45
which is actually levied,' and since the dealers believed the authorities to have been personally interested in these illegal transactions, they believed it would be useless to look to them for protection or redress'.
63
Whilst these passages are taken from early Treaty Port days, two decades after the Canton System had been replaced, they describe a world which had otherwise scarcely changed. It was still, in its essentials, the working milieu in which the Co-hong, the officials and their minions, both civil and military alike, and the people at large, on land and sea, had been obliged to exist; and with which, and with whom, the Western traders had to contend,
Rough treatment by the mandarins
It was also a milieu in which criminals, and anyone falling foul of officials would have a very bad time. The Chinese personnel of the Old China trade were no exceptions to the general rule, and could be very roughly treated by the mandarins when they chose to enforce the minute and graduated regulations that governed all and sundry throughout the Empire.“
64
A compradore was severely beaten and tortured and thrown into prison in 1816, because the EIC's ships' captains had presented a petition at a city gate over difficulties with obtaining a permit to load, with more beatings ordered for another compradore and two linguists, whilst the Company's head compradore had to leave hurriedly because police runners were looking for him. 65 In 1831, during the Canton Prefect's unannounced visit to the EIC's hall, a linguist was put in chains, taken away, and threatened with decapitation. 66
The officials, their courts and prisons were justly to be feared. Just how bad they could be was experienced at first hand by Captain Denham, shipwrecked on Formosa with his mixed crew of 55 Europeans, Chinese and Indians, and 2 passengers, in 1842. Perhaps because their brig, the Ann, had been an opium runner, they were treated like Chinese criminals, subject to the practices and procedures usual when men were imprisoned, tried, and condemned to execution, as indeed nearly all of them were. 67
The truth is, that the Chinese government was very severe with its
45
which is actually levied,' and since the dealers believed the authorities to have been personally interested in these illegal transactions, they believed it would be useless to look to them for protection or redress'.
63
Whilst these passages are taken from early Treaty Port days, two decades after the Canton System had been replaced, they describe a world which had otherwise scarcely changed. It was still, in its essentials, the working milieu in which the Co-hong, the officials and their minions, both civil and military alike, and the people at large, on land and sea, had been obliged to exist; and with which, and with whom, the Western traders had to contend,
Rough treatment by the mandarins
It was also a milieu in which criminals, and anyone falling foul of officials would have a very bad time. The Chinese personnel of the Old China trade were no exceptions to the general rule, and could be very roughly treated by the mandarins when they chose to enforce the minute and graduated regulations.that governed all and sundry throughout the Empire.“
64
A compradore was severely beaten and tortured and thrown into prison in 1816, because the EIC's ships' captains had presented a petition at a city gate over difficulties with obtaining a permit to load, with more beatings ordered for another compradore and two linguists, whilst the Company's head compradore had to leave hurriedly because police runners were looking for him.65 In 1831, during the Canton Prefect's unannounced visit to the EIC's hall, a linguist was put in chains, taken away, and threatened with decapitation.66
The officials, their courts and prisons were justly to be feared. Just how bad they could be was experienced at first hand by Captain Denham, shipwrecked on Formosa with his mixed crew of 55 Europeans, Chinese and Indians, and 2 passengers, in 1842. Perhaps because their brig, the Ann, had been an opium runner, they were treated like Chinese criminals, subject to the practices and procedures usual when men were imprisoned, tried, and condemned to execution, as indeed nearly all of them were.67
The truth is, that the Chinese government was very severe with its
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.