he intended to pass through the Bogue, and, after giving them .
ample time to make all their preparations, he gallantly ran
the gauntlet of the Bogue forts, under sail, leisurely returning
the fire of the forts after aiming and firing the first gun with
his own hands. Though becalmed within range of the forts,
he succeeded in pushing his way to Whampoa without serious
casualty on his own side. After anchoring there, Captain
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. 15
Maxwell resumed his communications with the Chinese officials
with the utmost good nature, and the Chinese Government ,
likewise ignoring what had happened , allowed him to do just
as he pleased until he took his ship away. But no direct official
intercourse was accorded to Captain Maxwell in spite of his
bravery.
The several Embassies that were sent with autograph letters
from King George III, accompanied by costly presents and much
pomp of showy retinue, had even less effect upon the attitude
which the Tatsing Dynasty assumed towards foreign commerce,
than the servile bribes and presents of the East India Company's
Supercargoes or the periodical demonstrations of British pluck by
His Majesty's naval officers. Lord Macartney's Embassy ( A.D.
1792) , sent forth by George III, with strong complaints and
sanguine expectations, was treated by the Chinese Government as
a deputation of tribute-bearers, like those that periodically
came from the Loochoo Islands. Lord Amherst's Embassy
(A.D. 1815) , vainly expected to result in the establishment
of diplomatic intercourse with Peking, was treated politely but
strictly as a tribute-bearing commission. When Lord Amherst
lingered, hoping to be allowed to remain near the Court, he
was quietly told that it was high time for him to petition for
the issue of his passport and be off. Henceforth the chroniclers
of the Tatsing Dynasty complacently recorded the fact of Great
Britain having been formally admitted to a place in the list
of the nations tributary to China by voluntary submission.
Nevertheless both the bold appearance of British frigates
in Chinese waters and the humble presentation at Court of
British Ambassadors had a certain amount of effect in impressing
the Chinese people with the conviction that Europeans after
all were considerably above the ordinary class of barbarians
known to them.
Special instances of the steadily increasing importance of
the British navy were not wanting. In the years 1802 and
1808 British marines occupied Macao to protect the Portuguese
settlement against a threatened attack by the French. In the
16 CHAPTER II.
former year the troops were not withdrawn, in spite of irate
protests by the Cantonese Authorities, until peace with France
was restored. In the latter year Admiral Drury withdrew
his men again and abstained from forcing his way up to Canton
in order to please the East India Company's Committee and
to avoid interference with trade. Again, in the year 1814 ,
H.B.M. Frigate Doris cruized in Canton waters to intercept
American ships, and when the Viceroy instructed the Committee
to order her off, the Committee, to the surprise of the Chinese
officials, declared that they had no power whatever in the
matter and were quite willing that trade, as threatened by
the Viceroy, should be stopped. The Committee, moreover, by
adroit management , improved the opportunity so as to obtain
from the frightened Viceroy important concessions, viz. the
right to send Chinese petitions to the Governor of Canton
under seal, to employ native servants without restraint and
to have their dwellings secure from Chinese intrusion .
The gradual development of the British navy not only
impressed the Chinese Authorities but served the purpose of
enabling foreign merchants to take a firmer attitude towards
Chinese pretences of political and judicial supremacy . Foreign
merchants never consented to formally acknowledge their
subjection to Chinese criminal jurisdiction, though they were
often compelled by sheer force to submit to it . But not until
the year 1822 were the Chinese distinctly informed that
foreigners refused on principle to submit to Chinese jurisdiction .
In the year 1750 the French surrendered to the Chinese
Authorities one of their seamen, and again in 1780. In
1784 the English surrendered a gunner who, in firing a salute,
had accidentally killed a native, and they actually submitted
to his being executed by strangling. In 1807 again a British
sailor was surrendered, and though Captain Rolles, of H.M.S.
Lion, obtained his release, a fine of $20 was paid. In 1821 the
Americans surrendered a foreigner (Terranuova) to Chinese
jurisdiction and submitted to his being strangled . But in the
very next year, when two natives were killed in a scuffle with
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. 17
men of H.M.S. Topaze, the British commander, assisted by
Dr. Morrison as interpreter, made it quite clear that a recognition
of Chinese claims of jurisdiction over British seamen and
particularly over men-of-war's crews was entirely out of the
question . Thenceforth no foreigner was surrendered to a Chinese
Court.
In 1831 a curious episode occurred, illustrating the strained
international relations which had gradually arisen. In spring
1831 the Select Committee of the East India Company took
upon itself to enlarge the garden in front of their factory by
reclaiming a narrow strip of foreshore. Soon after, when the
merchants had all retired to Macao for the summer, the
Governor of Canton, resenting the unauthorized reclamation,
came in person to the British factory and ordered the
premises to be forthwith restored to their previous condition .
Meanwhile he walked into the Select Committee's dining room
where a life -size picture, representing George IV. as Prince
Regent, was hanging. On being informed that it was the
portrait of the then reigning King of England, the Governor
took a chair and deliberately sat down with his back turned
to the picture. The Select Committee reported this deliberate
insult to their Directors and the merchants used various means
of making their indignation known to the Chinese officials.
One of their defenders publicly alleged ( September 15, 1831 )
that the Governor disavowed any intentional disrespect and
blamed the Committee for desecrating the picture by exhibiting
it without a curtain of Imperial yellow and for omitting to
place in front of it an altar with frankincense . Lord William
Bentinck, then Governor-General of India, addressed (August
27, 1831 ) a letter to the Governor demanding an explanation ,
but took no further steps when the Governor, whilst refusing
to notice Lord Bentinck's letter, issued (Jaunary 7 , 1832)
an edict denying the imputation . The picture in question
(by Sir T. Lawrence) now graces the dining room of the
Government House of Hongkong, whither it was removed
from Macao in February 1842 .
