[ { "id": 204613, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n81\n\nthe death of Sir Robert Hart during the siege, and on July 21st it carried a long letter from the President of Queen's College, Belfast, which served as a somewhat premature obituary notice for Hart, who, in fact, lived until 1911.**\n\nThe relieving troops finally entered the British Legation on August 14th, when a Company of mounted Sikhs rode in at about 3 p.m. accompanying General Gaselee and his staff. So ended the siege which had lasted from June 20th until August 14th, a total of 55 days. Fortunately no overwhelming damage had been done to the British Legation, though many of the roofs were badly smashed about and bullets and shells had gone through most of the buildings. One last ironic touch; immediately after the raising of the siege the commissariat functioned so inefficiently that the besieged had to forage for themselves and for some days got less to eat than during the fighting. Meanwhile those who had 'enjoyed' the hospitality of the British Legation during the siege departed and the work of clearing up and repairing the damage began.\n\nThe actual damage suffered by the British Legation buildings was slight in comparison with the damage done to the other foreign Legations. The outer walls were badly damaged and had to be rebuilt, but one small section on the north-east corner facing the Imperial Canal was sufficiently unharmed to be left intact, and on its surface someone painted in black nine-inch letters the words \"LEST WE FORGET”. Most of the buildings in the compound were soon repaired and the Legation again looked substantially the same as before the siege. However, as part of the settlement after the Boxer troubles and the siege of the Legation Quarter Britain acquired considerable ground on the northern and western sides of the old Legation. This consisted of land formerly occupied by the Mongol market, by the Imperial Carriage Park and by the Hanlin Academy, which was burnt out during the fighting. This newly acquired land was later used for\n\n28 Born in 1835 Hart came out to China in the Consular Service in 1854 and spent his first three months as an interpreter at Hong Kong. After various consular appointments he was permitted by the British Government to resign from the consular service in 1859 and to join the newly formed Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs service as Deputy-Commissioner of Customs at Canton. In 1863, at the age of twenty-eight, he was appointed Inspector-General of the Maritime Customs, a post which he held until his resignation in 1908.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204716, "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": 19, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "W. C. HUNTER \n\nengaged in the lucrative trade drew out of the country large amounts of silver. Lin Tse-hsu, Governor General of Hupeh and Hunan wholeheartedly threw his support to those who memorialized the throne requesting stringent measures to prevent the use of opium within the country, and to cure addicts. Moreover, Lin took direct action and seized caches of opium, 12,000 ounces and 5,000 pipes. As a result of his success in combating opium addiction and forceful condemnation of the sale of the drug he was called to Peking by Emperor Tao-kuang and appointed Imperial Commissioner to examine the opium traffic at Canton. He arrived at the provincial capital in early March, 1839. For several years prior to 1839 nearly 30,000 chests had been imported annually there.\n\nFateful events immediately took form. Lin warned the western merchants of dire results if the iniquitous trade did not cease. His threat was followed by the demand that within three days they offer a bond that no opium would be imported. A counter proposal was made to turn over to Commissioner Lin about 1000 chests of the drug which he summarily rejected. On March 22, he demanded that Lancelot Dent, one of the principal importers be given to Chinese officials as a hostage until all opium was given up. The western merchants insisted that Dent could be surrendered only on condition that his personal safety was guaranteed. The Chinese merchants doing business with foreigners were frightened by the action of their own government. Some of them were deprived of their buttons of rank and two appeared in public with chains around their necks. Under these circumstances the Hong (the association of Chinese merchants trading with the western merchants at Canton) pressed the foreign community to comply with the ultimatum of Lin and deliver up Dent.\n\nIn the midst of this seething situation, on March 24, Captain Charles Elliot, British naval officer and Chief Superintendent and Plenipotentiary of the China Commission arrived from Macao. He entered the foreign compound with great difficulty inasmuch as the river had been blockaded and the streets leading to the foreign section had been barricaded. The predicament of approximately 300 western people seemed most serious since food and water were in short supply and a large encampment of Chinese troops was close at hand. Canton was cut off from formal communications from Macao which was nearly sixty miles distant", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204723, "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": 26, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON\n\n17\n\nand Bengal, except the Turkey which belongs to Baring Brothers and Company, London.\n\nAt night the linguists took me on board their boat stationed in the creek opposite the Factories and gave me supper, after which I was returning home to turn in when two of Houqua's13 coolies on guard at the gate contrived to slip inside the gate a small bag containing two boiled capons, a boiled ham, three loaves of bread and some crackers tied up in leaves. I paid them half a dollar. The articles were brought by order of Houqua.\n\n29th\n\nTwo sheep, four pigs, sixteen hams, ten fowls, sixteen geese, and six bags of rice were brought today for distribution amongst the American residents. The linguists say they are from the Commissioner* and deputy Governor* and a mark of Imperial favor for having consented to deliver up the opium.\n\nOur situation is one of great mystery. Although the Chinese say that having promised to deliver up the opium we have risen in the Commissioner's esteem yet today no foreigner is allowed to pass up China Street which we were allowed to do till this morning, and a strong guard has been posted there of about fifty men with pikes, staves, shields and so on.\n\n30th 10 p.m.\n\nHouqua's head man came in just now in a great fright and told me that our cook and coolie, who have been in our Factory since last evening and who contrived to get in over the roof of the rear Factory, must immediately leave as the Commissioner had just issued another edict threatening with death any native who sold a particle of food to, or who served a foreigner in any way inside his Factory.\n\nI communicated this to the cook and coolie who consent to remain till morning.\n\n31 March, Sunday\n\nThis morning at 9 a linguist from Old Tom's establishment brought us a basket of bread and eggs.\n\nEvery night the force stationed to guard the Factories consists of about 500 men drafted from the different Hongs and armed principally with pikes or lances and long heavy staves.\n\nWord illegible.\n\nEach", "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": 204838, "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": 141, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "116\n\nCRANMER-BYNG AND SHEPHERD\n\nwhich lies in the mouth of the Pearl River estuary between Macao and Castle Peak on the opposite headland. However, during the south-west monsoons the anchorages of Kapsuimun門 pq 29, and Hong Kong were used because they provided greater protection. The Kapsuimun anchorage was situated south of Ma Wan island and sheltered to the west by the headland of Lantao and to the east by Tsing I island. Because of the smuggling of opium from depot ships at these outer anchorages the capabilities of the anchorages off Lantao island and between Hong Kong island and Kowloon on the mainland became thoroughly known to British merchants and sea captains. In 1835 a former member of the British East India Company published a book in which he advocated the need for Britain to obtain some island from which trade with China could be carried on because of the uncertain conditions of trade at Canton following the ending of the Company's monopoly30. In a review of this book published in the Chinese Repository the reviewer remarks on the fact that the author pressed the idea of Britain acquiring Macao from Portugal, which he considered ill-advised. He wrote\n\nThe want of a good harbour, and its dangerous position in the season of typhoons and strong north or east gales, unfit it for the possession of a commercial nation, as point d'appui. Lantao is better, and this we should prefer of the places named by our author. It is an island, capable of defence, producing abundant supplies of food, with many good harbours, is not so near the provincial city as to render it dangerous for natives to resort to it, for the purpose of commerce.31\n\nThus in 1835 Lantao was still considered eligible as a possible British settlement. In May 1839 the British Superintendent of Trade, Captain Charles Elliot, and all British subjects, left Canton as a result of the measures taken by the Imperial Commissioner Lin Tse-hsü, and retired to Macao. However, when in mid-August of 1839 the British were forced out of Macao by Chinese pressure it was to the anchorage of Hong Kong that the English ships went. Although Hong Kong was eventually ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Nanking 1842 this had not always been an automatic choice, the possibility of forming a settlement on Formosa, the Bonin Islands, and on Ma Wan and Lantao island had previously been given serious consideration.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205017, "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-1965", "page_number": 125, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "116\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nAdditional Note on Article “JOURNAL OF OCCURRENCES AT CANTON IN 1839 BY WILLIAM HUNTER”\n\nReaders of Volume 4 of the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society will be grateful to the Editorial Committee for deciding to print the full text of William C. Hunter's manuscript journal preserved in the Boston Athenaeum. It is a happy coincidence that his journal should have been made available in print to scholars of modern Chinese history at the very time when Hunter's manuscript has been drawn on extensively in a recently published account of the causes and events which led to the Opium War. The late Dr. Hsin-pao Chang, in his scholarly book Commissioner Lin and the Opium War (Harvard University Press, 1964), relates in some detail the story of the detention of the foreign merchants in their factories from 24th March until 5th May by orders of Imperial Commissioner Lin Tse-hsü (pp. 151-159). In describing this episode Dr. Chang has used various sources but has taken most of his details from Hunter's manuscript journal.\n\nAfter reading Dr. Chang's book I have discovered answers to a few problems which puzzled me while writing some of the footnotes to Hunter's journal as published in Volume 4 of this journal. May I, therefore, make a few additions and corrections to the text. Firstly, the sketch map of the Canton estuary on page 59 of Commissioner Lin and the Opium War marks most of the places mentioned by Hunter which were not shown on the sketch map on page 27 of Volume 4 of this journal, or left unidentified in the notes to the text. Thus the positions of Lankeet, Chuenpee, Shakok and Chunhow are clearly shown on the map in Dr. Chang's book. Hunter's use of the name Chinn-up under entry for 13th April is still inexplicable but in fact the opium was being unloaded at that date at Sha-chiao ('Sandy Head') which presumably was the Shakok of Western accounts, lying across the estuary from Lankeet. Secondly, some minor corrections. On p. 16, line 1, the word 'songs' should read 'gongs'; on p. 14, lines 9-10, it would be more accurate to say", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205072, "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-1966", "page_number": 28, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "REGIONAL APPROACH TO CHINESE HISTORY\n\n23\n\nThis may violate some of the basic principles of the historian's craft. It means going beyond the documents, or at least reading into them interpretations which the documents per se may not warrant. It means reading between the lines. It may even mean attributing significance to the fact that a document does not exist. It means applying the principles of anthropology, sociology, agricultural economics, even psychology to events which occurred many years ago.\n\n....a tricky procedure at best.\n\nBut it may, in the end, bring us closer to what \"really happened\" than has heretofore been the case.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Ch'ü Tung-tsu, Local Government under the Ch'ing, Cambridge, 1962.\n\n2 Hsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, Seattle, 1960.\n\n3 These are the districts (hsien) of Nan-hai, P'an-yü #, Hsun-teh 顺德, Tung-kuan 东莞, Hsin-an 新安, and Hsiang-shan 香山,\n\n4 Cf. M. Greenberg, British Trade and the Opening of China, London, 1951; P. C. Kuo, A Critical Study of the Opium War, New York, 1935; H. P. Chang, Commissioner Lin and the Opium War, Cambridge, 1964; etc.\n\n5 For account of this pirate's exploits see C. F. Neumann, History of the Pirates Who Infested the South China Sea from 1807 to 1810, London, 1831. This is a translation of a Chinese work entitled Ching-hai fen-chih 靖海氛志 by Yuan Yung-lun 阮永纶\n\n6 The Indo-Chinese Gleaner, July, 1821,\n\n7 The Canton Register, July 26, 1828.\n\n8 The Chinese Repository, June, 1834, p. 83.\n\n9 The Canton Register, February 18, 1828,\n\n10 Ibid., October 3, 1829.\n\n11 Ibid., December 12, 1829 and September 6, 1830.\n\n12 The Chinese Repository, June, 1832, p. 80.\n\n13 The Canton Register, March 8, 1828.\n\n14 The Chinese Repository, April, 1836, p. 566.\n\n15 Ibid.\n\n16 Ibid.\n\n17 Kwang-chou fu chih (广州府志), Canton, 1879 ed., chuan 81, p. 286.\n\n18 The Canton Register, June 18, 1829,\n\n19 For details see pertinent issues of The Chinese Repository, The Chinese Courier; The Canton Register; Kwang-chou fu chih, p. 306.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205397, "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-1967", "page_number": 159, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "152\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nA CANNON FROM THE END OF THE MING PERIOD\n\nYour Honorary Editor has suggested that I write a short piece about the cannon recently found near the Sino-British frontier about twenty miles from Kowloon. I do so with some hesitation, as I have not seen the piece and it has probably already received some attention, including a translation of the inscription. Nonetheless here is my rendering of the latter:\n\n\"Weight: 300 catties.\n\nConstructed on the 26th September 1650 by the following: Wu, Superintendent of Inland Seas, Chief Military Commissioner, installed (?) as Ting-hai General,\n\nTu, Governor General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, by imperial order.\n\nFan, Regional Commander of Kwangtung and guardian of the imperial heir (?),\n\nHsiao Li-jen, Local Commander of military operations, Su, Chief of bureau (?), Chief of military commission.”2\n\nIt is of some interest to note that the names of Tu, Fan, and Hsiao Li-jen appear also on the inscription of the cannon dated June/July 1650, found in Kowloon Bay in 1956.3 So far I have not been able to identify any of these individuals, especially since four of the five are listed by their hsing only. Doubtless they would all have owed their appointments to one or other of the Ming princes who were trying to uphold the authority of the tottering dynasty. One of these was Chu I-hai (Prince of Lu), then with headquarters at Chusan, captured by the Manchus on October 15, 1651. Another and more likely one was Chu Yu-lang (Prince of Kuei) who at this date held his court on boats at Wu-chou. Canton, after a siege of eight months, was taken by the Ch'ing forces on November 20, 1650.\n\nThese, as may be imagined, were parlous days for the house of Ming. Not alone for the surviving members of the imperial family, but also for the local population and the foreigners in their midst.4 One may surmise that the casting of cannon in the summer and early autumn of 1650 was a singularly difficult and hazardous one. But cannon and their casting were well known to the Chinese in this and earlier times.