RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f EDITORIAL The first volume of the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society published in 1961 contained a short account of the history of the original Hong Kong Branch of the R.A.S. which existed from 1847 until 1859. During this early period the original Society published six volumes of its Transactions. It may be of interest to examine the contents of these volumes, and to compare them with what has already been achieved in the two volumes of the present Society's Journal published so far. The first volume published by the original branch was entitled Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1847. It was printed at the office of the China Mail at Hong Kong in 1848, and contained 14 pages of preliminary material and 78 pages of text. The last volume to be printed bore the title Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Part VI, 1859, and was printed at the office of the China Mail in the same year. It contained 8 pages of introduction and 164 pages of text. Surveying the articles printed in these six volumes one's main impression is that the subject matter was predominantly connected with China, and that the contributors were mainly missionaries or members of the British Consular service. For instance one of the leading contributors was Dr. John Bowring, who was Governor of Hong Kong from 1854 until 1859. Among others were T. T. Meadows, who was interpreter to the British Consulate at Canton at this time and wrote perceptively about China; the Rev. Carl Gutzlaff, principal Chinese Secretary to the Hong Kong Government; W. H. Medhurst, Jr.; Harry Parkes; Dr. D. J. Macgowan; the Rev. Joseph Edkins; the Rev. Samuel Beal and Alexander Wylie, printer to the London Missionary Society at Shanghai. To some extent this reflects the difficulties facing the Society at this period. It was forced to rely for its lectures and articles on a small number of scholarly people resident in Hong Kong and the five original Treaty Ports. The North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society which 1 Bowring was a man of scholarly interests and had received an honorary doctorate from Gröningen University for services to European literature. He was knighted in 1854. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING 61 acquire at Peking a site for Building, or may hire Houses, for the accommodation of Her Majesty's mission, and that the Chinese Government will assist it in so doing". Then, when the Imperial Government appeared to procrastinate over the ratification of these treaties, another English and French force fought its way to the capital and compelled the Manchu authorities to ratify them by the Convention of Peking. This was signed by the British envoy, Lord Elgin,1 and by Prince Kung,2 the chief Chinese representative, on October 24th, 1860 in the Hall of Ceremonies situated in what was later to be called Legation Street. The second clause of the Convention stated that "Her Britannic Majesty's Representative will henceforward reside permanently, or occasionally, at Peking, as Her Britannic Majesty shall be pleased to decide”. Lord Elgin proposed that Prince Kung's own residence should be rented to the British, but Prince Kung memorialized the throne as follows: As regards the matter of the English residing at the capital in the near future, we have been discussing it with them during the past few days. The chief barbarian official [Lord Elgin] considers that the quarters in Prince I's [Prince Kung] palace are spacious and he insists that it is to be their future residence at the capital. Moreover, he stated that there were still open spaces in the palace and that he wants to build houses there himself. It seems to your ministers that to 1 James Bruce, eighth Earl of Elgin. He served as Governor-General of Canada 1846-1854. In 1857 he was appointed envoy extraordinary to China and signed the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858, returning to England early in 1859. In 1860 he was again sent to China as special envoy, and signed the Convention of Peking. He returned to England in 1861 and was appointed Governor-General of India in the same year. He died in India in 1863. His younger brother Frederick William Bruce held the post of Colonial Secretary at Hong Kong from 9 February 1844 until 27 June 1846. In 1857 he accompanied his elder brother to China as principal secretary. He was appointed minister plenipotentiary to the Emperor of China in December 1858, but had to wait until March 1861 before actually taking up residence in Peking. He left China on his appointment as British Minister to Washington in 1865. 2 I-hsin (1833-1898), the first Prince Kung, was the sixth son of Emperor Tao-kuang. When the joint French and British forces approached Peking in September 1860 the Emperor Hsien-feng fled to Jehol leaving his half-brother, Prince Kung, to make peace with the allies. When a prototype Chinese foreign office, the Tsungli Yamen, was set up in 1861, Prince Kung was in charge of it, and he played an important part in Chinese affairs for the next fifteen years. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 62 J. L. CRANMER-BYNG allow them to reside there temporarily is already improper. If by any chance they are allowed to occupy it permanently and build additional houses it would be all the more improper. We have repeatedly explained this to him tactfully. According to the barbarians' statement, if they are not to reside at Prince I's palace they must be given Duke Ch'ï's palace in Ch'ang-an Street in the eastern part of the city. He still wants to build additional houses. Furthermore, he states that each year they are willing to pay a rent of one thousand five hundred taels. At present we are still attempting to dissuade him, and not to let them reside in a nobleman's palace. Instead we are looking for another palace for them. Whether they will listen to us or not we will act as occasion demands. In a memorial submitted in the second year of the reign of the Emperor Tung-chih (1863) Prince Kung wrote: "Prince Kung and others further memorialize that ever since England ratified the treaty in the tenth year of the Emperor Hsien-feng (1860) it has been using the palace of Duke I-liang as an official residence." Also in a subsequent memorial about the French Legation buildings Prince Kung wrote: "Moreover the English envoy, before withdrawing his troops inside the An-ting gate occupied the Palace of Duke I-liang on his own initiative*" 自行” (i.e., without authorization from Chinese officials)." * Chou-pan i-wu shih-mo ##** Hsien-feng, chüan 68, 2b-3a. Hereafter cited as IWSM. 4 IWSM, T'ung-chih, chüan 20, 36a. I-liang was the fourth son of Mien-ch'ing ✈, [a direct descendant of the Emperor K'ang-hsi]. In the eighteenth year of Tao-kuang's reign he was created a "general guarding the state" of the third rank. In the first year of Hsien-feng's reign (1851-2) he succeeded to the title of “duke guarding the state" # 2. In the eleventh year of T'ung-chih's reign he was granted the title of pei-tzu Я† (a Manchu title bestowed on the sons of imperial princes). He died in the thirteenth year of Kuang-hsü's reign (1887-8), Ch'ing-shih kao ***, Huang-tzu shih-piao 2 *** 'genealogies of the sons of the Emperors, 于世 piao 4, 9b. IWSM, T'ung-chih, chüan 20, 37a, column 5. The An-ting Men gate of established peace', is the easterly of the two gates in the north wall of the Tartar City, and the starting point of the road to Jehol. It was occupied by the British in 1860 who dragged their guns up the ramp and positioned them on the wall in order to command the city. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON 41 40 Fan Kwais. Fan-kuei ₺ A foreign devil. foreign devil. The title of one of Hunter's books of reminiscences was The Fan Kwae' at Canton before Treaty Days 1825-1844, by an old Resident, London, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 1882; reprinted Shanghai 1911. (J.L.C-B.) 41 blows them sky high. By a coincidence Eric Partridge in his interesting work A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 4th Ed. 1951 p. 68 defines to blow sky high as "to scold or blame most vehemently" and adds origin U.S. and anglicised ca. 1900. Here we have an American example of the use of the phrase "to blow sky high" in 1839. (J.L.C-B.) 42 Hae yaw? Probably part of the common expression pronounced in Cantonese "hac yao ch'i lei" £À which means literally "there is no such principle!" So it comes to imply "it can't be done”, (J.L.C-B) 43 bond. The bond presented to the American Consul by Commissioner Lin "stipulated that should any opium be found on an American vessel, the ship would be liable to confiscation and its entire crew liable to death. The Consul, moreover, was to be held responsible for his countrymen's behavior." Dulles, F. R., 1930, The Old China Trade, p. 157. (L.T.R.) 44 Pankugua. Probably a reference to P'an Cheng-wei (pidgin Pwan-keikua). (See note 21.) (J.L.C-B) 45 Chinchoo. Ch'üan-chou, a port in Fukien. (J.L.C-B.) 46 the Governor of Macao. Don Adriao Accacio da Silverira Pinto who served as Governor from 1839 until 1843, (J.L.C-B.) 47 16 foreigners. A list is given in the Blue Book, Correspondence Relating to China 1840, p. 403, which states "Supposed names of the sixteen individuals, as given in the list appended to the Kwang Chou fu's letter to Capt. Elliot dated 4 May 1839." "Supposed" because J. R. Morrison in translating from the Chinese had to guess what names were meant by the sounds of the Chinese characters used for transliteration, The names listed were: Dent, Henry, D. Matheson, Daniell, Inglis, Ilbery, Dadabhoy, A. Jardine, Heerjeebhoy, Stanford, Green, Franjee, A. Matheson, Matheson, Bomanjee, Goldsborough. The 16 left Canton with Elliot on 24th May. (J.L.C-B.) 48 the Chung Hup. This may refer to the two characters pronounced in Cantonese Chung Heep. This officer commanded a brigade. (J.L.C-B.) 49 Snipe. She was a brig of tonnage reported variously as 176 to 196 tons, and registered sometimes as British, sometimes American. She was owned by Augustine Heard & Co., and for many years she was commanded by Capt. William Endicott of Boston, and was stationed at Woosung as an opium receiving ship. (L.T.R.) