[ { "id": 204730, "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": 33, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "24\n\nApril 9\n\nW. C. HUNTER\n\nAt times in passing up our neighbors' Factories we find the merchants occupied in all sorts of domestic matters, some in the kitchen boiling rice, another milking a cow, one setting the table or cleaning it off, another washing plates or sweeping the room and in other offices of a like nature. I must say, however, that the foreigners deserve great credit for their patience, and their cheerfulness and courage under all the trying circumstances in which we are placed merit every commendation. The Chinese stationed to guard us seem surprised at our indifference to the restraint imposed upon us and wonder that our spirits and courage have not been long since subdued, but if ever matters are carried to worse extremities than they now are, I think they will find us unflinching.\n\nI do not pretend to say but that we are all in a state of great uncertainty and even somewhat in dread as to the termination of this business but we endeavor to conceal all such feelings from the soldiers and coolies surrounding us.\n\nToday we had a supply of spring water brought in and a quantity of grass for the cows. Gave two bottles of port wine to the mandarin at the Hoppo House.\n\nWednesday, 10 April\n\nNight before last the Kwang Chow Foo27, the Kam (Nam?) Hay Hue28, the Pwan Yu Hue29 and a special messenger from the Commissioner came to the Consoo House and an interview took place between them and the Dutch and American Consuls, Messrs Wetmore, Forbes, Delano, and King, and Fearon30 as interpreter. Their business was relative to a bond that was required from all foreigners to the effect that any opium arriving here within six months must be given up and, with the vessel, confiscated to government, and that after that period any person or persons who brought it for sale, or to deal in, must willingly surrender himself or themselves to the laws and be beheaded. The Kwang Chow Foo at first was determined to have it at all risks and threatened to detain the whole party unless it was given at once as he dared not go inside the city and see the Commissioner without it. All, however, persisted in not giving the bond for the best of reasons, that it might be made use of hereafter and acted upon if mere suspicion was attached to any person, besides", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204731, "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": 34, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON\n\n25\n\nendangering the lives of the entire foreign community in Canton. Finding the foreigners resolute they were allowed to return to their Factories, but were told that the bond must be given on the following day, and no excuse would be given. Yesterday Elliot, Snow, and Van Basil31, sent in written communications to the officers who all came again to the Consoo House stating that they could not give the bond required, but that they would avail of the first vessel sailing for their countries to make known to their sovereigns and governments that this new law relative to opium was now published, and that all who brought any here within a certain time must suffer the penalties. Elliot's and Van Basil's Chops were to this effect, but Snow said that if they insisted up his signing the bond for himself and countrymen he could not do it but must ask for permission to leave the country. This was unsatisfactory and his letter was returned as well as Van Basil's.\n\nToday we heard nothing further of the matter, but this morning the Commissioner, the Viceroy32 and the Hoppo33 left Canton for the Bogue, which looks a little as if they did not mean to enforce it.\n\nWe are all quiet, provisions supplied us but no stranger allowed to be in the Factories.\n\nThursday, 11th April, 1839\n\nWe anxiously expected news today from the Bogue but none came and we are surprised that the Chinese have received no letters. The uncertainty of what will be the termination of all this business give us great uneasiness. It appears evident that the English will all leave the place the first opportunity that offers and their doing so may give rise to some serious confusion. Captain Elliot it appears intends the moment he gets without the Bogue to communicate to the Commissioner his sentiments on this piratical act he has perpetrated, of [the] seizure of the opium or causing it to be delivered by seizing our persons and keeping us in prison. The Yum Chae34 may be enraged at that and God knows what he may do with those foreigners who happen to be in Canton when he hears from Captain Elliot that retaliation will be visited upon the Chinese for seizing this property. We are in a most entire trap, that is evident. Took supper on board the linguist's boat. Moller and Fearon with me.