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leave of absence be granted me-in order that I may personally sub- stantiate the information which I have acquired; and should Her Majesty's Ministers deem my views erroneous, and that I have erred in seeking this leave of absence, I am also prepared to incur the loss of my official appointment.
Any suffering or degradation would be preferable to witnessing the pursuance of an erroneous policy, fraught with great injury to England, but which may be averted by prompt, judicious, and timely measures.
I have, &c.,
R. M. MARTIN.
FRENCH PROCEEDINGS IN CHINA.
No. VI. To the Right Hon. Sir R. Peel, Bart., First Lord of the Treasury.
Sir,
Hong Kong, December 21, 1844.
I BEG leave to inclose herewith a duplicate of a letter which I had the honour of addressing to you on the 14th ultimo.
Subsequent to the dispatch of my letter of that date, M. Lagréné, Special Minister from France to China, visited Hong Kong. I have had several diplomatic conversations with his Excellency M. Lagréné, and they have impressed on my mind a decided conviction that a secret understanding has been established between M. Lagréné and Keying, the Chinese Minister, and that great favours are to be conferred on France by the Chinese Government. I am corroborated in this opinion by information derived from a different source to that on which my opinion was originally founded. I stated to M, Lagréné that I under- stood a secret alliance, offensive and defensive, was being formed between the French and Chinese Governments, and he did not deny the truth of the rumour. I also stated that I was informed the French Government were, with the tacit and secret consent of the Chinese Government, to occupy and retain Chusan after our abandonment of that island in December, 1845; and M. Lagréné, although hard pressed for a denial, did not meet the allegation with a positive negative.
It would be difficult to explain in a letter the details and the nature of
my conferences with M. Lagréné; they have, however, left no doubt on my mind as to the intentions of the French Government.
Pekin may be made the Constantinople of the East as regards
FRENCH PROCEEDINGS IN CHINA.
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political intrigue; and M. Lagréné (who was for twelve years stationed at St. Petersburgh) is well aware that a secret and special Russian Envoy is now in the Chinese capital*. In the course of our conversa-
*There can be little doubt that the Tartar Government of China, from inclina- tion as well as from circumstances, are still as ready to deceive us and break faith, as they did with Captain Elliot in 1839–40. Keshen, the imperial plenipoten- tiary, deputed as third member of the cabinet of Pekin, to deal with the "western barbarians," at the very moment when he was professing the greatest friendship to the English (as Keying is now doing), wrote a memorial to the Emperor, urging a temporizing with us, while he was arranging, as he thought, the means for our destruction, previous to the battle at the Bogue forts, 23rd February, 1840. This celebrated memorial is equally applicable to the present state of affairs; for, accord- ing to the expression of the Chinese statesman, "the rat (i. e. the English) has now got his tail in a trap" (i, e. at Hong Kong).
Keshen implored the Emperor to accede to the request made by the English (Captain Elliot was then urging the cession of Hong Kong), for, he added, “thus shall we lay the foundation of victory hereafter, by binding and curbing the foreigners now, while we prepare the means of cutting them off at some future period."
The Tartars are now acting on the advice of Keshen, and they are quite ready if a favourable opportunity occurred to do so. The Marquis de Ferrière, secretary of legation to the French Embassy in China, informed me "that the cabinet of Pekin are well aware that the French and English are rival nations, and had often been at war; the policy of Keying and the cabinet was therefore to play off one nation against the other."
When Monsieur Lagréné, the plenipotentiary from the King of the French, arrived at Macao, Keying sent a mandarin of high rank, and in full state, with his (Key- ing's) picture and a letter, saying that the picture represented him in the robes in which he was wont to appear before his own sovereign. (Sir H. Pottinger, as the representative of the Queen of England, and Mr. Cushing, as the representative of the United States Government, both also received portraits from Keying, but in a costume far inferior to that given to M. Lagréné. It is thus Chinese diplomacy marks the degree of estimation in which a person is held.)
On the ensuing day Keying, attended by a very large retinue, and in the most marked and ostentatious manner, visited M. Lagréné at Macao; and on his intro- duction said, "I am delighted to receive, on the part of the Emperor, the represen- tative of the great French King." To this M. Lagréné replied that he was equally delighted to receive the enlightened minister of the Emperor, and that he had been deputed to frame a commercial treaty. At these words Keying, with great anima- tion said, "no, no-you have no trade with us; you are not a trading nation, but you are a grand nation; we understand each other, and shall be good friends." At several of the subsequent interviews between Keying and M. Lagréné, no other person was allowed to be present but the interpreter, M. Callery.
When the arrangements were concluded, M. Lagréné required that the terms should be ratified within the Chinese territory, and not at Macao; Keying and M. Lagréné therefore proceeded within the Bogue forts in a French war steamer. It was night on their arrival there. The whole of the hills were lit up with fires; each embrasure at every fort had men standing with large flaming toreles; huge lautherns were suspended around; crowds of junks were in like manner lit up,