on the Court of
Peking, stumbled heavily on the threshold, and never recovered
itself. But the Chinese recovered. Their fear of the "fierce
barbarians" disappeared as they saw them throw away their weapons, and
the process was resumed by which the fruits of the war and of the
treaties of peace were gradually nibbled away.

And of course the whole idea of coercing the Imperial Government, even
had it ever been entertained, was openly reduced to nullity when the
foreign Powers interfered for the suppression of the rebellion. The
Allies could not knock down with one hand what they were propping up
with the other, and thus the Imperial Government not only enjoyed
immunity, but knew that they possessed it,--that their late conquerors
were now fully committed to the upholding of the integrity of China
and the maintenance of the dynasty. Any liberties might consequently
be taken: remonstrances from the foreigners would be loud in
proportion to their hollowness, but the barbarians could not attack a
citadel full of their own hostages.

Although remoteness from the scene of action and imperfect
acquaintance with local requirements were apt to invalidate his
conclusions on points of detail, and to compel him occasionally to
follow where he might have been expected to guide the action of his
subordinate executive, yet whenever Sir Frederick Bruce delivered his
mind on the position of China and her foreign relations as a whole,
his views were large, luminous, and statesmanlike. He foresaw from the
first what the degradation of the Chinese Government must inevitably
lead to. His outlook is revealed in a brief sentence in one of his
earlier despatches: "The weakness of China rather than her strength
is likely to create a fresh Eastern question in these seas." There
need be little doubt that that idea dominated his Chinese diplomacy.
Severity, or even strictness, may well have seemed on the face of the
matter inconsistent with the pious wish to strengthen China, yet we
now know that what she then most needed was to be braced up to the
fulfilment of her obligations as a necessity of her own wellbeing.

The field of diplomacy in the orthodox sense being closed, and there
being no foreign interests in Peking, the subject-matter for the
Ministers' activity was furnished entirely from the trading-ports. Of
these there were fifteen open in 1861. The kind of questions which
arose may be generally defined as claims arising out of breaches of
treaty by provincial officials, for which redress was sought from the
Central Government. This was a reversal of Chinese methods, which,
even had the Government been well disposed, would not have been easy
to effect; and as the Government was hostile, difficulty became
impossibility. The British Minister after a year's trial began to
realise the magnitude of his Sisyphean task. "In a country like
China," he wrote to the Foreign Office in July 1862, "where the
principles of administration differ entirely from those practised by
us, the conclusion of a treaty is the commencement, not the
termination, of difficulties."

To a consul he wrote at the same time: "The important result to be
gained by the establishment of direct relations with the Government of
Peking is the avoidance of local acts of violence.... Time will elapse
before the new system will work smoothly and efficiently, ... but you
must not go beyond pacific efforts to remedy the abuses complained
of." A few months later, in a general circular to consuls, he thus
carefully recapitulated the instruction:--

The object to be attained is that of forcing the local
officials to observe the treaty ... through the pressure
brought to bear upon them by the Peking Government, and
thus escape from the false position in which we have
hitherto been placed of coercing the local authorities and
people, and thus doing the work of the Imperial Government.
To initiate this new system of relations is a task which
can only be effected gradually and patiently; but the
attempt must be steadily and perseveringly made, in order
that the Chinese Government may be forced to teach its
people, &c.

And at the same time he summed up the situation to the Foreign Office
in these words: "Our relations with China cannot be put upon a safe
footing until the Imperial Government itself compels its local
officers to observe treaties"--a matter in which the Central
Government itself most needed compulsion!

But all this about "forcing" the local officials and "forcing" the
Imperial Government, without using any force, recalls the ancient
Chinese maxim of "ruling barbarians by misrule." The world rested
securely enough on the tortoise, but what did the tortoise itself rest
on? With grim satisfaction must the Chinese Ministers have watched the
foreigners entering on a desert campaign where they would exhaust
their strength without reaching the enemy. The warnings and threats
which alone the Minister allowed himself to use to enforce his demands
or his admonitions, as the case might be, were to the Chinese mere
blank cartridge. Prince Kung, replying to one of those minatory
despatches, "imagines that his Excellency uses this outspoken language
for the purpose of stimulating the Chinese Government to activity. His
Highness is sure that it is not his Excellency's desire to act in the
manner indicated." And so on indefinitely. The impression made on the
Chinese Government by the force of foreign diplomacy was likened by an
American Minister twenty years afterwards to "boxing a feather-bed."
The policy above described, inaugurated by Mr Bruce and followed
consistently by the British Government, was pithily termed by Lord
Salisbury, when in Opposition, as an "ideal policy" in pursuit of
which the concrete interests of the country were allowed to lapse.

It would be tedious to trace in detail the process of disintegration
of treaty rights which followed these interesting overtures. It will
be more to the purpose to cite the British Minister's review of the
results twelve months later in a despatch to Prince Kung. This
despatch and the reply to it were deemed so important at the time that
they were separately called for by the House of Commons, and were
published as independent Blue Books (Nos. 6 and 8, 1864):--

Sir Frederick Bruce wished the Prince of Kung to understand
that he had reason to be greatly dissatisfied

1. With the general disregard of treaty provisions
manifested at the ports.

2. With the tone of the Government generally towards
foreigners.

It is entirely due to the exertions of the Allied forces
that Shanghai and Ningpo are not now in rebel possession.
Had Shanghai fallen, the imperial authority would have
received a blow from which it could never have recovered....

Sir F. Bruce did not look for any extraordinary
demonstration of gratitude for these services, but he had
hoped that the Central Government would at least have
insisted on the faithful observance of the treaty at the
ports. He had hoped also that it would have addressed itself
with some increase of vigour to the organisation of a
competent executive.

These expectations have not been realised. At several of the
ports the treaty is daily broken in matters great and small;
and the Central Government, if not unwilling, shows itself
unable to enforce a better order of things. The orders sent
by the Foreign Board, when Sir Frederick Bruce complains,
are not carried out, either because the local authorities do
not stand in awe of the Foreign Board or because they do not
believe the Foreign Board issues them in earnest....

The Foreign Board has gone through the form of issuing
instructions, but the causes of complaint remain as they
were, either because the local authorities do not fear or
because the Foreign Board does not care. Seeing that none of
the authorities complained of have been punished or removed,
that officials notoriously hostile to foreigners have been
appointed to places in which they have increased opportunity
of indulging in their anti-foreign tendencies, while
officials of friendly disposition have been withdrawn, Sir
Frederick Bruce is induced, however reluctantly, to infer
that if the Imperial Government be not adverse to friendly
intercourse, it is, at all events, indisposed to do what is
necessary to teach the people and local authorities that
China is sincerely desirous of friendly relations with
foreign Powers....

It is for the Chinese Government to consider whether it will
listen to these warnings, &c.

_Prince Kung's Reply, 19th June 1863._

With reference to the proposition on which the British
Minister's note insists, that the treaty should rank with
the law, the Prince has to observe that the principle that
the treaty is identical with the laws of the Imperial
Government, and that breach of treaty is the same thing as
violation of the law, is the principle on which the
Government of China proceeds, and its only desire is that
foreign nations should regard the treaty in the same
light....

As regards the cases still undetermined in the provinces,
the Prince hopes that the British Minister will refer to
the record and inform him, case by case, of the particulars
of each, and the Yamên will at once write to the Provincial
Governments concerned to hurry them with the cases
enumerated....

_Sir Frederick Bruce's Reply, July 2, 1863._

Your Imperial Highness states in explicit terms that the
Government of China recognises the treaties as the law of
the empire in its relations with foreigners, and that
breaches of treaty are considered violations of those laws.
But the despatch of your Imperial Highness contains nothing
to show that this principle will be carried out in
practice. I stated instances in which the authorities, in
spite of the remonstrances of her Majesty's consul, had
deliberately set aside the letter of the treaty for no
other object than to curtail the privileges of her
Majesty's subjects. Your Imperial Highness in your reply
does not allude to these cases, nor do you inform me that
any steps have been taken to remedy these grievances or to
prevent a repetition of such conduct. I am simply requested
to send in a list of the grievances complained of; and I am
informed that the local authorities will be urged to settle
them with speed. Such a proposal is entirely
unsatisfactory; for what reason have I to suppose that the
instructions now to be sent by your Imperial Highness will
be attended to, when I see that the orders which I am
assured were given by your Imperial Highness for the
redress of outrages such as ... have been disobeyed?

In these State Papers the relations present and prospective between
China and the outer world are accurately represented. Putting aside
local and temporary questions, the despatches might be dated 1873,
1883, or 1893, for the position remained substantially the same during
the three decades.

