[ { "id": 204732, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "26\n\nW. C. HUNTER\n\nFriday 12th\n\n1* at\n\nAt nine this morning received a letter from Macao dated the 8th, in answer to mine of the 5th; all quiet there but everyone ready to be off the moment any trouble was at hand. Delano received, enclosed in mine, a chit from Russell Sturgis which contained much news. The Hercules and Austen left for the Bogue on Tuesday last to deliver their opium and were to be followed by the Jane and Aeriel. The Chinese would only let two vessels come up at a time. The Good Success left Macao on the 9th for Madras, with despatches to the British admiral on the India Station, and the Rob Roy was to leave today for Calcutta. The Exchange sailed for Manila on the 8th; the Nar† Naples, Roza and Benuo Successo and Poppy had also sailed for Manila but the letter does not say if they took opium or not.\n\nMr. Inness was on board the Hercules with Alex. Matthews and Chay. Beal36. The Hercules and Austen had in all over 5,000 chests.\n\nGave two bottles of beer to the Se-Ying37 or lieutenants on guard in the second line of boats in front of the Factories. Had a long chat with several of the officers belonging to Name Hoe's guard relative to matters in dispute. They appear exceedingly friendly but take no interest whatever in what is going on,\n\nSaturday, 13, 1839\n\nLast night at 12 o'clock Captain Elliot received a communication from the Commissioner, dated in the morning from the Bogue, in which he requests that the opium ships might be ordered to come up and anchor close to Chinn-up to deliver the opium, instead of Lankeel where there was much inconvenience owing to rough water. He also said that the compradores and cooks were ordered to return but they have not come yet. However it will take some time for the order to be generally promulgated.\n\nMidnight I have just returned from a chat of three hours duration held at the Hoppo House or \"Custom-House Station\" at the water's edge opposite our Factory between two officers, one equal to a captain and the other to a lieutenant, the Custom-House Officer and myself. The Captain, who wore a crystal button, was\n\n*Two words illegible.\n\n† Part of ship's name illegible.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209267, "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": 170, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "156\n\nWEI PEH-T'I\n\nand handed Terranova to the Chinese magistrate.36\n\nThe facts that emerged during the trial, different from the earlier version that the foreigners had already accepted, left Juan Yulan somewhat \"puzzled\".37 This later version, as reported by Morse, is as follows:\n\nThe jar which is said to be the instrument that caused the death of the woman was safely delivered by the accused (Terranova) into her hand, and that she fell overboard at the distance of thirty feet and upwards from the ship Emily, that she was seen from on board of the Hero of Malown, an English ship laying near the Emily, and fell overboard while in the act of sculling her Boat, that no Jar or any such instrument was thrown at her, or caused her falling into the Water, that from the relative situation of the boat and the ship it was impossible to strike the woman on the side of the head in which the wound was inflicted,\n\n38\n\nThe British thought that the Americans should not have yielded. The Americans had \"abandoned a man serving under their flag to the sanguinary laws of this Empire without an endeavour to obtain common justice for him\".39 Perhaps the eventual surrender of Terranova to the Chinese gave further credence to the Chinese version of the facts as far as Juan Yuan was concerned. Nevertheless, the underlying reason for this surrender remained the fear that unless the seaman was given up, the Chinese authorities might search the ship and discover opium.\n\nBy the time Juan Yuan arrived at Canton, the Chinese had already known opium for more than a thousand years, and, for nearly a century, an official policy had been adopted prohibiting its domestic sale and use. The first opium-producing poppy was brought into China by Arab and Turkish traders some time during the seventh or eighth century, to be used as medicine.40 In the 1660s, the smoking of opium, mixed with tobacco, was introduced into the coastal provinces of Fukien and Kwangtung from Taiwan. By the eighteenth century, the Chinese had devised their own method of opium consumption, by having the smoker reclining on a couch, burning the opium extract over a lamp, and inhaling it through a pipe. The use of this definitely addictive substance became so widespread that as early as 1729 domestic sale and consumption of opium was forbidden by an imperial edict. In 1796, the Chia-ch'ing Emperor prohibited the importation and domestic cultivation of the poppy as well. Since then, all opium used in China was brought in through illicit smuggling. Whereas American ships brought", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209268, "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": 171, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "JUAN YUAN'S MANAGEMENT OF SINO-BRITISH RELATIONS IN CANTON, 1817-1826\n\n157\n\nopium grown in Turkey, the British cultivated poppy in India and brought opium into China. Selling this commodity for cash only, the British hoped to reverse the balance of trade at China's expense. In 1821, to put an end to this smuggling of opium into China and silver in the reverse direction, the Tao-kuang Emperor reiterated the court's anti-opium policy. As a result, Juan Yuan adopted strict measures against opium importation through the port of Canton. This thinking was behind his taking action against the hong merchants later on that year, in the wake of the Terranova case, especially when he removed the button from Puiqua's hat.