Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 301

1842.

Adams Lecture on the War with China.

2x43

a permanent diplomatic British minister to reside near the person of the emperor, at Peking, and thereby to secure a more effective protection to the commerce between the two countries, than it had before enjoyed. This was a fair and laud- able purpose-and so reasonable did it appear, that Mr. Ward, who published his excellent history of the Law of Nations, in 1795, before the result of lord Macart. ney's embassy was known, in the passage of his work, where he noticed this ex- clusive and excluding policy of the Chinese, added a note announcing the expec. tation that very shortly thereafter, a permanent British diplomatic mission would be established at the imperial court of Peking. But this was not the conclusion of Chinese logic or Chinese benevolence. From the moment that lord Macartney landed in China, till he embarked in the Lion to return home, he was considered as the vassal of a distant subordinate petty prince, sent by his master to do ho. mage, and bear the tributary presents to the superhminan majesty of the celestial empire. Laudandum, ornandum, tolerandum, was the unvarying policy of the treat. ment which he received-all possible courtesy of forms was observed towards him, and, with occasional gross exceptions, to the numerous retinue of the embassy. Two grandees of the empire, Chau tájin, a civilian, and Wán tájín, a military com- mander, were sent to accompany and escort him to Peking, with a third legate, a Tartar in every sense of the word, whose office was all but avowedly that of a spy. Arrived at Peking, lord Macartney found that the emperor was absent in Tartary, and was advised to follow him thither, which he accordingly did. He was lodged with his junto, at sundry unoccupied imperial palaces on the way, and given to understand that this and many other petty observances, were transcen. dant honors, such as no outside barbarian had ever before been indulged in. Meantime he was advised to practice the kotow, or ceremonial prostration, knock- ing his forehead nine times on the floor, which would be required on his being presented to the emperor. Lord Macartney, who perfectly understood the meaning of this ceremony, importing that his sovereign was but the tributary vassal of the celestial emperor, proposed as a compromise, to perform his part of the ceremony, on condition that a Chinese mandarin of equal rank with himself, should perform the same ceremony before the portrait of the king of Great Britain. This proposa! was not accepted, but the old emperor, as a special favor, consented to receive the embassador, as he was accustomed to approach his own sovereign, on one bended knee.

Before the presentation, however, lord Macartney, had a private interview with the kóláu, or prime minister of the empire, in which he disclosed the principal object of his mission, and was sufficiently forewarned of its failure. “His exccl. lency,” (says sir George Staunton,) "found it necessary to use great tenderness and many qualified expressions, in conveying any idea that a connection between Great Britain and China, could be of any importance to the latter, either by the introduction of European commodities, of which taken in barter, the necessity was not felt or by the supply of cotton or of rice from India, which some of the Chinese provinces were equally fit to cultivate; or of bullion, of which the increase had sometimes the inconvenience of unequally increasing the prices of the useful or nccessary articles of life; or lastly by the assistance of a naval force to destroy the pirates on the coast, against whose mischief the sure source existed of an internal communication by rivers and canals. Such were the avowed or affected notions entertained by the Chinese government, of the superiority or independence of the empire, that no transaction with foreigners was admissible by it, on the