2
18 CHAPTER II.
All these experiences impressed the Chinese Authorities
with the conviction that the claim of extra-territorial jurisdiction
was but a symptom of a deeper seated claim of international
rights, the concession of which would be the deathblow to
China's sovereignty over all the nations of the earth .
CHAPTER III .
MONOPOLY VERSUS FREE TRADE .
COWEVER galling this stolid assertion of self-adequacy
Ho and supremacy, and this persistent exclusivism of the
Chinese Government, must have been to the East India
Company's officers and to the Ambassadors specially com-
missioned to bolster up the position of the East India Company
in China, it must not be forgotten that the East India
Company was, within its own sphere, just as haughty,
domineering and exclusive a potentate, as any Emperor of
China. Private British merchants, scientists, inissionaries, and
even English ladies, had as much reason to complain of the
tyranny of the East India Company's Court of Directors,
as their Supercargoes suffered in their relations with the
Chinese Government. When naturalists or missionaries, entirely
unconnected with trade, desired to pursue their noble avocations
at any port of Asia occupied by the East India Company,
they were either strictly prohibited and ordered off, or
permission was granted in exceptional cases, as a matter of
extraordinary favour, and under galling injunctions and
restrictions.
As to the treatment of foreign ladies, the coincidence
between the policy of the Chinese Government and that of
the East India Company is striking. When the first English-
speaking lady, a Mrs. McClannon who, with her maid, had
been shipwrecked on her way to Sydney and picked up at sea
by the American ship Betsey, arrived at Macao, the Chinese
officials professed themselves shocked . They refused to admit
the ship to trade . What with barbarian merchants residing
20 CHAPTER III,
on the coast, and what with flying visits by naval officers ,
they said, it was difficult enough for Chinese officials to keep
the foreign trade in order, but that barbarian women should
also enter the hallowed precincts of the Celestial Kingdom
was an outrage of Chinese fundamental principles of propriety
and beyond all endurance . However, as usual, a cumshaw
(bribe) smoothed away the objections, only the Captain of
the Betsey, who so gallantly had rescued the shipwrecked
women, was officially informed that he must never do it
again, and take away the women as soon as possible on pain
of permanent exclusion from the trade. As a parallel to this
Chinese interdiet placed on women, the Court of Directors of
the East India Company renewed ( A.D. 1825 ) a previously
existing stringent order that European females were under no
circumstances to be admitted to Canton. So strict was this
rule, and so engrained did it become in the trading community
of Canton, that the Hongkong successors in the old Canton
trade maintained, until comparatively recent years, the same
principle in the form of restrictions which the leading firms
placed on marriage in the case of their employees.
As regards private traders in Canton, the East India
Company watched, for nearly two centuries, with Argus ' eye
against the violation of their monopoly by adventurous intruders .
No British subject was allowed to land at Canton except under
a passport from the Court of Directors. Nor was any British
ship permitted to participate in the China trade except when
owned or chartered, or furnished with a licence, by the
Company or by the Indian Government. Such licences were
moreover subject to be cancelled at any moment by the
Select Committee at Canton, who had also legal power to
deport any British subject defying their authority. Nevertheless
there were bold spirits who forced their way in. In the year
1780 a Mr. Smith was discovered at Canton trading on his
own account, but was immediately ordered off without mercy.
However, the East India Company's power extended only over
their own nationals, and private traders of other nationalities
MONOPOLY VERSUS FREE TRADE. 21
openly defied the Company whilst profiting by its presence.
The Portuguese (from Macao) , the Spaniards (from Manila),
and the Dutch (from Formosa) had preceded the East India
Company in the Canton trade, and could not be ousted . Danish
and Swedish merchants (A.D. 1732 ) , French (A.D. 1786 ) ,
Americans (A.D. 1784) and others forced their way in, and
international comity on the one side and Chinese policy on
the other protected them against the interference of the East
India Company.
Soon, moreover, private British merchants also secured
admission to Canton, and openly defied the Company's monopoly
by taking out foreign naturalization papers. Thus , for instance,
Mr. W. S. Davidson, an English merchant, visited Canton in
the year 1807 and subsequently traded in Canton , on his own
account and as agent of English firms, for eleven consecutive
years ( 1811 to 1822 ) , under a Portuguese certificate of
naturalization, which he had obtained without fee in London ,
with the assistance of the British Ambassador to Brazil . Many
others followed the example of Mr. Davidson .
The renewal of the East India Company's charter, in 1813 ,
made no great difference in the conduct of its Chinese trade.
But as the Company was from that date compelled to publish
its commercial accounts separately from its territorial accounts,
British merchants generally became aware of the profitable aspects
of trade with China . Moreover the public press now began to
undermine the Company's monopoly by suggesting on sundry
occasions that trade with the East would be carried on more
profitably by private merchants than by the Company. But
the antagonistic forces of Monopoly and Free Trade, thus evoked,
took years to gather strength for a final struggle.
The earliest pioneer of British free trade in Canton was
Mr. William Jardine, founder of the still flourishing firm of
Jardine, Matheson & Co. , who visited China off and on between
the years 1802 and 1818 , and resided in Canton continuously
from 1820 to January 31 , 1839. Next in time and influence
came W. S. Davidson (referred to above) , R. Inglis of Dent & Co.
22 CHAPTER III.
(1823 to 1839) and the brothers A. Matheson ( 1826 to 1839)
and J. Matheson (of whom we shall hear more anon) . The
Mathesons exercised particular influence, as so long ago as 1827
they established in Canton a weekly newspaper, the ' Canton
Register,' to disseminate the principles of free trade and to
oppose a prolongation of the East India Company's monopoly.
To this paper Charles Grant referred (some time before 1836)
in the foliowing memorable words : 'The free traders appear
to cherish high notions of their claims and privileges. Under
their auspices a free press is already maintained at Canton ;
and should their commerce continue to increase, their importance
will rise also. They will regard themselves as the depositaries of
the true principles of British commerce.'