\n\nIt was in the memorial requesting the removal of Puiqua's button that Juan Yüan's attitude on opium was revealed. He was concerned with the harmful effects of opium addiction. “Opium is grown overseas, but its harmful effects are most keenly felt in interior China. Its most serious damage lies in the moral degradation of the populace”.* The memorial also showed that Juan Yüan had known the sources of opium. He concluded that there were three major groups of foreign traders who carried opium in their cargo from West Asia and India.\n\n41\n\nThree major groups of foreign traders are the sources for our opium. Among these traders there are a number of merchants who come from across the Atlantic Ocean. They pick up cargoes of opium on their way to China. Moreover, the British merchants, in their private capacities, also bring with them this contraband commodity when they come to Macau. The Company, franchised by the British sovereign, does not officially engage in the opium trade itself. The American ship owners and captains constitute the last group of opium smugglers. They, not having any king to restrain them, bring in the commodity themselves in the holds of their ships.*2\n\n42\n\nThese foreign traders worked with the Chinese merchants in Canton and Macau who provided them with the marketing machinery to distribute opium. For this reason, Juan Yuan blamed the Chinese merchants, especially the hong merchants, for the thriving illicit opium trade.\n\nThe hong merchants are so close to the foreign traders that, although their smuggling activities could be kept dark from the officials, it is impossible for the hong merchants not to be aware of them. How can foreign ships bring contraband commodities for thousands of miles without being assured of a market here first? They, therefore, must work hand-in-glove with the hong merchants. The hong merchants appear to consider only their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211217, "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": 278, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "253\n\nof the column to bear no other inscription than the simple and expressive one of 'Muddle'.\n\nThe following extract from a letter which might have ended up in the receptacle below the column reflects the ridiculous level to which the affair had descended. Appearing in the Daily Press, it pummeled the pretensions of a previously published letter filled with \"p's\" by a person posing as “Public.”\n\n\"The pleasurable Peak-palace - Public's inappropriately and pretendedly predicted pauper-pack pandemonium preconceived by our preciously punctilious pulse-patting physician as a perquisite for the poor-pocketed, passes no particular peril from the pappy and peculiar publicity pictured and Pressed in it by that poppy-pated, pompous and pucka poltroon, Public, in his pyrotechnic but puzzling but platitudinous and ponderous passage.\"\n\nThe editor appends to this word play the note: \"This is really too much! We positively decline to find space for any more of this alliterative rubbish.”\n\nFortunately for the sanity of Hongkong it was spared another public meeting. The suggestion of a plebiscite was successfully carried out. The eventual result was the statue of the Queen now to be seen in Victoria Park at Causeway Bay.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212304, "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": 246, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "223\n\nthe 'Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade',\n\nA romantic web has been woven around Jardine's, far more than any other western firm in the Far East. This romanticism stretches to fiction, and Taipan and Noble House, both written by James Clavell, are reputed to be based on the 'Princely Hong'. Also a play named Poppy, about the Opium War of 1840, with comic Gilbert and Sullivan style songs, was staged in London in the early 1980s.\n\nAnother better-known song, 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen' written by Noel Coward in 1932, has it that:\n\n\"In Hong Kong They strike a gong\n\nAnd fire a noonday gun\n\nThere is no agreement, however, as to where the Hotchkiss Mark I, three-pound, quick-firing naval gun came from. Some say documents prove that before 1961 it was owned by the Hong Kong Marine Police. Others believe it came from the Royal Navy although Jardine's maintain the Senior Service has no record of the gun.\n\nThe colourful myth that appears in guidebooks is that a penalty was imposed on Jardine Matheson by an irate British admiral because the firm fired a salute to its chief manager as he sailed into the harbour. Another tale has it that the gun was fired to honour the arrival of its opium-carrying fleet. From then on, so both stories go, the Navy compelled Jardine's to fire a gun daily. As A.I. Diamond, previously of the Public Records Office in Hong Kong, wrote:\n\n\"Neither version explains by what authority the Navy could have compelled Jardine Matheson and Company to fire a gun at all let alone daily at noon, presumably in perpetuity.\"\n\nThe true account is quite different. In the British Empire the armed forces used to fire guns at set hours to signify the time. In Hong Kong this practice stopped in 1869 because, by then, many people owned watches, and to save the cost of gunpowder. An extract from the Hong Kong Daily Press, dated January 3, 1870, records:\n\nIt is interesting and just to note that the renewing of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212844, "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": 153, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "138\n\nconcerted a system of secret signs by which the Chinese troops watching the ferry could recognise our men; it was all unnecessarily complicated because with Jack there the Chinese, when in doubt, could quickly inform themselves; it was in fact part of their policy of making things as complicated as possible, the policy of obstruction.