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205402, "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-1967", "page_number": 164, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n157\n\nisland of Hainan). An account of the historical episode mentioned above is given in Yang Lu-yung *, San-fan Chi-shih Pên-mo *, Chüan 3, The entry on the Southern Expedition of the Imperial Army; and in Wan Jui-lin *, Nan-chiang Yi-shih 40#, Chüan 4 (A brief account of the history of the Kwangtung Province), the Prince Yung Ming, Part One (edited by Li Yao 李瑤).\n\nAs the date of construction of this cannon was 26th September, 1650, it must have been cast for the express purpose of fighting the Ch'ing army during the siege of Canton.\n\nFAN, REGIONAL COMMANDER OF GUARDIAN OF THE IMPERIAL HEIR(?) KWANGTUNG\n\nAND\n\nFan's full name was Fan Ch'êng-ên ✯✯&. He was the traitor who conspired with the Ch'ing army during the siege of Canton. He caused the leakage in the embankments so that the Ch'ing army was able to land by stepping on floating logs and eventually took over the forts at Canton. When Shang K'o-hsi entered the city of Canton, Fan went up to surrender to him. See Yang Lu-yung, op. cit. and Wan Jui-lin, op. cit.\n\nWU, SUPERINTENDENT OF INLAND SEAS, CHIEF MILITARY COMMISSIONER, INSTALLED(?) AS TING-HAI GENERAL.\n\nWu may be a mistranscription of hsi, which together with yin Ep, signify the official credentials. In my opinion these titles of Superintendent of Inland Seas, Chief Military Commissioner installed as Ting-hai General do not refer to any particular person but were given to the cannon itself. It was the custom in the Ming dynasty to confer the title of 'ta chiang-chün' (the great general) on a new type of cannon called the fo-lang-chi (Franks) which the Chinese had learnt to manufacture in the sixteenth century. (See Chang Ting-yu 張廷玉, Ming Shih 明史, Chüan 92, military affairs, section 4). This tradition persisted in the Ch'ing dynasty and the fo-lang-chi type of cannon was invariably called 'The great general'. (See Ch'ing Wên-hsien T'ung-kao 清文獻通考, Chüan 194, military affairs, section 16.) This cannon constructed by Tu must have been cast according to the fo-lang-chi type. It is natural therefore that this cannon would have been conferred with the titles mentioned in the inscription.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205622, "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-1968", "page_number": 164, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n159\n\nNothing is known of the buildings themselves in 1842 but in the following year there was further activity on the site, partly to provide a roof for the Chinese Imperial Commissioner, Keying during his visit in the summer of that year. In April 1843, Woosnam (Pottinger's secretary) requested Gordon to draw up plans for a new Government House which would serve as temporary accommodation until Hong Kong's future was settled (ratifications of the Treaty of Nanking had not at that time been exchanged and it was thought locally that Hong Kong would be given up if they were not; in fact, the Colonial Office was disposed to treat the Colony as belonging to the Crown by right of conquest). The accommodation was to consist of two bungalows, one of three rooms and the other of four bedrooms. Gordon's return of his departmental expenditure reveals that he cut a site \"for the residence of the head of the Government,\" built a carriage road to \"Government House,\" and built a bungalow without offices.\n\n8\n\nThese buildings must be those which appear on both the maps referred to, along with earlier structures. But, though this conclusion seems beyond doubt, Sayer attempts to identify these buildings with another structure altogether: the Albany. He quotes a description of Government Hill given in the Chinese Repository which says that Government House was \"further westward and higher up the hill\" than Johnston's House. Sayer \"unhesitatingly\" identifies the reference with the Albany, a building which used to stand within the area of the Botanical Gardens at the foot of Old Peak Road. It was erected in 1843-1844 as a residence for Government servants at a reasonable rental at a time when rents on the open market were extremely high. There is no record of the Albany ever having been used for anything other than residential purposes. In view of the undoubted presence of other buildings in a place consistent with the description, it is difficult to see why Sayer confused them with the Albany.\n\nBut what of the established fact of Governor Davis's residence in Johnston's house? There is positive evidence that Johnston's house was so used: there is on record a letter from Pottinger to Johnston concerning its hire during the latter's absence on leave,10 and Martin, sometime Colonial Treasurer in Hong Kong and the Colony's most virulent critic, made a specific point of the expenditure on renting the house for the Governor. Some years later, the Friend of China commented acidly that \"the Governor, if he has", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205955, "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-1970", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "30 \n\nSTEPHEN UHALLEY, JR. \n\nThe English neglect is of special interest and not without significance, for although the document was written by Hung Hsiu-ch'uan, and was translated by Wade, yet it did not occasion even a minimal formal acknowledgment of receipt, either from Elgin, to whom it was addressed, or verbally from Wade during his visit in Nanking. \n\nThis document reveals significant information which should not have been so lightly dismissed by the English diplomats. Most importantly it was addressed to Elgin in polite Chinese fashion (though Ch'ing or traditional officialdom could never have been so polite) as 'Imperial Commissioner of a Superior Nation' shang-kuo ch’in-ch'ai ta-ch'en,30 Thus it signified a marked tendency of the Taipings in this period to emphasize the equality of other nations with Taiping China. The tone of writing is throughout conciliatory, and refers to foreigners as brethren in distinctly friendly terms. Taiping ministers, in it, were enjoined to entertain foreigners with ceremony. And while the adjective \"younger\" was also used with the term \"brethren\" this need not have implied inequality in an international sense. This is because Hung was giving in this document a religious lecture to foreigners as individuals. His special role as religious leader permitted him, by his reckoning, to use this mode of address in speaking to others. There were no pretensions to universal supremacy, nor was there any mention of foreigners bringing tribute. The document really marked a new and significant stage in Taiping foreign relations. However, as the English neglected even a courteous acknowledgment of the document, so they never bothered distinguishing important and necessary distinctions in it. Instead, subsequent writers have rested content with prejudicial interpretations of its \"fanatical\" religious content. Wade could not forebear remarking upon its \"very small literary pretension and indifferent handwriting.\"31 \n\nAt every point of personal contact between the English and Taipings on this trip, the latter never failed to exhibit a spirit of cooperative accommodation and outright friendliness to the English. No place in the record is there a word to contradict this, even from the obviously prejudiced Wade himself. And Elgin was sensitive to such things. Earlier he had written that he always made a point to ask persons who had penetrated the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206503, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TSUNGLI YAMEN\n\n45\n\nconcerning foreign countries were reported by the governors-general and governors of provinces and were collected in the Grand Council. In recent years reports on the military situation in various areas have been continuous. Foreign affairs involve many subjects. After foreign envoys start residing at the capital if there is no one in sole charge of these matters giving their full attention to handling them then their management will be dilatory, and it will be impossible to co-ordinate policy. We request that a tsung-li ke-kuo shih-wu ya-men [office for the general management of the affairs of the various countries] be established with a minister of princely rank in charge of it. Since the Grand Councillors are responsible for drafting imperial edicts we fear that if they are not concurrently in charge of its affairs there will be discrepancies. We request that they all serve concurrently as officials [of the Tsungli Yamen]. Also we request that an office be provided in order to facilitate the transaction of business, and at the same time for receiving envoys of the various countries. As regards the staff to be established we suggest that eight men should be selected from the Manchu and eight from the Chinese who are presently serving as secretaries of the Grand Secretariat, the Six Boards, the Court of Colonial Affairs and the Grand Council. They should serve in rotation. All matters should be dealt with by the same procedure as in the Grand Council in order to specify responsibilities. As soon as military operations come to an end and affairs concerning the various countries become more simple it will be abolished, and its functions will revert to the Grand Council as before so as to tally with the old system.\n\n2. It is requested that posts for great officials be separately established at the southern and northern ports in order to facilitate the dispatch of business. We note that when trade began during the reign of Tao-kuang there were only the five ports of Canton, Foochow, Amoy, Ningpo, and Shanghai, for which an imperial commissioner was created. Now, according to the newly established treaties, in the north there are Newchwang in Fengtien province, Tientsin in Chihli, Tengchow in Shantung; in the south there are Canton, Ch'aochow and Ch'iungchow in Kwangtung, Foochow, Amoy, Taiwanfu, and Tamsui in Fukien as well as Chenkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow on the Yangtze river.\n\nThe area [covered by all these ports] is vast stretching from south to north for seven or eight thousand li. If all these ports", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206504, "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": 52, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "46\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nwere still to be administered by the imperial commissioner of the five ports not only would he be unable to look after them all effectively also the foreign countries might not agree to it. Moreover the foreign countries trade at the port of Tientsin which is very close to the capital. If there is no great official residing at Tientsin with whom they can consult and transact affairs we are afraid that inconvenience will arise. We recommend that a superintendent of foreign trade be appointed for Newchwang, Tengchow and Tientsin to reside at Tientsin specifically to regulate affairs at those three ports. In Chihli, which is the vital metropolitan area, the governor-general has to control the entire province and cannot reside at Tientsin alone. Neither can the provincial financial and judicial commissioners, who each have their specific duties, conveniently hold the office of trade superintendent concurrently. So it is proposed that, following the precedent of the two Huai regions, the office of the salt administration of Ch'ang-lu be abolished and its administrative duties be transferred to the governor-general of Chihli. The salary of the salt administration office can then be given to the superintendent of trade entailing no additional establishment in order to economize. Control over the former customs revenue shall be administered concurrently by the superintendent for foreign trade who will make a separate report on it. We also recommend that an official seal without the title \"Imperial Commissioner\" be given to the superintendent in charge of foreign trade in the three ports. He should be allowed to take with him several secretaries to assist him in the administration. Whenever an important matter occurs he should be authorized to act in conjunction with the governors-general, governors and prefects of the three provinces concerned in the hope that matters may be dealt with smoothly.\n\nThe original imperial commissionership in charge of the five ports was held by the governor-general of the Liang-Kuang. In the ninth year of Hsien-feng [3 Feb. 1859-22 Jan. 1860] it was transferred to the control of the governor-general of Kiangsu, Kiangsi and Anhwei. We note that now there are three ports on the Yangtze newly added as well as Ch'aochow and Ch'iungchow in Kwangtung, Taiwan and Tamsui in Fukien, and therefore business will become more extensive. In fact we fear not only that governor-general Tseng Kuo-fan, who concurrently is in charge of the business, will find that 'however long the whip it will not", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206505, "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": 53, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TSUNGLI YAMEN\n\n47\n\nreach far enough' but also that he may not be able to be well acquainted with barbarian affairs. The acting imperial commissioner and governor Hsueh Huan, ought to continue to be responsible for managing affairs properly. As regards Tientsin and Shanghai, whoever manages all the business ought to copy the practice of the provinces in sending separate reports, and through these great officials keep the Tsungli Yamen regularly informed in order to avoid discrepancies. As regards Kirin and Heilungkiang, Russians have in the past crossed our boundaries and occupied our territory. Successive military governors have concealed this information and not reported it with the result that after a lapse of time we can no longer prevent it. We wish to request that instructions be sent to these military governors truthfully to report on the situation along the frontiers and not allow them to gloss over the facts in the slightest.\n\nFor matters involving China and foreign countries everything must be reported monthly to the Tsungli office for examination. Furthermore, in the particular port of Tientsin, in future trade will only be in the import of goods and there will be no large-scale export of goods. If, after a certain length of time, trade does not prosper the foreigners will decide to leave in disappointment. We propose that when the right time comes the situation should be reviewed in case we can abolish the trade superintendency and so discharge redundant officials.\n\n3. As regards the customs revenue of the newly added ports, we request that separate instructions be sent to the provinces that they choose upright and honest local officials and put them in charge in order to increase the revenue. We observe that hitherto in levying duties on foreign commodities the practice was that the full amount should be remitted to the capital. The customs officials looked on this as a source of self-enrichment. Embezzlement and smuggling and a hundred malpractices flourished, and were a great hindrance in the collection of customs revenue. Now, since twenty per cent of the duty on foreign commodities is to be withheld it is all the more necessary to clear off the account as soon as possible so as to avoid complications arising.\n\n[Note: The rest of point 3 is concerned with detailed regulations about the administration of the new ports opened to foreign trade. Anyone doing research into the origins of the offices of Superin-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206506, "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": 54, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "48\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\ntendent of Trade for the Northern Ports and Superintendent of Trade for the Southern Ports would find some material of use in this section of the six-point memorandum. For instance, it states that at Newchwang, the staple trade commodity is soya-bean cakes, but that this trade is not open to foreign ships. Details of the suggested method of collecting and reporting the customs revenues of this port are then given. At Tengchow, the memorialists state, an illicit foreign trade has been going on for a number of years, unbeknown to the Court. Now that it has officially become a treaty port, officials must be appointed to administer foreign trade there. As regards the five original treaty ports of Canton, Foochow, Amoy, Ningpo, and Shanghai, no changes in the regulations need be made. As regards the newly opened ports of Ch'iungchow, Swatow, Taiwan, and Tamsui, as well as Chenkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow on the Yangtze, the governors-general and governors in whose jurisdiction these ports lie should jointly memorialize with the imperial commissioner at Shanghai concerning officials to be appointed to take charge of these places. Monthly reports on the volume of foreign trade at these ports are to be sent to the Tsungli Yamen and the Board of Revenue.