[
    {
        "id": 207288,
        "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": 56,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "INCIDENT BETWEEN HONG MERCHANTS AND THE SUPERCARGOES OF THE BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY IN CANTON, 1811.\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG*\n\nA 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.\n\nHistorians 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.\n\n* 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.\n\nHon. 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:\n\nMr. 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.\n\nIn 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:\n\nHugh 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.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207299,
        "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": 67,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "INCIDENT: H.K. MERCHANTS & BEI. CO.\n\n59\n\nvolumes on official documents, 1 should prefer to accept his version as more likely. From a wide reading of Morse's Chronicles I have found other instances when a threat from the E.I.C. supercargoes was sufficient to make the Canton officials allow the fleet to sail or trade to reopen; but never the next day. The officials always needed some means of delay and therefore of saving face.\n\nBy way of comparison a similar incident involving Lindsay's only son, Hugh Hamilton Lindsay, in 1831 is worth looking at. Hugh Hamilton Lindsay entered the East India Company's service as a young man and passed through the various ranks until by 1831 he was a supercargo. This story begins in May 1831 when the Governor suddenly and unexpectedly ordered that part of the factory's grounds be destroyed, a linguist put in chains and a Hong merchant sent to gaol. The supercargoes received a copy of an imperial mandate ordering them to comply with a restatement of all the existing restrictions on foreigners. The Select Committee decided to warn the Chinese authorities that if they persisted in enforcing all the regulations these would be resisted, even if it meant withdrawing from trade at Canton. The members of the Committee decided to send Hugh Hamilton Lindsay to Canton (they had recently returned to the E.I.C. premises in Macao for the summer) to hand over the keys of the Company's factory to the Hong merchants for them to deliver to the Governor, with a letter to the effect that they would no longer rent the factory while they were not safe from intrusion and destruction, and if no steps were taken to remedy the situation then trade would be suspended on 1st August 1831. The description of Lindsay's efforts to deliver the letter and the keys is given in Morse, Chronicles, Vol. IV, pp. 282-3. Lindsay didn't manage to persuade the Hong merchants to deliver the letter, but eventually the officer in command of the troops of the district, who customarily received petitions presented at the gates, accepted the letter and the keys of the factory. But he simply handed them to a Hong merchant with the order “None are to be received\". The dispute dragged on till the end of 1831 and occupies as far as page 323 in Vol. IV of Chronicles.\n\nIn the following year Lindsay was given a more congenial commission by the Select Committee. He was sent in the E.I.C. ship Lord Amherst (350 tons), with a cargo of various English cloths, for which he was to find out the probable demand and the prices",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
        "rank": 0
    }
]