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204732, "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": 35, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "26\n\nW. C. HUNTER\n\nFriday 12th\n\n1* at\n\nAt nine this morning received a letter from Macao dated the 8th, in answer to mine of the 5th; all quiet there but everyone ready to be off the moment any trouble was at hand. Delano received, enclosed in mine, a chit from Russell Sturgis which contained much news. The Hercules and Austen left for the Bogue on Tuesday last to deliver their opium and were to be followed by the Jane and Aeriel. The Chinese would only let two vessels come up at a time. The Good Success left Macao on the 9th for Madras, with despatches to the British admiral on the India Station, and the Rob Roy was to leave today for Calcutta. The Exchange sailed for Manila on the 8th; the Nar† Naples, Roza and Benuo Successo and Poppy had also sailed for Manila but the letter does not say if they took opium or not.\n\nMr. Inness was on board the Hercules with Alex. Matthews and Chay. Beal36. The Hercules and Austen had in all over 5,000 chests.\n\nGave two bottles of beer to the Se-Ying37 or lieutenants on guard in the second line of boats in front of the Factories. Had a long chat with several of the officers belonging to Name Hoe's guard relative to matters in dispute. They appear exceedingly friendly but take no interest whatever in what is going on,\n\nSaturday, 13, 1839\n\nLast night at 12 o'clock Captain Elliot received a communication from the Commissioner, dated in the morning from the Bogue, in which he requests that the opium ships might be ordered to come up and anchor close to Chinn-up to deliver the opium, instead of Lankeel where there was much inconvenience owing to rough water. He also said that the compradores and cooks were ordered to return but they have not come yet. However it will take some time for the order to be generally promulgated.\n\nMidnight I have just returned from a chat of three hours duration held at the Hoppo House or \"Custom-House Station\" at the water's edge opposite our Factory between two officers, one equal to a captain and the other to a lieutenant, the Custom-House Officer and myself. The Captain, who wore a crystal button, was\n\n*Two words illegible.\n\n† Part of ship's name illegible.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204735, "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": 38, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON\n\n27\n\ncalled Chang Ta-Laou-Yay3, the first word being his name and the three last an appellation of respect. He was from Pekin. has been here three years on service and has served in various parts of the Empire. He was very tall and thin, thick heavy moustache, red nose and altogether a very forbidding aspect. Vain and ignorant he behaved with a deal of hauteur and stiffness, all of which was entirely thrown away so far as I was concerned. but it looked well probably to his servants who crowded into the room where we were sitting. The other Kiang Tsung-Yay was a northerner also, but quite a different man from his friend. He wore an opaque white button, a rank lower than Chang Ta-Laou-Yay, [was] talkative, cheerful, and of an exceedingly good address, no pretensions, though apparently far better informed than the crystal button man.\n\nThey both came on horseback attended by a large quantity of lantern bearers, and servants, sword bearers, pipe carriers etc. etc. It was their night on guard at the Consoo House behind the Factories but were on a social visit to Hwang Ta-Yay, the Custom-House officer, for a few hours.\n\nWe talked about a great many things relative to China, America, England and so on and parted the best of friends.\n\nSunday, 14 April, 1839\n\nIt is twenty-four days since all communication with Whampoa, Macao and the shipping outside was cut off. Three weeks ago over 400 Chinese compradores, servants, coolies, cooks, porters and others were driven from the foreign Factories, and all our intercourse with the natives no matter in what business has entirely ceased since that time. We are allowed to communicate what we want to the linguists39 who are all viz Old Tom, Young Tom, Ahtore, Alanci and Ahi, stationed on board a large boat opposite the Factories and alongside the small Hoppo House from where foreigners go, passing through the Hoppo House to see and make known to them their wants.\n\nIt is quite laughable to sit there a few hours daily as I do to observe the scenes that pass between the Fan Kwais40 and interpreters. They come to them in all and every business. One wants his clothes sent to wash, another his trousers or coat procured from the tailor, in comes another who blows them up sky high41 because he has not had his daily supply of spring water.