\n\nSuggestions are also made for arrangements to be made for trade with Russia at the newly opened trading places of Urga, Kashgar, and Kalgan.\n\nAccording to the treaties, twenty percent of the duties on foreign trade are to be held for the payment of the indemnity. A counterfoil will be provided so that the total amount of revenue collected can be checked against the amount withheld.\n\nThe memorialists then return to the point they were making near the beginning of point 3 [as translated above].\n\nThus, the amount of foreign duty collected each year being clearly shown, the officials through whose hands it passes will be unable to enrich themselves through peculation. Not only will they be deprived of the means of living, they will secretly resort to other malpractices. It is further feared that wily clerks, when they see there is no money to be made, may provoke trouble, thus endangering the public interest. If we do not clearly lay down regulations providing them with expenses for transacting official business, we very much fear that unforeseen malpractices will arise. It is therefore proposed to request that an order be given to the superintendent", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206507, "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": 55, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TSUNGLI YAMEN\n\n49\n\nof trade at Tientsin and to the imperial commissioner at Shanghai to draft, in conjunction with the governors-general and governors of the provinces concerned, regulations to govern the payment of expenses involved in transporting revenue silver collected at the ports to the Board [of Revenue] and also for the salaries of customs inspectors, and clerks, for stationery and other items, and then to memorialize requesting permission to put them into effect, in the hope that this will speedily clear the withheld portion [for the payment of the indemnities] and lead to the eradication of abuses.\n\n4. In each province where foreign affairs are dealt with your servants recommend instructions be sent to the Manchu garrison commanders, the governors-general and governors that they should keep each other informed in order to avoid discrepancies. We note that hitherto, in the management of affairs involving foreign countries, because the Grand Council has not issued copies of memorials submitted and edicts respectfully received, the governors-general and governors have also not communicated with each other. Originally this was in order to maintain secrecy and to prevent leakage of information. Now, however, since instructions have been sent to the provinces, to the superintendent of trade and to the imperial commissioner that they should regularly report to the Tsungli Yamen at the capital, the Manchu garrison commanders, the prefect of Peking, and the governors-general and governors should regularly inform each other of whatever they ought to do, and only then will there be no discrepancies at all. Moreover, when one province manages affairs satisfactorily another province can copy it, when this province manages affairs unsatisfactorily that province can be on its guard against it. We note that in the second month of the ninth year of Hsien-feng, Ho Kuei-ch'ing, the former governor-general of Liang-Chiang memorialized that:\n\nhitherto all matters have been memorialized secretly, and that the authorities do not keep each other informed, and that there are no files which can be consulted. It has reached such a point that colleagues in the same office are not fully informed. As a result numerous discrepancies and complications have arisen. This certainly is a great source of abuses. Your servant requests that instructions be issued that those concerned should notify each other so that there is uniformity in this matter.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206508, "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": 56, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "50\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nYour servants have studied what he said in his memorial and find that this really has been the situation. In future the superintendent of trade at Tientsin, the imperial commissioner at Shanghai and the provincial authorities should all be instructed regularly to send copies to each other of their memorials and the imperial edicts which they receive on these matters, quite apart from the reports which they submit to the Tsungli Yamen. When an official is relieved of his post he must specially hand over the files to his successor, so that the new appointee can examine them and the situation will not be entirely obscure to him. However, it is right that such affairs be secret. We should continue to instruct the provinces to depute trustworthy men to copy and know these documents but not allow them to pass through the hands of clerks in order to take special precautions to prevent a leakage of information.\n\n5. Your servants request that instructions be sent to Canton and Shanghai each to send two persons who understand written and spoken foreign languages to come to the capital on official service to be ready for consulting. It should be noted that in matters arising out of relations with foreign countries one must first know their natures. At present as we do not understand their spoken and written languages so there is a complete lack of understanding. How can we expect things to be managed properly? Previously as regards the Russian language a school was established for the study of the language; this was of significance. Now, after a long time, it is regarded as a mere formality and no one can understand Russian. It seems that we ought to offer some encouragement in order to stimulate them. We have heard that there are merchants in Canton and Shanghai who have specialized in learning the English, French and American languages. We request that instructions be sent to the governors-general and the governors of those provinces to select two honest and reliable men to be sent from each province, a total of four, to come to the capital bringing with them books of those countries. Let four or five boys of good natural ability under thirteen or fourteen years old be selected from each of the Eight Banners in order to study under them. The men sent [from Canton and Shanghai] should be given an adequate salary following the precedent of the Russian bureau. After two years the hard working should be distinguished from the idle ones.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206509, "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": 57, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "# THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TSUNGLI YAMEN\n\n51\n\nand the proficient ones should receive official rank. When the Banner students are thoroughly able to understand the written and spoken languages the practice should cease. We request that instructions be issued to the Russian school to draw up appropriate regulations for the study of the spoken and written Russian language and zealously to supervise their lessons. Whenever anyone studying a foreign language succeeds in mastering it we will memorialize requesting that he be given ample reward so that there will be no slackening with the passage of time.\n\n6.\n\nWe request that instructions be issued that monthly reports be sent to the Tsungli Yamen concerning native and foreign trade as well as foreign newspapers so that we may have information on which to act. We note that the main concern of the newly concluded treaties with foreign countries is with trade; therefore whether trade conditions are peaceful or not is of vital importance to each locality. In the future, lest any information on whether or not Chinese and foreign trade is flowing smoothly in the old and new ports should escape the notice of the imperial commissioner, instructions should be sent to the Manchu garrison commanders, the prefect of Peking, governors-general and governors that they should memorialize monthly according to the facts, and at the same time notify the imperial commissioner and the superintendent of trade. This should not be regarded as a mere formality and the information should not in the slightest border on the fictitious. In handling foreign affairs it is all the more necessary to have full knowledge of the true situation, and only then can one succeed in vital matters.\n\nIn recent years, at times of crisis, spies (ch'en-t'an) have been used, but what was obtained was often nothing more than rumours and we failed to get detailed and accurate information. In managing matters in this manner it was impossible to act effectively. Although foreign countries' newspapers are not necessarily entirely trustworthy nevertheless by sifting the information one can obtain a general idea of what is happening. These have been published under various names in Canton, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai. It is expected that they will also publish newspapers in the newly opened ports. We wish to request that instructions be sent to the imperial commissioner and the superintendent of trade and also to the Manchu garrison commanders, the prefect of Peking, governors-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206512, "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": 60, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "54\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nCouncillors at Jehol at this time: Mu-yin; K'uang-yüan; Tu Han; Chiao Yu-ying. Information on all these officials can be found in Hummel, Eminent Chinese, especially in the biography of Su-shun. Their power relationships are discussed in Banno, China and the West, passim, but especially 55-56. The term \"minister of the imperial presence\" (yü-ch'ien ta-ch'en) is rendered by Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization, p. 28, no. 101, as adjutant-general.\n\nII Tengchow is on the northern side of the Shantung promontory. In fact it was not opened to foreign trade which was carried on at Yen-tai near Chefoo. S. Wells Williams, The Chinese Commercial Guide, 211-212. Ch'aochow was the old name for Swatow; Ch'iungchow is in Hainan. Taiwan City and Tamsui were ports on the island of Taiwan which came under the administration of Fukien province.\n\n12 Ch'ung-hou was appointed to this post by an edict of 20 January with the designation superintendent of trade for the Three Ports, with his headquarters at Tientsin. Hsueh Huan, governor of Kiangsu and acting imperial commissioner at Shanghai, was made responsible for the newly opened ports along the Yangtze and the coast to the south of it, by the same edict. As far back as 1844 the imperial commissioner at Canton was currently designated imperial commissioner for the Five Ports. With the addition of new ports it was made a concurrent post of the governor of Kiangsu in 1861, until 1868 when it was made a concurrent post of the governor-general of Liang Kiang residing at Nanking. In 1870 the post of superintendent of trade for the Three Ports was raised to an imperial commissionership and held concurrently by the governor-general of Chihli. It is not clear when the commonly used designations for these two posts viz: superintendent of trade for the southern ports and superintendent of trade for the northern ports were first used. Meng, The Tsungli Yamen, 40-41; Banno, China and the West, 233-5.\n\n13 Article 3 of the Convention of Peking between Britain and China refers. See W. F. Mayers, Treaties Between the Empire of China and Foreign Powers, 8. The phrase to avoid complications arising is a euphemism for 'to avoid peculation'.\n\n14 Tentatively we have translated the Chinese phrase hui-tan as counter-foil. Note 19 also refers.\n\n15 The term is fuyin. See Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization of China, 793.\n\n16 See Frank H. H. King, A Research Guide to China Coast Newspapers, 1822-1911.\n\n17 Translated in collaboration with Mr. Vei-Tsen Yang. Chinese text in Ch'ow-pan wu shih-mo, Hsien-feng, 72: 2-3. A second edict was issued on the same day, and on the same subject, to the Grand Secretariat. This edict was translated by T. F. Wade along with the six-point memorandum. Note 2 above refers.\n\n18 Not to be confused with the Russian Hostel nor with the language school for the Russians in Peking, both of which were often referred to in Chinese documents as O-lo ssu-kuan, thus making confusion likely with the Russian language school referred to here. See Meng, The Tsungli Yamen, 111, note 48.\n\n19 Lit. 'draw up a joint document'. Glossed by T. F. Wade as a paper signed by both parties showing that the amount deducted is in due proportion to the collection'. Translation of Peking Gazette in F.O. 17/352 p. 42.\n\n20 Presumably referring to Robert Hart, the Inspector General of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and the westerners serving under him. On the general subject of foreigners taking part in the administration of China after the middle of the nineteenth century see Fairbank, The Chinese World Order, 273-5; also Fairbank \"Synarchy under the Treaties\" in Fairbank (ed.) Chinese Thought and Institutions, 204-231.\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206548, "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": 96, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "90\n\nE. G. PRYOR\n\nBesides their wider trading interests, the British in Canton had established a thriving trade in opium brought from India. The Chinese government regarded this trade with considerable concern, on the grounds that it was harmful to human welfare and also a serious drain on the country's finances. Early attempts by the Chinese government to stop the opium trade failed but in 1839 a Special Imperial Commissioner was appointed who forced the British traders in Canton to relinquish their supplies of the narcotic. The British Superintendent of Trade, Captain Elliot, consequently withdrew the English merchants to Macau and later transferred them onto ships anchored in Hong Kong harbour; subsequent events led to open hostilities between Chinese and British forces.\n\nIt was decided by Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, that a satisfactory settlement of the dispute would require either a commercial treaty with adequate guarantees to protect the interests of British merchants or the cession of one or more off-shore islands from which the traders could operate without restriction. A British expedition was despatched to China in 1840 to back up these demands and in January 1841 negotiations were held in Canton between Captain Elliot and Keshen, a Manchu Commissioner, whereby it was agreed by the Convention of Chuenpi that Hong Kong Island was to be ceded to the British (Figure 1).* A British naval force took possession of the island on 26th January 1841,\n\nThe Chuenpi terms were accepted by neither side. Elliot was replaced by Sir Henry Pottinger and hostilities were renewed. The war was concluded by the Treaty of Nanking on 29th August 1842 by which the island of Hong Kong was ceded in perpetuity to the Crown and four additional ports besides Canton were opened to British traders. The island was formally declared a British Colony on 26th June 1843 and Sir Henry Pottinger was appointed the first Governor. Hong Kong was declared a free port and by the Supplementary Treaty of the Bogue the Chinese were given free access to the island for trading purposes.\n\nThe Housing Problem Takes Root: 1841-1881\n\nAlmost from the day Captain Elliot raised the British flag on the northern shores of Hong Kong Island, a steady stream of artisans and labourers made their way to the Colony from the southern provinces.\n\n*Figures 1-8 will be found at the rear of the text.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208801, "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-1979", "page_number": 258, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n231\n\nstrength (“gunboat diplomacy” and “showing the flag”) that westerners were indeed the equal of Chinese, and that the trade which was mutually beneficial ought to be allowed to flourish in peace and tranquillity.