Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 367

1842.

Last Ten Years, from 12 to 1841.

319

Indeed, I felt I could shape my own proceedings on the present occasion in such a manner as would necessarily involve the principle, that British officers should intercommunicate upon a footing of equality with native officers of the same ranks; and more than that, I am afraid it will be impossible to get from this go- vernment without driving it to extremities upon matter of form. I would also respectfully press upon your lordship the assurance that the idea of the character is that of respectful report, not of solicitation, or petition; and regard being had to the lofty tone assumed by all Asiatic powers; to the particular genius of this language and government; to its strangeness to foreign intercourse; and, above all, to the fact, that it is the manner of address used by native officers even of the third rank; I cannot but hope that I shall be excused for determining not to continue the interruption of the public communications in" a moment of crisis (with the trade actually stopped, and with other serious evils impending) upon such a ground as that.

"The next point I have to notice in my own correspondence with the govern. or, is the request that he would command the officers who might be employed in the duty of dismissing these bonts from the river, to accompany me to their ordinary place of anchorage I advert to this subject, because it has been put prominently forward in the torrent of censure which has been poured upon me through the medium of the Canton newspapers. My lord, I requested his ex- cellency to let the officers place themselves in communication with me, because I was not without reason to believe that some of the thoughtless people in those vessels might be contemplating the forcible opposition of the authority of this government; and I hoped that my presence in my own boat would prevent such dangerous absurdity. But assuming for a moment that they had been wild enough to do so, and life had been lost, it was my duty to take every care in my power, that the persons of British subjects (be their crime what it might) did not fall into the hands of the Chinese government; and it was further incumbent upon me to protect the property of British subjects, guiltless of those illegal practices which had induced the stoppage of the trade, from inconvenience of any description. I was also mainly influenced in this respect, by the desire to establish the general principle, that measures of an urgent nature affecting her majesty's subjects, needed the admission of her majesty's officers.

"The opening of this official communication, forwarded to me by the foo and bie, needs a few words of comment. These officers, it will be observed, com- mand me to heed the governor's edict; and I have enough of experience of the temper of this government to know, that if I had returned it upon that pretext, I should have driven them into one of those impracticable moods of offended dignity, the su ́e fruit of which would have been the contumelious refusal of all official communication, and an obstinate adherence to their own policy of work- ing out their ends by measures of general prossure upon the whole trade.

I preferred, therefore, to pass it without notice for the present, determining, on the first occasion that the governor desired to communicate with me on any important su›ject in the only way by which he knows such communications can reach me, to send a brief note beforehand to the officers, requesting them, for the sake of precision, to signify that they are communicating his excel- lency's pleasu ́e, and not their own. I shall at the same time take occasion to hint, that this course will obviate the disagreeable necessity which would other wise devolve upon me, of returning the edict to his excellency for correction.