The attitude of the British Minister we see to be one of hopeless
pleading and vague admonition; of the Chinese Ministers, elastic
resistance. One wonders how far, under the mask of dull decorum, the
Chinese entered into the real humour of the situation: foreigners
chafing impotently, but with their teeth drawn, occupying themselves
largely with the preservation of China and the dynasty; urging
reforms, military, financial, and administrative, while putting up
with the non-fulfilment of the commonest obligations.

Sir F. Bruce was much too wise a man not to be perfectly conscious of
the negative result of foreign diplomacy in Peking. His private
letters, some of which were published by Mr Lay in 1864, are more
emphatic on the point than his public despatches. He saw it was a case
for desperate remedies, but unfortunately he had no remedy except such
as aggravated the disease. Like a drowning man, Sir Frederick Bruce
clutched at one straw, then another--first at the inspectorate of
customs, then at the collective body of his colleagues--to redress the
balance which lay so heavily against him. We see in the despatch of
June 12, 1863, the inception of what became known as the "co-operative
policy." That was an arrangement by which the cause of one foreigner
was to be made the cause of all, so that the treaty Powers might
present a solid front to the Chinese. Unfortunately such a policy
bears no fruit, since half-a-dozen Powers with separate interests, and
of varying tempers, can only unite in doing nothing. The co-operative
policy, therefore, by tying the hands of all the Powers, rendered the
Chinese more secure than ever from outside interference.

From Sir Frederick Bruce's despatches it may be gathered that the
reason for the non-success of the Peking diplomacy was, that it was
not founded on fact. It assumed that the Government of China was
centralised instead of decentralised; that the administration of the
empire hinged on the initiative of Peking, from which distant point
the resident Ministers could protect their respective national
interests throughout the empire. This hypothesis, which might have
graced an academic debate, was acted upon as if it was a reality, and
the struggle to make it so has absorbed the resources of diplomacy for
forty years. The real fact, however, was quite otherwise. The
distinctive character of Chinese Government is not autocracy, but
democracy and provincial autonomy. The springs of action work from
below, not from above, and to reverse this order of the ages was to
convert a court of appeal into a court of first instance: to sue for a
tradesman's debt before the Lord Chancellor, requiring the legal
machinery to be first turned upside down. Diplomacy in China has thus
been a disheartening effort to drive in a wedge by its thick end
without adequate leverage. It is possible, indeed, that force might
have accomplished even as much as that, but force was the one thing
the use of which was proscribed.

The redress of grievances being sought not where it could have been
exacted, at the point affected, but in the capital, the Central
Government was called on to exercise over the provincial officials a
kind of control which had never been exercised before. The provincial
officials, relieved from the local pressure which they respected,
easily evaded the novel and unconstitutional interference of the
capital, and violated the treaties with an impunity unknown in the
days before the admission of the foreign Ministers to Peking. The
treaties, no doubt, had become the "law of the land" so far as a mere
barbarian phrase could make them so, but a full-grown tree of Western
legality could not so easily transplant itself to an alien and
refractory soil. The argument from legality appealed, therefore, to
the ear only. The practical conclusion to which Sir Frederick Bruce
was led is very simply stated in two paragraphs of his letters to
Prince Kung: "My object has been to seek redress through the Imperial
Government, and to do away with the necessity of seeking redress by
forcible demonstrations at the ports. But it is evident that the
reluctance of your Imperial Highness to enter frankly into this policy
renders my efforts ineffectual." "Either the Imperial Government is
unwilling to use its influence to cause the treaties to be fairly
carried out, or it has not the power to cause its orders to be
obeyed." Sir Frederick would have hit still nearer the mark if he had
omitted the "either," "or," and said simply the Imperial Government
was _both_ unwilling and unable.

Notwithstanding these definite views, the experiment of forcing a
centralisation which would have been a revolution on the
unintelligible Government of China had to be continued through many
weary years that were to follow, during which time the rights
conferred by treaty on foreigners fell more and more into abeyance.

The progress in that direction made in the two first years is thus
summarised by Mr H. N. Lay, the first Inspector-General of Customs, on
his return to China in 1863:--

When I left China the emperor's Government, under the
pressure of necessity, and with the beneficial terror
established by the Allied foray to Peking in 1860 fresh in
their recollection, was in the best of moods, willing to be
guided, grateful for help, and in return for that help
prepared to do what was right by the foreigner. What did I
find on my return? The face of things was entirely changed.
There was the old insolent demeanour, the nonsensical
language of exclusion, the open mockery of all treaties....
In short, all the ground gained by the treaty of 1858 had
been frittered away, and we were thrust back into the
position we occupied before the war,--one of helpless
remonstrance and impotent menace; ... the labour of years
lost through egregious mismanagement. The Foreign Board
looked upon our European representatives as so many _rois
fainéants_.... Prince Kung was no longer accessible.... He
professed to be engaged with more important matters.

FOOTNOTES:

[45] Peking and the Pekingese.

[46] Kunshan or Quinsan.

APPENDIX I.

NOTE ON OUR PRESENT POSITION AND THE STATE OF OUR RELATIONS
WITH CHINA, BY CONSUL ALCOCK, JANUARY 19, 1849.

_Section I._

The lesson of the past is very legibly written in the history of our
relations,--oppression in the Chinese, increased by submission in the
English. Resistance of the latter followed by concession in the former
may be read in every stage, and the influence of the late war, beyond
the tangible effects embodied in the provisions of the treaties, has
been limited very much to outward forms: there is reason to suspect
that the policy of the Chinese has been masked, not changed.

The same arrogant and hostile spirit exists, and their policy is still
to degrade foreigners in the eyes of the people, and to offer every
obstacle which may _with safety_ be interposed to any extended
intercourse,--objects which they seek to carry out by various covert
and indirect means. In this sense the letter of the treaty is often
quoted, but any large interpretation can only be secured under a moral
compulsion, as the least objectionable alternative. This may not,
perhaps, be wholly owing to bad faith, for distrust and fear of
foreigners probably influences the result. Hence all the principal
advantages enjoyed under the treaty are only held by a species of
personal tenure of precarious character, and a consul at one of the
ports may lose more in a week than her Majesty's Government may find
it easy to recover with costly and embarrassing efforts in a year. Our
present relations consist in a never-ceasing struggle, under veiled
appearances of amity; and the treaty extorted by force is generally
sought to be eluded by cunning. They have no objection to the foreign
trade as one of the elements of their own prosperity, though they
much underrate its importance; but to make it wholly acceptable [to
them], the former humiliating conditions are wanting.

The whole effort of the Chinese rulers seems to be limited to
preserving peace as the first object, and, so far as may be compatible
with this, to assimilate our present to our ancient position as the
second.

From the general bearing of our relations in connection with the past
and the future, the nature and extent of the disadvantages under which
we labour may be easily deduced:--

1. Local insecurity to person and property at Canton.

2. Want of access to the first markets and of the means of
pushing and verifying the consumption of our manufactures
in the interior.

3. Ill-adjusted rates of duty on several important
articles.

4. Want of reciprocity and equality in our political
relations, and a certain inferiority in our position social
and political.

By the first we are menaced with perpetual danger of fatal collision
and interruption to our commerce, while our general position is at the
same time prejudiced. By the second we are deprived of any large
market for our goods, and pay dearer for native produce. By the third
the Straits, Indian, and the native carrying trade are all impeded in
their growth and dwarfed in their proportions; and by the fourth
insuperable difficulties in remedying abuses or amending our relations
are encountered, our only means of action being upon Canton and its
governor, acting as an imperial commissioner.

The full and rapid development of our commerce, a new and profitable
field for our manufactures, and a better guarantee for the maintenance
of our friendly relations, are the chief advantages to be sought in
the removal of these disabilities.

The practicability of maintaining our relations on their present
unsatisfactory footing in the south must be very doubtful, nor is
there much hope that any of the essential advantages above specified
may be gained incidentally in the natural progress of time, and still
less that the grounds of alarm should of themselves disappear. The
causes of all that is bad in our position spring from too deep a
source, and may be traced too far back, to admit of any such hope: a
rooted conviction in the minds of a whole population, derived from
traditional knowledge of the humiliating and derogatory position
voluntarily accepted by foreigners, cannot be effaced by a treaty, or
even a short successful war which passed over the city that was the
offending cause almost harmless. How far it may be possible to convert
popular contempt and dislike into respect and fear, we cannot judge
from experience: hitherto, in the steps taken to that end, either too
much or too little has been attempted.

There are practical difficulties of a peculiar and altogether local
character [it is obvious] to any immediate amelioration of our
position at Canton which do not exist elsewhere. Setting aside these
considerations, it will be found that all that is most valuable and
important in the advantages to be desired are of a nature to be
granted by the sole exercise of the emperor's will: greater freedom of
access, the modification of half-a-dozen items in the tariff, even the
exchange of envoys between the two Courts, if this were deemed
expedient, are all matters to be decided by a stroke of the vermilion
pencil. No hostile populations interpose a practical negative to
concessions such as these. The grounds upon which we may claim the
revisal of some of the provisions of existing treaties are derived
from the well-established conditions of all permanent relations of a
friendly and commercial character between sovereign States in the
civilised world.

