[ { "id": 204593, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1963", "page_number": 74, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n63\n\nThese extracts give the official Chinese version of how the British came to occupy their first Legation quarters, and agree closely with Lord Elgin's own account contained in a despatch to Lord John Russell, the Foreign Secretary, dated Tientsin, 13th November 1860:\n\nOn the 7th instant Mr. Bruce reached Peking, having hastened up from Shanghae in compliance with my request. His arrival was most opportune, as it was very important that before my departure from the capital I should be able to confer with him on various matters, and more especially on the subject of the place of residence for the future of Her Majesty's Representative in China. Mr. Bruce informed me that he was perfectly willing to take up his abode in Peking at once. On consultation with Baron Gros and General Ignatieff, however, I found that the latter was about to leave Peking for the winter, and that the former was of opinion that it would not be advisable that M. de Bourboulon should establish himself in the capital until the spring. I considered it, therefore, to be my duty to advise Mr. Bruce to return with me for the present to Tien-tsin, and to remain there until a suitable residence should be provided for him in the capital. In order, however, that there might be no misapprehension on the part of the Chinese Government in reference to this point, we selected a house which we thought might be adapted to the purpose, and which was procurable on easy terms, and we accepted the services of Mr. Adkins, one of the Student Interpreters, a very promising young man, who volunteered to remain at Peking, and to superintend the arrangements necessary for putting it in order.\n\nHarry Parkes, who was Lord Elgin's interpreter at this time, writing to his wife on November 17th 1860 gave a few more details:\n\nPeking is in a wretched state of dilapidation and ruin, and scarcely one of their palatial buildings is not falling into decay. We have obtained one of the best, and yet it is quite\n\n* Elgin to Russell, 13 November 1860. Parliamentary Papers, “Correspondence Respecting Affairs in China 1859-60\", 2754 of 1861, No. 119, p. 254. See also ibid. p. 259 for a note from T. Adkins to Frederick Bruce dated Peking, 12 November 1860, reporting that the capital was returning to normal and that he had found no opposition to his residence there.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204746, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 49, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "38\n\n10 Linguist purser.\n\nW. C. HUNTER\n\nSee note 39, (J.L.C-B)\n\n11 Elliot's last day. On 25 March Elliot formally requested the Viceroy that passports should be issued within three days for all the English ships and people at Canton and that if passports were not issued he would consider the men and ships of his country as forcibly detained and act accordingly. Blue Book, Correspondence relating to China, 1840, p. 367. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n12 Edward Elmslie. Secretary and Treasurer to the British Superintendents of Trade, Captain Charles Elliot and the Deputy Superintendent, A. R. Johnston, (J.L.C-B.)\n\n13 Houqua. Known to Westerners at Canton as Howqua 7. His family name was Wu Ch'ung-yüeh (1810-1863). He was the fifth son of the famous Hong merchant Wu Ping-chien whom he succeeded as head of the firm in 1843. For his biography see Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, II, 867-8. (F.L.C-B.)\n\n14 Nam Hoe. Also written Nam Hoi. This means Nan Hai Hsien #i.e. the Magistrate having jurisdiction over the western part of Canton city and the District lying to the westward of the walls which included the area in which the foreign Factories lay. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n15 Kwang Hup. The author may be referring to the Kwangchou hsieh \"the Canton brigade\", and so to its commander. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n16 The Governor. The Governor of Kwangtung province at this time was I-liang (1791-1867). For his biography see Hummel, op. cit., I, 389. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n17 K'an-ch'o (J.L.C-B.)\n\n18 An-tsou (J.L.C-B)\n\n19 Columbia & John Adams. According to the Chinese Repository Vol. 8, p. 56 the Columbia was a U.S. frigate and the John Adams was classed as a sloop-of-war. The Columbia was commanded by Commodore George C. Read. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n20 Johnston, Alexander Robert Johnston, H.M. Deputy Superintendent of Trade. When the Government of Hong Kong was set up he was deputy first to Elliot and later to Sir Henry Pottinger and in this capacity he administered the Government of the Colony on various occasions from 1841 until 1843. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n21 Pwan Kei Kua. Probably the merchant whose name was also spelt by Westerners at Canton at that time Ponkhequa and Puan Khequa. This was P'an Chengwei (1791-1850). See Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, II, 605, (J.L.C-B.)\n\n22 Saoqua. His family name was Ma Tso-liang and the name of his Hong was Shun Tai Hong A. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n23 Sturgis. Russell Sturgis (1805-1887) of Boston was first named Nathaniel Russell Sturgis, Jr., but he was always known as Russell Sturgis after his name was changed by decree of the Middlesex County Court. He graduated from Harvard in 1823, married in 1828 but was widowed four months later. After an extended tour of Europe he returned to Boston and for a while practised law. He remarried and in 1833 took his family to the orient where he became a partner of Russell & Sturgis of Manila and Russell, Sturgis & Co. of Canton. Later in 1842 when the latter firm became incorporated with Russell & Co., China, he became a partner in 1842. In May 1844 he retired to Boston, his second wife having died in Manila in 1837. Being far too young to give up work altogether he decided to return to China in 1849 but while passing through London he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206218, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE TAIPINGS AT NINGPO\n\n29\n\nNingpo, for a long time had been a difficult city to administer, but the Taiping occupation seems in retrospect to have been an exceptional period. To better appreciate this it is worth considering Ningpo in a somewhat broader perspective. For example, a year and a half before the Taipings took the city, a Jardine Matheson Company agent reported that the Ch'ing officials were unable to control the pirate-infested countryside.41 Three months after the Taipings left Ningpo, the Jardine agent gloomily reported that trade was bad and would remain so until \"a stop was put to the squeezing on the part of the Imperial Authorities.\"42 Six months after the departure of the Taipings, the agent revealed that Ningpo was in the throes of civil chaos. The unpopular tao-t'ai had been forced into hiding following a dispute with men from Frederick Townsend Ward's so-called Ever Victorious Army. The situation was resolved by Captain Dew who actually had to reoccupy the city. Dew and Harvey ignominiously had to search long and hard to find the affrighted Ch'ing official.43 Small wonder then, that the Jardine agent's report of January 1863, speaks of how the country people of Ningpo are now fondly recalling that the Taipings had always paid for what they took.44\n\nJudgment on the victorious expulsion of the Taipings from Ningpo has been varied. Consul Harvey congratulated himself:\n\nFor my part, let me state that it will be a source of great satisfaction and I may add, of pride, in after time to think that I have been placed in a position to use my feeble pen, and to have exercised my humble powers (always within the limits of my official duties) in weakening and undermining, as perseveringly and indefatigably as I have been able, the most gigantic imposture and the most blasphemous structure that ever disgraced ancient or modern pages.45\n\nForeign Secretary Russell, from London, also congratulated Harvey for the \"judgment, courage, and temper, which he displayed on all occasions....\"46 Another influential writer on these events termed Dew's accomplishment \"a brilliant feat of arms.\"47 But the Hong Kong Daily Press, for one, expressed the view of many contemporaries: \"There never was a falser, more unprovoked, or more unjustifiable act than the taking of Ningpo by the allies from the Taipings. It should, in fairness, be recorded to the eternal disgrace of Captain Roderick Dew, of HMS En-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206495, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 43, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "RAJA JAMES BROOKE AND SARAWAK\n\n37\n\nFrance, and in 1859 he \"broke off\" relations with Britain, upon which the Foreign Secretary, Lord Russell commented,12\n\nTell Brooke that the people of Sarawak are welcome to any independence they can achieve and maintain but that a British subject cannot throw off his allegiance at pleasure.\n\nAnd Spencer St. John noted13 that \"the Raja's correspondence during this year with Her Majesty's Government was not pleasant, and ended, apparently, in complete estrangement”.\n\nOver the years Brooke had acquired a respectable following of supporters in Britain and Singapore, among whom were some influential figures such as Lord Grey, Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford, and the late Victorian philanthropist, Miss Angela Burdett-Coutts, later Baroness Burdett-Coutts. His friends now took up his cause and lobbied Whitehall from the Prime Minister's office down.