\n\nMeanwhile Stan was supervising the clearing of the d.z.; we hired men from the village to cut down trees and to burn off the long grass. At Lunghtang the mountain slope was less steep; we looked down into the small valley of a stream, which ran into one of the larger tributaries of the Salween at an angle, so that the far ridge interposed between us and the main river. Thus the fires which we would light at night on our d.z., to guide the aircraft, would be screened from the view of the Japanese posts on the far side.\n\nLunghtang was a large village off the beaten track, and because of that it had grown larger; people had migrated from the troop nuisance on the more popular tracks. There were really three separate villages, grouped near each other; rice terraces had been cut out of the slopes below, and in other less level fields maize and the opium poppy were planted. The water supply was not good; it was led in by a ditch which had been dug a long way, following the contour of the mountain. The water also drove a series of wooden hammers for polishing rice. The method was ingenious; a log, scooped hollow at one end, was balanced so that when water poured in from a bamboo spout and filled the hollow, that end became too heavy and dropped. The drop would tip out the water, whereupon the other end, to which the hammer was attached, dropped down with a thump and the hammer fell into the small hole, scooped out of stone in which the rice was held. The movement repeated itself without end. The circle headman was a close relative of the Myosa; he was a heavy opium smoker and at first was cautious in his attitude towards us, but later gave us much help, information about local politics, and good advice.\n\nI decided to establish our headquarters at Lunghtang. The headman selected a site, to one side and above the villages, to which we could lead clear water from the mountain through split bamboo channels. The water was first to serve the kitchens, then the wash-houses, and finally it would flow through and flush out the latrines. We were very pleased with our water-works. The walls of the buildings were made of bamboo lath and mud plaster; the roofs were thatched. There were quarters and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212850, "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": 159, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "144\n\nshortly after to have raised Tsai's house, so that at any rate part of his ill-gotten wealth probably fell into their hands. Tsai and the Chinese assistant commander were then taken and executed by the Chinese troops. We saw their graves at Sincheng. This had all happened some months before our arrival. While I was in Kokang at least one further store of money belonging to the Myosa was discovered and the bullion sent to Sincheng; for whose benefit, it was no part of my business to enquire.\n\nWhen the Chinese appointed the Puppet to the Myosa's position they also made him commander of the Defence Force and gave him a Chinese colonel as second-in-command. On arrival at Sincheng, as anticipated, I found the Chinese flag flying and Chinese officers, who never left the Puppet's side, behaved as if they had taken over the country. I hoped to persuade them of my friendly disposition and to enlist their co-operation. I was not successful; at a feast given by the Puppet the second-in-command got slightly drunk and openly twitted me with my alleged friendship for China, a lack of manners with which I had never before met among Chinese.\n\nAll through Kokang there are extensive poppy fields. The crop ripens in the spring. In Burma, following the Indian practice, opium was controlled by monopoly, and could only be smoked by licence. The Burmese themselves do not smoke opium, though they sometimes eat it; only persons of Chinese blood smoke. Supplies for the Burma monopoly used to come from Kokang; there was also smuggling across the border from Yunnan, where it was for long grown openly. By the efforts of the Chinese government the cultivation in Yunnan had been very largely suppressed — I myself never saw any growing in Yunnan but a great deal of opium was still smoked in Yunnan. There was no secrecy, for instance, about the opium dens in Kun-ming. So now the flow of traffic was reversed. Yunnan received its opium from Kokang and the Wa states, and the commerce in the drug must have produced large profits for those who took part in it.\n\nIn Kokang the Myosa had been the agent for the collection of the small annual house tax, of which he retained a percentage, remitting the bulk to the government. Now there was no government to which to remit, but the Puppet had heavily increased the rate of taxation, and collected it in opium. According to the reports of the village headmen he had so assessed the tax that nearly the whole of the annual opium crop went into his hands. It was a very heavy burden for the village people to bear,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213393, "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-1994", "page_number": 215, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "Hatt. Virgie Chittenden, Western China, a Journey to Mount Omei, Boston Ticknor and Co, 1888\n\nHedin, Sven Anders, The Silk Road, English translation, New York Dutton, 1938\n\n— My Life As An