During the three or four years that preceded the expiry
of the East India Company's Charter, it was already foreseen
by the free traders, who were staunch advocates of the Reform
Bill of 1881 , that the Company's monopoly was not likely to
be renewed by a Reformed Parliament . The officers of the
Company themselves had the same apprehensions and gradually
relaxed its rules against the admission of private interlopers
at Canton. Happily, before the question of renewing the
Company's Charter had to be decided, the first Reform Bill
swept away those rotten boroughs which would have enabled
the well-organized band of monopolists in the House of Commons,
aided and abetted as they were by the ignorance or indifference
as to all questions of Eastern trade which distinguished the
vast majority of honourable members, to crush the few scattered
advocates of commercial freedom . It was the first Reformed
Parliament that fulfilled the hopes and realized the prophecies
of the British free traders at Canton , stripped the East India
Company of its commercial attributes, delivered the China trade
from the thraldom of monopoly, and thereby paved also the
way for its eventual liberation from the tyranny of Chinese-
mandarindom .
Thus it happened that , even before the final expiration
(A.D. 1834) of the Company's Charter, free trade cheerily
MONOPOLY VERSUS FREE TRADE. 23
began to rear its head at Canton. A new impetus was thereby
given to British trade, and in the year 1832 as many as
seventy- four British ships arrived at Canton. The little
band of high-spirited, highly-educated and influential private
merchants, that gathered at Canton during the closing years of
the East India Company's monopoly, were, by their very position,
ardent advocates of free trade and determined opponents
of protection and monopoly in every shape or form. Some
of them removed in later years to Hongkong and the spirit
of free trade that filled them descended as a permanent
heirloom to the future merchant princes of Hongkong. If the
experiences of the East India Company negatively paved the
way for the future Colony by demonstrating the irreconcilable
antipathy of the Chinese against any equitable intercourse
with Europeans, and the impossibility of conducting trade on
a basis of international self-respect at Canton, this little band
of free traders, the Jardines, the Mathesons, the Dents, the
Gibbs, the Turners, the Hollidays, the Braines, the Innes ,
unconsciously did for the future Colony of Hongkong what
subsequently Cobden did for Manchester, and prepared the
public mind for future free trade in a free port on British
soil in China.
When, as above mentioned, the Select Committee of the
East India Company at Canton descended to the lowest step
of degradation and handed the keys of the British factory to
the Chinese Constabulary ( May 27 , 1831 ) , the free traders,
filled with righteous wrath, rushed to the front with the first
of those public meetings which, in subsequent years, became
such a characteristic means of venting public indignation in
Hongkong. On May 30, 1831 , this first public meeting of
British subjects in China was held, under the presidency of
William Jardine, and solemnly resolved to remonstrate against
the policy of the Select Committee of yielding to the caprice
of the Native Authorities and to appeal to the home country.'
But the public mind of that dear country was by no means
ripe yet for an unbiassed understanding of the real grievances
24 CHAPTER III.
and needs of the China trade, and the next advices from
London informed the free traders of Canton (April 31 , 1832) ,
then smarting under a new order of the Hoppo positively
forbidding foreign ships to remain at Lintin (April 11 , 1832),
that general apathy prevailed in England as to the restrictions
and interruptions or hardships of the China trade.
However, the hated monopoly of the East India Company
at Canton finally ceased and determined on April 22 , 1834 ,
and the chagrin felt at the discovery that the East India
Company, though closing its factory at Canton, left behind
a Financial Committee for brokerage purposes, was almost
forgotten in the general rejoicing over the first private British
vessel, the ship Sarah, that openly sailed from Whampoa for
London as the pioneer of the new free trade.
Vaticinations, principally originating with the servants of
the East India Company, were not wanting that under the
Company's regime British trade with China had reached its
zenith and was bound to decline henceforth . It was asserted
in Parliament that China offered no further outlet for British
goods and that, by throwing open the trade to all comers,
things would go from bad to worse. But the free traders
had a better insight into the inner workings of the trade
movement. They confidently predicted a great development
of British trade to set in at once and history verified their
expectations.
A few of these free traders were even keen enough to
foretell (April, 1834) that the Act of King William IV., by
which he abolished the exclusive rights of the East India
Company, would aid very much in hastening the abolition of
the long cherished exclusive rights of the Celestial Empire.'
All may not have seen this at the time, but all were aware
that a new period in the history of British trade with China
was inaugurated thereby. It required, indeed, no prophet's
vision to foresee that the inherent difficulties of commercial
intercourse with the Chinese were considerably accentuated by
the substitution of free trade for monopoly.
MONOPOLY VERSUS FREE TRADE. 25
But the spirit which moved the British Parliament to
wrench asunder the shackles in which British trade had been
kept for two long centuries by the East India Company, was
the potent spirit of free trade, and in this general free trade
movement we see above the dark horizon the first streak of
light heralding the advent of the future free port of Hongkong.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MISSION OF LORD NAPIER.
EARS before the trade monopoly of the East India Company
was actually dissolved, it was foreseen by both the British
Cabinet and by the Cantonese Authorities, that the substitution
of a heterogeneous and internally dissentient community of
irresponsible free traders for a responsible and conservative
Corporation like the East India Company would bring on a
serious crisis in the relations existing between Great Britain
and China.
When informed, by direction of the British Government,
that the Charter of the East India Company would in all
probability not be renewed, but British trade thrown open to all
subjects of His Majesty, the then Viceroy of Canton (January 16 ,
1831 ) instructed the chief of the factory at Canton to send an
early letter home, stating that, in case of the dissolution of the
Company, it was incumbent to deliberate and appoint a chief-
manager (tai-pan), who understood the business, to come to
Canton for the general control of commercial dealings, by which
means affairs might be prevented from going to confusion, and
benefits secured to commerce.
