his
23
for dealing with offences committed by British subjects
heighbouring
on the
e/high seas er in China.or
For the next few years the attempt of the
British representative to exercise his jurisdiction
and to protect legitimate British trade brought him
continually into difficulties with the Chinese Viceroy
at Canton, who, in accordance with his own inclinations and
instructions from Peking regarded and treated foreign
traders as contemptible barbarians.
From 1835, the Chief Superintendent was
Captain Elliott, and in the following years not only the
exercise of his functions but also his personal safety
was continually threatened or interrupted by the hostile
action of the Cantonese authorities.
Trading and
traders were constantly exposed to highhanded action by the
Viceroy and frequently the intervention of His Majesty's
Ships was necessary. On occasions between 1836 and 1840
Captain Elliott himself had to retire to the shelter of
Macao insecure as it was. One of the chief and least
unreasonable objects of the Chinese hostility was the
trading in opium which it was impossible for Elliott to
control even in British ships, and which resulted in the
continual demands by the Chinese Viceroy for British
subjects to be handed over to him for suitable
punishment, e.g. torture or strangulation; and in more
than