\n\nProfessor Graham shows quite clearly that, of course, the dominant theme of this whole period was the issues raised by the meeting of traditional sino-centrism and the dynamic of western expansion, a familiar theme from the work of countless China scholars including Fairbank and Waley. The author details much of the theme in episodes in Canton (“a war of nerves between British ‘barbarians’ and Canton ‘imbeciles’”), at Chusan, at Shanghai (in 1841 a “squalid” place “rising from the middle of ‘a low unhealthy marsh’”, but by 1858, a queen of a city “with handsome houses and gardens and busy quays”, pp. 217-218), and finally, close to the imperial seat, at Taku at the mouth of the Peiho.\n\nThe book pays the usual attention to some of the familiar and hoary myths: on the one hand, the Chinese official belief in “self sufficiency” and on the other the Western traders' belief in the limitless potential of China for international trade (The present interest in China of the international business community sounds all too familiar to the historian!); the “inscrutability” of the Chinese (the author seems to subscribe to this myth even toward present day Chinese!); their “traditional courtesy to the stranger” (For accuracy substitute “curiosity toward” for “courtesy to”!); and the curious belief that Chinese did not (do not?) react to heat and cold and pain and hunger like the rest of mankind (despite which, history shows quite clearly that the Chinese do indeed react to such stimuli as armed force and deprivation, like their fellows.)\n\nGraham on occasion overstates and exaggerates his analysis of the character and temperament of oriental races, seemingly succumbing to the now fashionable habit of admiration for anything “oriental” that lately, and again, permeates western attitudes and approaches to the Orient.\n\nOne also notes a contradiction or so: on page 356 we read,\n\n“Whether out of ignorance, natural courage, or despair, they (Chinese) were never cowed by the trappings of military might. The British Commissioner underestimated their determination and tenacity.”", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208928, "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-1980", "page_number": 90, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "58 \n\nLEWIS M. CHERE \n\nand recognized in later periods? As in so many cases of this sort, closer examination of the events leads to the conclusion that it may have been both. \n\nWhat little evidence is available at this distance points to a popular nationalistic outbreak against the French, encouraged by the activities of the Imperial authorities at Canton. There is also reason to believe that the old anti-foreignism so frequently pointed to among the coastal Chinese also had some role in the affair. Some local Chinese leadership groups, like the Tung Wah, may also have tried to make use of the incident to enhance their own position vis-à-vis the colonial administration. \n\nThe troubles of September and October 1884 were set off by two events in other parts of the China Coast. China and France had been very close to an open break over the suzerainty of Annam and the occupation of Tongking since early in 1883. When the Chinese appeared to have violated a May 1884 agreement between Li Hung-chang and Captain Ernest Fournier of the French Navy, France presented China with a series of ultimatums in June and July demanding compensation for French deaths incurred in the incident. Since the Chinese believed that it was the French who had violated the agreement they naturally were not inclined to sub-mit to the French demands.9 \n\nFrance, determined to enforce what she considered her just demands, issued one last ultimatum in August. When Peking refused to give in, the French Asiatic Squadron under Admiral Courbet, which was anchored at Foochow opposite a Chinese fleet and the shipyard, opened fire on August 22. The Chinese Foochow Fleet was utterly destroyed with much loss of life. The Shipyard was severely damaged, and the forts along the Min River were taken and destroyed as the French went back downstream. \n\nIn the competition among the governors and viceroys of the coastal provinces to demonstrate their patriotism in the furor that followed the Foochow incident, Chang Chih-tung, newly appointed Viceroy of the Two Kwangs; Peng Yü-lin, Imperial Commissioner for the Coastal Defenses of Kwangtung; and Ni Wan-yuh, Governor of Kwangtung, issued a proclamation calling on Chinese in Singapore, Penang and Vietnam (interestingly enough they did not mention Hong Kong) to sink French ships, or sell them tainted provisions. \n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208929, "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-1980", "page_number": 91, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "HONG KONG RIOTS OF OCTOBER 1884\n\n59\n\nNaturally the British Government protested this incitement to murder in its territories most strenuously. At British insistence an Imperial Decree was issued disavowing the proclamation and censuring the responsible officials for an excess of zeal. The censure did no damage to any of their later careers and amounted to barely concealed backhanded praise. When the British later asked for a re-publication of the decree of censure by Chang Chih-tung in the belief that it would calm Hong Kong, Chang refused. He justified his refusal, and the initial proclamation itself, on the grounds that he had merely been trying to encourage overseas Chinese to go to the areas of combat and help China in her struggle.10 That had, of course, been part of the original proclamation, but his explanation was no more convincing then than it is now. Interestingly, the Daily Press of October 1 pointed out that Commissioner Lin had issued a similar appeal in 1840 during the First Opium War.\n\nSeveral of the Chinese newspapers in Hong Kong published Chang's original proclamation when it was issued. The colonial authorities were so concerned about the potential effect of the proclamation that they brought charges against the newspapers for incitement to murder. Eventually the prosecutions failed in court, but the days following the publication of the proclamation were filled with incidents of Chinese refusing to provide services to the French, either to the ships of the Messageries Maritimes or to French naval vessels calling at Hong Kong for repairs and supplies after the battles with the Min forts. There were also incidents involving clashes between French naval personnel and local Chinese reported from Singapore.11\n\nThere is no question that the reported incidents were not simply anti-foreign, though later that would enter into them. Unlike incidents in other areas of China, only the French were affected. Even in Canton the incidents nearly ceased when it was announced that there were no more French in the city.12 On September 7 when Admiral Lespés, who had bombarded Keelung before the Foochow attack, was ashore in Hong Kong the local authorities were so concerned that some of the large numbers of Cantonese in the city might try to collect the rewards offered for the deaths of French officers that they assigned the admiral an escort of Sikhs.13\n\nWhen the cargo-boatmen were fined for refusing to work the French ships the action triggered a strike against all ships of what-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209277, "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-1981", "page_number": 180, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "166\n\n39\n\n40\n\nIbid., IV, 26.\n\nWEI PEH-T'I\n\nHsin-pao Chang, Commissioner Lin and the Opium War, (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), p. 16.\n\n41 WCT - TK 1/11. Copy of memorial from Juan Yuan, Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, dated TK 1/11/19 (1821/12/31).\n\n42 Ibid.\n\n43 Ibid.\n\n**Ti-tzu chi, 5:23b.\n\n46\n\nIbid. Imperial rescript to memorial from Juan Yuan.\n\nFigures compiled at Canton, November, 1828. \"Report from Committee on China Trade, East India Company\", Parliamentary Papers. 30:173.\n\n47\n\nIbid.\n\n48 Appendix to report from the Select Committee on China Trade, VII, Paragraph 5174.\n\n49 Testimony of William Jardine to Committee on China Trade, Parliamentary Papers 30:514.\n\n60 Gerald S. Graham, The China Station: War and Diplomacy, 1830–1860. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1978). The quotations are taken from p. 17 and n.28.\n\n51 Morse, Chronicles, IV, 44 and 93. There is no indication whether opium had been clandestinely removed from these ships.\n\n52 This date was given in Juan Yuan's memorial in Wai-chiao shih-liao, Tao-kuang 1:39. The villagers were killed on the next day, 15 December. English sources did not indicate that the incident took place on two successive days, Morse, Chronicles, IV, 28.\n\n53\n\nMorse, Chronicles, IV, 28.\n\n54 Ibid., IV, 29.\n\n55\n\nA brother of the victim, Huang I-ming, went to Peking to petition the Emperor charging inaction on the part of the local officials. He also claimed that the British had stolen tens of thousands of taels of silver from the house of the deceased. The Emperor referred the case to Juan Yuan, who decided against the petitioner, asking, \"How could a peasant who made his living by growing potatoes on Lintin Island accumulate so much wealth?\" Wai-chiao shih-liao, Tao-kuang 1:39b.\n\n56 Wai-chiao shih-liao, Tao-kuang, 1:11b.\n\n57 Ibid., 1:19.\n\n59\n\nIbid., 1:19b.\n\n60\n\nTi-tzu chi, 5:10b-11.\n\n61 Ti-tzu chi 5:26.\n\n62 Wai-chiao shih-liao, Tao-kuang 1:15 a-b.\n\n63\n\n1 2\n\n46\n\nIbid., 1:32, memorial from Juan Yuan, TK 2/9/20 (1822/11/3).\n\nIbid., 1:36 a-b. Court letter to Juan Yuan, TK 2/11/3 (1822/12/25).\n\nIbid., 1:37. Imperial edict, TK 2/12/12 (1823/1/23).\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209292, "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-1981", "page_number": 195, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "BRO. TSUNG LAI SHUN IN MASSACHUSETTS\n\n181\n\nThe entry for the following year is identical, with the three addresses changed to \"34 Bay street.\" For 1875-6 it is simply:\n\nLaisun Chan, Chinese commissioner of education, house 34 Bay street\n\nThe following incomplete newspaper extracts indicate the effect that our brother had on the daily life of Springfield residents just over a hundred years ago.\n\nCHINESE RESIDENTS RECALLED, THE LAI-SUNS AND THEIR CHILDREN.\n\nA Picturesque and Interesting Family Who Lived in Springfield 25 years Ago. They Now Dwell in Shanghai.\n\nMany of the older residents of the city, and not a few who are unwilling to consider themselves old yet, will recall Mr Lai-Sun, the Chairman, who with his wife, and six children made his home in Springfield about 25 years ago. Mr Lai-Sun came to this city as a member of the commission appointed by the Chinese government to take charge of the Chinese youths who were to be educated in this vicinity. The head man of this commission was stationed in Hartford, but Mr Lai-Sun, acting as guardian for several of the young Mongolians, came to this city and homes were found for his wards in this neighbourhood.\n\nThis remarkable and picturesque family (for they continued to wear their Chinese costumes and to live up to many of their racial customs) are recalled just now by the news of an honor which has recently been bestowed upon one of the daughters by the Chinese government. The woman in question (who is now Mrs N.P. Anderson, living in Shanghai) will be remembered as Miss Annie Lai-Sun. She has recently been given an “imperial tablet” as a recognition of her services to the Chinese people in establishing a branch of the Red Cross society for work among the wounded during the recent war between China and Japan. Just what this tablet is we are unable to say, a copy of the Daily China Times containing a description of the memento and its significance having failed to reach this office. Our informant concerning the presentation of the tablet is Revd R.G. Keyes of Water... who roomed with Mr Lai-Sun when the latter was a student in Hamden college in Clinton, N.Y., about 50 years ago. Mr Keyes is now in communication with Mrs Anderson and his mention of the tablet suggests that it was a testimonial which brings a great honor to its recipient.\n\nPage 195\n\nPage 196", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209957, "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-1983", "page_number": 216, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "194\n\nThe newspaper does not identify the author, or give a Chinese version, stating only that he was \"a poet and scholar who formed part of the suite of the High Imperial Commissioner (Keying) during his late visit to Hong Kong, and was composed on board the steamer on the way back to Canton.\"\n\n**\n\nIn 1981 the journals of Edward H. Cree, Surgeon, RN, were published by Webb and Bower, of Exeter in England. In 1845 Cree was surgeon on the Vixen, a steam paddle sloop. In his entry for Tuesday, November 25, Cree records that the Vixen was taking Keying and his suite back to Canton:\n\n\"A salute was fired from the battery as we started through the Cap-Sing-mun passage. On our way we were also saluted by the Chinese forts and war junks. I almost got into the bad books of Low, the Lord Mayor of Canton,' by a practical joke that Willcox, the 1st Lieutenant, played on me: he came up to me on deck and said: 'Doctor, do you know that the gunroom is full of those confounded flunkeys, and one of them is snoring in your cabin,'\n\nI rushed down and saw, on my bed, a great body and a pair of legs encased in black satin boots on the pillow, the head at the other end snoring most lustily. I unceremoniously laid hold of him, and rolled him on to the floor. At the same time one of the servants rushed in and jabbered something, holding up a mandarin's cap with the peacock's feather: I immediately saw it was the great Lord Mayor I had treated so roughly. I apologised as well as I could. His Lordship, who was now wide awake, sat at the table and said something to his valet, who brought him writing materials, with which he set to work filling a large sheet of paper with neatly written Chinese characters. I thought, now I am in for a report to the Lord High Commissioner, and told Gutzlaff, the interpreter. Chaou, who was in the Purser's cabin next door, laughed immoderately. Soon the paper was handed in, and I got Gutzlaff to interpret it. I was pleased to see it was no report, but an ode Low had been composing on his departure from Hong Kong.\"\n\nI\n\nIt seems reasonable to speculate that this was the ode which the Friend of China published a translation of a few weeks later.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210155, "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-1984", "page_number": 126, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "105\n\nHONG KONG ISLAND BEFORE 1841\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nHail, little isle! and Hong's fair haven, hail!\n\nFirst-fruits of China to the ocean-queen! New orient realms, new navies' embryo sail Glass'd in thy shifting horoscope are seen. May British virtue shine, in thee confest; And in her colony be Britain blest!'*\n\nThe cession of Hong Kong evoked different feelings in both China and Britain. In China, needless to say, there was scarcely rejoicing. The sixty-year-old Tao Kuang emperor, monarch of China since 1820, when asked to sanction the proposed Treaty of Peace that granted Hong Kong to Britain, spent the rest of the day and most of the night pacing up and down the corridor of his Palace, deep in anxious thought. Several times he was heard to mutter \"impossible\" and to sigh deeply. At last, at 3 a.m., he stamped his foot and proceeded to the audience chamber where he affixed the \"vermilion pencil\" to the draft. One of his subjects, the great Chinese statesman Tso Tsung-tang (1812-1885), then an unknown and rather unsuccessful scholar, wrote four poems in which he expressed grief and indignation when he heard that the British had taken over Hong Kong; and when he learned the final terms of the peace he was so overcome that he thought seriously of retiring to some lonely mountain retreat for the rest of his days.\n\n2\n\n3\n\nIn England the young Queen Victoria, twenty-two years old and married with a baby daughter wrote to her uncle, the king of the Belgians, \"Albert is so much amused at my having got the Island of Hong Kong and we think Victoria ought to be called Princess of Hong Kong in addition to Princess Royal\".2\n\nHer Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, was not amused. He received the news of the Chuenpi agreement (January 1841) between Captain Elliot, the British Plenipotentiary, and the Imperial Commissioner Kishen, with disappointment and disapproval.