This was the shrewd suggestion of a Viceroy holding his
office for five years, and, as given informally, not necessarily
binding upon his successor. It embodied, however, a recognized
principle of Chinese policy, viz., that the traders of any given
place must be formed into one or more guilds, each having a
recognized headman who can be held solidarily responsible for the
doings of every member of his guild. All that was here proposed
was, to place British and foreign free traders in Canton under a
THE MISSION OF LORD NAPIER. 27
tangible and responsible head, having the status of an ordinary
private trader, such as was accorded (A.D. 1699) to Mr. Catchpoole,
but corresponding, on the English side, with the position held, on
the Chinese side, by the head of the Hong Merchants. The
establishment of a Chamber of Commerce, formed by compulsory
membership and controlled by a permanent British president,
would have exhausted the meaning of the Viceroy's suggestion.
What the Viceroy wanted was merely leverage for applying the
screw of official control and exactions whenever desirable.
It is not likely, however, that the British Cabinet acted upon
this informal message of a Canton Viceroy, or at any rate not
without taking pains to ascertain its authoritative character and
real purport. As China had for centuries tolerated and regulated
foreign trade at Canton, the Cabinet may well have proceeded on
the general assumption that British merchants had gained a
status involving, on the part of China and England, reciprocal
responsibilities and rights. At any rate a Bill was laid before
Parliament to regulate the trade to China (and India) and in due
course received the Royal assent on August 28, 1833. This Act
(3rd and 4th Will. IV. ch. 93) , whilst throwing open, from after
April 22, 1834, the trade with China (and the trade in tea) to all
subjects of His Majesty, declared it expedient , for the objects
of trade and amicable intercourse with the Dominions of the
Emperor of China, ' to establish a British Authority in the said
Dominions. Accordingly the Government was authorized by this
Act to send out to China three Superintendents of Trade, one
of whom should preside over a Court of Justice with Criminal
and Admiralty Jurisdiction for the trial of offences committed by
His Majesty's subjects in the said Dominions or on the high sea
within a hundred miles from the coast of China .' The Act
also expressly prohibited the Superintendents, as the King's
Officers, from engaging in any trade or traffic, and authorized
the imposition of a tonnage duty to defray the expenses of their
peace establishment in China. The will of the British nation
thus off-hand decided what for two centuries the Chinese
Government had persistently refused to grant, viz., that British.
28 CHAPTER IV.
subjects in China were entitled to the privileges of extra-
territorial jurisdiction. The Chinese war of 1841 (wrongly
styled the opium war) was the logical consequence of this British
Act of 1833. The passing of this Act is one of the best
illustrations of that superb disregard of consequences abroad
which ever distinguishes British legislators when they try to
meddle in foreign affairs of which they know nothing. "
In pursuance of this Act the Right Honourable William
John Napier, Baron Napier of Merchistoun, Baronet of Nova
Scotia and Captain in the Royal Navy, was selected by Lord
Palmerston to proceed under a Royal Commission to China as
Chief Superintendent of British Trade, and to associate with
himself there, in the Superintendency of Trade, two members
of the East India Company's Select Committee . By a special
Commission under the Royal Signet and Sign Manual (dated
January 26, 1834) , Lord Napier, together with W. H. Ch .
Plowden and J. F. Davis, were appointed Superintendents of
the Trade of British Subjects in China,' empowered to impose
duties on British ships, and directed to station themselves for
the discharge of their duties within the port or river of Canton
and not elsewhere (unless ordered), to collect trade statistics,
to protect the interests of British merchants, to arbitrate or judge
in disputes between British subjects, and to mediate between
them and the Chinese Government. To these orders, distinctly
investing the three Superintendents with extra-territorial, political
and judicial power over British subjects , to be exercised
within the dominions of the Emperor of China and not
elsewhere, there was added the special injunction to abstain
from any appeal (for protection) to British military or naval
forces, unless in any extreme case the most evident necessity
shall require that any such menacing language should be holden
or that any such appeal should be made.'
If we had to believe that both Lord Palmerston and
his chief, Earl Grey, supposed, that the Chinese Government
would concede or silently tolerate the merest shadow of extra-
territorial rights to be exercised by the British Government in
THE MISSION OF LORD NAPIER. 29
its proposed supervision of British merchants residing within the
Dominions of the Emperor of China, we would have to assume
that these experienced statesmen made an incomprehensible
blunder. It seems much more probable that we have here
one of those many cases which have caused historians to
characterize Lord Palmerston's general policy as an incessant
violation of the principle of non-intervention . There is reason
to suppose that Lord Palmerston, with his keen political
foresight, anticipated the probability that this attempt to
establish quietly a mild form of extra-territorial jurisdiction
would by itself, apart from any existing complications, be
sufficient to provoke hostilities . But he no doubt anticipated
also that in the end English public opinion would support him .
In giving his final instructions to Lord Napier, Lord Palmerston
(January 26 , 1834) enjoined him to foster and protect the
trade of His Majesty's subjects in China, to extend trade if
possible to other ports of China, to induce the Chinese
Government to enter into commercial relations with the English
Government, and to seek, with peculiar caution and circum-
spection, to establish eventually direct diplomatic communication
with the Imperial Court at Peking, also to have the coast of
China surveyed to prevent disasters ." But Lord Palmerston
added to all these peaceful instructions the significant direction,
to inquire for places where British ships might find requisite
protection in the event of hostilities in the China sea .' Surely
we are justified in saying that Lord Palmerston then, as ever
after, was determined that, to use his own words, like the civis
Romanus of old, wherever he be, every British subject should
feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of
England will protect him against injustice and wrong,'—even
in China.