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 116 CRANMER-BYNG AND SHEPHERD which 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 The 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 Thus 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. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 130 BOOK REVIEWS today. This information negates the subsequent statement "The only specifically recorded Lamqua portrait in an American collection is that of Dr. Peter Parker + 8 A bibliography omitting nearly 50% of the last published bibliography will startle any serious scholar. It may be possible to write about Chinnery without consulting E. W. Bovil's articles in Notes and Queries and about the Opium War without using Maurice Collis' Foreign Mud with its Chinnery illustrations, but it is not recommended practice. W. C. Hunter, partner in Russell & Co., is quoted in the text, but both of his books The Fan-Kwae in Canton before Treaty Days 1825-1844 and Bits of Old China with its chapter on Chinnery, are omitted from the list. Any modern researcher will want to check the Jardine-Matheson papers in Cambridge, England. They are not mentioned here. There is a list of plates, but no general index. In the China section of photographs, there are 57 oils, water-colors, and drawings captioned as by Chinnery, also 10 so-called "School of Chinnery", 28 port scenes, all called "School", and 2 miscellaneous. Authentication of any artist's work, particularly if unsigned, is a matter of opinion. When in doubt, it is far sounder to "attribute" and the best museums follow this custom. In recent months, a world expert on Chinnery and your reviewer considered together these 57 pictures and questioned or denied 21 of them, a substantial percentage. + • In 1953 the statement was made, and remains unchallenged, it is obvious that the Hong Kong Chinnery is the only portrait of Howqua that may be said to have been painted in a truly accomplished Western manner such as one would expect from the brush of Chinnery. The other portraits of Howqua, in spite of their long-standing attribution to Chinnery, almost without exception speak of Western art with a strong Cantonese accent". There is no photograph of the Chinnery portrait of Howqua in Hong Kong in this book a significant omission. However, there are three portraits of Howqua11- all obviously by Chinese * Page 39. 9 Arts Council Catalogue 1957. 10 Albert Ten Eyck Gardner-The Art Quarterly, Winter 1953 11 Plate 39 top and bottom, Plate 40 top. 10 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST 73 official agreement between the two countries to refer to piracy. and Article 52 gave British warships permission, when in pursuit of pirates, to enter any port on the coast. Provision was also made for co-operation between the Royal Navy and the Chinese for punishment of pirates, restoration of stolen goods, and so on, and later treaties and agreements followed the same pattern. Unfortunately, experience proved that the Chinese had undertaken more than they could carry out; and that the provincial authorities were as often unwilling, as unable, to implement the pledges of the Peking Government. The pirates on the coast in the 1840's, 50's, and 60's, included British, American, French, and other foreign renegades, who often worked in league with Chinese merchants in Hong Kong and the treaty ports. The system of ship registry then in force in Hong Kong was even more liable to abuse than the present system, and allowed Chinese shipowners an easy means of claiming the protection of certain foreign flags. This increased the difficulties of the Navy, already hard pressed to distinguish between convoy and pirate, and between pirate, trader, and fisherman. The most famous renegade among the pirates in the 1850's was an American sailor called Eli Boggs, for whose capture the Hong Kong Government offered a reward of $1,000. This was won by an even more famous American sailor, more often associated with blackbirding in the Pacific, than with piracy on the China coast. Captain Bully Hayes, however, made his debut on the China coast, and when that part of the world became too hot for him he moved south to Australasian and Pacific waters. Hayes first appeared in the Far East in 1854 at Singapore, as master of the American barque, Canton. He was then twenty-five years old. After selling the Canton, which did not belong to him, he appeared in Hong Kong a few months later as master of another American barque, the Otranto, which was probably under charter to the famous American house of Russell and Company. In Hong Kong's Victoria Hotel, and in the company of the masters of two Jardine opium clippers, Long John Saunders of the Chin Chin and King Tom Donovan of the Spray, Hayes made the acquaintance of some naval officers, and for the rest of his time on the coast he was a great favourite with the Navy. During ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 170 NOTES AND QUERIES 16 This bell is dated in the autumn of Chien Lung year (1773). 17 Summary of Report of the Squatters Commission, p. 115. The same man said (p. 122) that Ap Lei Chau 'was built about 1850'. 18 Hong Kong Government Gazette for 28 March 1857 p. 4, Table No. 3. 19 Hong Kong Government Gazette for 1867 p. 92, Table No. 7. 20 Mayers, Dennys and King. The Treaty Ports of China and Japan (London, Trubner and Co., 1867) p. 49. 21 Hong Kong Sessional Papers, i.e. Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, for 1897 and 1911, pp. 484 and 103(23) respectively. 22 Mayers, Dennys and King, p. 49 mention 'boat-building and general trade'. See also information given in the printed proceedings of a court case over ownership of land on Ap Lei Chau given in Sessional Papers August 1886 - September 1887 (Appendix to Report from the Land Court of 1886-87), pp. 33-35. 23 For another example see my article on Cheung Chau (an island near Hong Kong that together with the rest of the New Territories was leased to Great Britain by the Convention of Peking, 1898) in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 3 (1963), especially pp. 95-98. 24 Sessional Papers 1911 and 1897 at the pp. quoted at note 21 above. 25 See also the article referred to at note 23 above. 26 This and the previous paragraph are based on the oral statements of three Ap Lei Chau elders born 1887, 1891 and 1897 who had belonged to the three Fongs. Their evidence helps to interpret and confirm the evidence given before the Squatter Board during a hearing to determine ownership of the Hung Shing temple in 1893. See Summary of Report of the Squatters Commission, pp. 120-141. Footnote: It is clear from re-reading Sayer, pp. 22-23, that the Hung Shing temple was originally on a small island that was later, and before Sayer wrote in 1937, joined by reclamation to its larger neighbour Ap Lei Chau. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 66 H. A. RYDINGS 4 G. H. Preble, The opening of Japan; a diary of discovery in the Far East, 1853-1856, ed. by B. Szczesniak, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1962, p. 58. 5 By 1867 Hong Kong was minting its own dollars. The English gold sovereign was quoted at this time at HK$4.60. 6 From the article on "The City Hall" in V. H. G. Jarrett, op. cit. 7 Twentieth century impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other treaty ports of China, ed. by A. Wright and H. A. Cartwright, London, Lloyd's Greater Britain Publ. Co., 1908, p. 162. 8 D. Scott, "The Morrison Library”, JHKBRAS, vol. 1, 1960-61, pp. 50-67. 9 J. W. Norton-Kyshe, The history of the laws and courts of Hongkong, London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1898, vol. II, p. 252. 10 ibid., vol. II, p. 369. 11 ibid., vol. II, p. 429. 12 ibid., vol. II, p. 430. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 184 EITEL, Ernest J. THE LIBRARY Feng-shui: or, The rudiments of natural science in China. London, Trübner, 1873. bound with EITEL, Ernest J. Three lectures on Buddhism. Hong Kong, China Mail, 1871. ELLIOTT, Alan J. A. Chinese spirit-medium cults in Singapore. London, London School of Economics, Dept. of Anthropology, 1955. (Monographs on social anthropology, n.s., no.14) ELLIOTT-BATEMAN, Michael. Defeat in the East: the mark of Mao Tse-tung on war. London, Oxford U.P., 1967. EMBREE, John F. A Japanese village: Suye Mura. London, Kegan Paul, 1946. ENDACOTT, G. B. A biographical sketch-book of early Hong Kong. Singapore, Eastern Univs. P., 1962. ENDACOTT, G. B. A history of Hong Kong. London, Oxford U.P., 1958. Fables de la Chine antique. Pekin, Éditions en Langues Étrangères, 1958. FAIRBANK, John King. Trade and diplomacy on the China coast; the opening of the treaty ports, 1842-1854. Cambridge [Mass.] Harvard U. P., 1964. (Harvard historical studies, v. 62 - 63). FEDDERSEN, Martin. Chinese decorative art: a handbook for collectors and connoisseurs. Tr. by Arthur Lane. London, Faber, 1961. FINN, Daniel J. Archaeological finds on Lamma Island (##), near Hong Kong. Ed. by T. F. Ryan. Hong Kong, Ricci Hall, University of Hong Kong, 1958. Republication of articles originally appearing in the Hong Kong Naturalist, 1933-1936. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d The Library 189 HUMMEL, Arthur W., ed. Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing period (1644-1912). Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office, 1944. v. 2 only. HUNTER, Guy. South-East Asia — race, culture, and nation. Publ. for the Institute of Race Relations, London. London, Oxford U.P., 1966. HUNTER, W. C. The 'fan kwae' at Canton before treaty days, 1825-1844. Taipei, Ch'eng-wen Publ. Co., 1965. Reprint of original ed., London, 1882. HUNTER, W. C. Bits of old China. Taipei, Ch'eng-wen Publ. Co., 1966. Reprint of original ed., London, 1855. JARRETT, V. H. C. Familiar wild flowers of Hongkong; illus. with photographs by the author... [Hong Kong] South China Morning Post [1937] JENYNS, Soame. A background to Chinese painting. London, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1935. Presentation copy inscribed by the author. JENYNS, Soame. Chinese archaic jades in the British Museum. London, British Museum, 1951. Presentation copy inscribed by the author. JENYNS, Soame. Later Chinese porcelain: the Ch'ing dynasty, 1644-1912. 3rd ed. London, Faber, 1965. JENYNS, Soame. Ming pottery and porcelain. London, Faber, 1953. Presentation copy inscribed by the author. JOCELYN, Robert, Viscount Jocelyn. Six months with the Chinese expedition; or, Leaves from a soldier's note-book. London, Murray, 1841. JOHNSTON, Reginald Fleming. Buddhist China. London, Murray, 1913. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d Council in February of this year, and more recently both Mr. J. S. Lee and Mr. M. S. Cumming have resigned owing to their many other commitments, and in the case of Mr. Cumming owing to the likelihood of his being away a good deal from the Colony during the year. Of the original Council of 1959 there are only two left - Dr. Marjorie Topley and myself. The Council is a hard-working body; it meets at least once a month and its activities involve a great deal of time and labour. It is essential for the future of the Society to fill the vacancies with persons who have real interest in the work of the Society and are prepared to share the work in furthering its interests. In concluding I want to thank all my colleagues on the Council for their unremitting work, the British Council for their traditional help in a variety of ways and for the use of their premises for the meetings of the Council and their Library to house the greater part of the Society's books, and last but not least Mrs. O'Hara, also of the British Council, for her ever-willing and ready help and secretarial work which have been most valuable. 28 April, 1969. Lectures in 1968 comprised:- 15 January Professor Michael Sullivan. "The Cave Temples of Maichishan (with slides). 26 February J. R. JONES "The British Treaty with Siam of 1855" 16 March Mr. Robert Bruce. Visit to Chinese Vegetarian Halls (chai-t'ang) and the Sects of Former Heaven (Hsien-t'ien Tao). 18 March Dr. Philip Mao. "Some Aspects of Ching Dynasty Porcelain of the Kang Hsi, Yung Cheng & Ch'ien Lung Periods" (illustrated with slides). 8 April Annual General Meeting. 29 April Mr. T. C. Cheng. "Chinese Unofficial Members of the Legislative and Executive Councils in Hong Kong up to 1941". ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 82 KING MONGKUT OF SIAM AND HIS TREATY WITH BRITAIN ROBERT BRUCE* When Sir John Bowring sailed up the river to Bangkok in March 1855 he was asked by King Mongkut not to fire a salute lest the citizens be alarmed. Sir John, Governor of Hong Kong and Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary in the Far East, reluctantly agreed to postpone the ceremonial explosion from the Rattler's guns until the anxious citizens had been given one day's warning. The Siamese had cause for concern. The Burmese, their traditional enemies, had been conquered by the British; and a dozen years before the Bowring mission the great Chinese Empire had been defeated by the British navy. On their eastern frontier, the Siamese watched with alarm the French encroachment on Cochin-China and their own dominion of Cambodia. To the south of the Isthmus of Kra British power was spreading into the Malay States, including Kedah, a feudatory of Siam. But their fears were to prove unfounded. The Bowring mission to Bangkok was completely successful for both British and Siamese. On April 18th, 1855, a Treaty of Friendship and Commerce was signed, an agreement which was to secure for Siam, alone in south-east Asia, independence from colonial rule and which set her on the long, painful road of modernisation. Force had been used to 'open' China. In the same year as Bowring's peaceful mission to Bangkok Commodore Perry's American warships were demanding commerce and navigation rights of the Japanese. Even after the Treaty of Nanking had * This article, entitled "King Mongkut of Siam", appeared in History Today for October 1968. The original text, slightly extended, is reprinted here by permission of the Editor. Mr. Bruce lectured to the Hong Kong Branch on this subject in February 1968. Mr. Bruce is at present a visiting professor in the Department of Political Science at Eastern Kentucky University, U.S.A. He served eight years as Representative of the British Council in Thailand and later filled the same post in Hong Kong where he was a member of Council of the Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society. Mr. Bruce was also one time Director of the Government School of Chinese Language at Kuala Lumpur, Malaya. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM 83 opened the Treaty Ports and a second British conflict with China had proved the superiority of Western arms, the Chinese court refused to reform. The Japanese were quicker to read the signs. Only Siam, unlike her weak neighbours in the tropical south, was able to adapt herself to the new world without war or its threat and without loss of sovereignty. Why was this? Was it because Britain and France had agreed to the Thai kingdom being a buffer between their Indian and Indo-Chinese empires? Or was it that the King of Siam who received Sir John Bowring had more vision than most of his Asian contemporaries and was succeeded by an equally gifted son? Whatever the reasons, the Treaty of 1855 was a major factor in determining the future of the Thai kingdom. It provided for the opening of diplomatic relations with Britain and, as a natural consequence, with other western nations. It introduced extra-territorial rights to British subjects living in Siam and allowed them to own or rent property. In commerce the Treaty abolished the strangling system of monopolies owned by the King and 'farmed' to Chinese merchants - replacing it by a free market with low duties on imports and exports. The year after the conclusion of the British treaty the Americans and the French secured similar agreements and these in turn were hastily followed by treaties with various European nations. These treaties marked a turning-point in the modern history of Siam. In the century and a half which followed Louis XIV's mission to Ayuthia in 1689 Siam had little or no contact with the West. In the mid-eighteenth century her main preoccupation was the constant war with the Burmese who finally sacked their ancient and splendid capital in 1767. By the time the new house of Chakri had established the capital at Bangkok in 1782 the British East India Company had consolidated its dominion over India. The tea trade with China was growing rapidly and ports of call on the eastern run were obvious advantages. Francis Light obtained Penang island for the Company from the Sultan of Kedah in 1786 for the annual payment of $6,000 and the vague understanding of British protection. Kedah was an acknowledged feudatory of Siam, but at that time King Rama I was far too busy with the building of Bangkok to concern himself with the incident and the British were not then interested in Siam. Raffles had ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 86 R. BRUCE monopolies abolished whilst levies on imports were to be limited, and vessels were to pay a tax on their size. But Burney failed to get permission for a British Consul to reside at Bangkok. Nor was he able to free British nationals from Siamese law. Next came the Americans. A merchant, Mr. Edmund Roberts, was commissioned by the President to secure a treaty at least as good as the British one. This was seven years later, in 1833. Although a President seemed to the Siamese a much less august personage than a King and America was both remote and less important, Roberts secured his treaty. It was almost exactly the same as the Burney agreement. In the next two decades, especially in the "forties, trade became more difficult. In fact the treaties with the British and the Americans gradually eroded away, and the old monopolies were taken back by the Court. Imports and exports were farmed to Chinese merchants by the King. Duties were arbitrary and heavy and trade dwindled. Everywhere else the British had greatly expanded their commerce by mid-century. Singapore was growing rapidly, the China trade had increased still further after the Opium War, the northern coast of Borneo was open to British commerce. It seemed only natural and civilised to the bold merchant princes and sea captains of Victorian England that Siam should, willy-nilly, share in the new prosperity, especially now that the first steamships had reached the Gulf of Siam. Sir James Brooke, the White Rajah of Sarawak, was the next British envoy to sail up the Menam to Bangkok. He came in August 1850 on board H.M.S. Sphinx accompanied by a merchant vessel of the Company, the Nemesis, both steamers. Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, cautioned Sir James to be careful in his quest for better trade. "In conducting these negotiations", he directed, “you must be very careful not to get involved in any disputes or hostile proceedings which would render our position in Siam worse than it now is or which might compel Her Majesty's Government to have recourse to forcible measures in order to obtain redress. It is very important that if your efforts should not succeed they should at least leave things as they are and should not expose us to the alternative of submitting to fresh affront or of undertaking expensive operations to punish insult”.' ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 88 R. BRUCE any case, he argued, trade had dwindled and it was in the interests of the Siamese to accept a new treaty which would expand trade. The White Rajah never met the King. He sailed away with nothing but indignation. He had not openly threatened the Siamese with force but had hinted as much. The old King and his Ministers were not impressed but they must have harboured fears of reprisals as there were so many precedents. In October that year Brooke, addressing himself to Lord Palmerston, evoked high principles in the fine Victorian manner in support of his call for force: "Justice — compassion — interest — dignity — and a consistent course of policy appear to me to call for decisive measures to be taken without delay." And in a letter to a friend: "The Siamese must be taught a lesson... our policy should be commanding and our power exerted when necessary. My policy in Sarawak has been high-handed against evil-doers and there, and in England and in Siam, there are bad to be punished as well as good to be cared for." Mercifully for Siam, Brooke's gun-boat policy was not accepted in London but he did perceive the solution in spite of his call for force. The old King, Rama III, must soon die and there was good prospect that his half-brother Prince Mongkut would succeed him. In that event, Brooke said, the prospect of a new relation with Britain was bright. The Sphinx and the Nemesis had scarcely left the Menam in September, 1850 when an American mission arrived. It was led by a certain Joseph Balestier, a not very successful American merchant of Singapore who came with a letter from his President. If the Brooke mission was a failure, Balestier's was even worse. Bowring comments: "Mr. Balestier had not been fortunate in his commercial operations as a merchant at Singapore and it may be doubted whether the nomination of a commercial gentleman whose history was well known to the King and nobles at Bangkok was judicious; it was certainly not deemed complimentary to the proud Siamese authorities."4 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM 89 Ballestier did not meet the King and so never presented the President's letter. He was treated with little respect and left Bangkok in less than a month without a treaty or hope of one. Ballestier reported angrily to Washington that the only way to improve trade with Siam was by the threat or use of force. After he left, fear spread through the city that force might be used. Some teachers who had been instructing American missionaries in the Thai language thought it judicious to leave their employment, but all fear was soon to be removed. The old King died in 1851, and Prince Mongkut ascended the throne. It was the beginning of a new era. From a long period of isolation, from suspicion and fear of Western merchants and sailors, Siam, in the fourth reign of the Chakri dynasty, turned to co-operation, free trade, and acceptance of the new civilisation. The change came quickly, almost as soon as the cremation ceremonies of Rama III were completed a year after his death. Emerging from a Buddhist monastery at the age of forty-seven, His Majesty Somdet Pra Paramenda Maha Mongkut, King Rama IV, proceeded to reform his kingdom and open new relations with the West. In 1824, when he was twenty, Prince Mongkut had entered the order of monkhood. It was a custom, still sustained today, for all young men to enter the order for three or four months. That might have been the length of Mongkut's service as a monk, but just then, within two weeks of his entering the monastery, his father, King Rama II, died, and his half-brother was chosen for the throne. Mongkut decided to remain a Buddhist monk indefinitely. Out of disappointment? This may have been so, for his claim to the crown was stronger than that of his half-brother, Pra Nangklao. Mongkut was the eldest son of the King by a royal mother, and his half-brother, though seventeen years his senior, was the son of a lesser wife. However, in Siam, the succession is not necessarily according to strict rules of primogeniture, and in this instance, the choice by the Council of Nobles of Pra Nangklao seemed a wise one. He had had many years' experience in matters of state, often assuming duties for his father, who was more interested in poetry than politics. But if Mongkut was disappointed, monastic life suited him, and he remained a monk for the next twenty-seven years. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM 93 The new King imported printing presses, mainly for the publication of Buddhist writings. He encouraged monks to teach in the monasteries. He continued his own studies, particularly of astronomy and acquired telescopes and other scientific equipment. Some ten years after he became King he took the unprecedented step of employing a foreign woman, the celebrated Anna Leonowens, to act as governess and tutor to his numerous children. King Mongkut built roads, canals and bridges. New Wats and new palaces were constructed at his command. He encouraged ship-building and personally supervised the building of the first steam-boat on the Menam, importing an engine from England. He abolished the corvée forced labour required for land or other privileges and replaced it by taxation. There was no limit to his energy or his delight in innovation, but in one respect King Mongkut saw no need for change. He kept an enormous harem in his Palace. Having been celibate for twenty-seven years he now set about building the biggest Royal Family of the Chakri Dynasty. In the "Inside" of the Palace there was a veritable city of women - reports say three thousand or more. They were mostly servants, 'Amazons' for guards, officials, maids and so on, but Mongkut acquired thirty-two wives and by the time he died, aged sixty-four, he had eighty-two children. Some accounts put the number of wives and concubines much higher. Townshend Harris, the American envoy who concluded a treaty with Siam in 1856 - following the British success in 1855 - commented in his dispatches to Washington: "After some twenty years spent in the rigid celibacy of the priesthood the King gives up a large portion of his time to voluptuous pleasures.... he is indulging himself in a manner equally repugnant to decency and the laws of his religion of which he was a stern supporter while in the priesthood." It was, of course, a custom and one required especially of the monarch, but it is a little surprising that the reforming zeal of the King did not extend to his prodigious practice of polygamy. Of all his reforms the most significant was in his relations with the West. As soon as he became King a new attitude was revealed. He indicated willingness to have a return visit from the disappointed Brooke of Sarawak. Could Sir James come, he said, a little later to allow for the prolonged cremation ceremonies ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 94 R. BRUCE necessary for the late King? He would be welcome then, that is in 1852. At the same time he took the initiative in improving trading conditions. Monopolies were partly removed and duties on imports and exports reduced. For a moment it seemed that Siam's foreign relations could be improved without formal treaty and the British Government did not press the matter. But in fact there was much to be done, and with a new British Plenipotentiary at Hong Kong it was opportune to resume discussions. Sir John Bowring was a very different diplomat from his three British predecessors, Crawfurd, Burney and Brooke or the American envoys Roberts and Ballestier. He was an intellectual, a radical reformer, a disciple and editor of Jeremy Bentham, a linguist who could prattle in a dozen languages, an ex-Member of Parliament and a writer of hymns, an inveterate talker, a man with limitless energy and a Victorian capacity for pomposity and self-glory. After a career of business, politics, writing and self-appointed diplomacy in the courts of Europe, Bowring, being short of money, accepted public office as Consul at Canton. That was in 1849 when he was fifty-seven. Some five years later he became Governor of Hong Kong, Superintendent of Trade and, most glorious of all, Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary responsible for relations with China, Japan, Siam and all countries in the Far East. Bowring's five years' Governorship of the island colony on the coast of China was anything but successful. Some of his senior officials were incompetent and even corrupt, and he was unpopular among the British merchants. Worst of all he precipitated the second Anglo-Chinese war by sending warships to bombard Canton over a quite unworthy incident. But he was completely successful when he sailed to Bangkok in March, 1855, to negotiate a treaty with the Siamese. Most of the detailed business of the negotiations was done by Bowring's young assistants, his son John C. Bowring, an employee of Jardine, Matheson and Co. in Hong Kong, and Harry Parkes, his secretary, who was later to have a distinguished career as Consul at several ports on the China coast, (Mongkut referred to the young men as "Mr. Parkes and Your Excellency's upspring".) But it was Bowring and King Mongkut who created the favourable atmosphere which allowed progress to be rapid and the discussions congenial. It was clear from the start that the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM 95 Siamese were willing to have a treaty which would open up trade and increase Western influence. They had some anxiety, however, about what the Cochin-Chinese, the Vietnamese