\n\nBritain refused to extend a colonial or protectorate status to Sarawak on practical political grounds. Henry Layard, an under-secretary in the Foreign Office, wrote that a protectorate was declined because of the \"inconvenience of such relations between this country and a foreign territory\", because Sarawak “would not be of sufficient value politically and commercially\", and because Brooke's title was not \"sufficiently clear\"14\n\nBrooke's friends persuaded the Government to have another look at Sarawak, and in 1861 Lord Elgin, who was about to depart as the new viceroy of India, was instructed to investigate the prospects and potential of Sarawak. He delegated the task to Colonel Cavenagh, Governor of the Straits Settlements. In due course Cavenagh and Elgin provided an optimistic assessment of Raja Brooke's state and suggested making Sarawak a lieutenant-governorship under Singapore. \"I am disposed to think\", wrote Lord Elgin,15\n\nthat the acquisition of Saigon by the French and the persistent endeavor of the Dutch authorities to cripple British trade... give enhanced importance to the preservation of the independence of Sarawak as a matter affecting British interests.'\n\n12 See correspondence between the Foreign Office and Raja Brooke between 26 November and 17 December 1859, FO12/35.\n\n13 Spencer St. John, Life of Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, (Edinburgh, 1879) p. 327.\n\n14 Layard memorandum to Lord Elgin, 2 January 1862, FO12/35.\n\n15 Elgin to Russell, 8 January 1863, FO12/35.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206496, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 44, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "38\n\nLEIGH R. WRIGHT\n\nIn the meantime Brooke's friend St. John, the Consul in Brunei, provided strong evidence to support Sarawak's claim of independence. In correspondence between the Sultan and the Foreign Office, Raja Brooke's relations with Brunei were the subject of discussion. Lord Russell in 1861 asked the consul if it was true that Brunei looked upon Sarawak as an independent state. He had been told that the Sultan honoured the Raja with a twenty-one gun salute whenever he visited Brunei Town. St. John replied that the Sultan did indeed consider Sarawak independent of Brunei. St. John also produced minutes of an interview he had had with the leading chiefs of Sarawak in which they unanimously confirmed that they had chosen the Tuan Besar, James Brooke, to rule over them in place of the harsh and tyrannical chiefs of Brunei, and that they owed no allegiance to the Sultan of Brunei.16\n\nWhen, then, St. John's tour as Consul in Brunei ended in 1862 Brooke's friends, with a concerted lobbying effort, prevailed upon the Palmerston government to appoint a consul to Sarawak as distinct from Brunei. In August 1863 the Cabinet approved the appointment \"as the most direct and least formal method of recognizing it as an independent state\". Whatever in the way of reservations Lord Russell may have held concerning Brooke and Sarawak he was aware that the appointment meant recognition. He minuted some time earlier,17\n\nIf we appoint a consul I suppose he must be appointed to reside in the territory of the rajah of Sarawak as an independent sovereign.\n\nAnd later, when Russell was urged to inform Raja Brooke \"that the Cabinet had consented to recognize Sarawak by appointing a consul there\", the Foreign Secretary instructed his undersecretary, \"We may write to Sir James Brooke to say that he has reason to believe it\". The Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, concurred.\n\nHowever, bureaucratic procedures now took over, and the Consul's instructions directed him to procure his official acceptance from\n\n16 See L. R. Wright, Origins of British Borneo, pp. 75-76; and St. John, \"Minutes of an interview with Sarawak Chiefs\", 25th October 1855, FO 12/22.\n\n17 Russell minute on a memo, by Brooke, 13 August 1863, in the Layard Papers (British Museum), ADD.MSS. 38989, f. 244,\n\n18 Russell minute, Layard Papers, ADD.MSS. 38989, f. 245.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206988, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG\n\n53\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Sir William Des Voeux, My Colonial Service, 2 vols., London 1903. Sir Frederick Lugard, Governor of Hong Kong 1907-1912, also found that 'entertaining was an essential part of governing. Hong Kong Government House was used as a high-class hotel, restaurant and sports club by many of the hundreds of passengers who left their ships to write their names in the Governor's book...socially more exacting were the many distinguished foreigners and Eastern potentates-Chinese and Japanese princes, Indian Rajahs, the Governor of the neighbouring Portuguese Macao, foreign admirals who had to be visited in their warships and later entertained in turn at Government House; ambassadors en route to or from Tokyo or Peking, and many lesser functionaries.' See Margery Perham, Lugard, vol. 2, London, 1960, p. 289.