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Review of Public Occurrences During the
FEB.
about five months to little or no purpose, was a warning which I now do not regret having profited by. The effect of such detention on private shipping would have been ruinous, and a serious blow to the future trade with this country.
"I might, on the other hand, have adopted the opposite extreme measure of an imincdiate submission to the dictates of the local government, and have proceeded to Canton to place myself under the management of the hong-merchants; but from this I was deterred by the conviction, stated to your lordship in my dispatch of the 11th November, that any adjustment ought to take place as the result of a mutual necessity; and that an unbecoming and premature act of submission on our part, under present circumstances, could not fail to prove a fruitless, if not a mischievous measure.' I feel persuaded that it would have been the most effectual means of preventing the emperor's favorable cdict, inclosed in my dis- patch of the 2d instant.
"The proclamations of the viceroy, (copies of which I had the honor to forward under dates the 2d and 11th November,) calling for the election or appointment from home, of a 'trading chief' betrayed the difficulty which the local govern- ment had brought on itself by its refusal to acknowledge lord Napier. Transla. tions of subsequent papers (not intended for our perusal), which I had the honor to forward on the 18th November, proved the importance which the local govern. ment really attached to the trade, and its anxiety to avoid a rupture; as well as the responsibility which the emperor had fixed on the viceroy, in respect to the preservation of tranquillity.
"It was reasonably hoped by the commission, that a complete silence and abstinence from all further attempts to negotiate with the Canton government, pending the reference home, might be attended with a favorable effect. The im- perial edict, forwarded with my dispatch of the 2d instant, in which the blame of the transactions of August and September is thrown on the hong-merchants, and the late troubles attributed to their extortions on trade, must be viewed as an unequivocal sanction of that opinion. To repeat the words of my former dis. patch, 'a species of apology is thus provided for the late occurrences, and a desire professed to remedy grievances, in expectation, perhaps, that the harsh, unreasona. blc, and unprecedented measure of rejecting lord Napier's first letter of announce- ment, and subsequent attempts at direct correspondence, may expose it to the risk of future and embarrassing discussions.
“An opportunity is afforded by this imperial document, which his majesty's government (should it be indisposed to accede to the Chinese proposition of a *trading chief,') may not be inclined to neglect, in making an appeal to the court of Peking, against the conduct of its servants at Canton, whose corrupt system, in European commerce, tends nearly as much to defraud the emperor of his dues, as to oppress and discourage the foreign trader. I am at least persuad- ed to repeat the expression of my sentiments in a dispatch to the governor-ge- neral of the 24th October, that it could be only the failure of such an appeal, that the policy and justice of any coercive measures towards the local government, would be otherwise than questionable.”—Corresp. p. 78.
On the same day (19th January) Mr. Davis delivered over to sir George Best Robinson, H. B M. commission to lord Napier, together with all other official documents, seals of office, &c, &c.
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