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204748, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "40 \n\nW. C. HUNTER \n\nat Samarang where he served for 3 years. He died at Delft in 1863. (L.T.R.) \n\n32 Viceroy. The Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi at this time was Teng Ting-chen who held this post from early 1836 until early 1840. See Hummel, op. cit., II, 716. (J.L.C-B.) \n\n33 Hoppo. The Superintendent of Maritime Customs at Canton in 1839 was Yu (?). (J.L.C-B.) \n\n34 The Yum Chae. Cantonese pronunciation for the characters (mandarin Ch'in-ch'ai) meaning \"an Imperial Commissioner”. (J.L.C-B.) \n\n35 Innes, James Innes (1787-1841), the \"storm petrel\" of Canton was the 7th Chieftain of the Inneses of Dunkinty, Scotland. He came out to China about 1825 and operated as a Free Trader mostly on his own, but for a time in the firm of Innes, Fletcher & Co. His dealings in opium had not a little to do with precipitating the trouble in 1839. He died in July 1841 and was buried in the Old Protestant Cemetery, Macao. (L.T.R.) \n\n36 Chaye Beale. Thomas Chaye Beale was a member of the firm of Magniac & Co. in Canton as early as 1826. He severed his connections with this firm in the early thirties, and operated on his own till 1845 when he set up a house of agency in Shanghai with Lancelot Dent under the name of Dent, Beale & Co. In 1851 he was Portuguese Consul and Vice-Consul for the Netherlands at Shanghai. (L.T.R.) \n\n37 Se-yin. This is probably a reference to the characters Ssu-ying, the officer in command of a ying which corresponded in some ways to a battalion. However, the rank of a ying commander corresponded more to the Western rank of captain or major. (J.L.C-B.) \n\n38 Ta-lao-yeh. The phrase ta-lao-yeh signifies \"revered elder”. (J.L.C-B.) \n\n39 The linguists. Linguists (t'ung shih) were supposed to be able to act as interpreters between the Canton officials and the foreign merchants when instructions needed to be conveyed. The foreigners, for their part, usually enlisted the help of the Hong merchants when they wanted a document translated into Chinese or they needed an interpreter at an important interview. They repeatedly declared that the linguists were useless when it came to linguistic matters. In fact, the linguists appear to have been rather low-grade men of not much education, and able to speak only pidgin English. However, by law a foreign merchant trading at Canton was bound to employ a linguist. Since it was forbidden by the statutes of the Ch'ing dynasty to teach the Chinese language to foreigners, it was reasonable that linguists should be licensed to cope with their language problems. However, in order that the foreigners should not learn much about affairs in the interior, the qualifications needed by a linguist were low and their pidgin vocabulary was restricted to matters of trade. This was part of a deliberate policy which grew up among the officials at Canton, and the linguists merely acted as another cog in the mechanism whereby communication between the foreign merchants and the officials, however minor, was prevented, and the foreigners dealt instead with a number of different unofficial functionaries such as the compradores and linguists. Thus, the foreign merchants were kept at an arm's length and also kept in ignorance. \n\nThe linguists and their servants mentioned in this journal appear to have acted as general clerks and messengers, as much as linguists. The prefix A or Ah (ya) signifies the status of servant. (J.L.C-B.)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207293, "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-1975", "page_number": 61, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "INCIDENT: H.K. MERCHANTS & B.E.I. CO.\n\n53\n\nIn all my intercourse with the Chinese I had observed that, however much they were inclined to oppress, a steady and temperate resistance had never failed to succeed in obtaining redress.\n\nIn Canton strangers are strictly prohibited from entering the city, being only permitted to live in the suburbs; I had, however, frequently observed in my walks, that the guards at the gates were very remiss in their duty, and that in the morning, during the time of breakfast, there was seldom more than one man there. I also knew that the streets in the city, like those in the suburbs, were so narrow that not more than three persons could walk abreast; and I had learned from the Chinese that the Viceroy's palace was about a mile from the great gate, but whether in a direct line or diverging I did not know.\n\nOn leaving Mr. Brown I sent orders to the commanders of the fleet to meet me at eight o'clock next morning, at the Company's factory, with all their officers who were in Canton; and I directed that they should be in full uniform, but without sidearms.\n\nAt the time appointed we assembled,—sixteen commanders and their officers, making in all about sixty persons. I informed them that I had received orders from the chief supercargo to proceed to the great gate of the city to present a petition for the sailing of the fleet, that Captain Craig, Mr. Perry, and myself would lead the van, and that the rest of the body should follow, in files of three abreast, keeping close order.