We may claim of right a modification of the basis of our relations on
the injury resulting to our interests from the bad faith or
impuissance (it matters little which) of the Chinese Government in
giving execution to the treaties in force. We may insist upon
prejudicial limits being abolished, since they have plainly failed in
their ostensible object to secure freedom from molestation or injury
which was the condition of their acceptance.

If it be the traditional policy of the Tartar dynasty to keep
foreigners at the outer confines of the empire and in a degrading
position, it may with better justice be the policy of Great Britain to
obtain a direct action upon their centre, and freedom from idle and
vexatious restrictions. The right of a nation to interdict intercourse
and commerce, and therefore to determine upon what conditions it shall
exist, is but an imperfect right, and subject to such modifications as
the rights of other nations to the use of innocent objects of utility
dictate; and the refusal of a common right is an abuse of the
sovereign power, and an injury to be resisted.

China, however disposed its rulers may be to deny the fact, is one of
a community of nations with common rights and obligations, and any
claim to exemption from the recognised terms of national intercourse
is inadmissible in the interest of all other countries. To admit such
a right of exemption would be to allow the arrogated superiority in
power and civilisation, and to pamper the hostile conceit of her
people.

So long as the sovereign States of Europe will permit so obvious an
inference it cannot be matter of surprise, and scarcely subject of
reproach, to the Chinese, that they should be so ready to assert and
so pertinacious in acting upon it.

But even if exclusion from the territories, from all trade and
intercourse, were an absolute right in the first instance, the Chinese
have forfeited all claim to its exercise--first, by voluntarily
entering into relations political and commercial in ages past with
other States and people, by exchange of embassies, by opening their
ports and territories and encouraging trade; and secondly, by
aggressive wars and invasion of the territory of Europe by the Tartar
and Mongolian races who have ruled the country.

China preserves her undoubted right of self-preservation as a
political society and an empire, but this does not involve the
incidental right of interdicting intercourse, because her own history
shows that danger does not necessarily follow unlimited access, since
as late as the seventeenth century such free communication existed
with foreigners; and secondly, because the right of decision must be
shared by the interdicted party.

_Section II._

It is not enough, however, to determine the abstract principles upon
which a policy may be founded--that which is just may not always be
most expedient, and if both the one and the other, it may not be
practicable.

The chief difficulties to be encountered in any attempt to place our
relations on an improved basis may be traced to three principal
sources:--

The Canton popular traditions and hostility.
The treaties in force.
The contraband trade in opium.

The characteristic features of our position at Canton and their origin
are too well known to require illustration. To our political relations
before the war, and the humble and in every way derogatory attitude
assumed towards the Chinese, is clearly to be traced their present
insolence, assumed superiority, and hostility on finding it
questioned.

The principle of narrow boundaries and restricted limits confirmed by
the Treaty of Nanking virtually sanctioned the tradition of the past,
which no mere verbal assertion of equality thus practically
contradicted can modify. The repudiation of this principle and the
establishment of a different footing seem to be essential to our
political equality, which would form the best foundation of an
improved social and commercial position, most especially in the south.
Were our chief political relations with the Chinese Government not
centred at Canton, it is very evident that that port would lose much
of the importance which now attaches to the sayings and doings of its
turbulent mob and impracticable authorities. Were the centre of our
political action anywhere else, the local difficulties, troublesome as
they are, must soon merge into comparative insignificance, and such a
measure as this would seem an easier task to accomplish than to change
the habits and the prejudices of a whole population.

If we turn from Canton and its unsatisfactory history of oriental
insolence and presumption on the one side, and undue submission to
their exigencies on the other, and consider the exemption from all
such characteristics at Shanghai, the respective influences of the
treaties and of local circumstances may be deduced by a comparison of
the two chief ports.

The various concurring circumstances terminating in the Tsingpu
outrage, which threatened to approximate the position of the British
at Shanghai to that occupied at Canton, have been detailed in the
correspondence of the period. The position was seriously affected by
the comparative immunity of whole villages participating in the
murders at Canton in the previous year, by the atrocious features of
the crime itself, and by the assumed necessity of the consul's
inaction pending a reference to her Majesty's plenipotentiary,
occupying several weeks.

Prompt redress was imperiously demanded by the interests at stake and
the sinister aspect of affairs, and to enforce this coercive means
were employed, leaving nothing to be desired.

The most important of the results obtained was the demonstration of a
power to shift the centre of action from a port where no progress
could be made to a vulnerable point nearer to Peking where immediate
attention could be commanded, and this was supplied by the mission to
Nanking.

From these two circumstances--the serious deterioration of our
position, and the prompt and efficacious remedy provided--an important
conclusion may be drawn as to our means of effecting any required
change in our relations.

In an empire vast in area as China, with an overflowing population, it
is no slight advantage to be enabled, without a single battle, to
invest and vigorously blockade the capital; and this it is in our
power to effect by a small squadron at the mouth of the Grand Canal in
the early spring, when Peking is dependent for its supplies for the
year on the arrival of the grain and tribute junks by that channel. A
more effective means of coercion this than the destruction of twenty
cities on the confines of the Chinese territory or on the coast. With
a starving Court and population around him, flight or concession
appears to be the emperor's only alternatives.

The facility and the certainty with which this object may be attained
are important considerations. The insurmountable obstacles to the
advance of a European army into the interior are rendered nugatory and
altogether unimportant by the knowledge of this highroad to the heart
of the empire.

The maintenance of our present relations is probably in no slight
degree due to the secret consciousness of their weakness at this
point.

In any future policy that may be adopted, therefore, these facts and
views are calculated to supersede the necessity for active
hostilities, and must tend to avert from a peaceful and industrious
population all the worst calamities of war, at the same time that they
free her Majesty's Government from the embarrassment of a costly and
protracted war _in prospectu_.

A simple and ready resource for commanding attention to any just
demands is indeed invaluable in China, and without it there is every
reason to believe the Chinese rulers would still be the most
impracticable of Orientals. With such a power, no insuperable
obstacles exist to the satisfactory solution of difficulties without
either costly effort or interruption to the trade of the five ports;
and it was the long-matured conviction of our powerful action, by
means of a command over the necessary supplies for Peking, that
dictated the course followed in the Tsingpu affair.

The Chinese view of the opium trade and our agency in it forms perhaps
the chief obstacle to our taking that high ground with the rulers, and
good position with the people, which the extension of our commercial
interests demands. Let us look, then, to this opium traffic and the
influence it actually exercises upon our position in China.

It is no question here whether opium should be classed in the category
of medicines, stimuli, or fatal poisons; the Chinese have decided that
for themselves, and regard it only as a poison, and the British as the
great producers, carriers, and sellers of the drug, to our own great
profit and their undoubted impoverishment and ruin. Nor does their
conviction end here: they believe to maintain this traffic we made war
and dictated a humiliating peace, and that we are prepared to do so
again, if they ventured on any interference to its prejudice.

These opinions may be false or true in their foundation, that is not
the question, but, What is the influence they are calculated to
exercise? Hostility and distrust can alone be traced to this source.
No other feelings flow from it, and the consequences will meet us at
every turn of our negotiations, in our daily intercourse, and every
changing phase of our relations. As it overshadows with a sinister
influence the whole field of our political action, so must it be
seriously taken into account and calculated upon as an adverse element
in all we attempt in China.

Accepted as _un fait accompli_, the best means of neutralising and
counteracting its bad effects are alone to be considered, since the
enormous capital, large revenue, and inseparable connection of our
legitimate trade with opium, as a means of laying down funds in China,
involved in the traffic, precludes all idea of its cessation or
removal.

The effective protection lent to the chief opium-dealers, in their
capacity of British merchants, resident at the ports under the
provisions of the treaty, and the manifest inability of the Chinese
either to bring the legal proof we should require against these
principals, or of attacking by force their agents in the glaring
infraction of the Chinese laws, at the opium stations, no doubt flings
an air of insincerity over all our protestations of non-intervention,
while there is mockery in the invitation to assail large fleets of
heavily-armed European vessels. Even if the Chinese for a single
moment believed in the honesty of our declarations, they know the
utter futility of any means of attack they possess against such
superior force as the opium fleets present. This is the view taken by
the Chinese, who, though they do not confess their own weakness, do
not disguise or deny it to themselves.

The obstacles which these opinions create and fling in our path
whenever advantages are sought at the hands of the Chinese in
furtherance of our national interests are to be overcome before any
progress can be made. There are three modes of dealing with them:--

1. By arguments to prove the fallacy of their assumption that we were
either the original cause of this traffic, or have now the power to
put an end to it, or finally, that it is an unmixed evil.