would think about the treaty. Would they conclude that the Siamese had surrendered to the British? King Mongkut asked Bowring time and again to go to Cochin-China to make a similar treaty. The King was also anxious about the kind of man who would be chosen as British Consul, if this article of the treaty were accepted. Would he be as much a gentleman as Sir John? Bowring assured him that only the best man would be appointed and that he hoped to go to Cochin-China. The whole business for this momentous treaty was transacted in the most felicitous manner. King Mongkut and his equally intelligent Prime Minister, Praya Suriwongse, understood the issues at stake; these were not merely the details of imports and exports, the appointment of Consuls and the rights of foreigners, they were no less than the independence of Siam and the beginning of her modernization. It was much to Bowring's credit (and to Harry Parkes and young Bowring) that he was able to gain the confidence of the King, to allay his fears, and to assure the Siamese that the new policy that the treaty was launching was greatly to their own as well as to the British advantage. The Treaty of Friendship and Commerce was signed on 18th April, 1855, less than a month after the arrival of the mission. Its first article pledged perpetual peace and friendship and the protection of the two nations' subjects in each other's countries. Article 2 provided for the appointment of a British Consul at Bangkok who would have jurisdiction over British subjects in Siam. The third article was an extension of the second, requiring that Siamese offenders should be given up to Siamese justice and British offenders to British justice, that is, the Consul. This was the system of extra-territorial rights which had recently been obtained from the Chinese after the Opium War. It was an infringement of Siam's sovereignty but it gave assurance to British subjects that they would not be exposed to the severity of Siamese justice and encouraged the setting up of business houses. This right was given up in 1909, long before its withdrawal in China, in return for the independence of Kedah and the other northern Malay States from Siam. The next three articles of the treaty were all concerned with the rights of British subjects. They could ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM 97 ceremonies, audiences and banquets. A white elephant had been captured the previous year, the most auspicious of auguries for the new reign and now its presence seemed to be bringing the expected good fortune. Mongkut seemed to enjoy the company of the Englishmen, particularly Bowring whom he called “my friend”. As a parting gift he offered Sir John two elephants, but they were gracefully declined owing to transport difficulties. But Bowring did accept two tufts of hair from the white elephant's tail, which he later presented to Queen Victoria. The gates were open. Within a year the Americans and the French had signed their own versions of the treaty with King Mongkut. In the next three years half a dozen European nations had similar agreements with the Siamese. By April, 1856, Harry Parkes returned with the Queen's instrument of ratification and a personal letter from Her Majesty. King Mongkut was delighted with this royal favour from mighty Britain and ordered a procession for formal delivery of the letter. In fact these ceremonies infuriated Townshend Harris, the newly-arrived American envoy, as he had to wait many days before he could begin discussions on his own treaty. The effect of Mongkut's treaties with the West were far-reaching. Trade increased rapidly and had more than doubled by the time of the King's death in 1868. The character of the trade changed. There was virtually no export of rice before 1855, and by the end of the century rice accounted for nearly seventy per cent of Siam's exports. Bangkok grew rapidly, foreign merchants set up offices in the capital and there was an increase in the number of Chinese entering the country. The King's fiscal system had to change. Instead of royal monopolies of imports, taxes were charged at an agreed level. The political effects were even more important. Foreign consuls lived in the capital and Siam sent embassies to Europe for the first time. The King took the initiative in employing foreign experts in his civil service. This practice was greatly extended in the next reign, that of his son, King Chulalongkorn. British officers were employed in the police force. A Belgian advised on legal reform. Germans were invited to plan the building of railways. Americans and Danes were appointed to civil and military duties. Most notorious of these appointments was that of Anna ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d BOOK REVIEWS 171 tung. On the military side these events included two assaults on Canton itself, nearly four years of military occupation of the city (5.1.1858 - 21.10.1861) and various punitive expeditions on the Canton river and inside the province. On the civil and diplomatic side were the sequence of events connected with the question of entry to Canton, which the British held to have been promised them under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. This culminated in the triumph of the Canton Viceroy in 1849 who was able to defer entry still further on the grounds of the rooted opposition of the gentry and people of the province to this step by their officials — though deferment was also due to Bonham's conviction that the real key to Canton lay not by warlike action there as in the North. These years also saw economic crises at Canton occasioned, among other factors, by the opening of four other treaty ports under the Nanking Treaty, and a wave of growing lawlessness across the province culminating in the great disorders of the 1850s in the wake of the Taiping rebellion. Mr. Wakeman's theme is the re-emergence of local militia in the early 1840's to assist in repelling the British forces and their continuance through the later years of the entry question (1846-49); the part they played in local defence against the Red Turban and other rebels, pirates and banditti in the early 1850s; their efforts against the British attack in 1857-58 and, under secret orders from Peking, in the guerilla struggle against the British in Canton in the first period of the occupation, until diplomatic agreement in the North led to their being told to desist. He traces the ebb and flow in official attitudes to the local militia from encouragement to discouragement, from enthusiasm to apprehension. He describes, too, the methods by which the militia were raised and financed and shows how they were a two-edged weapon to Government and people alike. Mr. Wakeman also traces the rise and wane of anti-foreign attitudes in Kwantung during this period and the paradoxical change from bitter enmity to a realisation, at least in Canton and its surrounds, that British troops were a guarantee against a multitude of threats from lawless elements. The treatment is masterly and authoritative, being based on a wide variety of sources in English and Chinese; the book is compelling and the narrative moves smoothly. In this review I shall confine my remarks mainly to the militia. First of all I wish to comment briefly on the use of the English ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 LORD ELGIN AND THE TAIPINGS STEPHEN UHALLEY, Jr.* When Lord Elgin, Great Britain's Plenipotentiary to China and the negotiator of the abortive Treaty of Tientsin in 1858 and of the Peking Convention in 1860, in a fit of anger and frustration at the Manchu government raised the possibility of treating with the Taiping revolutionaries instead, his colleagues quickly dissuaded him from such a drastic course. But the question, having been raised, remained to what extent was Lord Elgin's threat the revelation of an alternative policy that the British might have been considering should the recalcitrant Manchus prove in the end to be hopelessly intractable? In other words, had the British been giving secret thought to negotiating a separate or alternative treaty with the Taipings at Nanking? Aside from Lord Elgin's passing remark in this regard there certainly was little in the record of relations between the British and the Taipings to suggest that any such arrangement had been given serious consideration. The early diplomatic visits to Nanking in 1853 and 1854 were never followed-up by any of the Western powers.2 Despite the features of the Taiping regime that did not set well with the foreigners it had manifested a friendly attitude toward them and did continue to exist as a de facto alternative government with which they might have dealt had they been so disposed. But they were not. Instead the powers opted to deal exclusively with the Manchus, even though this required the waging of further hostilities in order to accomplish their diplomatic objectives. Still, there does remain Lord Elgin's annoyed comment. Did it possibly signify a line of action that had been hidden? Of course, this was unlikely. Yet the best way to satisfy our curiosity on this question is to examine the record of Lord Elgin's own visit through Taiping territory. Did the Minister Plenipotentiary, *The author, a former editor of this Journal, currently Associate Professor of History at Duke University, is indebted to the Research Associates Program of the Graduate School of International Studies and the Social Science Foundation of the University of Denver for a grant which facilitated the preparation of this article. In modified form the article forms part of a chapter of the author's forthcoming book Revolutionary Taiping China and the West. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 70 DAFYDD EMRYS EVANS Strand. It seems that the Chinese were encouraged to do so by the Government of the day as a matter of simple expediency, for they were required to provide food and the other necessities of life in which Hong Kong was totally deficient (many of them were said to be merchants from Macao). A. R. Johnston, who administered the island during Sir Henry Pottinger's absence in 1841 and 1842, went as far as to make grants in September 1841 to those persons who, against every obstacle (by which was meant the intimidation of the mandarins on the mainland) supplied the fleet when it could not otherwise obtain provision. It seems that Johnston 'granted' 150 lots of a size 40 feet by 20 feet at a rent of $5 per annum,2 and these 'grants' survived attempts to shift the Chinese away on the grounds that the waterfront was far too valuable to allow it to remain outstanding in Chinese hands.3 Leases were executed for most of the original lots during 1845 and after a redistribution to facilitate reconstruction consequent upon the devastating fire of December 1851 (which substantially destroyed the whole of the Lower Bazaar), the area remained much as it was, with new buildings of far greater value replacing the old structures. Whilst a good deal of the waterfront in the Central District remained through the nineteenth century in European or Parsee hands, the Lower Bazaar remained largely in Chinese hands. The second area in which Chinese were not only encouraged but allowed to settle lay on the other side of the Queen's Road, almost opposite to the Central Market. This was the Upper Bazaar (sometimes referred to as the 'Middle Bazaar') which was built at the beginning of 1842. Its origins were similar to those of the Lower Bazaar and it consisted of two rows or streets of shops on lots about 36 feet by 14 feet. These were granted to newcomers at a time when applications from Chinese were becoming 'very numerous' and they were charged a rent of $4 per annum.4 The Bazaar was probably finished by March, 1842 and was therefore well-placed both in point of time and geographically to meet the needs of the Europeans and Chinese populations in Hong Kong's first boom period after the signing of the Treaty of Nanking which appeared to remove doubts over the future of the colony and which brought in many adventurers. This Upper Bazaar was, therefore, together with the Lower Bazaar, the first 'Chinatown' in Hong Kong in the sense that it was an area of the town in Page 75 Page 76 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 81 Until the treaty port era that began with the Treaty of Nanking 1842, most Chinese emigration was voluntary, and mainly to South-east Asia. Then the situation changed. Almost coincident with the opening of the treaty ports and the expansion of foreign shipping on the coast, a widespread demand for cheap labour arose in many parts of the tropics, to replace the recently emancipated slave labour, and also to supply the additional workers required for the increased agricultural and industrial development which followed the establishment of European administrations. In many of these places contract labour from China provided the solution. Much of the contract labour was voluntary; but many thousands of the Chinese emigrants to the Spanish and ex-Spanish colonies of South America and the West Indies were kidnapped, abducted by unscrupulous crimps, or sold by cruel or poverty-stricken relatives. The coolies themselves were not always blameless, and many accepted engagement money and then failed to turn up at the collecting centres, or absconded before joining the ship. The labour agents employed by the centres received a capitation fee for every coolie they delivered at the coast, and were specially active during famines and depressions. In 1853 the capitation fee was three dollars per head, but in addition these agents often appropriated any money advanced to the coolies on the score of defraying expenses, and also charged them with the capitation fee, maintenance costs at the depot, and other expenses. As a result the unfortunate coolie often found himself saddled with a heavy debt which might amount to several months' wages before he ever set foot on the promised land. But whether voluntary or forced, the coolies were herded into wretched barracoons at the coast while waiting for their ship, and then suffered great hardship and cruelty on the voyage. In spite of repeated protests, British ships and Hong Kong played an invidious part in this infamous traffic in the early treaty port years. However, the British government soon made attempts to ameliorate the abuses of the emigrant trade but only succeeded in diverting much of it to other ports such as Whampoa, Macao, Cumsingmoon, Amoy, and Swatow. The Chinese Passengers' Act, passed in 1855, prescribed certain standards of food, accommodation, medical attention, and so on; and two years later a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 85 at the French settlement on New Caledonia, after which the French authorities sent a ship to rescue the survivors on Rossel Island. Only one small Chinese boy was found, whose story was that the rest of the passengers and crew had been eaten by the natives. This was accepted as gospel by the press in Sydney where the boy was taken, although there were some glaring inconsistencies in his story, and it was repeated in the British Admiralty Sailing Directions. Not until thirty years later was it seriously questioned, when its most important critic was Sir William MacGregor, the first Australian administrator of New Guinea. It is now generally believed that, rather than wait to be taken on to Australia and a life-time of labour to repay the inflated cost of their passages, the Chinese had preferred to take a chance in New Guinea. Food, including the highly prized luxury bêche-de-mer, was comparatively plentiful, and life in New Guinea with freedom must have appeared infinitely preferable to life in the Australian goldfields saddled with a heavy personal debt. When the first official census was taken in New Guinea, many Chinese were recorded, of whose origins there was no satisfactory explanation. Another notable incident in the history of Chinese emigration, and which had a happy conclusion, concerned the Peruvian ship Maria Luz in 1872. The Maria Luz had left Macao with over 300 indentured labourers for the Peruvian guano islands, and was forced into Yokohama harbour in distress. One coolie jumped overboard and swam to H.M.S. Iron Duke, where he reported that the passengers on the Maria Luz had either been kidnapped or decoyed on board under false pretences. As a result of the publicity and outcry which this caused, all the passengers were sent back to China. Peru had then no treaty relations with Japan, but threatened war unless Japan apologised and indemnified her. The British government, however, warned Peru that any hostile act on her part would invite retaliatory action by the Royal Navy; and the whole question was referred to France, who gave her verdict in favour of Japan. This case focussed public attention on the many unsavoury aspects of the emigrant trade, and also led to the opening of diplomatic relations between China and Japan. It is necessary to remind ourselves that conditions in many of the emigrant ships to South-east Asia during the 1850's and Page 90 Page 91 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g HON EDITOR of the period in later life in two well-known books entitled The 'Fan Kwae' at Canton before Treaty Days 1825-1844 (Kelly & Walsh, 1882 and 2nd edition 1911) and Bits of Old China, also published by Messrs. Kelly & Walsh at the same dates. C. Toogood Downing's The Fan-Qui in China (three volumes, London, Henry Colburn, 1838) is another well-known contemporary account. Extracts from the Letters * TO HIS SISTER, DATED CANTON, 12TH DECEMBER, 1835 My time here is fully occupied, I am glad to say. If sometimes rather too much so there's no great harm done; I assure you I have supped too full of the horrors of idleness in time gone by, to fret at hard work now. There are several circumstances in Canton life which agree with me very well—and these are just enhanced by contrast with its disadvantages. There is some interest too in the strange faces, browned and weather-beaten, of the ship-captains from Liverpool and London etc. who are lodged and boarded of necessity in our Hong here all the time their Ships are in the Port, so that Covers are laid every day for an indefinite number, and the whole Domestic Establishment in short is a Boarding-House with a Table d'hôte at 7 p.m. The comfort of this evil, is the sanctity with which folks' private-rooms are regarded—seeing that there is no privacy whatever elsewhere; and in my bedroom accordingly, I enjoy greater security and deeper seclusion than if I were a stranger in an Inn with boots and chambermaids and postboys to interrupt me whether I have business with them or no. Sundry persons who dislike the strict imprisonment of a Canton-life, venture out, of evenings, on the river, in wherries. As there is a barrier, a break-water, of some thousands of boats and river-crafts of the most unutterable forms and still more unmentionable characters, to break, bruise and burst through, before ten square feet of dirty water can be won free, this is not an amusement I have taken to; and fond as I used to be of it, I think I shall become more and more averse to experiments on the Canton River the longer I remain in China. Three Europeans have been drowned by accident since my arrival here, which is just an * * The text has been left in the writer's style. Additions and queries in square brackets are the Editor's. Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 152 JAMES HAYES in 1859 and spread outwards through the self-governing and other territories of what became the Commonwealth and Empire. It extended to Britain's Eastern Colonies and to the foreign communities of the treaty ports of China and Japan where, from time to time, various alarms and excursions added self-preservation to the list of factors motivating the continuance or periodic resuscitation of volunteer corps. In Hong Kong the Laws of the Colony early provided for their existence as a constitutional force. A succession of Ordinances established volunteers on a proper basis. The earliest of these was No. 2 of 1862, which was repeated with slight variation in No. 18 of 1882. An important re-modelling was carried out by No. 6 of 1893. This was followed by a Volunteer Reserve Ordinance No. 25 of 1910. Both these Ordinances were replaced by a further Volunteer Ordinance No. 2 of 1920, still modelled largely on the important 1893 Ordinance. Volunteer forces were the rule in the various foreign concessions in China, though save in the larger ones local volunteer forces tended to be formed and reformed whenever events seemed to warrant it. For example, the Shameen Defence Corps was formed after a serious riot in 1884 and was reformed from time to time, e.g. in May 1911 due to the unsettled state of affairs in Canton (see Diary of Events and the Progress on Shameen 1859-1938 compiled by H.S.S. and privately printed about 1938, pp. 19-26). The largest of the China volunteer units was, in time, the Shanghai Volunteer Corps. This originated at two public meetings held in April 1853 and its early doings are described in Chapter XXXV of Lanning and Couling's The History of Shanghai, Part I (Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1921). Interesting details of its development are given here and there in Brigadier J. V. Davidson-Houston's Yellow Creek, The Story of Shanghai (London, Putnam, 1962). As in Hong Kong, the passing of the first emergency resulted in the demise of the Corps. "Enthusiasm for the Volunteer Corps sank to a low ebb, members neglected to turn up for training and it was soon practically defunct" (p. 58). The Corps was again raised in August 1860 with the onset of the Taiping rebels, when 107 volunteers came forward for enrolment (p. 65). However, after the successful operations against the rebels the Corps "wilted and died" and was wound up in 1867 to "pay for its debtor's balance by selling its rifles" although the rifle club continued to function (p. 90). The Corps was again formed in 1870 following the Tientsin massacre and continued in being thereafter, its numbers fluctuating between 250-350 for the rest of the 19th century (pp. 92-93). It then continued to grow in size, like the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, to meet the difficulties of the troubled 1920s and the war with Japan. The number of foreign residents in China is relevant to the size and location of Volunteer Corps. Some figures are given at pp. 292-295 of J. Dyer Ball's Things Chinese or Notes Connected with China, 4th edition, Hongkong, Kelly and Walsh 1903. There were, for instance, 4,424 foreigners in Shanghai (exclusive of those living in the French Settlement) in 1895 and 6774 in 1900. The Hong Kong Census of 1891 listed 10,446 British and foreign residents. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g THE COLONY OF HONG KONG From a lecture by the Rev. JAMES LEGGE, D.D., LL.D., on reminiscences of a long residence in the east, delivered in the City Hall, November 5, 1872. Editor's note. The following article is reprinted from the pages of The China Review, Vol. III, (1874) pp. 163–176. Its subject, and its distinguished author, (1815-97, appointed first Professor of Chinese at Oxford, 1876) are of equal interest and require no introduction from me. [The lecturer, having stated that his main object would be to interest his hearers by a review of the progress of the Colony, almost from its commencement down to nearly the present time, and by some references to the changes which during that period have taken place in the relations of China and Japan with the Christian nations of the West, the old nations of Europe and the young nation of the United States, proceeded to say that wherever he might interject views of his own in the course of his historical survey, he claimed perfect freedom in doing so, and was ready to accord the same to others in estimating the value of his opinions. He then sketched briefly his arrival in the East in 1839, and a residence in Malacca of nearly three years and a half, which brought him to his removal to Hong Kong in 1843. From this point, he shall speak in his own person.] In the month of May, 1843, I reached Macao, and, a few days after, came over with my family to this place. Our passage was made in a small cutter, chartered for the occasion, and I have not forgotten the sensations of delight with which, when we had passed Green Island, I contemplated the ranges of hills on the north and the south, embosoming, between them the tranquil waters of the bay. I seemed to feel that I had found at last the home for which I had left Scotland; and here has been my abode, with intervals occupied by visits to the fatherland, for nearly thirty years. The hill-sides now occupied by the graceful terraces of our city then presented a very different appearance. But the small and rude beginnings would not have been what they were in the middle of 1843, if they had not dated from before the treaty of Nanking. The island had been ceded to Great Britain in January 1841, by ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g THE COLONY OF HONG KONG 183 the Governor, and many members of the community, in what was long afterwards called, in commemoration of the affair, K'e-ying house. His visit, no doubt, had reference to the evacuation of Choosan by our troops, and the opening of Canton city, for at that time the Governor of Hongkong was also superintendent of trade in all China;—an unfortunate arrangement, which continued till provision was made for the residence of an ambassador in Peking by the treaty of Teen-tsin in June, 1858. The wily Manchoo was more than a match for Sir John Davis. Choosan was evacuated, but Canton was not opened. K'e-ying had promised that it should be opened on the 31st March, 1847, and that not being done, as well as to avenge other injuries, Sir John made his famous raid upon the city, and on the 5th April dictated a convention, stipulating among other things, that Canton should be opened: --not immediately, but in two years, on the 1st April, 1849. It was an unhappy concession; but Sir John Davis somehow wanted "the stalk of carl-hemp." Speaking after the manner of men, the refusal to open Canton was a sufficient casus belli, and I could wish that our second war with China had been fought upon it, rather than on the affair of the lorcha Arrow, nearly ten years later. The Cantonese, from the Viceroy of the Kwang provinces downwards, were encouraged in their insolent contempt for foreigners, and various outrages were perpetrated in consequence. I may mention that in 1846 a little steamer called the Corsair began to run between Hongkong and Canton, people being doubtful whether the enterprise would pay. The foundation of the Cathedral, then a church merely, was laid in January, 1847. The old Union Church had been opened in 1845. I returned to Hongkong in the summer of 1848, and found that Sir John Davis had resigned the government of the Colony, and that his successor was Sir George Bonham, whom I had known as governor of the Straits' settlements, when I was in Malacca. I remember, as he was about to proceed in the spring of 1849 to an interview with the governor of Canton at the Bogue, asking him whether he was going to insist on the opening of the city on the 1st April. He replied, "How can I? My instructions are to keep the peace, and by no means bring on another war with China." He did keep the peace,—kept it with China, and kept it among the members of the government of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h RAJA JAMES BROOKE AND SARAWAK No one dissented, whereupon 33 Muda Hassim then drew forth his sabre, and raising it, proclaimed in a loud voice, that any one who contested the Sultan's appointment, his head should be split in two. On which ten of his brothers drew their krisses and flourished them + As we have seen James Brooke acquired Sarawak as a private individual; but there is little question but that elements within the Brunei court, centered upon Hasim and Bedruddin, which came to be known as the "English party" wished to bring the British into an alliance with them to further their own political ends, and they saw Brooke as an agency by means of which this goal might be pursued. Although given a pseudo-political mission by the Singapore authorities Brooke undertook no official duties for Britain until 1844 when he was appointed "agent near the person of the Sultan of Borneo", a "special and temporary office", and was commissioned to find a site for a naval station along the northwest coast of Borneo. When Labuan was purchased from Brunei and created a British colony Brooke became its first governor in 1847. The same year he negotiated a consular treaty with the Sultan and was named consul to Brunei. His dual appointment from the Foreign and Colonial Offices came largely as a result of the reputation he enjoyed in England as a result of his successful battles against Borneo pirates. Not only was he popular with officers of the Royal Navy in the East who aided him in his anti-piracy warfare on the coast. His exploits had also been well publicised at home. In 1847 he returned to England, the hero of the day. He was fêted, given the freedom of the City of London, presented at Court at Windsor Castle, where the Prince Consort found him an interesting conversationalist, and was knighted. At the end of the 1840s, then, Brooke found himself the possessor of three posts. He was Raja of Sarawak in his own right, and an officer of the Crown as Governor of Labuan and Consul to Brunei. The nature of his responsibilities in the three positions very soon created a conflict of interest situation and in 1854 he resigned his crown appointments. 