\n\nAbout eight o'clock in the morning there are few Chinese in the streets, we therefore had no difficulty in proceeding to the great gate, and, as I expected, found the guard (one soldier excepted) in the guard house at breakfast. The soldier, on my passing, attempted to stop me, but, on my giving him a push forward, he ran on before me; our party then immediately got through the gate and beyond the guard house before the guard could get out to stop us, in consequence of the narrowness of the street, our files of three filling it completely, they could not pass us, their efforts to do so only pushing us on faster. On, therefore, we went—no one before us attempting to impede our progress.\n\nIn a short time I discovered the soldier who was at the gate, a little way in advance, watching our proceedings; it then occurred to me that, as he could not pass us to return to the guard, he would go on to the Hoppo's palace to give information there of our entry", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207295, "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-1975", "page_number": 63, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "INCIDENT: H.K. MERCHANTS & B.E.L. CO.\n\n55\n\nretired, and shortly after made their appearance in magnificent uniforms, and drew up in a body opposite to us.\n\nThe palace gate now opened, and a Mandarin slowly advanced towards me; he addressed me in Chinese, to which I could only reply by shaking my head and showing him my petition. He put out his hand to receive it, but I drew back mine, and made a sign I wanted to go into the palace to deliver it. He shook his head, and seemed decidedly averse to such a proceeding.\n\nWe were soon relieved from this embarrassment by the arrival of the two senior security merchants, Mowqua and Howqua, the first a fine old man of upwards of eighty years of age, and it was supposed that to those two we principally owed our detention,- the rest of the Hong came soon after.\n\nMowqua was in great agitation when he arrived, and addressed me in his usual Chinese-English, “Ah! Mister Commodore, what for you come here? you want security merchants have cutty head? Hoppo truly much angry English come his house, he will cutty my poor old head.\"-My reply was, \"Mowqua! it is your own fault; why did you not present the Typan's (chief supercargo's) petition to the Hoppo? had you done so, I should not have come here.\"-\"Good Mister Commodore, me takey petition, and will truly get answer directly.\"--\"No, no, Mowqua! I will give it into the Hoppo's own hand myself”,--on which all the security merchants set up a cry as if I had uttered some treason against the Celestial Empire, What you come here? you wanty see Hoppo? That you no can do-Hoppo send you to prison as soon as he know you come him house—we takey petition before he know you come city-get out fast you can; truly he too much angry he know you here.”\n\nThere now appeared a Mandarin of high rank, to whom the merchants paid great respect; he came up to Captain Craig, Mr. Perry and myself, who were standing with the two senior security merchants in front of our party; he, with civility, enquired what we wanted? and was instantly replied to by Mowqua, but I was determined to be my own interpreter. I therefore held up the petition for him to read the address, and made signs as before that I wanted to go into the palace to present it. This compelled Mowqua to come to an explanation with the Mandarin, who left us, as I supposed, to inform the Hoppo of our being there; he soon returned,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207297, "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-1975", "page_number": 65, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "INCIDENT: H.K. MERCHANTS & B.E.I. CO.\n\n57\n\nyour Hoppo, but I will make him a bow while you knocky head.” With this, after some communication between the Mandarins and the security merchants, they appeared satisfied.\n\nI now found they were in earnest as to my seeing the Hoppo, and there was much bustle in the palace; they were, however, determined I should not imagine that I had forced an interview, as I was given to understand that the Viceroy was going to pay his colleague, the Fyane, a visit, and that I should see him as he went out.\n\nAt this time there were in the great hall thirty or forty Mandarins of various ranks, all the security merchants, Mr. Perry, and myself, with many other persons belonging to the palace,—in all I should suppose, about a hundred and fifty in number.\n\nThe doors were shortly thrown open, and we observed a procession issuing from another large house, and crossing a court to the hall we were in; the guard passed on, and presently there appeared the Hoppo, borne in a most magnificent state chair by sixteen men richly dressed; the chair was very splendid, and the Hoppo one of the finest and noblest-looking Chinese I had ever seen, with a remarkably fine black beard. The moment he entered the hall, every person, except Mr. Perry and myself, threw themselves down as if they had been shot through the head, touched the ground with their forehead, and were up again in a moment, even my old friend Mowqua, though so advanced in years, was down and up again as nimbly as a boy; on my remarking this to him after the interview was over, his reply was, \"Mister Commodore, I very much long time do that custom.