Assuming that the British Government could reasonably
argue, on the ground of their interpretation of the Viceroy's
invitation of 1831 , and on the principle of established reciprocal
responsibilities and rights, that the Chinese Government ought
to be willing, or at any rate should be compelled, to admit
30 CHAPTER IV.
into Canton a foreign Superintendent of British trade and
accord to him an official status ; no fault can be found with
the Royal Instructions supplied to Lord Napier, except that these
instructions associated with him, in the official superintendence
of British trade in China, two former servants of the East
India Company. Clearly it was the expectation of the Cabinet
that Lord Napier should experience at the hands of the Cantonese
Authorities a treatment different from that which the Chinese
Government had, for two centuries, uniformly accorded to the
Supercargoes of the East India Company, Mr. Catchpoole, the
King's Minister or Consul, not excepted. The Cabinet desired
the Chinese Government to dissociate, in mind, Lord Napier
as the King's Officer from mere traders and therefore to accord
to him the privilege of direct official intercourse. But at the
same time the Cabinet associated him, in fact, with men who
for years past had practically been the subordinates of the Hong
Merchants. Mr. Plowden and Mr. Davis, though gentlemen
of the highest character and refined culture, and best fitted
in every respect to advise Lord Napier in his delicate mission,
had in the eyes of the haughty Mandarins merely the status
of peddling traders. It seems that all the lessons which the
history of the East India Company's experiences in China had
taught England, were entirely thrown away upon the British
Cabinet Ministers, whose ignorance of the contempt in which
Chinese officials hold all traders, however worthy or honoured,
defeated the very object of the Royal Instructions.
But then, it would seem as if the Crown Lawyers who
must have advised the Cabinet that the British Crown had
an international right to plant Royal Superintendents at Canton,
invested with political and judicial powers, and to do that without
previous permission obtained from the Chinese Government,
must have had rather peculiar notions of international law.
It must be remembered, however, that the international law
of those days held non-Christian States to be outside the comity
of nations, and distinctly accorded to Christian communities,
residing in non-Christian countries, the right of extra-territorial
THE MISSION OF LORD NAPIER. 31
jurisdiction. It is possible, also, that there was, on the part
of the Crown Lawyers and the Cabinet, no assumption of any
positive right to establish a British Superintendent at Canton.
Lord Palmerston specially enjoined upon Lord Napier, that
in case of putting to hazard the existing opportunities of
intercourse, ' he was not to enter into any negotiations with
the Chinese Authorities at all. These words, together with
the subsequent condemnation of Lord Napier's action by the
Duke of Wellington , who gave it as his opinion that Lord
Napier ought to have been satisfied to keep the enjoyment.
of what we have got,' suggest the surmise that the British
Cabinet did not mean forcibly to claim any right of stationing
a British official at Canton or of exercising any extra-territorial
jurisdiction over British subjects within the Dominions of the
Emperor of China, but that their policy was merely to take
the Chinese Government by surprise, to try it on , so to say, in
Chinese fashion, to see how far the Chinese Authorities would
yield ; but, in case of failure, rather to be satisfied with what
the Chinese were willing to concede, than to demand what could
be obtained only by an appeal to force.
If such, however, was the intention of the British Cabinet,
it was a kind of diplomacy unworthy of England, and moreover
foolish, because such a continuation of the mistaken policy
which the East India Company's Court of Directors had
followed for two centuries, was, under the altered circumstances,
impossible. A community of independent British free traders,
knowing that Parliament had conceded to them the privilege
of extra-territorial jurisdiction, was not likely to remain content
with the enjoyment of what they had got, if that enjoyment
was to be coupled with the continuance of the old regime,
galling to personal and national self- respect.
Moreover, if such was the real policy of the British
Government, it was unfair to Lord Napier to keep him in
the dark. For he evidently had no notion of it, until perhaps
at the very last moment, when he resolved to retreat from
Canton . Possibly it was then that his eyes were opened to
32 CHAPTER IV.
the strategies of the Cabinet, and, if so, it was this discovery,
rather than the ignominious treatment he encountered at the
hands of the Chinese, that broke his heart.
It seems very probable that, whatever the real aim of
the British Government may have been, the Cabinet had been
acting under the advice of the Directors of the East India
Company, and if so , this was sufficient to ruin Lord Napier
and his mission.
Immediately on his arrival at Macao ( 88 miles South
of Canton) , on July 15 , 1834, Lord Napier, finding that
Mr. Plowden had meanwhile left China, appointed Mr. (sub-
sequently Sir) John F. Davis to be second, and Sir G. Best
Robinson (another member of the East India Company's Select
Committee) to be third Superintendent of British Trade in
China. The three Superintendents then made the following
appointments, viz ., Mr. J. W. Astell to be Secretary to
the Superintendents, the Rev. Dr. Robert Morrison (who-
unfortunately died a few weeks afterwards, when he was
succeeded by Mr. J. R. Morrison) to be Chinese Secretary
and Interpreter, Captain Ch . Elliot, R.N., to be Master
Attendant (in charge of all British ships and crews within the
Bogue) , Dr. T. R. Colledge to be Surgeon, Dr. Anderson to
be Assistant Surgeon, and the Rev. J. H. Vachell to be
Chaplain to the Superintendents. Finally Mr. A. R. Johnston
was appointed to be Private Secretary to Lord Napier. The
Commission, after some interviews with messengers of the
Viceroy, soon proceeded (July 25 , 1834) , without waiting for
a passport, to Canton. On the very day of his arrival, however,
Lord Napier was at once subjected by the Chinese Authorities
to unprovoked insults, in the treatment of his baggage and
his servants, and the Customs tide-waiters officially reported
that some foreign devils ' had arrived . To these indignities.
