Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 217

1842.

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Last Ten Years, from 1832 to 1841.

199

Your lordship will observe by the governor's edict, that he has required me to remain at Macao pending instructions from his imperial majesty; and further, that his excellency commands certain officers and hong-merchants to visit me here for the purpose of clearing up some doubts which bad presented themselves to his mind, as to the nature of my appointment, and the duties I am to perform. The opinion I have formed of the tenor of his excellency's edict, (which it is material to observe, carefully abstains from all notice of the events in 1834,) is, that the provincial government, and probably the court, would be well content to feel reässured in respect to the sentiments of his majesty's government upon those matters; and I have no doubt there is a disposition to draw to a close the present hazardous interruption of responsible communication and supervision at Canton.

"I would in this place take the liberty to remark to your lordship, that in the consideration of Chinese official papers, with a view to the detection of their real spirit, it has always seemed to me to be a point of principal moment, to weigh the effect of any distinctly promised course of action, and to attach a very subor- dinate degree of importance to their mere phraseology. I would by no means be supposed to think that I hold the consideration of the language to be without use for the due estimation of the intentions or dispositions of this government, but I certainly am of opinion that it will always be found to be a sounder course steadily to look at the portions material of those instruments, and to draw our conclusions from these, than from the manner in which it is the custom of these people to dress or to cover up their purposes.

6.

Testing the governor's edict by this principle, I would say that if his excellen- ey had informed me I must abide at Macao, without making a distinct specification of a line of proceeding upon his own part, I should have concluded that it was determined to adhere rigidly to the rule that the chief must be a trading chief. But coupled with the declaration, that the chief ought to be a trading chief, and that I must remain here for the present, the governor signifies with great plain- ness, not only that he knows I am not a trading chief, but that he will seek the imperial sanction to let me proceed to Canton; and in order to leave me in little doubt that this application will be successful, he describes the steps he will take till that sanction arrives. This, in my manner of considering the matter, is to ac- quaint me that it is determined to permit me to repair to Canton. But at the same time, I conceive that his excellency's desire is to be permitted to work out that end in his own fashion; that is to say, with due regard to a respectable mode of setting aside difficulties which it is so frequently the consequence of their jealous policy to create for themselves, as well as for others.

"This edict, my lord, has appeared to me to justify some hope, that a point of no ordinary public moment is susceptible of attainment, namely, the direct im- perial sanction of the official character of a person at Canton, wholly unconnect- ed with trade, and I trust your lordship will approve of the terms in which I have replied to his excellency's edict, with the intention to promote that result.

“Upon the morning of the 28th instant, I received a visit from the hong-mer- chants, who had arrived at Macao with the mandarins deputed by the governor to seek some further explanation as to the nature of my office and duties, and upon the other matters noticed in his excellency's edict. These persons opened their mission by proposing that I should visit the mandarins; a course, however, which I declined, upon the ground that I had no particular communication to