\"\n\nAs the Hoppo approached to Mr. Perry and me, we made him a low bow. I then advanced, with my petition in my hand, to his chair, when he desired his bearers to stop, and, having called Mowqua, he required by him of me what I wanted? I said I had a petition which I was desirous of having the honour to deliver into his own hand. He asked if it was written in Chinese? I replied it was. He then put out his hand and took it from me, saying he was going to visit the Fyane, and that I should have an immediate\n\n* The Fyane. Lindsay made another mistake here. The Viceroy was not involved in this particular incident. When Lindsay mentions the Viceroy he is muddling him up with the Hoppo. In this particular incident the Hoppo received the memorial and then took it to the Governor (Fyane= Fu-yuan Governor).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215980, "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": 279, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "213\n\n81\n\nperson named \"Soo Hoy-ü.\" Once again Legge insisted that Soo be dealt with \"in some way which should mark their sense of the enormity of his conduct.\" Both conditions were acknowledged and accepted by all of the officials Legge spoke to. Things went so smoothly, both in ritual form and placid acceptance of what must have been very difficult conditions for the officials, that Legge was both elated and disgusted. In his own mind at the time, the officials' display of timely submissiveness under pressure appeared only little more than blatant bathos.\" Cohen rightly points out how this kind of situation in the decade of the 1860s placed any Qing official between the Scylla of imperial duties to follow the treaty stipulations and the Charybdis of the anti-foreignism of local gentry who carried much popular support.82 Having bent over backwards for months previous to Legge's arrival, trying to use more humane means to obtain compliance from the literatus Soo and his supporters, the district magistrate had to battle at cross purposes with the popular demonology supporting anti-foreignism and the additional shame of recent military defeats. To act too abruptly or harshly would earn the magistrate the epithet of being a “friend of foreigners,” and so even risk his imperial role as an appointed civil authority. On the other hand, any blatant refusal to respond to the treaty conditions would merit imperial disfavour and severe reprimand, possibly including imprisonment. The double bind working on officials in this Guangdong setting could not have been any stronger.\n\n83\n\nEarly in the morning after the handover ceremonies Legge was woken by the River Superintendent (\"Hoppo\") and urged him to get an early start in his boat headed toward Canton. After the ceremonies the day before Legge had left the keys of the house in Ch'ea's hands, nominating the former keeper of the temple of Master Kong now the keeper of the new chapel dedicated to shangdi. When Legge mentioned to the Hoppo that he wanted to leave parting words with Ch'ea, the Hoppo apparently promised to pass on any message, and so Legge compliantly entered the waiting boat and headed off before sunrise.\n\nWhat motivated the Hoppo to treat Legge in this manner is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215981, "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": 280, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "214\n\nnot fully known. There was apparently some disturbing news passed along unseen lines of communication that a large group of unruly men, nearly 5,000 in all, had been rounded up in Wye-chow and urged on by Soo and another gentry collaborator, Wong Chik-wai, to sneak into Poklo and capture the district magistrate, Legge, and Ch'êa. Their intentions were apparently malevolent, fully inclined toward \"punishing\" all three if they were found. In fact, their progress toward Poklo was slower than the Hoppo anticipated. On October 10th, the day Legge left to return to Canton and then on to his young family in Hong Kong, the vigilantes had already \"made prisoners\" of the Prefect of Wye-chow and the District Magistrate of Kwye-sheen, capturing them as they returned from the previous day's festivities in Poklo.\n\n1584\n\nCh'êa himself, Legge reflected, \"was full of joy, as I was, and unsuspicious of danger.\" Apparently sometime during the evening of the 12th or 13th, a group of men surrounded the London Mission's house in Poklo and provoked Ch'êa to come to the door by having a small child knock on it. Having tricked him by this means, they grabbed him, beating him till they could control him by other means. Soon afterwards this kind of aggressive physical persecution spread to all the places where residents had become Christians, neighbours saving themselves by becoming informants, causing a desperate exodus from many places. News that finally did filter down to Hong Kong came from the mouths of a handful of refugees who managed to escape from the area.