Lord Napier quietly submitted. But he endeavoured , without
loss of time, to open direct official communication , first with
the Viceroy and then with the Governor of Canton . His
object was merely to inform the Provincial Authorities, in
THE MISSION OF LORD NAPIER. 33
pursuance of his instructions, that he had arrived bearing the
King's Commission and invested with political and judicial
powers for the control of British subjects in China. But this
information was couched in terms characteristic of a dispatch
or official communication, and implying that the writer had
an official status. By accepting the letter, the Chinese
Government would have recognized Lord Napier as having
such a status in China. Accordingly reception of the letter
was peremptorily refused. The Viceroy, after sending Lord
Napier word (through the Hong Merchants) that he could
hold no communication with outside barbarians,' authorized
the Prefect of Canton , the Prefect of Swatow, and the Deputy
Lieutenant-General in command at Canton to go , together
with the Hong Merchants, and interview Lord Napier in order
to ascertain what he really wanted. This interview took place
on August 23, 1834, and ended with the sage remark of the
gallant Lieutenant-General, that it would be very unpleasant
were the two nations to come to a rupture,' to which Lord
Napier made the significant reply that England was perfectly
prepared . The Hong Merchants offered to deliver the letter
to the Governor of Canton, on condition that it should be
rewritten in form of a humble petition, having on the outside
a certain Chinese character (pien) which marks an application
made by one of the common people ( not having literary or
official rank) to a Chinese official from a Magistrate upwards.
But one of the Hong Merchants used the opportunity to
heap a gratuitous insult upon Lord Napier. Addressing him
in writing, he used characters which designated Lord Napier,
by a pun, as the laboriously vile.'
Lord Napier's argument that a former Viceroy had by edict
invited the British Government , in 1831 , to send a chief to
Canton to supervise trade, was met on the part of the Chinese
Authorities by a denial of the meaning which Lord Napier
attached to that invitation . They pointed out that in several
proclamations issued by the Governor of Canton (August 18
and September 2 , 1834) , it was distinctly stated, that the
3
34 CHAPTER IV.
commissioned officers of the Celestial Empire never take
cognizance of the trivial affairs of trade, ' that never has there
been such a thing as official correspondence with a barbarian
headman, that the English nation's King has hitherto been
reverently obedient, ' that in the intercourse of merchants
mutual willingness is necessary on both sides, wherefore there
can be no overruling control exercised by officers,' and finally
' how can the officers of the Celestial Empire hold official
correspondence with barbarians ?'
Whilst declining to adopt the form of a petition, Lord
Napier adopted a suggestion of the Hong Merchants to substitute
another designation of the Governor of Canton , but otherwise
Lord Napier's official message was left unaltered, in the form
of a dispatch. But no messenger could be found to deliver it.
So Mr. Astell, accompanied by the interpreters, proceeded with
the latter to the city gates, where the party were detained for
hours and subjected to every possible indignity. Various
officials came, but one and all refused to deliver the letter to
its address, unless it was couched in the form of a petition. It
seemed to the Chinese preposterous that a barbarian official
should claim an official status in China. It was with them not
merely a question of etiquette and form of address, such as was
subsequently settled by a special provision of the Treaty of
Nanking, but it was a plain question of polity. The Chinese
officials claimed supremacy over all barbarians, whether traders
or officers, and the form of this letter was a deliberate denial
of it. The one word ' petition ' (pien) was now made the test
of British submission to China's claim of supremacy.
Lord Napier continued firm in his refusal to ' petition ' the
Viceroy, nor would he accept the renewed offer of the Hong
Merchants to act as his intermediaries in his communications
with the Chinese Government . He remained in Canton , although
the Hong Merchants had informed him that the Provincial
Authorities would not receive any message from him, unless it
was sent through the channel which had been constituted by
Imperial Authority, and brought him an order by the Governor
THE MISSION OF LORD NAPIER. 35
of Canton, dated August 18, 1834, directing him to leave
Canton at once. Thereupon the Chinese Authorities resolved
to drive him away by applying, to begin with, indirect force.
A proclamation was issued calling upon the people to stop all
intercourse with the British factory. The supply of provisions
to British merchants was strictly prohibited and all Chinese
servants were ordered to leave them forthwith. Next, the Hong
Merchants were ordered to stop shipping cargo by any British
vessel and to make an effort to induce the several British
merchants to disown the assumed authority of Lord Napier
and the other Superintendents and to declare their willingness
to obey the orders of the Chinese Authorities, which would
be conveyed to them, as formerly, by the Hong Merchants.
Foreseeing the danger of dissension, Lord Napier had
called (August 16, 1834) a public meeting of British merchants,
warned them against the intrigues of Hong Merchants and
suggested the formation of a British Chamber of Commerce,
to ensure joint action and to provide a medium of communication
between the merchants and the Superintendents. This suggestion
was now adopted and (August 25 , 1834) a British Chamber
of Commerce was formed by the following firms, viz ., Jardine,
Matheson & Co. , R. Turner & Co. , J. McAdam Gladstone, J.
Innes, A. S. Keating, N. Crooke, J. Templeton & Co. , J. Watson,
Douglas, Mackenzie & Co. , T. Fox, and John Slade (Editor
of the Canton Register). The Committee of this first British
Chamber of Commerce in China were J. Matheson, L. Dent,
R. Turner, W. Boyd, and Dadabhoy Rustomjee.
When the Chinese Authorities found that the British
merchants rejected all temptations offered to them individually
through the Hong Merchants, and that the whole British
community unanimously supported Lord Napier's pretensions,
stronger measures were taken. Trade with British merchants
and communication with Whampoa was now (September 2, 1834)
stopped and the factories were surrounded by a cordon of Chinese
soldiers . British merchants were informed that they were allowed
to depart by way of Whampoa for Macao, but none would be
36 CHAPTER 1V.
allowed to return . Some Chinese compradors and shop-keepers,
who had secretly supplied the British factories with provisions,
were arrested and the British community found themselves in
danger of being starved out. Seeing the critical position of
affairs, Lord Napier, in the absence (at Macao) of the other
two Superintendents, consulted the Committee of the Chamber
of Commerce, and at their request dispatched an order for two
frigates to come up to Whampoa and thence to send up a
guard of marines for the protection of His Majesty's subjects.
Accordingly H.M. Ships Imogene and Andromache sailed through
the Bogue ( September 5 , 1834 ) under a rattling fire of the
forts, to which they gallantly replied, silencing one battery
after the other, until they reached Whampoa (September 11 ,
1834 ) . A guard of marines also succeeded in forcing their way
into the British factories.
