INCIDENT BETWEEN HONG MERCHANTS AND THE SUPERCARGOES OF THE BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY IN CANTON, 1811.
J. L. CRANMER-BYNG*
A detailed account of this incident was recorded by the senior officer on the British side, Captain the Hon. Hugh Lindsay,† the Commodore of the East India Company's fleet at that time. It is in the form of a letter to his sister, Lady Anne Barnard, undated, and was printed in The Lives of the Lindsays by Lord Lindsay, 2 vols., London, 1849. A full copy of this letter, retaining the original punctuation, has been supplied by Mr. Tom Lindsay, a long-time member of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. It is worth printing because of the details it supplies which are missing in the brief account of the same episode in Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company trading to China, 1635-1834, Vol. III, Oxford 1926, p. 156.
Historians of early Anglo-Chinese relations, and of the British East India Company's trade with China, have to rely to a great extent for their material on Morse's five substantial volumes. It is worth examining, at this point, how Morse wrote these volumes which are based on a massive collection of hand-written documents.
* Professor Cranmer-Byng belongs to the Department of History at the University of Toronto. He was the first Hon. Editor of this Journal and has contributed to it from time to time.
Hon. Hugh Lindsay was a younger brother of Alexander Lindsay, 6th Earl of Balcarres and 23rd Earl of Crawford. A note at the bottom of page 400 of Vol. II of Lives of the Lindsays states:
Mr. Hugh Lindsay was for many years Member of Parliament for the burghs of Forfar, Perth, Dundee, Cupar and St. Andrews, and Marshal of the Admiralty.
In the text on the same page it is stated that he was also a Director and Chairman of the East India Company. He died in April 1844 in his eightieth year. The biographical note goes on:
Hugh Hamilton Lindsay Esq., his only son, and long a resident in China, is the author of the extremely interesting 'Voyage of the Amherst, — along two thousand miles of the coast of China,- published in 8vo. by a speculating bookseller, from his report to the East India Co., which was printed by order of Parliament.
INCIDENT BETWEEN HONG MERCHANTS AND THE SUPERCARGOES OF THE BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY IN CANTON, 1811.
J. L. CRANMER-BYNG*
A detailed account of this incident was recorded by the senior officer on the British side, Captain the Hon. Hugh Lindsay,† the Commodore of the East India Company's fleet at that time. It is in the form of a letter to his sister, Lady Anne Barnard, undated, and was printed in The Lives of the Lindsays by Lord Lindsay, 2 vols., London, 1849. A full copy of this letter, retaining the original punctuation, has been supplied by Mr. Tom Lindsay, a long-time member of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. It is worth printing because of the details it supplies which are missing in the brief account of the same episode in Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company trading to China, 1635-1834, Vol. III, Oxford 1926, p. 156.
Historians of early Anglo-Chinese relations, and of the British East India Company's trade with China, have to rely to a great extent for their material on Morse's five substantial volumes. It is worth examining, at this point, how Morse wrote these volumes which are based on a massive collection of hand-written documents
* Professor Cranmer Byng belongs to the Department of History at the University of Toronto. He was the first Hon. Editor of this Journal and has contributed to it from time to time.
Hon. Hugh Lindsay was a younger brother of Alexander Lindsay, 6th Earl of Balcarres and 23rd Earl of Crawford. A note at the bottom of page 400 of Vol. II of Lives of the Lindsays states:
Mr. Hugh Lindsay was for many years Member of Parliament for the burghs of Forfar, Perth, Dundee, Cupar and St. Andrews, and Marshal of the Admiralty.
In the text on the same page it is stated that he was also a Director and Chairman of the East India Company. He died in April 1844 in his eightieth year. The biographical note goes on:
Hugh Hamilton Lindsay Esq,, his only son, and long a resident in China, is the author of the extremely interesting 'Voyage of the Amherst, — along two thousand miles of the coast of China,- published in 8vo. by a speculating bookseller, from his report to the East India Co., which was printed by order of Parliament.
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