\n\n* See Plates 1-3", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210336, "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-1984", "page_number": 307, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "286\n\nCHOI CHI CHEUNG\n\nThe Cheung lineage was not prosperous until the Tao Kuang (*) period. Ancestor Yao-chih (2) of the 2nd sub-lineage became a successful merchant, and through his generous donation, an Ancestral Hall for the whole lineage was built. The Ancestral Hall of the Ya-kang segment was built in the middle of the Chia Ching period by the effort of ancestor I-pi ( ), brother of Ah-lum's grandfather (see clan record, Tz'u yu pu (3) section, Tz'u T'ang Chi (2) sub-section pp. 1-4). Though the lineage had several National School students (B), no one succeeded in the official examinations until the end of the Ch'ing dynasty when they had three chüren (A). Two of them were Ah-lum's sons. Ah-lum's father was also a National School Student who earned his living by teaching in the villages nearby (see the biography of Ah-lum's father in the Clan record, Chi-ching pu (it) section, Hang Chuang ((HA) sub-section p. 5).\n\nThis man is not otherwise mentioned in the Clan record.\n\nAccording to Ah-lum's statement as given in court, \"he first came to the colony at only 18 years of age. He was first employed by Mr. Bigham, who went to California; after that by Mr. Franklyn; then by Murrow, Stephenson & Co.; then by Mr. De Silver, for whom he made biscuits, as well as did other business see: British Parliamentary Papers, China, no. 24: Hong Kong, P. 183. (= BPP 24:183).\n\nThe Russell was owned by Russell & Co., and the Shamrock by Mr. Xavier, c.f. BPP 24:170 and 173.\n\nSee BPP 24:164–184. The bakery had three machines making bread to supply most of the foreigners in Hong Kong.\n\nSee BPP 24:155-184, and Eitel op.cit. p. 311-313.\n\n10 The Arrow War. The anti-foreigner movement was supported by Yeh Ming-shen (), the Imperial Commissioner for Kwangtung, in Canton. See Wakeman, F. Jr. Strangers at the Gate. 1966, pp. 109ff. Also Eitel op.cit. p. 305.\n\n11 Eitel: op.cit. p. 312-313.\n\n12 According to Chen Kuan-ying (###), Ah-lum was chief of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Co. (TERA) in Vietnam. He owned a shop Hung Tai Ch'ang() in Saigon, and his son Ti-fu (#) was chief manager (*) of the Cambodia Opium Co. (12). Chen Kuan-ying (E), Nan-yu Jih-chi (12), (Diary of a Journey to the South), reprinted 1967, Taiwan, p. 19ff, 81-89. According to the Clan Record Tsa Chi-pu() section, Pa-yu (if) sub-section, p. 1, Ah-lum had businesses in Saigon, Haiphong, Comuponton, and in Nha Trang in Kwangnam (ÂM NHIỀU).\n\n13 According to the clan record, we know that one of Ah-lum's sons was buried in the free cemetery of Haiphong (), and another was buried in the free cemetery of the Canton City Association in Vung Tau, Vietnam (#).\n\n14 In 1884, when Chen passed through Vietnam, Ah-lum was chief manager (*) of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Co. in Vietnam. See Chen: p. 19.\n\n15 Chen: ibid.\n\n16 Clan record, Chi-ching pu (###) section, Ch'i-shou (##) sub-section, pp. 1-4; has two essays presented on this occasion by the gentry of Heung Shan, and by the merchants of the Canton City Association in Vung Tau, Saigon (F#城會館).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211136, "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-1987", "page_number": 197, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "172\n\nspeaking as a diplomat and not a merchant.\n\nIn the instructions Wade had sent to Robertson, he had strongly urged the establishment of a branch of the Chinese Imperial Customs in Hongkong.\n\nThe Governor of Hongkong, Sir Arthur Kennedy, endorsed this proposal as a possible solution to the problem. In a despatch to London he stated that he was “convinced that the shortest, best and only remedy for disputes and differences which have existed for years, endangering our good relations with the Canton Government is the recognised establishment of a branch of the Chinese foreign inspectorate in Hongkong itself.\"\n\nIt was not until 1886 that provisions were made for establishing a Maritime Customs collecting station at Kowloon and the Hong-kong Government allowed its Commissioner, a British national, to reside in Hongkong.\n\nWAR OF WORDS OVER CHINESE CONSUL CONTINUES\n\nThe manner in which the appointment of a Chinese consul for Hongkong was announced in 1891 provoked a demand from the expatriate merchants that they be allowed a greater voice in determining policies that affected Hongkong.\n\nThey resented that they had not had an opportunity to express their opinion before the decision regarding the appointment had been made.\n\nThe Colonial Office had informed the local government of its intended decision and had received in reply the opinion of concerned government officials in Hongkong, but the mercantile community had not been consulted.\n\nIn November 1890, the Governor was asked if he had any objections to the proposal. This was followed by a telegram in January 1891 informing him that the Chinese had proposed that Mr. Tso Ping-lung, consul at Singapore, be transferred to the new office in Hongkong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211140, "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-1987", "page_number": 201, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "176\n\nBefore the public meeting could be held, the Home Government changed its mind about the appointment.\n\nTHE DAY AN ADMIRAL TRIED TO STEAL THE SHOW\n\nIn an attempt to solve the blockade question, Sir Brooke Robertson, the British Consul at Canton, suggested in 1878 that a European be appointed as Chinese Consul in Hongkong. He could check on cargoes of junks and make reports to the Customs authorities in Canton.\n\nIn this way the Chinese could exercise better control over the collection of duties on goods shipped in and out of Hongkong on Chinese vessels. Presumably he would not be prone to engage in all the irregularities allegedly practised by all Chinese officials.\n\nHongkong, however, resisted such an appointment and the matter was dropped at that time.\n\nThe Opium Agreement between Britain and China signed in September 1886, provided for a Chinese Maritime Customs collecting station at Kowloon. The Hongkong Government unofficially condoned the residence of its Commissioner, a British national, in Hongkong.\n\nIn view of this arrangement and the easing of the tensions created by the Chinese blockade of Hongkong, the appointment of a Chinese Consul for Hongkong continued to lay dormant.\n\nIn 1891, however, the Colonial Office suddenly informed Hongkong that a Chinese Consul had been appointed for the port. There was an immediate outcry of indignation. The opposition hauled out the same arguments they had used against any arrangement with China that would have assisted it in collecting customs duties.\n\nIn an editorial comment, the China Mail stated that the arrangement made with China for the Imperial Customs to collect its duties directly had been mutually beneficial, for \"smuggling had been discouraged and legitimate trade promoted, and the Col-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211262, "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-1987", "page_number": 323, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "298\n\nby the Chinese with great dread and by foreigners with apprehension. . . \n\n(Transferring Technology, p. 69)\n\nIn truth, Giquel must have been greatly valued by the Chinese in particular, though the books show that this was at the expense of being thought too pro-Chinese by the French authorities, and even by trusted subordinates.\n\nThe book is full of such interesting and illuminating passages, either from Giquel's own pen, those of contemporaries, or from Dr. Leibo's hand. Another useful observation, this time coming from the Imperial Commissioner charged with overseeing the Dockyard project, has for us today an oddly familiar ring to it. Commissioner Shen Baozhen was pessimistic about the continuing success of the dockyard under solely Chinese direction, and to Giquel's recital of favorable signs for continued progress answered, \"Certainly, but what if Li [Viceroy Li Hongzhang] disappears? What will become of all this?” (Transferring Technology, p. 125). In other words, personalities were apparently as crucial then as they are today, in China's modernization programmes.\n\nShen's faith in Giquel was absolute. Dr. Leibo quotes from a Chinese language source which indicates that he informed Li Hongzhang at this time that his confidence in him was such that he would stake his entire career on Giquel's loyalty to China. If Giquel ever did anything to harm China, Shen promised to terminate his own public career. (ibid. p. 126).\n\nOf the two works, I found the first to be the more satisfying. It is detailed and well-organised, and uses French sources hitherto unutilized by historians. The man and his times emerge clearly, and his difficulties and dilemmas shine through the text. Relationships with high Chinese officials, as well as with European colleagues and would-be rivals, and with the French and other higher authorities are happily covered in sufficient detail to make them both interesting and illuminating, thanks to the varied sources used by Dr. Leibo.\n\nThe other is just as absorbing, especially the diary itself, but I found Dr. Leibo's Introduction less satisfying than the fuller account.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211331, "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-1988", "page_number": 47, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "23\n\npast patriotism and encouraging them in their resistance to the occupation.\n\nThe developing resistance clearly required a military response. Thus, in early June General van Straubenzee led an expedition beyond Canton’s walls to disperse 1500 to 2000 braves gathered to the northwest of the city. Little was accomplished. Most of the braves had already dispersed when the Europeans arrived and unfortunately several of the soldiers died during the expedition, some of wounds and others from the heat.\n\nWithin the occupation government the situation was beginning to appear more and more dangerous. The initial decision to rely on the mandarins to run the city now appeared to have been a tactical error. Some of the foreign officers claimed it had given a false impression of allied weakness. The Cantonese themselves, reasonably passive during the initial assault, were now increasingly attacking the foreigners. In mid-June a Dr. Turnbull, chief surgeon of the expeditionary force, was decapitated having been captured as he attempted to aid two soldiers wounded in an earlier assault. The surgeon’s death further highlighted the increasing precariousness of the occupation. Each night, under cover of darkness, the situation became much worse. The walls of the city were assaulted by unknown assailants. The foreigners sat through each night as various bombs and fuses were thrown at their positions by the locals. Such attacks were answered by daylight Allied reprisals against the various settlements beyond the walls located in the directions from which the shots had been fired.\n\nBy late June the acting British consul Winchester put out a circular warning British merchants to be wary of the warlike tones of the imperial commissioner’s proclamations and warning them to “secure themselves against the treacherous and stealthy attacks so consistent to the ideas of the Chinese …”. They were also told to expect a reduction of ship traffic in front of the city walls as the allied commanders moved to deal with the growing military threat. Eventually all river traffic by Chinese junks was forbidden in the area near the city.*2\n\n42\n\nThroughout the summer the situation continued to escalate. After the Chinese tried to burn a ship which housed the French vice-consul the French retaliated by torching homes to the west of the city walls.* The\n\n47", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211340, "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-1988", "page_number": 56, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "32\n\n27\n\nParkes to Elgin, Accounts and Papers, XXXIII 2571 (1859) incl. 1 in no. 93 fol. 161. PRO and George Wingrove Cooke, China: Being “The Times\" Special Correspondent from China in the Years 1857-1858. (London, 1858), p. 356.\n\n28 Laurence Oliphant, Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan, p. 169.\n\n19 Gros to Walewski, 13 January 1858, p.s. of the 14th, CP, vol. 23, fol. 41, AE.\n\n30\n\n32\n\nGros to Walewski, January 3, 1858, CP, vol. 23, fol. 8, AE.\n\nTrenqualye to Walewski, 24 March, 1858, CCC, Canton, vol. 2, fol. 62-65, AE.\n\nBourboulon to Walewski, 5 April, 1858, CP, vol. 22, fol. 102-3, AE.\n\nHong Kong Daily Press, 19 April, 1858, CP, vol. 2, fol. 44, AE.\n\n34 Parkes Memorandum, April 21, 1858, incl. 2 in Bowring Dispatch no. 116 FO 17 296, 1858 PRO.\n\n35 Bourboulon to Walewski, 26 October, 1858, CP, vol. 22, fol. 194, AE.\n\n36 Proclamation of Huang Tsung-han, trans. by Parkes, CP, vol. 22, fol. 90, AE.\n\n37\n\nBourboulon to Walewski, 18 June, 1858, CP, vol. 22, fol. 69-70, AE and D'Abouville to Min. de la Marine, 5 June, 1858, BB 4 763, SHM.\n\nMalmesbury to Cowley, 17 June, 1858, CP, vol. 24, fol. 340, AE.\n\n39 Bourboulon to Walewski, 18 June, 1858, CP, vol. 22, fol. 69-70, AE.\n\nAD\n\nBourboulon to Walewski, 1 July, 1858, ps. of 2 July, CP, vol. 22, fol. 86, AE.\n\n41 Bourboulon to Walewski, 21 June, CP, vol. 22, fol. 103–104. AE.\n\n42\n\nCircular, 22 June, 1858, CP, vol. 22, fol. 94-95, AE.\n\n41 Bourboulon to Walewski, 1 July, 1858, CP, vol. 22, fol. 86, AE.\n\n44\n\nBourboulon to Walewski, 1 July, 1858, CP, vol. 22, fol. 84, AE.\n\n45 Bourboulon to Walewski, 1 July, 1858, CP, vol. 22, fol. 84, AE.\n\n47\n\n48\n\n49\n\nIbid., fol. 86.\n\nGros to Imperial Commissioner, 5 July, 1858, CP, vol. 23, fol. 62-63, AE.\n\nElgin to Foreign Office, no date, CP, vol. 25, fol. 154, AE.\n\nElgin to Foreign Office, July, CP, vol. 25, fol. 155-157, AE.\n\n50 Bourboulon to Walewski, 21 July, 1858, CP, vol. 22. fol. 103-104, AE, and D'Abouville to Min. de la Marine, 8 August, 1858, BB 4 763, AN.\n\n51 Alcock to Acting French Consul Trenqualye, I August, 1858, CP, vol. 22, fol. 125 and Bourboulon to Walewski, 5 August, 1858, CP, vol. 22, fol. 101, AE.\n\n52 Gros to Walewski, 10 August. 1858, CP, vol. 25, fol. 217-220. The second letter which lists 400 troops rather than the earlier 1000 is probably a correction of the total number of French soldiers.\n\n53 Gros to Bourboulon, 14 August, 1858, CP, vol. 25, fol. 250, AE.\n\n54\n\nGros to Walewski, 14 August, 1858, CP, vol. 25, fol. 216, AE.\n\nBourboulon to Walewski, 20 August, 1858, CP, vol. 22, fol. 132, AE.\n\n56 Bourboulon to Walewski, 2 September, 1858, CP, vol. 25, fol. 256, AE.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211813, "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-1989", "page_number": 228, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "203\n\n21.1.1858 (Thur)\n\nEntertainment by Mr. George Henri.\n\nR: As there appeared no review of Mr. George HENRI's miracles on December 29 there is some doubt as to whether they were indeed performed on that date: perhaps they were postponed to January 21. Then the Herald showed itself “so astonished that had he asked us what we wished him to do next we should have requested him to produce Yeh before our eyes\". This alluded to Yeh Ming-ch'en, the Chinese Imperial Commissioner for Foreign Affairs who had played a major role in the second Anglo-Chinese war. He had been captured on January 5 1858 and taken to Calcutta by the British. (NCH 23.1.1858).\n\n9.2.1858 (Tue)\n\nT.J. DIBDIN: \"The Birthday” (1799)\n\nT: Comedy (3 acts)\n\nC. DANCE: \"The Dustman's Belle\" (1846)\n\nT: Comedy (2 acts)\n\nJ. KENNEY: \"Raising the Wind\" (1803)\n\nT: Farce (2 acts)\n\nC: Officers of H.M.S. Pique\n\nTh: On board ship\n\nR: The description of the circumstances under which the Herald's reporter was drawn to the \"Pique\" (a British frigate with crew of 350) is too vivid for the reader to forgo: Tuesday last was a depressing day for a melancholic tempered man, and even we, not constitutionally sad, felt its influence. The morning dawned through an atmosphere in which rain and mist were struggling to see which should do its worst to make everything look disagreeable. As the day moved on, the rain gained the ascendancy and pelted down most pitilessly; overhead the sky looked dull and murky; underfoot the soil of Shanghai, mingling lovingly with the weeping clouds, produced a mixture as tenacious as the grasp of a miser, and dirty as the soul of a time-serving parasite. The mail, with the usual fatality which crowds one mishap upon another, though overdue, had not arrived. To take the gun was simply to commit a felo de se in a sea of mud; and to hum a snatch of a tune was as great an exertion as to dance an Irish jig in fetters, or laugh at the present Sir R. Peel's facetiousness.