Explorer, London Cassell, 1926\n\nHillard, Mrs Barnet(Low), My Mother's Journal Hope 1829-1834, Boston Ginn & Libs. 1900\n\nManila, Macao and Cape of Good\n\nHolden, Reuben Andrus, Yale in China, the Mainland, 1901-1957, New Haven The Yale in China Association, 1964\n\nHolm, Puts, My Nestorian Adventure in China, a Popular Account of the Holm-Nestorian Expedition to Sian-fu and as Result, New York and Chicago. Revell, 1923\n\nHomer, Jay, Dawn Watch in China, Boston Houghton Mifflin, 1941\n\nHopkirk, Peter, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road. The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia, London John Murray, 1980 (Hong Kong Reprint Oxford University Press)\n\nHosie, A. Three Years in Western China, London Philip, 1897 (Taipei Reprint Cheng-wen Publishing)\n\n—, On the Trail of the Opium Poppy, London, 1934\n\n1\n\nHoy Ching-ming, Foreign Investment and Economic Development in China. 1840-1937 Cambridge (Mass). Harvard University Press, 1965\n\nHsu, Immanuel C.Y., The Rise of Modern China, New York: Oxford University Press. 1970\n\nHuang, Ray, The Lung-ch'ing and Wan-li Reigns 1567-1620, Cambridge History of China, vol 7, 511-84\n\nHue, Ivan, Recollections of a Journey Through Tartary During The Years 1844 1845 and 1846, a condensed translation by Mrs Percy Simmett, London Longman, 1852\n\n- A Journey Through the Chinese Empire, New York, 1855\n\n1\n\nHughes, Mrs Thomas Francis, Among the Sons of Han Notes of Six Years Residence in Various Parts of China and Formosa, London. Innes & Brothers 1887\n\nHume Lotta Carswell, Drama at the Doctor's Gate the Study of Dr. Edward Hume of Yale-in-China, New Haven Yale Association, 1961\n\nHummel, Arthur W, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ching Period. Washington DC Government Printing Office, 1944 (Taipei Reprint. Cheng-wen Publishing)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214953, "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": 49, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "4\n\nand serve tea. Credit for initiating the custom of afternoon tea is generally given to Anna, Duchess of Bedford (1788-1861). The correct protocol states that tea should begin between 4 and 4.30 in the afternoon and should last just one hour.”\n\nTea had become so much the national drink that the East India Company was required by an Act of Parliament to keep a year's supply always in stock. For the British Exchequer, tax on tea brought revenue amounting, in the 1830s, to over three million pounds - an astonishing amount. Tea could be obtained only from China. Indian tea (or Ceylon tea) was still many years away. It had to be paid for, preferably not in silver coin, but by equitable trade exchange. China, however, while keen to export tea, wanted nothing in return except silver bullion. Faced with an alarming trade disadvantage, British merchants discovered that opium was one item by which they could balance the trade in tea. As addiction to tea, for that is what it was, could not be stopped, moral scruples did not prevent British traders from fostering opium, far more pernicious than tea, on China. It may be safely assumed therefore that had it not been for Britain's demand for increasing quantities of tea, China might never have been subjected to opium, which was grown in India under British supervision.\n\nOpium and the Chinese\n\nMany scholars and historians believe that mankind has known opium since prehistoric times. It was certainly known to ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, used extensively for medicinal purposes mainly as a remedy for pain and to induce sleep. Opium has been known in China at least since the Tang Dynasty (618-906AD) and possibly much earlier, originally only for its medicinal value. It was derived from Papeverum somniferum, a species of poppy cultivated in India and Turkey. Although not indigenous to China, the opium-bearing poppy plant was cultivated in the western province of Yunnan to supplement opium imported overland from India. Trade with the Middle East and India flourished in the Tang Dynasty, but import of opium into China was comparatively small as homegrown opium supplied most of local needs. It would be surprising, however, if some non-medical use of the drug had not developed. M. Booth believes that such use was not widespread and was restricted to 'an upper-class elite'; the drug was probably eaten. This seems to be confirmed by the absence", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215151, "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": 247, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "206\n\nIn spite of the tentative conclusions above, it is interesting that a few RAS members have put such letters after their names in order to give themselves a certain, special, identification. It meant something to them. They obviously took pride, as we all do, in being members of our Society.\n\nIf any reader can add anything to the above brief notes their contribution would be welcome.\n\n[Nice try, Dan-Ed.]\n\n1 Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1847, Hong Kong University Libraries Special Collection.\n\n2 Ball MRAS, J. Dyer, Things Chinese or, Notes Connected with China, Graham Brash, 1903.\n\nEdkins, J., Opium: Historical Note, or the Poppy in China, Shanghai, American Presbyterian Mission Press (1898).\n\nLetter from Adrian Thomas, Secretary, Royal Asiatic Society, London (20 March 2001).\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society its History and Treasures, Eds. Stuart Simmonds and Simon Digby, EJ Brill for the RAS (London, 1979): C. F. Beckingham's history of the RAS appears on pp. 1-77.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 } ]