Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 93

1842.

Last Ten Years, from 1832 to 1841.

75

of trade it is requisite and necessary to choose a person as head and director, that there may be some one to sustain the responsibility. The merchants have already been before commanded to examine and deliberate, but have not yet made any report in answer. Uniting the circumstances, this order is issued. When the order reaches the said merchants let them immediately obey, and act according- ly; and instantly make known to all the separate merchants of the said nation, that they are, in a general body, to examine and deliberate, what person ought to be made the head for directing the said nation's trade, and forthwith to report in answer. Thereafter the responsibility of conducting public affairs shall rest on the barbarian merchant who becomes head and director. At the same time, cause the said barbarian merchants immediately to send a letter home to their country, calling for the iminediate appointment of another taepan, to come to Canton, in order to direct and manage. In the celestial empire, cosponsibility in the management of commercial affairs, &c., is laid upon the hong-merchants. I is requisite that the said nation should also select a commercial man, acquainted with affairs, to come hither. It is unnecessary again to appoint a barbarian eye or superintendent, thereby causing hindrances and impediments. Let the snic hong-merchas take also the circumstances of their enjoining these orders, and report in answer, for thorough investigation to be made. Oppose not. These are the orders." Corresp. p. 47. Oct. 19th, 1834.

28th. Mr. Davis, chief superintendent of the British trade ad dressed a letter to viscount Palmerston, from which the following is

an extract.

"On the 16th instant, I obtained the copy of a report from the local govern ment to Peking, relative to the circumstances connected with lord Napier's retire ment from Canton, a translation of which is recorded on the proceedings. The passage of the river's entrance by his majesty's ships, altogether suppressed in previous document already noticed, is there mentioned, but hinted very slightly and represented as a mere mistake; and, though it is stated that the fire from the forts was returned, the effect of the fire is made to appear quite trivial. The res of the paper is in the same strain of misrepresentation, A rumor, which I have fair grounds for believing, althongli as yet unsubstantiated in writing, siates thai the viceroy has lost several steps in rank, and that he is recalled from office, on account of the late proceedings at Canton. What is the precise nature of the charges against him, I cannot as yet ascertain; though it has been stated generally, that his punishment was for 'deceiving the emperor.' Any correct information on this important point, I shall rot omit to forward to your lordship as soon as obtained, since it may materially influence the proceedings of his majesty's govern- ment in regard to an appeal to Peking, or otherwise. I will only observe, with reference to such an appeal, that should a measure of the kind be determined on, not through a cumbrous and expensive embassy, with its attendant difficulties of ceremonies, but simply by means of a dispatch to the mouth of the Peking river; it might be recommended by such reasons as the following. First, that no fact is better authenticated than the general ignorance in which the local government keeps the court, in regard to the Canton trade, and its treatment of Europeans; secondly, that Chinese principles sanction and invite appeals against the conduct of the distant delegates of the emperor; thirdly, that a reterence of the kind was so successful in 1759, as to occasion the removal of a chief com-