Naturally enough, the Chinese now, instead of continuing
hostilities, blandly recommenced negotiations through the Hong
Merchants. The Provincial Authorities offered to resume trade
with British merchants at Canton, on condition that the two
frigates should leave the river and that Lord Napier should
retire to Macao until the pleasure of His Majesty the Emperor
of all under Heaven was known .' Recognizing now the official
status of Lord Napier, they urged with some emphasis that
it was a thing hitherto unknown for a barbarian official to
reside at Canton .' But there was no room left to doubt the
sincerity of the Chinese Authorities, both in their expressed
willingness to resume trade and in their indignation at the
attempt of the British Cabinet to establish extra-territorial
jurisdiction without the previous consent of the Chinese
Government.
Lord Napier turned again to his instructions, and now,
perhaps, his eyes were opened as to the policy concealed under
Lord Palmerston's words concerning the case of putting to
hazard the existing opportunities of intercourse .' Sick in body
and mind, separated from the other two Superintendents, Lord
Napier now broke down completely and instructed his surgeon ,
THE MISSION OF LORD NAPIER. 37
Dr. Colledge, to make in his name what terms he could with
the Chinese Authorities.
Accordingly Dr. Colledge wrote (September 18 , 1834) to
the Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, informing him that-
he had been authorized by Lord Napier to make the requisite
arrangements with the Hong Merchants.' A meeting was
arranged, Dr. Colledge and Mr. Jardine representing Lord Napier
and the British community, whilst two Hong Merchants , Howqua
and Mowqua, acted on behalf of the Chinese Authorities. Two
contradictory statements of what took place at this meeting
exist, and although there can be no doubt but that Dr. Colledge's
account of the transaction is correct, the official report which
the Hong Merchants made of this interview deserves some
consideration as characteristic of the misunderstandings or
misinterpretations which in subsequent years attached to all
similar negotiations between Europeans and Chinese.
The words which Dr. Colledge used were these : I, T.
P. Colledge, engage on the part of the Chief Superintendent,
the Right Honourable Lord Napier, that His Lordship does
grant an order for His Majesty's Ships at Whampoa to sail
to Lintin, on my receiving a chop (stamped passport) , from the
Governor for His Lordship and suite to proceed to Macao,
Lord Napier's ill state of health not permitting him to correspond
with your Authorities longer on this subject . One condition
I deem it expedient to impose, which is, that His Majesty's
Ships do not submit to any ostentatious display ' on the part
of your Government .' Howqua replied : Mr. Colledge, your
proposition is one of the most serious nature, and from my
knowledge of your character I doubt not the honesty of it.
Shake hands with me and Mowqua, and let Mr. Jardine do
the same.'
The Chinese official account of this meeting is as follows :
The Hong Merchants, Woo Tun-yuen and others (Howqua
and Mowqua) reported (to the Governor of Canton and his
colleagues) that the said nation's private merchants, Colledge
and others, had stated to them that Lord Napier acknowledged
38 CHAPTER IV.
that, because it was his first entrance into the Central Kingdom,
he was ignorant of the prohibitions, and therefore he obtained
no permit ; that the ships of war were really for the purpose
of protecting goods and entered the Bogue by mistake ; that
now he (Lord Napier) was himself aware of his error and
begged to be graciously permitted to go down to Macao, and
that the ships should immediately go out (of the Central
Kingdom), and he therefore begged permission for them to
leave the port.'
The informality of the proceedings naturally opened the
door for a variety of versions as to what actually transpired .
But the omission , on the part of Dr. Colledge, of any stipulation
as to the resumption of trade consequent on the departure of
Lord Napier and of the ships of war, indicates that , while
determined to save the life of Lord Napier at any cost, he had
reason to trust in the determination of the Chinese Government
not to forego the profits of the British trade so long as their
own exclusive supremacy was maintained .
Lord Napier received his passport and started (September 21 ,
1834) for Macao, after giving an order to the commanders of
H.M. Ships Imogene and Andromache to retire beyond the
Bogue. Lord Napier desired to travel in his own boat, but the
Chinese insisted upon conveying him to Macao themselves,
escorted him like a prisoner, did everything on the way to
annoy him by the noise of gongs, crackers and firing salutes,
which the Mandarins in charge of the escort persisted in,
although Lord Napier repeatedly remonstrated against it, and
they protracted the voyage, which need not have taken more
than twenty-four hours, so as to last five days. By the time
Lord Napier reached Macao ( September 26 , 1834) , he was beyond
recovery and died a fortnight later (October 11 , 1834) , worn
out with the harassing and distressing annoyances which he
experienced at the hands of the Chinese Authorities, as well
as by the unnecessary delay interposed on his passage down
to Macao, and especially also by the consciousness, that appears
to have come over him at the last, that he had been placed
THE MISSION OF LORD NAPIER. 39
in a false position by the ignorance of the Cabinet as to the
real attitude preserved by the Chinese Government all along,
and by the obscurity in which the Orders in Council and the
instructions of Lord Palmerston enveloped the real policy of
the British Government. Lord Napier died, like Admiral
Hosier, of a grieved and broken heart .'
As soon as the Cantonese Authorities learned that the
frigates had left the river and that Lord Napier had reached
Macao, they reported to the Emperor that Napier had been
driven out and his two ships of war dragged over the shallows
and expelled,' but they eagerly resumed commercial intercourse
with the British merchants (September 29 , 1834 ) , placing them,
however, under fresh restrictions. They expressly stipulated
that henceforth no barbarian official should presume to come
to Canton but only persons holding the position of tai-pan (the
vulgar term for the East India Company's Chief-Supercargoes) ,
and that all commercial transactions should be strictly confined
to dealings with the Hong Merchants. Moreover, they published
now (November 7 , 1834) an Imperial Edict prohibiting the
opium trade.
