HISTORY
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Elliot would not allow normal trade to resume until he had reported fully to the British Government and received instructions. The British community retired to Macau and, when warned by the Portuguese Governor that he could not be responsible for their safety, took refuge on board ships in Hong Kong harbour in the summer of 1839.
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Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, decided that the time had come for a settlement of Sino-British commercial relations. Arguing that in surrendering the opium the British in Guangzhou had been forced to ransom their lives though, in fact, their lives had never been in danger - he demanded either a commercial treaty that would put trade relations on a satisfactory footing, or the cession of a small island where the British could live free from threats under their own flag.
An expeditionary force arrived in June, 1840, to back these demands and thus began the so-called First Opium War (1840-2). Hostilities alternated with negotiations until agree- ment was reached between Elliot and Qishan (Keshen), the Manchu Commissioner. Lin had been replaced by Qishan after his exile in disgrace over the preliminaries of a treaty.
Under the Convention of Chuanbi (Chuenpi), January 20, 1841, Hong Kong Island was ceded to Britain. A naval landing party hoisted the British flag at Possession Point on January 26, 1841, and the island was formally occupied. In June, Elliot began to sell plots of land and settlement began.
Neither side accepted the Chuanbi terms. The cession of a part of China aroused shame and anger among the Chinese, and the unfortunate Qishan was ordered to Peking in chains. Palmerston was equally dissatisfied with Hong Kong, which he contemptuously described as 'a barren island with hardly a house upon it', and refused to accept it as the island station that had been demanded as an alternative to a commercial treaty.
'You have treated my instructions as if they were waste paper,' Palmerston told Elliot in a magisterial rebuke, and replaced him. Elliot's successor, Sir Henry Pottinger, arrived in August 1841 and conducted hostilities with determination. A year later, after pushing up the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River) and threatening to assault Nanjing (Nanking), he brought the hostilities to an end by the Treaty of Nanjing, signed on August 29, 1842.
In the meantime, the Whig Government in England had fallen and, in 1841, the new Tory Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen, issued revised instructions to Pottinger, dropping the demand for an island.
Pottinger, who had returned to Hong Kong during the winter lull in the campaign, was pleased with the progress of the new settlement and, in the Treaty of Nanjing, deviated from his instructions by successfully demanding both a treaty and an island, thus securing Hong Kong. In addition, five Chinese ports, including Guangzhou, were opened for trade. The commercial treaty was embodied in the supplementary Treaty of Humen (Bogue), October, 1843, by which the Chinese were allowed free access to Hong Kong Island for trading purposes.
Lease of New Territories
The Second Anglo-Chinese War (1856–8) arose out of disputes over the interpretation of the earlier treaties and over the boarding of a British lorcha, the Arrow, by Chinese in search of suspected pirates. The Treaty of Tianjin (Tientsin), 1858, which ended the war, gave the British the privilege of diplomatic representation in China. The first British envoy, Sir Frederick Bruce, who had been the first Colonial Secretary in Hong Kong, was fired on at Dagu (Taku) Bar on his way to Peking to present his credentials, and hostilities were renewed from 1859-60.
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