2. By a modification in the demands we should, without this
consideration, be entitled to insist upon.

3. By a mixture of kindness and decision, of instruction and
intimidation, and, in last resort, by coercion for the attainment of
all just and necessary concessions.

And as we should naturally begin with the first, and may eventually
find ourselves compelled to resort to the last, so no doubt it will be
expedient many times to combine all the different methods of
overcoming the active or inert resistance we encounter in the Chinese
rulers.

As to any remedy to be applied to the evils of the opium trade, there
seems to be none open to either Government but its legalisation, which
would strip it of its contraband character, and remove from the
emperor the open reproach to his authority, while it might be made to
yield a large revenue to his treasury.

If on a question of national policy or morality, this measure, as the
lesser of two evils, is declined, there seems to be no help for the
mischief which must accrue to us from being the chief agents in the
traffic. But it is useless to disguise from ourselves the injurious
influence it will unfailingly exercise upon our political action, when
any rights on our part are weighed, and it is this which may entail
the necessity of our flinging the weight of the sword into the
opposite scale--sheathed it may be, but not the less significant and
compulsory in its effect.

The opium grief and the Canton hostility thus work together and
dovetail into each other to our manifest prejudice, that port
continuing to enjoy its old privilege of being the great exponent and
centre of both. There we meet in their least veiled form the national
adverseness to foreigners concentrated and localised--the conviction
of injury and loss at our hands from opium, heightened into asperity
and bitterness by the arrogance of their tempers and the consciousness
of their weakness.

In no other port does it seem likely the same overt expression and
concentration of adverse feelings will ever be experienced. It would
appear the more important, therefore, to modify the virulent form they
assume at Canton, and remove the bad precedent and example incessantly
furnished by the Cantonese.

The entrance into the city is obviously a question of principle, not
of any _direct_ practical advantage in a _commercial_ sense. The
freedom from annoyance, and security to property, are more truly so,
and of these two the latter, by far the most essential and important
to our interests, seems only to require more storage room for goods,
away from a dense Chinese suburb which renders insurance from risk of
fire impossible, and entails upon our merchants all the additional
danger of fraud in the Chinese warehouse-keepers, who are of necessity
the custodians of our goods.

We cannot hope that any effort of ours or of the emperor will suffice
to change at once the character and habits of a people, or even of the
population of a city. But the last war has shown that with us it rests
to bring at any time the pretensions of the Chinese rulers down to a
nearer level with their military power; and if they cannot from
inherent weakness do all that may be desirable, neither are they in a
position to refuse any concession, clearly at their option to grant,
and such are these which it would seem most important to Great Britain
to secure: the nature of our demands and the circumstances under which
they shall be preferred are considerations of policy and expediency.
But the real question, and by far the most important, it will be
obvious, is rather what it may be wise to demand, than what it may be
possible to obtain. The danger of collision between the rival
civilisations of the East and West has long been foreseen,
instinctively felt by the Chinese, and more clearly discerned by
Europeans in the result of the late war; and the larger commercial
interests growing up under, and in spite of, the present system of
restrictions, has only tended, by partially extending the points of
contact without placing our relations on a plain basis of reciprocity
and equality, to increase the chances. It can only be hoped that the
gradual introduction of European arts and ideas and their
fructification may in some degree fuse and harmonise the discordant
elements before the course of events which otherwise tend to
precipitate a violent and disastrous collision are beyond our control.
To such a peaceful and beneficial termination of the difficulties
which unavoidably beset our relations with China, the efforts of all
Western Powers should in the common interest be directed.

These considerations must act as the most powerful checks to any
initiative measures of a large and comprehensive character for the
improvement of our position and the more rapid development of our
commerce.

In this point of view the two greatest obstacles to any advance are
the large commercial interests and national revenue at stake, and the
danger of being followed by the envoys of other foreign Powers who,
having no such great interests to jeopardise, are without this
beneficial and most needful check, and may therefore be induced to
repeat at a semi-barbarian Court the intrigues and counter-projects
for the destruction of our influence and the injury of our trade in
the East which are at work in our own times in every capital in
Europe, as formerly in India and the Eastern Archipelago.

Russia, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, and America, with their
several jealousies and united rivalry with England, their missionary
enterprises or commercial and political schemes clashing in their aim
and development, are all capable of creating such turmoil, strife, and
disturbance throughout the empire, if free access to the Court and the
provinces were insisted upon by Great Britain, as could only end in
the ejection of Europeans from China as formerly from Japan, or an
intestine war in which European power would probably be involved on
opposite sides, and to their mutual destruction as States with
commercial interests in the country. These, again, might lead to
attempts at territorial possession, suggested in the first instance,
as in India, in self-defence, and afterwards continued from
necessity. With Russia spreading her gigantic arms to the north and
east, Great Britain on the south and west, Spain, Holland, and
Portugal with their colonies in the Chinese and Indian seas, a
struggle for superiority on the soil of China for exclusive advantages
or predominant influence might be centred in Peking and embroil the
whole of Europe in hostile relations. The same objection applies to
all efforts to enlarge our intercourse and remove limitations, and has
ever prevailed. It was recognised as an objection to the last war. The
course of events urged on by the opium trade left but little
alternative at the last, or there can be no doubt, with the additional
fear of the uncertain result of a struggle with a vast empire like
China, the resources of which were so imperfectly known, the British
Government would have been deterred from any onward step, as these
motives did in effect prevent any hostile aggression, so long as it
was possible to avoid it, without the sacrifice of our trade.

The war over, it again prevailed, and we are once more in a position
to accept as final the increased but limited advantages resulting, or
to try for more, and by our policy to avert or provoke disturbing
causes which must lead to change. The moderation which marked, and the
policy which dictated, our treaties carried us back to the old ground
of a nation trading by sufferance, under limitations and restrictions
which kept us at the boundaries of the empire, and with us the rest of
the Western world, the only difference being enlarged facilities and
better guarantees for the pursuit of trade on the coast-line, and
within the restricted limits of the five ports selected. It is now for
the British Government to determine whether we should rest content
with the revenue derived from an import of some 60 million lb. of tea
and the export from India of 40,000 chests of opium, netting together
some 7 millions sterling to the British and Indian Government,
together with the incidental advantage of the raw produce of silk,
promising to render us independent of Europe and the adjoining markets
for the supply of this staple of an important branch of our
manufactures at a cheaper rate, and the market for Indian cotton, the
circumstances which lend to China nearly all its importance; or take
measures, not free from danger and difficulty, of great prospective
magnitude, both in a political and commercial sense, to make China a
great market for our manufactures also. At present the Chinese take
considerably less than 2 millions sterling in annual value out of an
aggregate production of some 70 millions. In this respect they are of
less importance to us as customers than the West India colonies, the
Italian States and islands, or one of the larger European States, so
small a fraction do they absorb. The prospect that would urge us on
should be the hope of seeing China take of our manufactures as large a
share as all Europe, and instead of a couple of millions, create a
demand for more than twenty. The produce of tea and silk we have, the
market for opium and Indian cotton is ours. We want an equally large
and beneficial market for our manufactures--our cotton fabrics,
woollens, linen, and cutlery, for which our powers of production are
all but unlimited.

Two questions suggest themselves, therefore, on the solution of which
the decision should depend, it being assumed as unquestioned that
something of risk and danger to that which we have must attend all
effective efforts to win that which is as yet wanting.

To the first four great commercial objects involved in our relations
with China, as above specified, shall we sacrifice the fifth?

Or shall we peril all for the attainment of the fifth, by the
endeavour to create a market for our manufactures which at present
exists only in its rudiments, and to a small fractional value?

If the extreme exiguity of the market for manufactures be not held to
justify the voluntary incurrence of great risk or danger to our tea,
silk, opium, and raw cotton trade, which form the great bulk of our
commerce as it exists at the present day, British and Indian, it will
only remain to be determined what are the various secondary means at
our disposal for the improvement of this fifth or manufacturing branch
as the primary object, and their respective chances of success on the
one hand and dangers attending their adoption on the other. For the
dangers, it must be well understood, are of two kinds--those attending
failure, and those which may be consequent upon, and the ulterior
results of, success in the first instance.

It being borne in mind that whatever we ask and obtain will be claimed
and enjoyed by others, it is necessary to consider to what use they
are liable to be turned by foreign Powers over whom we can exercise no
control, and whose interests or national jealousies may clearly be
adverse to our position in China and the advancement of our commerce.
To these various heads of a subject in every point of view great and
important, and surrounded by doubts and difficulties of the most
embarrassing character, the best information that can be brought by
any one individual is insufficient for a perfectly satisfactory
solution of the questions which must be discussed. All that can be
attempted is to throw some additional light upon the general bearing
of the whole, and to contribute such data and practical inferences,
illustrative of our present position and its future prospects, as may
help to suggest a safe conclusion as circumstances develop new phases
in our relations and call for action.