\n\nLegge's daughter, Helen Edith Legge, put together a series of letters including translations of notes and verbal news received by Chalmers in Canton as well as passages from letters of her father to reconstruct the final days of Ch'êa's persecution. Even though one local Christian named Wong Shan Yen, possibly a wealthy farmer Ch'êa had often met over the years, offered a large ransom to have Ch'êa released, the vigilantes had other purposes in mind.85 First tortured with fire,86 and then later moved to another hamlet where he was hung overnight to a beam by his thumbs and big toes, reawakened into the consciousness of his pain by water dashed in the face, Ch'êa's enemies were merciless. Only if he promised to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216328, "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-2003", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "36\n\npeople and goods over and along the river. They also helped to load ships in the river and carry goods to the European merchantmen at Whampoa. Their presence was useful to the occupants of the Foreign Factories during periodic conflagrations. For instance, a painting of the Great Fire of 1822 shows residents viewing the fire from these boats, their main refuge in time of such emergencies.28\n\nInterestingly enough, people of this type - perhaps even from the Canton group accustomed to foreigners - were of immense help to the British when they first established themselves in Hong Kong as providers of many essential services.29\n\nOther groups of Tanka constituted the sea fishermen whose craft, large and small, were to be found all over the Delta and the islands outside it; and as we shall see further on in this talk, they provided the 'outside pilots' who assisted foreign merchant vessels to get safely into the Macau Roads.\n\nPersonnel directly connected with the China Trade\n\nWe may now consider seriatim, the various personnel encountered by foreign merchants and ships' officers during their time in China over the trading season of the year.\n\nThe Hoppo30\n\nThe Hoppo was the official at the head of the maritime customs, controlling the revenues accruing from the foreign trade. Representing the ministry of finance in Beijing (hu pu) he was dubbed with this title in error by the foreigners. This lucrative office was often filled by a Manchu. The Guangzhou Custom House is shown in Plate 5.\n\nThere were Hoppo in other maritime provinces of China, but the Canton Hoppo was the most important owing to the foreign trade being confined to Canton. His circuit eventually included five sub-stations and some sixty other collection points, the catchment for the coastal and inter-national trade. International trade was itself divided into Chinese, Asian and European, each taxed at a different rate; the Governor was left with control over internal trade.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216330, "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-2003", "page_number": 89, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "38\n\nThe Co-Hong\n\nThe Co-Hong was the group of security merchants, not members of a guild but individually licensed, who had been made responsible to the Hoppo for the foreign trade, in all its particulars, and especially in regard to revenue. In practice, this meant that every ship and its crew had to be \"secured\" by one of the Hong merchants, who remained responsible for it, and them, until it quitted China on its homeward voyage.\n\nAlthough domiciled in Canton for several generations, the Hong merchants were not Cantonese, but were of Fukienese origin. They were committed to the foreign trade because they had emigrated to Canton to participate in it, and it was their livelihood. By 1740, their group was already in control of the trade.34\n\nTheir responsibilities were heavy and wide-ranging. In 1836-37, they were responsible for the trade and good behaviour of 307 foreign residents, 55 foreign firms, and over 200 foreign ships and their crews, with total tonnage in excess of 100,000.35\n\nOn the domestic front, they had policing powers over house and ships' compradors, linguists, the more than one hundred shopkeepers who enjoyed limited right to carry out a retail trade with foreigners, and up-country suppliers. Above all, the merchants had good relations to maintain and their goodwill to purchase.36\n\nTheir notion of social advancement remained conventional or became so - to escape from the merchant class into the scholarly or landed gentry class. Their methods were traditional, namely the purchase of property, ranks, degrees and titles. This is why their portraits invariably show them in official dress, as in Plate 6.37\n\nThe Hong merchants' life was not a bed of roses. Quite apart from being held responsible by the senior officials for everything from sailors' disorderly behaviour to foreigners' debts, they were milked unmercifully for public and private causes. Donations towards a famine, a Yellow River flood, the ransom paid to the British for not attacking Canton in 1841, paying off Chinese debts to foreign traders, were typical of what Morse called the 'supplementary exactions' practised upon them by", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]