* In this desolate mood we were plunged, when suddenly a bright recollection flashed upon us. We rose hastily from our chair and consulted a paper which had been lying neglected in a corner: it was the Pique's playbill. The sight of the 'Birthday', the 'Dustman's Belle' and 'Raising the Wind' acted like a charm upon us, and a few minutes afterwards we had crossed the Bund, escaped the insidious dangers of those man-traps of jetties which the Municipal Council are daily suffering to grow more and more like that bridge with many pitfalls invented in the vision of Mirza (this is a reference to \"The Vision of Mirza\" by Joseph Addison, first published in \"The Spectator\" in 1711 and reprinted in 1856 – JH); and committed the safety of our person to a China-boatman and his magnified eggshell. The rain pelted, but we laughed at it; the gusts blew spitefully, but we clutched the tighter and defied them; the darkness did its best to mislead us, but the bright glow from a sailor's pipe guided us with more trustworthiness and safety than a beacon light under certain auspices could have done, and we reached the Pique in safety. Here we found all light, bustle and tiptoe expectation. The main deck had been cleared of its grim everyday tenants - the cold frowning implements of old Mars and their room occupied by the flimsy, but joy-inspiring fripperies of Thespis. We passed along row after row of happy, eager faces and took our seat in front, amongst the guests whom the ship's company of the\n\n* Sir Robert Peel (1822-1895), diplomat and politician; popular in social life and gifted with \"rare powers of irony, but also \"absence of dignity\" and a \"want of moral fiber in his volatile character\" (Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 44, p. 223-224).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212028, "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-1989", "page_number": 443, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "418\n\nadministration of the Foochow Dockyard and its fleet of warships in the face of many difficulties. Ironically, they were destroyed by naval forces of his own nation during the hostilities of 1884-85 between France and China over Vietnam.\n\nGiquel was a rare bird for his times. Apart from his linguistic proficiency and administrative capacities, he was sympathetic towards China at a time when this was not common among his contemporaries. Moreover, he sought ever to combine his duties to his employers, the Chinese, with his loyalties towards his native land, a veritable tightrope which he conscientiously trod throughout his working life. (As Dr. Leibo observes, “A less committed individual might never have attempted such a balancing act”, Transferring Technology, p. 5). He gave offence to many influential Frenchmen and to his government in 1872 by an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes in which he suggested that the French Concession at Shanghai should be merged with the International Settlement, and criticised French policy towards China in various aspects.\n\nWhy this should be so is hinted at by an English account which indicates how different Giquel must have been from most of his fellows. Even allowing for the fact that this is an English account, written at a time of strong rivalry between the two powers and by one side of an old and mutual antipathy, it speaks for itself:\n\n–\n\nFrench officers are so quick to take offense (sic) — so quick to obtain satisfaction, so imperious, so impractical, and so totally uncommercial that they are viewed by the Chinese with great dread and by foreigners with apprehension.\n\n(Transferring Technology, p. 69)\n\nIn truth, Giquel must have been greatly valued by the Chinese in particular, though the books show that this was at the expense of being thought too pro-Chinese by the French authorities, and even by trusted subordinates.\n\nThe book is full of such interesting and illuminating passages, either from Giquel's own pen, those of contemporaries, or from Dr. Leibo's hand. Another useful observation, this time coming from the Imperial Commissioner charged with overseeing the Dockyard project, has for us today an oddly familiar ring to it. Commissioner Shen Baozhen was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212106, "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-1990", "page_number": 48, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "G. Knapp, The Chinese House: Craft Symbol, and the Folk Tradition (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1990). Knapp does not cover the paintings and stucco work that were a marked feature of the Kwangtung architectural style. For examples of this fine traditional decorative work, see Rural Architecture in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, Government Information Services Department, 1979).\n\nIn the Hakka villages of the Tsuen Wan district, this \"animal\" was always a unicorn. In Cantonese villages the lion was usual. However, their purpose and motivation was clearly the same. Informants said there were differences in the dance performances of lions and unicorns; unicorns \"crept, bobbed and weaved\", whereas lions would \"stand up and prance\". The musical accompaniment, drums and gongs, was the same, and previously firecrackers had been an indispensable part of any performance by lions or unicorns.\n\nHugh Baker mentions that the Liaos of Sheung Shui were known throughout the New Territories for their unicorn dance team. See the interesting information given in his Sheung Shui, A Chinese Lineage Village (London, Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., 1968), p. 193.\n\nSee my \"Notes on Temples and Shrines on Hong Kong Island\" in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 27 (1987), p. 287.\n\nMonlin Chiang, Tides from the West (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1947), p. 9. John Francis Davis, The Chinese, A General Description of the Empire of China and its Inhabitants (London, Charles Knight, 1836) Vol. 2, pp. 29-30.\n\nFrom the memorial tablet to Mr. Chan Wing-on, Chairman of the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee and Chairman of the 18th Term, New Territories Heung Yee Kuk 1950-52, at the Wing On Pavilion, Fu Yung Shan, Tsuen Wan. Mr. Chan died on 15 October 1956; see Annual Departmental Reports, District Commissioner, New Territories, (1953-54 para. 56, and 1956-57 para. 119).\n\nFrom a “Short History of Yeung Uk Village\" (in Chinese), published at the time of the village resiting in 1965 and written by Yeung's eldest grandson, Mr Yeung Cho-ling. According to the commemorative tablet, the grave was repaired on a lucky day in the middle month of the autumn season in the 10th year of Kuang Hsu, that is in September-October 1884.\n\n1736; but in fact the ping-san year is the 1st year of Ch'ien Lung's long reign. There was probably another, less altruistic factor at work here too: since it was believed that the graves of good people have a beneficial effect on the fortunes of their family for generations to come. It is implicit in this case that the good influences of the grave were not yet spent.\n\nFor a more recent example from Tsing Yi Island, see my Rural Communities, op. cit., p. 143.\n\nContents more than values, I suggest? Wolfram Eberhard, Cantonese Ballads (Munich State Library Collection) (Taipei, The Orient Cultural Service, 1972), p.2.\n\nR. David Arkush, \"Orthodoxy and heterodoxy in Twentieth-Century Chinese Peasant Proverbs\" at pp. 310-335 of Kwang-Ching Liu (ed.) Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990).\n\nHelen Kwok and Mini Chan, Fossils From a Rural Past, A Study of Extant Cantonese Children's Songs (Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 1990), pp. 17, 29.\n\nLucien Bianco, Origins of the Chinese Revolution, 1915-1949, (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1971), successively pp.126, 94-95.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212796, "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-1992", "page_number": 105, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "90\n\nThree Bold Adventurers to fight alongside the Nien rebels. After being captured and carried to Chin-chiang in a cage, he was saved by two British artillery officers serving with the Taiping forces.\n\nThe third time was in Hankow when Mesny took Damström along with him as a heavy-weight. The incident occurred after Mesny 'arrested' the dishonest Chinese merchant who had swindled Dupuis. [These incidents are probably not in temporal order].\n\nDupuis, Jean\n\nA French merchant born ca. 1828, who arrived and lived in Hankow in about 1860. He built up a thriving trade in armaments. Fluent in Chinese, he introduced Mesny to the Szechuanese officials whose invitation to serve with the Szechuan Force changed his life. Mesny remarked that Dupuis was a distinguished explorer and 'conqueror of Tonkin.'\n\nGill, William J: born Bangalore 1843\n\nServed in India after being commissioned into the Royal Engineers. Inherited a fortune and indulged his passion for exploration. One of his travels was through north Szechuan province, where first he travelled alone and then later with Mesny to Burma. He wrote The River of Golden Sand in 1880, and after several other travels, in Tripoli and Afghanistan, he was murdered by Bedouins in 1882.\n\nGiquel, Prosper M. [1835-1886]\n\nA French naval officer who arrived in China during the Second China War. Formerly Commissioner of Imperial Maritime Customs at Ningpo and Hankow. He assisted the Sino-French 'Ever Triumphant Army' that fought alongside Tso Tsung-t'ang's force in Chekiang province to recapture Hangchow and Ningpo, and later commanded the force in operations that led to the recapture of Hangchow, for which he received high rank and honour from the Ch'ing government. His principal achievement was the construction and administration of the Foochow Arsenal in 1866, and dockyard with its fleet of warships. He was the only foreigner besides Gordon to receive the honour of the Yellow Riding Jacket.\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212799, "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-1992", "page_number": 108, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "93\n\nthe first anti-foot binding societies in China.\n\nLovatt, W N\n\nEx-Royal Artillery serving in Honan Road in Shanghai. He, with Massagorra, taught Mesny the skills of guns and gunnery in 1864. He later became a Commissioner of Customs in Korea.\n\nMason, Charles H. A. W.\n\nA young Imperial Customs Assistant who was the main figure in the 'Mason case'. He joined the Customs in 1887 and after an involved plot was arrested for smuggling arms into China with the intention of providing foreign weapons for the Ko-lao Hui, a secret society whose aim was to overthrow the Imperial government.\n\nMassagorra, W\n\nFormerly Royal Navy and subsequently mate on one of the large lorchas plying the Yangtze: he, with Lovatt, taught Mesny gunnery.\n\nMayers, W F\n\nChinese Secretary at the British Legation in Peking in the mid-1870s. His best known work was the Chinese Reader's Manual. [Mesny culled a large number of items from Mayer's Manual and included them in his Miscellanies]\n\nRichard, Timothy\n\nBaptist missionary in Shantung and Shansi provinces. He met Mesny in Taiyuan Fu where Richard was superintending a branch of the English Baptist Mission. Richard was renowned for his humanitarian work during the great famine in Shansi in 1877-1878.\n\nSu Chin-wang\n\n[Shan-ch'i ## or Shan Ai-t’ang #E#: born ca 1865]\n\nThe Manchu Prince with whom Mesny had breakfast in Peking in 1892 when Su had not yet inherited his title and was then simply the captain of the Emperor's Bodyguard. A black and white photograph", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212800, "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-1992", "page_number": 109, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "94\n\n[passport) of Prince Su was printed on page 235 of Volume 4 [18 March 1904] of Mesny's Miscellanies.\n\nTseng Kuo-fan [1811-1872]\n\nA Confucian statesman and general who defeated the Taiping rebels in Nanking and put an end to the rebellion. He was first a militia leader, then a Governor-General of the Two Kiang provinces and finally the Imperial Commissioner for the suppression of the Taiping Rebels. Later he became the Imperial Commissioner ordered to suppress the Nien rebellion. He was Viceroy of Chihli in 1869. His Hunan Army provided the Manchu dynasty with a new lease of life.\n\nTso Tsung-t’ang [1812-1885]\n\nAn official who first came to the notice of his emperor when he was an active and successful military officer during the Taiping Rebellion. He was raised to an earldom and up to 1866 earned renown as an administrator in the provinces of Fukien and Chekiang. With his experience during the Taiping Rebellion he was sent to Shensi and Kansu to suppress the Muslim revolt [1862-1873] and, en route, he helped suppress the Nien rebels. He remained Governor General of Shensi and Kansu for many years and later in 1884 he became Governor of Fukien province during the French attack on Foochow and Keelung in Taiwan. He died in Foochow the following year.\n\nWard F T [1831-1862]\n\nAn American mercenary and founder of the 'Ever-Victorious Army', a Sino-foreign military force which aided the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty suppress the Taiping rebellion. He was killed in battle in September 1862 near Ningpo and was at first succeeded by another American, Burgevine, and then by Charles Gordon [q.v.]. Ward married Miss Yang, the daughter of the official banker Yang Ta-Ki, a Tartar. A magnificent mausoleum was erected over his grave in Sungkiang in 1877.\n\nWylie, Alexander [1815-1887]\n\nA missionary and scholar, editor of the Chinese Recorder.\n\nT", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212802, "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-1992", "page_number": 111, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "96\n\nCh'in-ch'ai Ta-ch'en ✯✯E : Imperial High Commissioner, a very senior appointment.\n\nEver Victorious Army ET: A European-officered Chinese force of the Imperial Army raised by the American, Ward, which ultimately, under the command of Colonel Gordon, assisted in putting an end to the Taiping Rebellion.\n\nExpectant... (Ho-ju) ✩A : A prefix indicating that an official was qualified and certified to take up duty in the post named.\n\nFan-t'ai #: A provincial treasurer known to foreigners as the Commissioner of Finance; charged with the fiscal or financial administration of a province.\n\nFormosa: The Portuguese name for the island of Taiwan.\n\nHakkas [Ko-chia] ** : One of the southern Chinese ethnic groups said to have migrated from northern China during the Mongol dynasty, ca the thirteenth century AD.\n\nHan-lin Yuan #: The Chinese National Academy, admission to which was the highest literary honour obtainable by a Chinese scholar.\n\nHo-shang : Buddhist monk or priest.\n\nHongkew : Site of the American Settlement in Shanghai, where Mesny later lived.\n\nHsien : Administrative district.\n\nHuang Ma-kua : The Yellow Riding Jacket. A high award from the emperor to his senior officials.\n\nImperial Maritime Customs: Chinese customs service with a foreign inspectorate largely able to control the collection of duties and taxes without the usual Chinese squeeze [q.v.]. Robert Hart became Inspector General in 1863.