[ { "id": 211327, "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": 43, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "19\n\nAgreement reached, Po-Kuei was formally installed on the ninth of January 1858. Unfortunately, he arrived a bit late for the ceremony having been somewhat tardily released from the allied stockade. For the allied commanders, the real goal now was to ensure that the new allied commission they had planned would be able to supervise Po-Kuei's administration of the city.\n\n \n\n12\n\nHaving decided, despite reservations, to rely on the local mandarins to administer Canton, the military commanders, Sir Charles van Straubenzee and M. D'Abouville, the French commander, decided to appoint a mixed commission of military and consular officials to supervise the city's Chinese administration. The proposed commission was to have three members, two of whom would be military. They were to be assisted by an English language secretary and another proficient in Chinese. Additionally, the French commissioner was expected to be aided as well by at least one, perhaps two, French language secretaries. Provisions were made to hire a treasurer as well as various coolies, cooks, and jailers. They also hoped to hire three Chinese translators, though it would actually be some months before competent linguists, men like Robert Hart, later known for his leadership of the Chinese Customs, arrived to help. Salaries were set by the occupation council made up of the military commanders as well as the expedition's political leadership, Lord Elgin and Baron Gros. Moving to implement their plans, they went on to name three individuals to serve as commissioners. For the British, Harry Parkes, of the consular service, and Colonel Holloway were selected, while Captain Martineau de Chesnez was selected by the French. Parkes, although ostensibly equal in official duties, was the only one of the commissioners who actually spoke Chinese and thus had a clear advantage over his colleagues. The French, concerned as well that Captain de Chesnez's relatively low rank vis-à-vis his colleagues could be a problem, soon moved to have him promoted. The commission, as the next months would reveal, was to serve primarily as an intermediary between the local Chinese leadership and the allied military commanders who held the real power over the occupied city.\n\n \n\n15\n\nIt should not be assumed, however, as some writers have, that the Chinese served as mere puppets under the foreigners. It is obvious from", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "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": 211341, "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": 57, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "33\n\n57\n\nBourboulon to Walewski, 6 September, 1858, CP, vol. 22, fol. 147, AE, and D'Abouville to Min. de la Marine, 27 November, 1858, BB4763, fol. 12, AN.\n\n5# Alcock to Bowring, 12 April, 1859, Accounts and Papers, LXIX 2714 (1860) and Alcock to Bowring, 6 April, FO881894, p. 4, incl. 2 number 1, PRO.\n\n50 Alcock to Bowring, 12 April, 1859, FO881894, Confidential Print, p. 1 in no incl.\n\n1 in no. 1 no folio # PRO.\n\nAlcock to Bowring, 12 April, 1859, Accounts and Papers, LXIX 2761 (1860) PRO.\n\nHuang Proclamation, trans. by Parkes, 6 April, 1859, BB4763, fol. 93-100, Armee.\n\n62 Proclamation of April 7, Accounts and Papers, LXIX 2714 (1860) p. 4, no. 1, PRO.\n\n6.3 Prospectus stating the conditions on which the British Government is willing to engage **Emmigrants** for her West Indian Possessions,\" 13 October, 1859, CCC, Canton, vol. 2, fol. 148, AE.\n\nLao to Allied Commission, 27 October, 1859, Accounts and Papers, LXIX 2714 (1860) fol. 16, PRO.\n\nD'Abouville to Min. de la Marine, 27 October, 1859, BB4763, fol. 288-91, AN.\n\n66 Bruce to Russell, 5 December, 1859, Confidential Prints, FO405: 6, fol. 31 in no. 7 PRO.\n\n47 Allied Commission Memorandum, 24 January, 1860, Accounts and Papers, LXIX 2714, (1860) fol. 30 and \"Rules under which houses for the Reception of Chinese Emmigrants. no date, [prob. November 1859] Accounts and Papers, LXIX 2714 (1860), encl. 12 on no. 6, vol. 18, PRO.\n\nL\n\n”\n\nStraubenzee & Hope to D'Abouville, 12 January, 1860, CCC, Canton, vol. 2, fol. 158-160, AE.\n\nStraubenzce to Sidney Herbert, 14 January, 1860, Accounts and Papers, LXIX 2714 (1860), PRO and D'Abouville, to Com. de Chef de Mers, 13 January, 1860, BB4763, fol. 344-45, AN.\n\n70 Charles de Mutrecy, Journal de la Campaigne de Chine 1859-60, vol. 1. (Paris: Librairie Nouvelle, 1861) vol. 1, p. 225.\n\n71 Charner to Min. de la Marine, 13 November, 1861, CP, vol. 37, fol. 10, AE, and **Account of Evacuation of Canton on 21 October 1861**\" Accounts and Papers, LXII 2919, (1862), p. 3-4, PRO.\n\n72\n\nSteven A. Leibo, \"The Sino-European Educational Missions, 1875 to 1886,\" Asian Profiles [TBA].", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 } ]