_Section III._

Assuming the present basis of our relations to continue, the best
course to be pursued in actual circumstances, more especially for the
maintenance of our advantageous position in the north, is worthy of
consideration. The instructions lately received from her Majesty's
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs are of a nature to suggest
inquiry under the three heads to which they refer:--

1. Recourse to the authorities by British subjects in danger of
popular violence.

2. Reference in all cases to her Majesty's plenipotentiary for
instructions.

3. The verification of the punishment awarded to Chinese offenders.

In reference to the instructions under the first of these heads, it is
to be observed that even with such unusual facilities as some of the
older missionaries possess who speak the dialect, and are often
familiar with the localities they visit, the resource indicated cannot
be counted upon as available.

In the Tsingpu affair, as soon as they actually became sensible of
danger, it was clearly impossible, nor in one case in a hundred is it
probable, that such a resource will be in their power.

In these cases the authorities keep out of the way, they and all their
ragged staff of runners and police; and if otherwise, moved by a fear
of worse consequences from the acts of the nearest British authority,
the means they take to rescue a maltreated foreigner are miserably
ineffective and uncertain in their results. Whoever will read the
details of the species of rescue effected in the Tsingpu business will
see that it was by the merest chance the three Englishmen had not
their brains beaten out, either before the arrival of the disguised
runners or while they were waiting an opportunity of stepping in to
render the unfortunate sufferers any service.

It must be clear, therefore, that access to the authorities in
emergencies of this nature must always be difficult and generally
impracticable for a foreigner. Retreat to a boat or other place of
safety is as little likely to be attainable.

A salutary dread of the immediate consequences of violence offered to
British subjects, the certainty of its creating greater trouble and
danger to the native authorities personally than even the most
vigorous efforts to protect the foreigner and seize their assailants
will entail, seems to be the best and only protection in this country
for Englishmen. When the Chinese authorities of all ranks, from the
viceroy at Nanking to the lowest police runners, are thoroughly imbued
with this feeling, it will not only rouse them to greater energy but
find its way to the populace by certain steps, and render such
exertion unnecessary, and the nationality of an Englishman will become
his safeguard. Hence the impolicy, not to say impossibility, of
treating instances of personal outrage such as that of Tsingpu as
police cases, and leaving redress to the ordinary administration of
Chinese laws. Where justice exists only nominally, and her image
should be represented not only blind but deaf, deplorable consequences
would result from such a course. There seems to be a democratic spirit
among the Chinese which renders the authorities especially averse to
risk collision with the populace or any popular feeling. The
Chih-hsien is himself exposed to insult and violence if he attempt to
enforce the collection of the taxes in a bad season, and but lately he
was besieged here in his own _yamên_. Not ten days ago the Taotai paid
1600 taels of silver to secure a piece of building-ground at the
urgent demand of the French consul, rather than exert his authority to
compel the owners to take the fair value of $400 offered, and upon the
posts put up to mark the boundaries these parties did not hesitate to
prohibit its appropriation. The principal check upon the people, and
safeguard for the authorities in cases of popular disturbance, seems
to be the conviction under which every Chinese quails, of the
terrible vengeance that may pursue them and their families, the tumult
once over, if they should have been marked or recognised. In
proportion as the magistrate is helpless before numbers, is his power
large of wreaking summary and vengeful punishment upon each of the
individuals that may form the mob, once separated from each other.

Considerations such as these necessarily influence her Majesty's
consul on the spot, who each day has under his eyes these significant
details, national and administrative. Where danger threatens to
involve the persons or the property of British subjects, his sole
direct resource is to fall back upon the treaty, and to cover with the
ægis of national inviolability individual interests. By any other
course he falls inevitably into the hopeless condition of one waiting
for such redress as the common course of justice in China usually
affords, where everything assuming its form is venal and arbitrary.

The result of all efforts made to secure the apprehension of thieves
or the recovery of property stolen from foreigners is conclusive as to
the kind of security to be obtained for British subjects where
infractions are dealt with as affairs of police in which justice is to
take its ordinary course. In scarcely one instance has any redress
been obtained since the port was opened. If thieves are overtaken, it
is only that they may disgorge their booty for the benefit of the
police sent after them, and the larger the amount the less chance is
there of either apprehension or restitution. Witness Mr Hubertson's
robbery, where his servant went off with nearly $10,000 in gold and
silver, and he was promptly traced and pursued.

Then in reference to the standing orders that, in case of difficulty
arising, reference shall invariably be made to her Majesty's
plenipotentiary for instructions. Instances have been very numerous
showing the nullity of any means of action on the local authorities
here through the Imperial Commissioner at Canton, not only in these
matters, but in those treated on higher grounds, and affecting our
political position. Last year (1847) not only a list of cases where no
satisfactory exertion had been made to obtain redress for property
stolen was forwarded, but the consul urged upon Sir John Davis, her
Majesty's plenipotentiary at the time, the urgent necessity for the
removal of the then acting magistrate at Shanghai, who had openly
reviled a consulate servant for taking the service of the barbarians,
and dismissed him without redress. The only answer to be obtained from
his Excellency Kiying was to the effect that the Chih-hsien, as a
territorial officer, was not under his jurisdiction. Fortunately he
was removed very shortly for misconduct in the management of Chinese
affairs,--for however injurious his proceedings to the British, it was
obvious neither redress nor assistance was to be obtained from Canton
and the Imperial Commissioner.

The paramount necessity of protecting its subjects in distant
countries is of course well understood by her Majesty's Government,
and in an oriental State this can only be effected by letting it be
known and felt that whoever attacks one of the solitary subjects will
be held to have attacked the sovereign and the nation. By this policy
a firman, far more potent than the Grand Seignior's in his own
territory, is given to every Englishman abroad, ensuring his freedom
from injury all over the world.

The treaty viewed in this light becomes a real and efficient bulwark
against encroachments, and without such safeguard, with Chinese
management, it would at no distant period in all its most important
provisions become null and void. No doubt inconvenience results from
the necessity of treating casualties of collision between subjects of
different countries as infractions of a solemn treaty; but the
oriental, and in some respects very peculiar, character of the
Chinese, and our relations with them, must be borne in mind, and the
lesser of two evils chosen with such discretion and judgment as the
circumstances imperatively demand.

At a distant and isolated port like Shanghai, where a brig of war is
by no means permanently stationed, the consul is left to his own
resources, separated by an interval of many weeks from the assistance
of her Majesty's plenipotentiary. When difficulties and emergencies
supervene, it is only by prompt demands for redress, and firm
resistance to any virtual negation of the rights and privileges
guaranteed by treaty, that he can hope successfully to defend the very
important interests confided to his charge.

As regards the practicability and expediency of verifying the
punishments of any Chinese offender by the presence of a British
officer when a sentence is carried into execution, the instruction
received could only have been partially applicable to the Tsingpu
offenders had it been earlier received, for the most serious
punishment was banishment to a penal settlement in Tartary.

But the whole subject is one of peculiar difficulty, nor can any hope
be entertained of submitting in this place a satisfactory solution. It
has long been felt that of all the provisions of the two treaties,
that which provided for the due administration of the laws on Chinese
offenders was the most nugatory. The chief difficulty consists in a
British officer being present at all during a trial in a Chinese
court, assuming the right were to be granted by treaty. Where the
ordinary mode of questioning is by torture, a process utterly
repugnant to our notions of justice and our sense of what is due to
humanity and truth, are we by our presence to sanction and be made
parties to such proceedings? Or are we to interfere and insist upon
justice being administered not according to their usages, but ours?
The objection to both courses seems equally valid, and yet without the
presence of an efficient officer there is no guarantee whatever for
the due administration of justice.

As regards the presence of an officer at punishments, unless he is in
a position to identify the criminal, which must often from the
circumstances of the case be impossible, it may be questioned whether
our national character is not in danger of being compromised without
the real object of such risk being attained. Nothing could more
effectually tend to lower us in the opinion of the Chinese than to be
imposed upon by the jugglery of a substituted criminal, or the
punishment of an innocent man at our instigation, or even the illegal
and excessive punishment of a real offender. Yet to all these we are
exposed when we take upon ourselves to watch the course of justice and
verify the execution of the sentences. It may finally be observed that
there are punishments recognised in the Chinese code revolting for
their brutality, which an English officer could scarcely sanction with
his presence without discredit to our national feeling. A lesser
objection exists in the frequency of minor punishments for theft and
petty misdemeanours, so that an interpreter would be required for this
duty alone.

These are some of the practical difficulties to the effective exercise
of any check upon the proceedings of the Chinese authorities in
criminal informations against Chinese subjects, and to devise a remedy
may require more consideration than has probably yet been given to the
subject.