\n\nJingal (gingal): The Chinese blunderbuss. It was generally fired from a swivel fixed on a wall or wooden post, but sometimes it was fired with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213473, "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-1995", "page_number": 69, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "36\n\nHong Kong Sessional Papers, 1900, pp 26-269 This Report was forwarded to London under cover of Sir Henry A. Blake's despatch to Mr Chamberlain of 19th February 1900 and this Memorandum of Land was subsequently published as Command Paper 403 in November 1900 (vide Committee Report, 1953, Chap III para 39 and Appendix 10 at p 207, where only two extracts appear) Mr Lockhart stated that the Memorandum was prepared with the assistance of Mr. Messer and Mr Ts'oi, Cader and First Clerk respectively\n\nA later, verbose but less informative source is \"Some Notes on Land Tenure in the New Territories\" attached to the Report, dated 4th March 1901, on the Land Court for 1900 by Mr HHJ Gompertz (who in 1909 was elevated to a puisne judgeship), a Member of that Court - Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1901 p 371 at p. 374\n\n17\n\nThe Emperor of China\n\nre the Chinese Government and Imperial Rent\n\nReport, DCNT, 1959-60, para. 171. The District Commissioner's Report for 1947-48 records (at para 29) that it was discovered in that year that one hamlet had never paid Crown rent since the British occupation of the New Territories This was remedied by the grant of a Block Crown Lease\n\n90 8. New Territories Ordinance (Cap 97)\n\n\"Report, DCNT, 1959-60, para 171\n\nTA\n\ne The Chinese Government\n\nby Bruce Shepherd, Deputy Land Officer, dated 17th January 1900, being Appendix VIII to Lockhart's Report, para. 12 (Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1900, p 277 at p 279)\n\n44\n\nReport dated 18th February 1905 of Mr C. Mcl Messer, member of the Land Court (Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1905, p. 149)\n\nReport dated 7th March 1905 of Mr JR Wood, Member of the Land Court (Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1905 p. 147)\n\nIbid, and see also Report on the New Territories 1899-1912, para 21(1), (Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1912, p 46)\n\n7\n\nTregear, op cit, p 62\n\nDA\n\nReport, DCNT, 1959-60, para 177 and Tregear, loc cit\n\n44 Wilson's Notes\n\nalso sometimes termed \"Ching Sheung\" according to Wilson's Notes", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213499, "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-1995", "page_number": 95, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "63\n\nwaters.\n\nSai Ying Pun During the Early Years of British Colonization\n\nOn 20 January 1841, Captain Elliot announced the conclusion of preliminary arrangements with the Chinese Imperial Commissioner involving the cession of the Hong Kong Island and harbour to the British Government. Lord Palmerston in April 1841, hearing of Captain Elliot's restoration of Chusan to the Chinese government in return for the cession of Hong Kong, relieved him of his post and contemptuously remarked that Captain Elliot had obtained a barren island with hardly a house upon it.\n\nLord Palmerston was right in describing Hong Kong as a barren island. It was then almost entirely grass-covered, as the fine drawing of Collinson in 1845 showed. When on 26 January 1841, a party of marines landed and raised the British flag, Hong Kong was virtually unoccupied, apart from the little villages and hamlets, like Chek Chu, Shek Pai Wan, and Shau Kei Wan, which were inhabited by a few fishermen, stonecutters, and farmers.\n\nAt that time, the area of Sai Ying Pun was mere rugged slopes of rocks with a narrow, hard-trodded pathway winding along the cliffs, to which the fanciful name of Kwantailou was given by the fishermen and villagers. It was said that the path was used by the local inhabitants to go up to the hillside to cut the grasses and wood for fuel. E.J. Eitel, in his book \"Europe in China\", gave a rather detailed description of the path. He said:\n\n“Along the northern shore of the Island, there used to be, previous to the British occupation, a narrow bridle-path leading, high above the beach, across rocks and boulders, all the way from Westpoint to a hamlet near Eastpoint called Kwantalou, described in the first census (May 15, 1841) as a fishing village with 50 inhabitants. This path was used by the crews of trading junks in cases of wind and tide being unfavourable to track the junks along by a towing line attached to the peak of the foremast. Now, this hard-trodden path standing, to an observer from the opposite shore, clear out from the grass-grown hillside, like a fringe or border along the skirts of the hill, was by the natives called Kwantailou (petticoat string road), and the hamlet...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214123, "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-1997", "page_number": 191, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "ARE THE TANKA PEOPLE DESCENDANTS OF MONGOL SOLDIERS?\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\n161\n\nI have not done any research into the origins of the Tanka people of the Pearl River Estuary and have always assumed from something I read many years ago that ethnically they were one of the many original minority groups of southern China.\n\nHowever, I have just come across a paragraph in 'Pulling Strings in China', a book written in the late twenties by W.F. Tyler, suggesting that the Tanka boat people were a mixture of Mongol soldiers and Chinese with whom they had intermarried. Tyler was an interesting character, an Englishman who had been not only a young officer serving with the Chinese Imperial Navy during the Yalu battle in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 but had gone on to be a Commissioner with the Chinese Maritime Customs.\n\nThe relative passage from the paragraph concerned claims that:\n\n*\n\nIn about 1370 the conquering Ming dynasty ordered that the soldiers of the previous Mongol garrisons - descendants of the famous hordes of Ghengis Khan - and their families should be slaughtered. At Canton there had been intermarriage and absorption in a century of Mongol rule, and enmity was dead, so there was reluctance to fulfil this drastic order: consequently it was reported to the capital that they had been driven into the river, and by inference, drowned. They were not drowned; they were allowed to live in boats and in piled shacks below high-water line. And so they lived and bred and grown for five hundred years or more, and it was no one's business to institute a change. These were the Tankas; fine-looking men and pretty girls”.\n\nHas any reader confirmation of Tyler's story?\n\nNOTE\n\nTyler, William Ferdinand Pulling Strings in China Constable London 1929", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214542, "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-1998", "page_number": 400, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "369\n\nANOTHER DILEMMA FOR TODAY'S YOUTH IN\n\nCHINA\n\nKeith Stevens and Jennifer Welch\n\nDuring a recent RAS [HK BR] tour of the Museum of the Humen People's Resistance against the British in the Opium War [1840-1842] at Humen [Bocca Tigris], a small town about sixty miles south-east of Canton on the east coast of the Pearl River, we entered the old temple dedicated to the Northern Emperor [Bei Di] in the grounds of the Museum.\n\nThe main altars of the temple were not in any way unusual in that it had the central altar with the image of the Northern Emperor, Bei Di, and two flanking side altars, one dedicated to Lü Dongbin, the doctor in the group of the Eight Immortals and the second dedicated to Guan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. However, there were two further glass cabinets, identical with the form of the main altar, one on either side wall. Against the wall, stage left, was an image of Lin Zexu,\n\nthe Imperial Commissioner despatched by the Emperor to Guangdong province in 1839 with instructions to stamp out the opium trade. His destruction of the stocks of opium held by British, American and other foreign traders led to the so-called Opium War [in British parlance, the First China War].\n\nThe cabinet against the temple wall, stage right, contained three images of Chinese officials involved in the War. They were Admiral Guan; The Governor of the Two Guangs and a General Chen who, captured by the British, is now remembered as the prisoner taken by his captives, together with his loyal horse, to Hong Kong where he died. Before both side cabinets, which had baldachin and silken hangings in front of the altar tables bearing honorifics as do temple altars virtually everywhere, were altar tables with red spirit tablets bearing their honorific titles, as well as offerings of fruit, bottles of wine and incense pots.\n\nWhat proved so interesting was the indecision manifest amongst Chinese visitors who, having not hesitated to bow and offer incense before the images of the three main deities, Bei Di, Lü Dongbin and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214959, "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-2000", "page_number": 55, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "10\n\nLin Zexu and the Conflict\n\nLin Zexu is not the subject of this paper. However, since he is the central figure of the Symposium, it seems appropriate to devote some little space to this extraordinary man, who no doubt cast a giant shadow on Anglo-Chinese relations.\n\nEmperor Qianlong, great emperor though he was, apart from issuing prohibitive edicts seems to have done little to stop the opium trade. Jiaqing (1796-1820) who followed was equally ineffectual. His successor Daoguang (1821-1850), however, was a man of a different mettle. In 1836, Imperial edicts having failed to check the opium trade, the problem was hotly debated in Beijing. There was one faction that favoured legalizing opium importation and so turning it to public profit. To this Emperor Daoguang replied: 'It is true, I cannot prevent the introduction of the flowing poison; gain-seeking and corrupt men will, for profit and sensuality, defeat my wishes; but nothing will induce me to derive a revenue from the vice and misery of my people,\" noble words by a great monarch. In 1839, deciding to take forceful action, the Emperor appointed Lin Zexu as his Commissioner charged with total eradication of the infamous trade. Commissioner Lin journeyed to Guangzhou and immediately ordered all commerce in opium to be stopped. He further demanded that merchants should surrender all stocks and sign a bond to cease importing, in effect laying the factories to siege. This much is well documented as well as the ensuing course of events which led to the 1st Opium War.\n\nLin Zexu presents an interesting character study of contrasting portraits. For many years the British sources had portrayed him as 'fierce, unscrupulous, and fanatical.'\" Most of the known paintings of him show a fierce, pugnacious countenance. It is, therefore, gratifying to include in this paper a reproduction of a rare painting depicting him as a handsome man with a dignified yet kind expression on his face.** Gradually the picture has changed and Lin is being recognized as an intelligent and learned man, a capable and resolute official, a competent administrator, and a fair and just dispenser of the law; most importantly, he was incorruptible. A modern, progressive man, he observed, however, all the Chinese ceremonies, made sacrifices at temples, and made offerings to the spirits of his ancestors. He liked poetry, which he practised for his own leisure. A man who, at the height of the opium", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215237, "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-2001", "page_number": 14, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "Göran Aijmer, is Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and is currently associated with the Gothenburg Research Institute of the University. His research focuses on symbolic expression and articulation in fields such as politics, economy and religion. His regional projects have concerned southern China, Southeast Asia and Melanesia. He has worked in many universities, more recently in the Research School of Asian and Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, and the Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich. His recent monographs are Ritual Dramas in the Duke of York Islands: Cantonese Society in a Time of Change (with Virgil K.Y. Ho) and New Year Celebrations in Central China in Late Imperial Times. Together with Jon Abbink, he has also edited Meanings of Violence (goran.aijmer@newyork.com).\n\nSir David Akers-Jones, K.B.E., C.M.G., J.P., was a founding member of the reconstituted HKBRAS in 1960 and a former Chief Secretary of the Hong Kong Government. He is a noted sinophile (akersjon@pacific.net.hk).\n\nA.C. Bromfield, is an active member of HKBRAS.\n\nChiu Hang Shi, is an active member of HKBRAS.\n\nRichard Garrett, M.A.(Cantab), C.Eng., F.I.C.E., F.I.Struct.E., F.H.K.I.E., is a director of an international firm of consulting engineers and has lived in Hong Kong since 1973. He has been a collector of antique arms and a member of the Arms and Armour Society of the U.K. for over 30 years. He has published a number of articles on the subject of early firearms.\n\nValery Garrett, B.A., Post Grad. Dip. Des., is a Hon. Research Fellow at the Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, and the author of six books on traditional Chinese clothing. She is a Council Member of the Royal Asiatic Society (vgarrett@hkucc.hku.hk).\n\nCésar Guillén-Nuñez, M.Phil., is a specialist in colonial Spanish and Portuguese art. He has degrees in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, the University of Pennsylvania and University College, London. He is presently a research fellow at the Macau Ricci Institute (cgnunes@yahoo.com).\n\nFr. Dr. Louis Ha, Ph.D., is the Archivist of the Catholic Diocesan archives and Chairman of the Hong Kong Archives Society. His Ph.D. was entitled The Foundation of the Catholic Mission in HK 1841-1894.\n\nPeter Halliday, M.A., Ph.D., is a former assistant commissioner of the Hong Kong\n\nxi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215297, "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-2001", "page_number": 74, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "22\n\n22. The requirement of an empire content of 25 per cent to qualify for preference was set in consultation with the Board of Trade, which pointed out that some British manufacturers using foreign sources of raw material would not qualify for preference if the empire content was set at 50 per cent. CO323/1192/11.\n\n23. L.M. Drummond, British Economic Policy and the Empire 1919–1939 (London, 1972), 92; Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on the Industrial Development of the Colonial Empire, Colonial Office Confidential Print 445, CO885/40.\n\n24. Secretary of State to all colonies and protectorates, 4 Feb. 1932, DO35/242/4, PRO.\n\n25. Minutes of a conference at the Colonial Office, 27 June 1932, CO323/1193/2.\n\n26. The texts of the agreements are in Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa Cmd4175 (London, 1932), 19–76.\n\n27. Canada agreed to extend to the colonies and protectorates the preferences accorded to Britain, but in practice raised objections when requested to do so by the British government. See for example CO323/1099/16, CO852/51/9 and CO852/251/10. Cunliffe-Lister minute, 22 Oct 1933, CO323/1232/8, 'Canada has done less than nothing to implement the most essential part of the Ottawa accords.'\n\n28. See the comments in paragraphs 18 and 30 of the Report of the Interdepartmental Committee.\n\n29. Confidential Circular Despatch, 29 Sept. 1932, CO854/174. Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister is better known by his later title, Viscount Swinton.\n\n30. Secretary of State to Governor of Ceylon, 27 Sept. 1932; S. of S. to High Commissioner, Federated Malay States, 30 Sept. 1932; S. of S. to Barbados, 24 Oct. 1932; S. of S. to Jamaica, 10 Oct. 1932; S. of S. to Windward Islands, 24 Oct. 1932, CO323/1188/5. A clause was drafted for inclusion in the 1933 Finance Bill to allow Britain to withdraw preferences from any colony if it did not grant the Ottawa preferences to empire products, CO323/1230/3.\n\n31. Officer Administering Government, Leeward Islands to Secretary of State, 19 Oct. 1932, CO323/1188/5.\n\n32. Governor Barbados to Secretary of State, 17 Oct. 1932, CO323/1188/5.\n\n33. Governor Windward Islands to Secretary of State, 21 Oct. 1932, CO323/1188/5.\n\n34. Stevens to Cunliffe-Lister, 17 Nov. 1932, CO323/1193/11.\n\n35. Cunliffe-Lister to Stevens, 8 Dec. 1932, CO323/1193/11.\n\n36. Hong Kong Trade Returns show exports of rubber shoes to the British West Indies as follows: 1932 - HK$4,894; 1933 - 116,670; 1934 - 643,337; 1935 - 574,376; 1936 - 1,071,932; 1937 - 1,427,634.\n\n37. High Commissioner for Canada to Cunliffe-Lister, 15 Nov. 1933, CO323/1232/8.\n\n38. Cunliffe-Lister to High Commissioner, 27 Nov. 1933, CO323/1232/8. Canada later succeeded in excluding Singapore shoes by setting a fictitious high rate of exchange for the Singapore dollar. See minute by Calder, 8 June 1933, CO323/1232/8.\n\n39. Peel to Cunliffe-Lister, 13 Nov. 1933, CO323/1231/16.