1912.
Journal of Occurrences,
511
seize the actual offenders of each nation, in place of consulting and concert- ing measures with the several national officers residing in China (as it was his proper duty to have done), had the audacity forcibly to confine in Canton the English officer and people, at the same time threatening them with death. His object was by extorting from them what opium there might be in China that year, to gain favor with his emperor; and the English officer at Canton, seeing this position of things, commanded the English merchants in the name of their sovereign, that they should deliver up, for the ransom of themselves from this position of extreme danger whatever opium they might have in the Chinese waters. Here is one great offense committed by the Chinese offi- cers against the English.
The sovereign of Great Britain, in consequence of this and numerous subsequent acts of injustice, appointed as her envoys, the admiral Elliot, and Elliot the superintendent at Canton, to whom jointly full powers were given for the settlement of affairs with China. And having in consideration the many past acts of injustice of the Chinese officers, her majesty directed the admiral to take command of a combined naval and land force, and to quarter it at one of the islands on the Chinese coast; her instructions being, that if the Chinese government were willing to adinit its errors, and afford redress, a peaceful arrangement of affairs should be concluded; but other- wise, if justice and recompense were refused, that the standard of justice should be raised, and its claims enforced by war. The adiniral, &c., here- upon proceeded to the Pei ho, and there presented a letter from the minister of Great Britain which the minister and governor Kishen transmitted for the consideration of all the ministers to Peking; after this Kishen wrote to the admiral stating, that affairs which concerned Canton, it was difficult to arrange so far off, and if the admiral, &c., would proceed to Canton, it would not need long to arrange affairs there. The high English officers, still desiring peace, consented to this, and proceeded to Canton, where they met Kishen, and had frequent communications with him both written and personal. Arrangements were not yet concluded, when the ministers at Peking, men without truth or good faith, induced the emperor to recall Kishen, and send instead general Yishan, to fight and war with the English, so that the English were actually compelled by these proceedings to take the Bocca Tigris and the line of defenses from thence upwards, and to bring Canton itself to submission, and to take from it a ransom for the punishment of such ill faith. In this ill faith of the Chinese ministers, we have a second grand instance of offense against England.
The high commissioner Yukien, and other high officers, generals, &c., in the several provinces, in repeated instances, when they have found our peo- ple cast by the weather on their coast, or induced by evil men on shore, have, being dead to all good and honest feeling, dared to put the captives thus brought into their hands to a tyrannical and cruel death; and have deceitfully and falsely reported the cases to the emperor, or published lying proclamations to the people, wherein they have invented tales of lengthened contest and seizure of vessels in battle with slaughter of many people. Thus falsely did Yukien declare last year, the circumstances of the English oc- cupation of Chusan; thus did the general Yishan pretend that he had des- troyed many vessels; the governor Yen Petau that he had by force of arins recovered Anoy; the tautai on Formosa, when shipwreck had cast men on that island, that he had gained a victory over them in battle; and the general Yiking, in May last, that he had destroyed many vessels and killed a multi- tude of men at Chusan, when not one vessel was injured, nor a single man killed. These multiplied false statements, misleading the emperor and peo- ple, and hindering peaceful arrangements, are a third great cause of offense against the English.