From this review of our actual position at the most favourably
situated of the northern ports, and the means by which it has been
preserved from deterioration, and in many essential points materially
improved, a correct inference may be drawn of the injurious
consequences of any retrograde influence from Canton, direct or
indirect.

APPENDIX II.

CONFIDENTIAL DESPATCH BY CONSUL ALCOCK TO SIR GEORGE BONHAM, JANUARY
13, 1852.

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's
confidential despatch of the 17th ultimo, and although the departure
of the Audax within three days of its receipt leaves me but little
time for consideration or inquiry, I have devoted so much time and
thought to the subject during the last five years that I venture to
reply without delay.

On the general scope of coercive measures adapted to ensure success in
any negotiations with the Chinese Government, and more especially on
the blockade of the Grand Canal as a very cogent means, I have already
in my confidential report of January 19, 1849, and subsequently in
another of February 13, 1850, submitted the opinion I had formed after
long and careful study of our position in China; and further inquiries
and experience of the people we have to deal with have only served to
confirm the views contained in those reports.

I took the responsibility of sending Mr Vice-Consul Robertson with the
Espiègle to Nanking in the spring of 1848 with the strong conviction
that at that particular season, with the tribute of grain uncollected
and a thousand of these grain-junks actually under an embargo at
Shanghai, any demonstration of force in the neighbourhood of the Grand
Canal _would command immediate attention_, and the result went far to
establish the accuracy of the conclusion. Circumstances since then
have, however, altered both in a favourable and an adverse sense.
Taokuang, with his humiliating experience of the superiority of our
arms and his known and acknowledged desire to avoid any further
collision during his reign, is no longer on the throne; and his young
successor, untaught by the experience of his father, has given very
unequivocal signs of disposition to enter upon a different policy. On
the other hand, a protracted and serious insurrection in the southern
provinces has drained his treasury, weakened his authority, and now
threatens, unless he finds means by force or bribery to put the
insurgents down, at no distant period to affect the stability of his
throne. If the arrogance of youth in the new sovereign should
therefore dispose him on the one side to venture on a crusade against
Western Powers, his perilous position in regard to his own provinces
cannot fail to impress upon him the prudence of at least temporising
until a more convenient season. I am led to think, therefore, from all
I can learn, that the two contrary forces will go far to neutralise
each other, and that Hsienfêng, with all his hostile feeling, will be
at the _present moment_ as accessible to reason, from the peculiarly
embarrassing position in which he is placed, if backed by coercive
means, as was his predecessor at the conclusion of the war.

From this your Excellency will perceive that I deem the present time,
from the political condition of China, more favourable than any later
period may be for the success of coercive measures. As regards the
season of the year to be selected, both in reference to the navigation
of the Yangtze-kiang and the transmission of the grain tribute, the
blockading should not be commenced later than April. During the summer
the sun melts the snow on the mountains and sends down the freshets,
swelling the river until it overflows its banks with great accession
of violence to the current. When the fleet sailed up in July 1842 many
of the soundings taken were over paddy-fields, and altogether out of
the bed of the river, as the soundings and observations of the
Espiègle clearly demonstrated. The tribute also begins to be sent up
to Peking from some parts as early as April. A fleet of grain-junks
were at the mouth of the canal when the Espiègle made her appearance
at the end of March in 1848.

How far a blockade at the present time would have the desired
effect--that is, if made effective before the month of May--is a
question upon which I cannot feel any doubt. Much would of course
depend upon the suddenness of the descent, and therefore upon the
previous secrecy observed; much upon the available nature of the force
employed. Besides two or three large-class vessels, I am strongly
persuaded there should be at least two small steamers of light draught
of water, and one or two brigs, which would be quite as effective
against any force the Chinese could bring to bear, and far more
manageable and serviceable, as well as less costly, than larger
vessels. If the result aimed at were not very promptly attained, it
might be necessary to retake Chinkiang-fu as a base of operations, and
to detach two or three small-class vessels to watch the entrances of
water-courses and canals nearer the mouth of the Yangtze-kiang, of
which there are at least four, and through them junks with tribute
might otherwise pass to the north and into the Grand Canal at some
point above the Yangtze-kiang, and between it and the Yellow river.
There is also a very free communication with all the lowland districts
south of the Yangtze-kiang and the north above Nanking by means of the
_Seu ho_, which runs from Soochow west into the Yangtze-kiang at _Wu
Hu_ and _Taiping_. But from this point northward there does not appear
to be any good water communication leading to the Grand Canal without
descending the Yangtze-kiang as far as _Iching_ and _Kwachow_ on the
two mouths of the Grand Canal at its junction with the Yangtze-kiang
below Nanking. These secured would therefore stop the main traffic by
the _Seu ho_ route to the north for the relief of Peking. My own
impression is that if no warning were given, nor time allowed for
previous preparation, our demands would be granted within one month of
the commencement of the blockade. If from any unforeseen cause,
however, the negotiations were protracted, and the Chinese Government
had leisure to recover from its panic and adopt plans for obtaining
tribute and grain by circuitous routes, it would be in that case that
Chinkiang-fu might be required, together with a good watch on the
various tributaries of the Yangtze-kiang below and eastward of Nanking
already referred to; and perhaps on the coast towards the Yellow river
and the Peiho two or three cruisers might be required to intercept
junks _sent by sea_ with tribute. Such in effect is the intention of
the Chinese Government at the present moment, without any reference
to us. The grain to be collected from the eight provinces, divided
into upper and lower, consists of the common grain and of white rice,
the latter for the consumption of the emperor and his Court, which it
is intended shall be sent this season by sea from _Shanghai_,--a
circumstance peculiarly favourable to the success of any blockading
measures, since, as it would be necessary under any contingencies to
cover Shanghai and our large interests there with an effective force,
the same means would enable her Majesty's Government to lay an embargo
on a large and especially important portion of the tribute already
collected in the port. I do not imagine it would be contemplated to
abandon Shanghai, and I am far from thinking it would be either
necessary or expedient--though at Ningpo, Foochow, and perhaps Amoy,
it might be considered well--to withdraw the few foreigners for a
time. At Canton, no doubt, it would be imperative either to give
adequate protection or to abandon the place. On this point I am
scarcely called upon to offer an opinion. It probably does not enter
into any plans contemplated to strike a blow at Canton, or to adopt
any measure necessarily entailing bloodshed and heavy loss: were it
otherwise, no doubt the fall of Canton and the humiliation of the
Cantonese would in itself go far to read a salutary lesson throughout
the empire, and especially at Peking, where there is reason to believe
they look upon Canton and the Cantonese as affording the great barrier
to our progress, from our inability to make any impression either upon
the city or the people.

I do not, of course, presume to offer these suggestions on the general
measures which might be found needful for the protection of British
interests along the coast, and the distribution and economising of our
forces while a blockade on the Yangtze-kiang was being effected, as
better informed than your Excellency on such points, but merely refer
to them incidentally as necessary parts of any plan for demanding
redress by coercive measures at the mouth of the Grand Canal.

For the better illustration of the points touched upon in this
despatch in reference to the different points of access to the Grand
Canal, either coastwise or by the Yangtze-kiang below Nanking and the
two mouths of the canal, which will have to be borne in mind, I beg to
enclose a very rough and hasty plan of the main channels, taken
chiefly from the elaborate map of the empire published under the
Jesuits, and which Mr Medhurst, when my last confidential report was
in hand, was good enough at my suggestion to work at on an enlarged
scale, availing himself of all the additional information, by
comparison of maps, itineraries, &c., that was accessible.

I shall be glad if in this somewhat hasty reply to your Excellency's
despatch I have been able to afford such information as you have
desired; but if not, or upon any other points it should appear that
further inquiries can be prosecuted advantageously and without
creating suspicion, I shall be happy to give my best efforts to carry
out your Excellency's instructions.

APPENDIX III.

CONFIDENTIAL DESPATCH TO SIR GEORGE BONHAM, DATED JUNE 17, 1852.
(EXTRACT.)

