CANTON, OLD (2)
Continuation.
First, the Dutch, then the French, the English, the Swedes and last the Danes. Each of these factories, besides admirable banqueting or public rooms for eating, etc., have attached to them sets of chambers varying in size according to the establishment.
CANTON (3)
The English being far more numerous than any other nation trading with China, their range of buildings is much the most extensive. Each supercargo has four handsome rooms; the public apartments are in front looking to the river, the others go inland to the depth of two or three hundred feet in broad courts, having a set of rooms on each side, every set having a distinct and separate entrance with a small garden and every sort of convenience.
"Besides the factories which belong to the East India Company, there are also others, the property of the Chinese who let them to European and Country Captains of ships, merchants and strangers, whom business brings to Canton. For several years, there has been an Imperial flag flying before a factory occupied by the Germans.
"The Americans (whom the Chinese distinguish by the expressive title of second chop Englishmen) have also a flag. The number of supercargoes employed by the English East India Company in the year of 1769 was twelve":
107
Hickey appears to have been a man prone to adhere to early impressions: it will be recalled that he refers in his memoirs to the artist Chinnery whom he met in India (see 8-8-33) and declares therein that Chinnery went mad.
A brief explanation of the "Arrow" affair might be included here:-
In the fifties a pronounced anti-foreign attitude developed at Canton culminating on October 8, 1856, in the attack on a lorcha named the "Arrow", a clipper-built vessel purchased by some Chinese of Hongkong, who registered her here, and put her on the trade run to Canton and other coast ports, under the British flag. The attack on the vessel was carried out at Canton under official instructions, the Chinese crew being arrested on the peculiar charge of being "in collusion with barbarians". The Admiral on the station (Sir Michael Seymour) demanded an immediate apology or redress, which were not forthcoming, and a demand for surrender of the kidnapped crew, made by Sir John Bowring (then Governor of Hongkong) was refused. Further demands were also turned down and what was known as the "Arrow" War commenced.
Parts of Canton were shelled by the British gunboats and later the Chinese set fire to the European factories.