Thus ended the melancholy mission of Lord Napier. Its
failure is clearly not due to any want of diplomatic tact or
courage on the part of Lord Napier, but to the clashing of
Chinese and British interests. Nor can we blame the Chinese
Authorities, who, accustomed by the policy of abject servility,
maintained by the East India Company for two consecutive
centuries, to deal with Europeans willing to forego for the
sake of trade all claims of national and personal self-respect,
were entirely taken by surprise when they suddenly encountered,
on the part of the British Government, the identical notions of
national self-adequacy and political supremacy which had hitherto
been the undisputed monopoly of the Chinese Government.
The crowning misfortune of Lord Napier was that by the time
(end of November) when the first news of the disastrous ending
of his mission reached England, the administration of Lord
Melbourne (who had taken Earl Grey's place in July) had come
40 CHAPTER IV.
to an end (November 14) , that Lord Palmerston was therefore
out of office and the Duke of Wellington at the helm of affairs.
But the worst feature of this whole melancholy spectacle
is the stolid apathy with which the English public received the
news of the failure of Lord Napier's mission and the heartless
cruelty with which the Duke of Wellington condemned Lord
Napier's conduct . The silent acquiescence of the British public
in the expulsion from Canton, in so degrading a manner, of
the principal officer of their King and their country, lowered
British reputation in the eyes of the Chinese and contributed
to encourage them to venture upon future outrages . As to
the Duke, he never had much respect for Lord Palmerston's
or anybody's statecraft. With a belief in his own shrewd
intuition of the right thing to be done at any critical moment ,
he combined a somewhat brusque manner of criticising supposed
diplomatic blunderers. He looked upon this whole scheme
of the fallen Whig leaders as a bungle from the beginning to
the end and judged it , exactly as he judged the Cabul disasters
eight years later, as a case of giving undue power to political
agents. The series of insults heaped upon Lord Napier, while
alive, by the Chinese Authorities, was kindness compared with
the cruel injustice with which the Duke of Wellington censured
Lord Napier when dead. The man whose puissant arm could
bind the tyrant of a world ' proved childishly impotent in
his encounter with Chinese mandarindom. The hero who,
conquering Fate, enfranchised Europe, ' entirely missed his
opportunity of becoming also the liberator of European trade
in Asia. The noble Duke entirely forgot himself when he gave
it as his opinion ( March 24 , 1835) that Lord Napier had brought
about the failure of his mission by assuming high-sounding
titles, by going to Canton without permission, and by attempting
an unusual mode of communication . Understanding that British
trade in China was flourishing again, in spite of the defeat
Lord Napier had sustained at Canton, the Duke recommended
to keep the enjoyment of what we have got and to repress the
ardour of British traders.
THE MISSION OF LORD NAPIER. 41
The British Government, having first disregarded the
lessons afforded by the experiences of the East India Company,
now misinterpreted the lessons to be derived from Lord Napier's
fate. Clearly, the time for a British Colony in China had
not come yet. Hongkong had to wait yet a little longer.
Another and sharper lesson was needed .
CHAPTER V.
DISSENSIONS AND A QUIESCENT POLICY.
A.D. 1834 to 1836.
THE expulsion of Lord Napier and the indignities deliberately
T
heaped upon him (in 1834) were but the premonitory
symptoms of a thunderstorm of Chinese Imperial, official and
popular wrath, which was to burst over the heads of the British
community at Canton five years later (in 1839) . For the
present, this precursory brief disturbance of the peace was
succeeded by a temporary lull. During this interval, however,
internal dissensions sprang up among all the parties concerned,
in the British Cabinet, among the Superintendents who succeeded
Lord Napier, among the British merchants and among the
Chinese.
Mr. J. F. Davis (later on better known as Sir John Davis,
Sinologue and Governor of Hongkong) succeeded to the post
of Chief Superintendent of British trade in China (October
12 , 1834) , Sir George B. Robinson acting as Second and
Mr. J. H. Astell as Third Superintendent. When announcing
to Lord Palmerston the changes that had taken place, Mr. Davis
declared that an unbecoming and premature act of submission
to the Chinese Authorities would not only prove fruitless but
mischievous, and that therefore ' absolute silence and quiescence
seemed to him the most eligible policy to pursue, until receipt
of instructions from the Cabinet.
But the British Cabinet was not in a position, for years
to come, to form any definite policy with regard to China.
Lord Palmerston was temporarily (November 14, 1834, to April
10, 1835) out of office and when the Whig leaders resumed the
reins of the Government (April 10, 1835 , to September 16, 1841 ),
DISSENSIONS AND A QUIESCENT POLICY. 43
they felt the ground under their feet too unstable to risk their
existence by adopting a definite policy with regard to China.
The Duke of Wellington personally adopted the views of the
Chinese officials and did not shrink from applying them to the
past, in condemning Lord Napier's action, or to the future in
approving of Mr. Davis' proposed policy of inaction. As to
the British public, it took the attitude of stolid apathy, caring
nothing for these things, so long as the supply of tea and silk
was forthcoming at the usual prices. Accordingly, when
Mr. Davis, fearing lest he be left without any instructions,
forwarded positive suggestions, they were, though good enough
to be taken up and acted upon in subsequent years, quietly
shelved for a good while by the Government.
Mr. Davis recommended (October 24 and 28, 1834) not
to send out another cumbrous and expensive Embassy, but to
appeal to the Emperor of China by means of a dispatch to be
delivered by a small fleet at the mouth of the Peking River
(Peiho), and, if such an appeal should fail, as he expected it
would , to use then measures of coercion. Mr. Davis recommended
this course on the ground that the Imperial Government of
China sincerely desired to ameliorate the condition of British
merchants, but that the Cantonese Authorities, by their mis-
representations, kept the Emperor in the dark as to the real
position of affairs. Mr. Davis, at the same time, stated that
the Mandarins at Canton were anxious to keep the control of
British merchants in the hands of the Hong Merchants,
because this system enabled them to lighten their own respon-
sibilities and to practise their heavy exactions on the trade with
greater impunity.