If I might without presumption express an opinion on our general
policy in China, I should add that it seems in danger of being
paralysed by the two antagonistic forces [alluded to in the preamble],
and by necessities difficult to reconcile. The magnitude and extreme
importance of our interests in the East--in commerce and revenue (for,
as I have shown, the China trade is the connecting-link between Great
Britain and India, and necessary to complete the circle of trading
operations)--suggest on the one hand the necessity of avoiding all
measures that may rashly jeopardise such interests, yet nevertheless
make it imperative on the other to adopt firmly and unhesitatingly
whatever steps may be necessary to prevent loss or deterioration. How
these can best be reconciled is the problem to be solved. As late as
the last war, throughout all our previous intercourse the attempt had
been made to arrive at the solution by a system of temporising and
concession, even to that which was unjust and injurious, and this
steadily carried out, with a few rare and brief exceptions. Our policy
since the treaty has manifested a tendency to an opposite course,
encouraged no doubt by the result of the first determined stand made.
It has, nevertheless, been so hesitatingly developed that we appear
to halt between the two. In words we have asserted resistance to
insult or wrongful treatment, but in acts we have not seldom
temporised and submitted. The fruit of this policy we now are
beginning to reap. Principles of action have sometimes been asserted
and then abandoned, instead of being persisted in until the end was
accomplished. In dealing with the Chinese, however, nothing appears to
be so necessary as to keep the ground once assumed. If this be true,
there cannot be too much caution used in first asserting or contending
for a right; but that step once taken, there is no safe halting-place
between it and full success. A course of alternate opposition and
submission cannot do otherwise than end in defeat; and defeat in this
country is never limited to its immediate consequences. It has
appeared, on looking back through the ten years which have now elapsed
since the termination of the war, that the first half of the period
was passed in comparative security under the strong influence its
events were calculated to exercise on the Chinese mind; but, true to
their invariable policy, they have never ceased to seek by every means
in their power to make the British authorities develop under what
instructions they were acting and to penetrate into their true spirit,
in order to ascertain the limits to which our sufferance would extend
and the nature of the powers of resistance or retaliation her
Majesty's Government were ready to authorise. I think it cannot be
matter of doubt to any one resident in China throughout this period,
that during the latter portion the Chinese have felt assured of the
essentially pacific determination of our Government and the policy of
endurance and sufferance in all cases of minor wrongs. And, assured
under such a system (with the known impossibility of any direct action
in Peking), they have, during the last two years more especially, felt
emboldened, systematically, by a series of apparently small
encroachments and aggressions, to undermine our position, and to
restore, as nearly as may be, the state of things existing before the
war, extending the system to all the ports.

With this conviction I have thought it desirable to bring before her
Majesty's plenipotentiary in detail many illustrations of the
deteriorating influences at work at this port, and now venture to pass
these rapidly in review, that their collective evidence may not be
wanting. And in order that I may be brief, I shall merely note in the
margin the number and dates of various despatches bearing upon similar
matters, without further reference to their contents. By these I think
it will be seen that the general current and tendency of all the
official acts for the last two years upon which I have frequently
commented as they occurred has been distrust, and strongly adverse
alike to our trade and the stability of our position.

Evidence, I think, will be found in these records to establish the
fact that the present Taotai Wu (or Samqua, as he is more familiarly
known, of Canton trading memory) has been especially selected as the
chief agent to initiate, and the fit instrument for carrying out, a
retrograde policy: his character, means, and the general direction of
his efforts to damage our local position, territorial and social--to
cripple and restrict our trade, and to Cantonise the whole of our
relations both with people and authorities in the north--are all in
keeping with this mission, and incomprehensible on any other
supposition.

The steps of his progress have been carefully watched, and in the
despatches noted in the margin traced, together with their
effects--neither very apparent on the surface. These may perhaps best
be considered by aid of a somewhat arbitrary division as to subjects
rather than chronologically, for they have generally run on
conterminous and parallel lines. Starting from the Tsingpu affair, in
the spring of 1848, and his baffled efforts to pluck from us the best
fruit of the risks incurred to vindicate an important principle, from
which date he hung about the place--in the background it is true, but
not the less busy as a spy from Nanking, between which place and
Shanghai, occasionally acting Taotai, at others absent, he oscillated
until the fit time appeared to have arrived. After the accession of
the new emperor, Lin was displaced from the Taotai office, and he was
finally installed by "imperial appointment" to put his hand to the
work before him. His steps may be traced in the sinister influences
and obstruction brought to bear upon all our interests.

The _land tenure and regulations_ under which a foreign colony had
rapidly risen covering more than a hundred acres of land, as an
element of strength and independence to the British more especially,
seems to have excited both the jealousy and the fears of the Chinese
authorities. There seemed no limit to its progress and development;
each year saw more and more land occupied, while houses of a large
and costly description rapidly filled up the vacant spaces.

Before Wu came _ostensibly_ upon the scene some progress had been made
in the creation of difficulties, and the authorities having in the
spring of 1849 granted a large and absurdly disproportionate tract to
the French, over which the French consul claimed a territorial
jurisdiction, the national susceptibilities of the Americans gave the
opportunity of bringing French and Americans, and the latter and the
English, into collision, and they were not slow to profit by it to set
the land regulations practically aside while officially appearing to
uphold them.

The desire of the community to carry out an extravagant and not very
practicable scheme for a new park or exercise-course that should
enclose nearly the whole arable ground and villages within our limits
afforded the next opportunity, and the arrogant humour and
superstitions of the Fukein clans supplied the ready instruments for
inflicting a second blow upon the rights and security of the foreigner
at Shanghai connected with the occupation of land.

These attacks and aggressions have since been perseveringly followed
up--popular commotions, abusive and menacing placards, having all been
used in turns to the damage of our position, and the result has been
discredit, broken regulations, divided and antagonistic pretensions
between the two most numerous classes of foreign residents--the
British and American--and between all foreigners and the Fukein clans,
the most turbulent and aggressive of the native population at the
port,--a result of which, looking to all the present embarrassment and
future danger to our interests it is calculated to produce, I am bound
to say I think Samqua may well be proud. The national vanity of the
French leading them to an absurd and useless acquisition, the love of
exercise of the British leading the equestrians to press an
ill-advised and impracticable scheme for a three-mile racecourse, and
the national susceptibilities of the Americans leading them to dispute
the land tenure which hitherto had been the condition of their own
security,--all have been adroitly turned to the greatest advantage, to
the profit of the Chinese and the serious detriment of the foreigner.

The progress made in creating obstacles to our _commerce_ has been not
less worthy of remark. For a system of total laxity in the
custom-house administration under Lin a capricious alternation of
vigilance and neglect, under which oppressive acts of partiality and
injustice are frequently perpetrated, has been substituted, to the
great derangement of operations in trade. The carrying trade has been
harassed and impeded, and the Taotai is now actively engaged in
efforts to get the cargo-boats under his exclusive control, and to
organise a _cohong_ of five firms on the model of the ancient
establishments at Canton, while already--I believe at his suggestion
(indeed he scarcely denies it)--information has reached me that a new
transit duty of seven mace per picul has been levied at Chung-An on
the produce proceeding thence from the Black Tea districts to
Shanghai. A duty of over 7 per cent, in violation of one of the most
important of our treaty stipulations, with a monopoly of cargo-boats,
a right to levy new transit duties, and a _cohong_--the three leading
advantages secured by the treaty vanish. It is vain to disguise the
fact, for nothing can be clearer or more certain. On these points I
have been collecting detailed information, and shall shortly be
enabled to write more fully on the subject. I beg your Excellency in
the meantime to rest assured that the main facts have already been
placed beyond doubt. In connection with these, freedom of access to
different points in the interior and with Ningpo by the inland route
as advantages long enjoyed have also attracted attention, and some
more feeble efforts have been made to throw obstacles in the way.

In the _administration of justice_ perhaps more than in any other
directions adverse influences have been brought to bear with complete
effect. Redress for any injury inflicted on a foreigner, protection
from frauds, or recovery of debts, are all wholly unattainable. The
action of the Chinese tribunals in our behalf is null and void, and
the course taken by the authorities in all cases referred to there
amounts to a total denial of justice. The act of the Taotai in seizing
and flogging Mr ----'s boatmen was only wanting to withdraw from the
foreigners all protection dependent upon the Chinese laws and their
administration under our treaties.

Under these three heads, therefore, I would sum up the progressive and
evident deterioration in our position here. The tenure of land, the
operations of trade, the administration of justice, have all been
objects of attack, and with serious prejudice. That, however, which is
at present evident as the effect of the steps taken, forms but a
small part of the injury which will in a very short period be too
manifest to be overlooked if no determined steps are taken to reverse
the policy now pursued. The time, I am firmly persuaded, has arrived
for meeting by energetic action these insidious attacks--as the _least
dangerous course_--if our most important interests here are really to
be defended with any effect.

How this may best be done I feel your Excellency is entitled to demand
from the officer who seeks so earnestly to impress you with a
conviction that action is necessary, and I have no wish to shrink from
the responsibility of suggesting measures by which I conceive some
positive good may be effected, to repair the mischief, and much
impending evil at all events averted.