\n\n2 My Colonial Service, vol. 2, p. 234. Sir William Des Voeux (1834-1909) was Governor of Hong Kong from 1887 to 1891, in which year he retired from the colonial service.\n\n3 14 November, 1888.\n\n4 15 November, 1888.\n\n5 16 November, 1888.\n\n6 22 November, 1888.\n\n7 William Van Driesche was the third generation of his family to serve the Morèses. The children used to call him Mr. Willie.\n\n8 There are several photographs of Morès in Donald Dresden, The Marquis de Morès: Emperor of the Bad Lands, Norman, Oklahoma, 1970, and in Charles Droulers, Le Marquis de Morès 1858-1896, Paris, 1932. Morès was six-feet tall, lithe, ramrod-straight, muscular, with a needle-pointed waxed black moustache. He looked every inch a d'Artagnan.\n\n9 Richard Manca, Duke of Vallombrosa, born 1834, married the daughter of the Duke Des Cars, conqueror of Algeria. He had three children, of whom Morès was the eldest.\n\n10 Op. cit., vol. 2, p. 234.\n\n11 Ibid., p. 235.\n\n12 Ibid., p. 235.\n\n13 The Hong Kong Daily Press, 24 November, 1888. The Governor was accompanied on his trip by his wife, young daughter, and James Russell, the Chief Justice. The Colonial Secretary, Frederick Stewart, administered the government in Des Voeux's absence.\n\n14 The China Mail (1845-1911) was edited by George Murray Bain from 1879 until 1908(?).\n\n15 It is not surprising that Des Voeux took a great interest in his betters since promotion in the colonial service in the nineteenth century depended to a large degree on knowing people in high places.\n\n16 No full-scale study of Mayréna has been published as yet; the best book is probably Jean Marquet, Un Aventurier du XIXe siècle: Marie Jer, roi des Sedangs, 1888-1890. Hanoi, 1927; but Maurice Soulié, Marie Jer, roi des Sédangs, 1888-1890, Paris 1927, is amusing though really une vie romancée. The most penetrating essay on Mayréna is that by Marcel Ner, 'Marie Ier, roi des Sedangs: essai sur la psychologie de l'aventure”, Extrême-Asie, Revue Indochinoise (Hanoi), no. 21, March 1928, pp. 397-407 and no. 22, April 1928, pp. 491-498. There are many references to Mayréna", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215985, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 284, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "218\n\nthe Zongli yámén, he cannot be faulted for missing this major tragic event among Chinese Protestants in southeast China, because it was apparently never reported or discussed by British and Qing officials.\n\nMaybe the \"oversight\" happened because the turn of events shifted attention to the military problems associated with the resistance of Tàiping forces during the next three years before they were destroyed. They had become the target of a common effort by the Qing armies as well as some foreign (and particularly British/Scottish) militia under General Gordon, probably causing a host of special problems demanding the \"immediate attention\" of the British Ambassador, Sir Frederick Bruce.4 Nevertheless, it was against the Ambassador that Legge expressed his most piercing salvo of Protestant Dissenter displeasure in 1863, nearly two years after the riots in Poklo and Ch'ëa's murder had taken place.\n\nIn a brief note leaked to the public a year after it had been written, Sir Bruce explained his opinion to Lord John Russell (1792-1878), then Secretary of State, that missionaries should not be permitted to enter into China because of the troubles they caused and the dangers they faced. His arguments stood in blatant opposition to the conditions codified by the 1860 treaty, but were nevertheless read with approval by Lord Russell. This occasioned an outburst of righteous anger from Legge, who took Bruce's letter apart piece by piece, and showed its insensitivity to missionary work as well as its incoherence in the face of the recent treaty conditions. In and of itself, this letter written by Legge, first published in the Patriot in London and soon afterward in the local China Mail in Hong Kong, was one of the most perceptive and articulate pieces of political analysis he ever wrote. But the coup de grâce came in the end, where the level of frustration Legge felt against British bureaucratic reticence and its discounting of missionary and Chinese Christians' rights had grown to a new height.\n\n95\n\nI will conclude this long letter by referring to a case in point,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]