\n\n40. Minute by Vernon, 21 Dec. 1933, CO323/1231/16. R.V. Vernon was an Assistant Secretary who joined the Colonial Office in 1900. He had previously expressed his disapproval when Cunliffe-Lister refused to approach India and South Africa to ask for imperial preference for Hong Kong's rubber shoes: 'The Secretary of State is placed practically in the position of a trustee who is bound to act with the sole regard to the interests of the colonies and is not at liberty to abstain from any claim on the account of the interests of U.K. industry or the susceptibilities of dominion industrial interests.' Minute, 9 Nov. 1933, CO323/1232/3. The attitude of Cunliffe-Lister may be contrasted with that of Alan Lennox-Boyd (Colonial Secretary 1954-59) who threatened to resign if Hong Kong was forced to accept a limitation on its textile exports to Britain. Harold Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 1954–1959 (London, 1971), 739-43.\n\n41. CO323/1294/3.\n\n42. Hong Kong Trade Returns 1932, 1933, 1934.\n\n43. Minute by Cunliffe-Lister, 7 June 1933, CO323/1232/8.\n\n44. Edgcumbe (Department of Overseas Trade) to Eastwood (Colonial Office), 18 April 1936, CO323/1298/10.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216031, "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": 330, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "264\n\nAbout two miles west of Zhenjiang railway station, on rising land, there was a temple called Xiu Wang Miao, the Temple of the Xiu Kings, dedicated to the memory of the Xiu dynasty of Nantang.\n\nLu Xiufu [AD 1238 - 1279] was a native of Zhenjiang, and a statesman and military commander during the latter years of the Southern Song. He had been appointed to the Court of Imperial Family Affairs, a form of Minister of Protocol, during the reign of Song Gong Zong [ca 1276]. He is remembered as a man of integrity and a devoted Minister who, when the Mongols were on the point of capturing Hangzhou, was sent in an attempt to reach an accommodation with them. This ended in failure. The Court was persuaded by Wen Tianxiang [one of the Three Loyal Generals of the Song] that the imperial heirs should be sent to the coast of south China, to Fuzhou and later to Quanzhou to ensure their safety. The emperor and his mother were captured by the Mongols and taken to Beijing, whilst Lu followed the Court in its retreat to the south. Lu met up with Zhang Shijie [the third of the Three Loyal Generals of the Song] in Wenzhou to rally support for the imperial cause, but had to flee on south to Fuzhou where they joined the forces of Wen Tianxiang. The senior heir was enthroned in Fuzhou as the Song Jing Yan emperor. At this point, following a reorganisation, Zhang and Lu became deputies to Chen Yizhong, the Commissioner of Military Affairs and Grand Counsellor. The new emperor was forced to flee further and further south pursued by the Mongol forces until he reached the area of present day Kowloon where Lu Xiufu rejoined the force from Chaozhou. The Mongol fleet having captured Guangzhou destroyed the forces of Zhang Shijie thus driving the Song Court out to sea. A typhoon struck the fleeing Song fleet and even though the ship carrying the young emperor was sunk he was rescued but died from shock and exposure near the Leizhou peninsula in mid-1278. Lu and Zhang stood firmly against any talk of surrender and ensured that the younger heir, a boy of six, was made emperor. Zhang became the Junior Guardian whilst Lu was Grand Counsellor. The next year the Mongol forces having been reinforced compelled the last of the Song forces to attempt to escape. Lu is said to have committed suicide but the official records do not reveal how the last of the Song, the boy of seven, died. The popular version claims that Lu, the hero from Zhenjiang, leapt into the sea with the boy in his arms.\n\nAn imperial hostelry, the Danyang Guan, was founded in Zhenjiang\n\nPage 330\n\nPage 331", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216038, "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": 337, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "271\n\nother smaller temples, some well known, others hardly known at all. These include the conspicuous red-walled Dicang Wang Temple not far from the south-west corner of the city wall; the Doutian Miao and the Xiu Wang Miao, both referred to earlier. All were destroyed during the Taiping occupation, though many were rebuilt during subsequent years only to fall into disuse during the Japanese occupation as well as since 1949. The Jin Shan Temple and the Ganlu Temple today are the premier tourist sites in Zhenjiang, with the Dinghui monastery, though less easily accessible, being a good third.\n\nThere used to be an interesting group of memorial temples on the Ganlu headland [Consular Bluff], a favourite resort for native Chinese picnic parties. One of these shrines was dedicated to Zhu Xi, a Southern Song dynasty neo-Confucian philosopher, born in Anhui in AD 1130, and probably best remembered for his commentary on Confucian classics, with his 'Rituals for Family Life' being influential throughout China as the standard authority consulted by high and low alike. He was the Confucian scholar who, whilst prefect at Zhangzhou in Fujian in 1190, attacked Buddhist and Daoist practices and issued orders laying down punishments for those who disobeyed the rules. Despite this he wrote commentaries on the sacred books of Daoism. He retired in 1196 and after his death four years later was posthumously appointed Chief of the Imperial Tutors with the rank of Lord. He has long been deified, with a portrait installed in a temple in Jiangxi province at an early stage during the twelfth century to encourage sacrifices to him by local scholars and gentlemen.14 He was revered in Confucian temples from about 1250, and during the reign of Kang Xi he was elevated to a position just under the 'Ten Noted Men' [The Ten Disciples of Confucius].\n\n[1824-1890],\n\nAnother shrine was dedicated to Peng Yulin the Chinese admiral in charge of the Yangzi Fleet which operated with success against the Taiping rebels. Peng was remembered by foreigners for his incorruptibility as well as his inability to understand the westerners. During the short French war with China in 1884-5, when in Guangzhou as the Imperial Naval Commissioner sent to organise its defences he proposed sending emissaries to Singapore to poison any French officers who might have been enjoying British hospitality there. Beijing frowned on his plan and he was unable to see why. He was also violently opposed to the introduction of iron-clads into the Chinese navy.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216067, "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": 366, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "300\n\nSilver Island forts. I did not answer his letter, but noted the date thereon and the date on which I received it. I was requested to send an answer to someone in Zhenjiang. I gave the letter to Consul Mowat.35\n\nAs I did not answer Mason's letter he called early one morning and I asked who he was and what he wanted. He replied that he was the United States consular marshal at Hankou and had come down to see the machine gun I had offered to sell to the Municipal Council at Hankou and wished to know if my machine was a single action or double action gun. I showed him the gun and how to work it, and he decided to buy it. He then wished me to send it somewhere on the Yangzi, I said I could not let it go out of my house until it was paid for, and would not deliver anywhere outside the limits of a treaty port unless provided with a special passport or huzhao. Mason then said that he was going to Ningbo and would call for the gun on his return. He did not do so. He went to Hongkong engaged a lot of foreigners, instructed them to come and report themselves to me for duty, etc., etc.\n\nOn Mason's return to Shanghai he brought a lot of firearms he had bought in Hongkong. They were seized, and the men he had engaged were looked after. He himself was introduced by Mr R.E. Bredon, Shanghai Commissioner of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, to the Daotai of Shanghai who invited him to dinner and to witness a theatrical performance as if he, Mason, had been a popular hero.\n\nHe lived in the Central Hotel and was a frequent visitor at the Shanghai Club where he had been introduced by Mr Bredon.\n\nMeanwhile all sorts of tricks were being practised to inveigle me into a trap. Conch shells were blown at all hours of the night about my house under the direction of Mason. A host of extra police officers and detectives were placed on special duty on my property, at the switch-back railway. I suddenly remembered the letter that had been sent me. I thereupon called on Mr acting-consul Mowat and insisted on his reporting the matter to H.M.'s Minister at Beijing. Mowat pooh-poohed the whole thing as a farce and so it proved in reality though very costly and dangerous to me.\n\nInstructions were soon received from H.M.'s Minister at Beijing and Mason was removed from the Central Hotel on the Bund to H.M.'s", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216069, "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": 368, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "302\n\nso that I may die childless, as I am now old and not likely to have any more children. I had never met or seen Mason before he presented himself to me as being the United States Consular Marshal at Hankou, which was a lie, he being actually a Custom House Officer at Zhenjiang.'\n\nLet us try to unravel the sorry story of Mason and Mesny. It is involved and still has aspects which are difficult to fathom. We have a number of versions or parts of it available to us but will confine ourselves to three: Mason's own story, briefly described below, written some 30 odd years later after he had roamed the world as a vagrant worker; the letters from the Inspector General of the Imperial Customs, Sir Robert Hart; and Mesny's bitter accusation. Mason, according to Mesny, practically ruined him and certainly caused Mesny great personal problems as he explained in great detail in his Miscellany. It is difficult to fit these three pieces of jigsaw together as there are few elements in common; however, the basic story is there. Mason bought a large quantity of foreign arms, ammunition, and explosives with which to arm a rising against the Imperial government, and having been arrested in Shanghai, was tried, sentenced, gaoled, and finally deported. Mesny was called as a witness but was accused to his face by the Chinese Premier, Li Hongzhang, of being the chief or very senior in the anti-Imperialist bandit body, the Elder Brother Society. This led to Mesny being ostracised by Chinese officialdom and, as his be-all and end-all as a business go-between was his contacts with Chinese officials, his life quietly slipped downhill thereafter.\n\nAccording to records — ‘Charles Welsh Mason, a young Englishman, had joined the Imperial Maritime Customs in December 1887 and was sent to Zhenjiang, an important post but a minor port on the Yangzi, as 4th assistant B, where he joined the Gelao Hui and became involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the Chinese government. In July of 1891, he took two months' leave and went to Hong Kong, where he purchased a quantity of arms and ammunition for the Society and arranged for it to be shipped to Shanghai and from there on to Zhenjiang. He also recruited men for the Society and bought a quantity of dynamite, which he carried with him to Shanghai, where he requested Commissioner Bredon of the Imperial Maritime Customs to allow it to be shipped on to Zhenjiang so that he, Mason, could uncover more of the Chinese rebels' plans. Bredon refused the \"sting\" and instructed Mason to report to Hart in Beijing. Instead, Mason took a river steamer", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216070, "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": 369, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "303\n\nup to Zhenjiang where he was stopped, searched and arrested for carrying arms. He was returned to Shanghai where he was tried and gaoled for nine months. The Chinese were furious having wanted his head'.\n\nMason's own version described his life in some detail and, in particular, his escapade in Zhenjiang and Shanghai in 1891. He began his book with a lengthy piece about him charting his aims and future some year or so after he had arrived and settled in China as a member of the Chinese Imperial Customs. He had decided to make himself king of a great country, first by forming a band of robbers to attract more desperate men and expand the band until he was strong enough to seize a city and plunder its public treasuries and arsenals. From there on he foresaw that things would move rapidly. As he wrote many years later, describing in a summary of his aims and objectives, he had decided to make himself the King of China because, he reasoned, he was in China, was popular with the Chinese, spoke their language and the Imperial Government was weak. He decided to use the Gelao Hui to further his aims. He planned it for some two years, so he wrote, and then in 1891, at the age of 25, he embarked upon his scheme. The plan was to bring a cargo of arms from Hong Kong and distribute them to Sha's [a Gelao Hui chief] five hundred men in Zhenjiang, and they would then rise and attack the authorities.\n\nHaving purchased the rifles, he had them shipped by coastal steamer to Shanghai where, following an informer's tip, Customs men were waiting. Mason, confronted by a Shanghai-based Customs officer, declared that he had been keeping the shipment under observation of his own volition all the way from Hong Kong. He was at first believed or at least given the benefit of the doubt, and was taken off to lunch by the Shanghai Customs Commissioner, Bredon. Mason, hating himself for being a turncoat, fled Shanghai to Zhenjiang where he was promptly arrested, and interrogated at the Customs headquarters in Shanghai by the local Chinese Imperial Daotai. Having confessed all to him but having also refused to name names, even after having been shown photographs of his mangled, tortured and decapitated Chinese friends, he was put before the British Supreme Court in Shanghai where he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year or so in gaol followed by deportation. He never mentions Mesny, nor any aspect of the case as described by Mesny.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216327, "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": 86, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "35\n\nremarks each still makes about the other to this day. Northerners thought that Cantonese were quick and tricky, often rebellious, and overly concerned with money. They rarely got a good press from the officials, Manchus or Chinese from other provinces, who were posted to the South.\n\n‘Ungrateful and avaricious,' the Emperor was advised by the Imperial Commissioner in Canton in 1841, who said he wrote in these terms 'after personal observation of the character and disposition of the people of this province,23 Earlier, in 1807, a Viceroy observed that 'not only do the common people desire to obtain money, and do all they can to get it, but the gentry talk of nothing else but money.24 In 1847, the Xinan magistrate commented, 'In Kowloon, the people mingle with foreigners, and the custom of the residents is that they value money and material things and belittle poetry and studies.'25\n\nCantonese also had a reputation for being rude to Westerners. Returning with the Amherst Embassy from Beijing in 1816, the future Sir John Davis recounted that, upon approaching Canton, 'Here for the first time in the course of our travels, my ears were greeted with the sounds so frequent and familiar at Canton, Fankwei and Hoong-maou, \"Foreign devil\" and \"Rufus\" - without having the slightest personal claims to the last distinction, however indisputable my claims to the first.'26\n\nThe Boat People of Canton\n\nThe Canton waterfront was noted for the very large number of boat people whose tiny craft were anchored off and along the whole frontage. These were the Tanka, or indigenous boat people of the Pearl River Delta. They appear in many of the China Trade Pictures, whether lying off the Foreign Factories or at Whampoa, Lintin or Macau.\n\nThe river attracted the intense interest of foreigners because of the numbers and great variety of craft and activity to be seen upon its crowded, animated waters. They were impressed by the most remarkable degree of 'order' reigning, but were less enthusiastic about the 'noise of the music, gongs, and other discordant sounds' which 'defied description', compensated in part by the night scene, 'when all the boats display coloured lanterns [and] the scene is extremely pleasing.'\n\nThe boat people provided utility services to the factories and ferried", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]