In reference to the land, also, it would seem very desirable that some
understanding should be come to with the United States _chargé
d'affaires_ by which any participation in the advantages of the
British location, consistent with the security of all, should be
freely conceded, while anything incompatible _with this condition_
must be as certainly resisted, in their interest not less than ours.
If Dr Parker prove impracticable I see no resource but a reference
home, when I trust all the real importance of the questions at issue
to the _interests of British trade and the British position at this
port_ will be steadily kept in view; nor should it be forgotten that
in its maintenance all foreign States are deeply interested, whatever
the Americans for the moment may think. Any injury to our position
must recoil with double force upon so weak and small a minority as
they are when left to stand alone.

As regards the measures now in progress for organising a _cohong_,
levying new transit duties, and creating a monopoly of cargo-boats,
all tending in the most serious degree to fetter our trade, in
indirect violation of the express stipulations of our treaty, I
confess there seems to be but one course consistent with the credit of
our Government or the defence of our interests, and that is resolutely
and firmly to resist them as infractions of treaty. Two modes of doing
this, however, suggest themselves. The one is by active
proceedings--prohibiting the payment of any maritime duties by British
subjects until satisfaction is obtained, and a distinct intimation
that if this does not suffice other _and more determined measures
should follow_. The other involves a system of _negation_ that would
be peculiarly embarrassing to the Chinese local authorities, and
eventually to the Government at Peking. This may be carried out by
simply holding the treaty to be _in abeyance_ by their own acts, and
declining to take any steps with British subjects to enforce the
conditions--whether as regarded customs, access to the interior, the
purchase of land, or the administration of justice--so long as the
measures objected to were persisted in.

In reference to these two courses, I will not hesitate to say that, if
left to my discretion, I should adopt the first; but the condition of
ultimate success would be the certainty that, if the object was not
attained by such means, her Majesty's Government would feel pledged to
send a squadron to the mouth of the Grand Canal next spring with an
imperative demand for the Taotai's disgrace and the reversal of all
this obnoxious policy, and authority to resort to coercive measures if
not listened to.

If, however, it should be deemed preferable to incur the risk of doing
nothing--or what, I confess, appears to me even more dangerous, to
make protests, or demonstrations which there is no serious intention
of following up to their legitimate conclusion--the negative policy is
of course the only one to be attempted. The responsibility of the
initiative would then be thrown upon the Chinese themselves. The
tables would be turned, and the Chinese will be left to right
themselves as they best could, while a large revenue will slip through
their hands and manifold complications and embarrassments in their
relations with foreigners arise to their confusion. The task, in fine,
they now assign to us would devolve upon them, and their sole remedy,
if they did not choose to give way, would be to stop the trade; but as
that would be a plain and ostensible _casus belli_, they will not
attempt it.

If, on the other side, nothing effective be done, I must frankly state
my conviction that our position in the north will rapidly deteriorate,
and our relations be embroiled, if not irreparably injured. I believe
means for the amelioration of both may be safely taken, and have long
been required; but I feel still more strongly convinced that at no
distant period they _must_ be taken, and the longer they are delayed
the greater will be the ultimate cost, and the more imminent the
hazard to our future trade and relations with China.

If I am correct in these inferences, the conclusion of the whole must
be that the time has arrived when it will be no longer safe to defer
strong and effective measures in defence of our interests, and that
there is a clear necessity for present action to avert at no distant
period a costly war and a shock to this empire it is so ill capable of
sustaining, that it must of necessity be attended with great peril not
only to the present dynasty but to the existing social organisation of
the country.

APPENDIX IV.

ACCOUNT OF THE SALT TRADE ANNEXED TO MR PARKES' SUMMARY OF THE NATIVE
MARITIME TRADE OF FOOCHOW, 1846. (EXTRACTS.)

They have constituted the sale of salt a monopoly, which they place in
the hands of a set of merchants whom they hold liable for the payment
of a fixed amount of tax. This, in some instances, falls rather heavy
upon them, but proves an easy measure to the authorities, who have
thus but little trouble or expense of collection. All the supplies of
salt are drawn from the sea-shore, and consequently there is an
appointment of salt inspector in every maritime province, who
superintends everything connected with the _gabelle_: he holds a high
rank and receives good emoluments from the Government, 3000 taels per
annum. It also forms one of the duties of the governor-general of the
province to act as chief superintendent of salt excise.

Most of the supplies from Fukien have to be sent into the interior and
the adjacent province of Kiangsi _viâ_ Foochow. The salt is made all
along the shore to the southward....

The salt is made at these places by people belonging to the various
localities, and the manufacture gives employment to numbers of
individuals, who in those sterile districts have few other means of
subsistence. The general method of manufacture is to collect the
saturated loam from the beach in heaps, and thence to draw off the
brine by drainage into large but shallow-built vats, when
crystallisation is effected by exposure to the natural heat of the
sun. The brine being all extracted from the heap, it is removed to the
beach, and the same earth, having been immersed in the salt-tide, can
again be used. In fine weather great quantities can thus be
expeditiously manufactured, but a succession of rain stops the works,
and a scarcity in the supplies is the consequence. The producers are
exempted from all taxes or charges on the part of the Government, on
the consideration that they are in mean labouring circumstances,
though many of the salt-farms are very extensive, and some of their
conductors possessed of better competence than the merchants, on whom
the whole burden of taxation falls. Junks are despatched to these
places by the salt merchants for freights.

The Government system of exacting a fixed annual amount of _gabelle_
is very defective, and places the trade, which might prosper under
other management, on an unhealthy basis. When the trade is dull, it
becomes still more depressed by the nature of the liabilities that the
merchants have at all times equally to bear, and which then become
burdensome; and again, on the other hand, in case of a thriving
season, the revenue is in no way advantaged. Their wretched executive,
however, prevents any improvement. They therefore content themselves
with fixing a stated sum, upwards of 300,000 taels per annum; and if
they can secure the requisite number of persons to undertake to
dispose of a certain quantity of salt that will yield excise to this
amount, they are content. Thus each merchant is bound to conduct the
sale of the quantity that he undertakes, or rather is held responsible
for the amount of duty due on such quantity, and having once paid this
up, should he be so disposed, he is at perfect liberty to transport
and sell more salt on his own account, duty free; whilst, on the other
hand, should he, from a glut in the market or other circumstances, not
be able to dispose of the quantity of which he had undertaken the
sale, he has still to pay duty on the whole at a fixed unalterable
rate.

It is therefore the imminent risk attending salt speculations that
causes people of property to be so averse towards entering them. They
involve a great outlay of capital, with continual liability but
uncertain remuneration. Thus, if a man embarks the whole or greater
part of his means in speculations which do not succeed, he becomes
instantly embarrassed with the Government, and, with no incomings to
relieve him, may perhaps not succeed in recovering his first failure.
Most of the merchants being men who are selected merely on account of
their capital, the management of their business is entirely in the
hands of those they employ, for whose honesty or capacity they are
mainly dependent for success. The charges and expenses connected with
carrying on a salt business are very great. Yet there are several
instances of old merchants employing good managing men, and possessing
plenty of supporting capital, having amassed large fortunes in the
trade, though, on the contrary, cases are much more numerous of
speculators having suffered losses and contracted debts with the
Government. A debt to the State of no less than 1,450,000 taels by the
salt dealers of Foochow has thus gradually collected.

The nomination of salt merchants is almost invariably compulsory, and
no one can retire from the business without he is totally unable from
want of means to continue in it. In these cases the reflection that
they were obliged to undertake the transactions that led to their ruin
must add increased poignancy to their losses. When once, however, they
have undertaken a transaction, they are much favoured by the
authorities, who give them entertainments and confer honours and
distinctions upon them. There are head merchants appointed, who hold
some control over the proceedings of the others. To be a head merchant
a man must be of known character and not owing anything to the
Government. They are responsible for all the other merchants, who,
however trustworthy, have all to be secured by the head merchants. In
case of any merchant becoming in arrears with the payment of his
duties, the salt inspector orders the head merchants to limit him to a
certain time in which to liquidate all charges. According as the case
needs, the head merchants convene and consult as to whether they
should pray for an extension of the term or require some of the other
merchants in substantial circumstances to lend the necessary amounts,
or perhaps they may proceed to pay it themselves. If also they find
that any of the other merchants are incompetent, from want of means,
to manage their business, they represent the same to the salt
inspector, that they may be allowed to retire. At present there are
four head merchants out of a total of sixty-one....

Smuggling is also carried on to some extent. As this, however, affects
the vital interests of the salt merchants, they show great vigilance
in investigating and reporting to the authorities any instances that
may come within their knowledge, and for this purpose fit up and
maintain several small vessels which keep up a constant watch against
contraband proceedings.

There are a multiplicity of fees and charges which prove very onerous
to the merchants. [Here follows a list of forty-seven separate fees,
dues, and charges, amounting to 15,300 taels, or about £5000 sterling,
on 900,000 lb. weight, or about one-eighth of a penny per lb.]

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, Vol. I (of 2) - As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, - K.C.B., D.C.L., Many Years Consul and Minister in China - and Japan" ***

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