5 Aberdeen to Brooke, 1 November 1844, Foreign Office Series 12, Volume 2 (FO12/2). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 34 ! LEIGH R. WRIGHT The issue of Brooke's status revolved around, firstly, the question of whether or not a subject of the Queen could hold the position as a sovereign prince of a foreign state; and, secondly, whether Brooke was in fact an independent ruler or a vassal of the Sultan of Brunei. The issue, however, was not a burning one in the ministries of Whitehall. Despite the fact that Borneo was of concern to Britain as the guardian of the eastern flank of the South China Sea route to the China coast, and was to assume, gradually, more strategic value as first France and later Germany began colonial operations in the area, at mid-century Britain possessed a colony and naval station at Labuan and a (“good strong”) consular treaty with Brunei which gave her a certain measure of control, if she chose to indulge it, in Brunei's relations with foreign states. Most of the Colonial and Foreign Secretaries in London, until the 1870s were not very interested in defining precisely Raja Brooke's status, For the most part, Whitehall grudgingly approved of Brooke's “civilizing influence" in Borneo. Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary in 1846, offered naval support for the suppression of piracy, and during a later term of office gave standing orders to the Eastern squadron to visit Sarawak at regular intervals. But the Foreign Office generally held to the view that "it is not the policy of Her Majesty's Government that British subjects should possess territory on the mainland of Borneo". Lord Clarendon, when Foreign Secretary in the mid-1850s, came close to disavowing Brooke's position in Sarawak. In 1853 the Raja took issue with a Foreign Office statement that seemed to assume that Brooke was a vassal of Brunei. Clarendon minuted, It seems to me that the various documents tend to prove how cautiously the government abstained from recognizing his (Brooke's) independence although in various ways the anomalous character of his position has been admitted. But Clarendon did not leave it at that. When in 1855 Spencer St. John succeeded Brooke as Consul in Brunei he suggested to the Foreign Office that he also be accredited to Sarawak as an independent state. The Raja agreed and insisted that the new consul must receive his exequatur from him. This act would render the desired 6 FO to Admiralty, 24 July 1846, FO 12/4. 7 Clarendon minute upon Brooke to FO, 27 September 1853, FO 12/13. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h H.K.'S CENTRAL MARKET AND THE TARRANT AFFAIR 159 forces during hostilities against China to settle and allotted them small lots on the waterfront. The Upper Bazaar which lay in the area of Graham and Stanley Streets consisted also of relatively small areas granted to Chinese who were presumptively useful to the nascent colony as tradesmen. The Lower Bazaar was almost totally destroyed in the great fire at the end of 1851 and the Upper Bazaar was removed in 1844 and its inhabitants resettled in Taipingshan. 3 See Gordon to Pottinger, 10 February 1844 [CO129/V/f.141]. + Evidence given by Colonel Malcolm to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Commercial Relations with China, answer to question 4633. 5 Davis sought to let as many monopolies go as possible to private individuals for what they were prepared to give. Thus, in addition to the markets, he let out also opium, salt, and quarrying monopolies. 6 Lease Register Volume C, f.94. The lot was leased as Marine Lot 38. The lease registers referred to are the Registers of the Land Office in which all dealings in crown land were recorded. The actual transactions themselves are also recorded separately as 'Memorials' and reference is made to them by number. The numbering was done according to the order in which they were registered. I am indebted to the Registrar General of the Government of Hong Kong for allowing me access to the records of the Land Office and for permission to publish material derived from that source. 7 Memorial 122. 8 Memorial 143. 9 Memorial 258. 10 Friend of China, 7 July 1847. 11 Memorial 383. 12 In this article, the romanisations found in the Land Office records are used even where they do not correspond to those either in the Wade-Giles system or current usage. 13 Memorial 304. 14 Ibid. 15 Memorial 345. 16 Hong Kong Register, 27 July 1847. 17 Friend of China, 14 July 1847. 18 And in so doing, incidentally, infringing the provision of the Treaty of Nanking, 1842, which allowed British subjects to proceed only to the "Treaty Ports" and to nowhere else in China. 19 Friend of China, 14 July 1847. Tam Achoy's market was known as the Kwang Yuen and in the disastrous fire in December 1851, the fifty-one houses which comprised the market were destroyed: see Hong Kong Register, January 1852. Tam was referred to a few years later as the "most respectable Chinaman" who made a practice of going into the witness box to speak for the character of accused persons. He remained in Hong Kong until his death in the 1870's and was one of the founders of the Tung Wah organisation, a charitable body still functioning in Hong Kong. 20 Hong Kong Register, 27 July 1847. 21 Hong Kong Register, 19 October 1847; Friend of China, 23 October 1847 and 18 December 1847. 22 The Editor of the Friend (John Carr) claimed to have seen Hwei's accounts and that they revealed the "squeeze" payment. Page 165 Page 166 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 NOTES AND QUERIES 209 to Dr. Peter Young of the Hong Kong Dispensary, but Dr. Young was prevented from building on it by the Governor's Notification of 10 April 1843, that no further building was to continue until after the signing of a Treaty determining the future of Hong Kong as a British possession. Both of the lots were later resumed by Government and a Police Station was built on the site. Across the Queen's Road and on the sea front from “Jorrock's Hall" was the business establishment of Gillespie operated in Captain Thomas Larkin's godown. Here he sold general provisions and goods suitable for trade with the Pacific Islands. Larkin's Godowns were just west of another extensive range of buildings called the Albany Godowns. They were built to store the goods of Chinese merchants, but they were not a financial success and stood empty or partially used for a number of years. Finally the land reverted to government in 1847. In 1855 both Larkin's Godown and the Albany Godowns were resold by Government and in the 1860's they were used for McGregor's Barracks by the Military, giving the present McGregor Street its name, (3) VISIT TO OLD WESTERN DISTRICT, SATURDAY, 8 JUNE, 1974 Route Instructions Meet at Chinese Recreation Ground, Possession Point (the British flag was raised here in January 1841). Enter Possession Street and visit: 1) Offices of the Tung Kwun Trade Assn. (including the roof, from which an excellent view can be obtained); 2) The Foo Lung Restaurant (2nd and 3rd floors only). The Tung Kwun District Commercial Association, as the Tung Yee Hop Tong, was founded in 1893. There are several interesting photographs and inscriptions in this office. From there the group will go along Fat Hing Street — a lane with many embroidery stores in it to the Shun Tak District Commercial Association at 67, Queen's Road, West. The Association owns the whole building and its office occupies the 2nd floor. The interior is practically the same with photographs, furniture and inscriptions as provided in 1915 when the Association was founded. The Association dates in fact from much earlier, around 1875, under the name of a Tong or 'Hall' (****). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 124 RICHARD J. SMITH To be sure, the Ch'ing dynasty was not blindly anti-foreign, having accepted both Russians and other Europeans (the Dutch) as allies, and having allowed a number of Russians to be "naturalized" (kuei-hua) and incorporated into the elite Banner forces.58 But the ever-tightening strait-jacket of neo-Confucian orthodoxy under the Manchus, and the rise of anti-foreign (particularly anti-Christian) propaganda, did not portend a friendly reception for Westerners when they attempted to "open" China by force in the nineteenth century. The Nineteenth Century Context By the mid-nineteenth century, the West had earned China's well-deserved distrust for its aggressiveness and intractability. Pronounced anti-foreignism (championed, ironically, by a scholar of Mongol extraction in the 1860's) blossomed after the Opium War of 1839-1842 and grew apace with further Western economic, military and religious activity in China. During the Opium War, the throne had countenanced, and even encouraged, limited and unobtrusive military assistance from Americans in the time-honored tradition of "using barbarians against barbarians." In the area of Canton, for example, a few individuals "dressed in Chinese costume" assisted the Chinese in building fortresses and casting cannon.59 But by the Hsien-feng emperor's reign, China had adopted a belligerent anti-Western stance, and despite the panic precipitated by the Taiping outbreak in 1850-1851, the throne seemed totally indisposed to accept any kind of foreign assistance against the rebels. The situation did not change appreciably until 1860, when the British and French occupied Peking in an attempt to enforce the provisions of the Treaty of Tientsin (1858).60 After the signing of the Peking Conventions in late 1860, which ushered in a new period of "cooperation" between China and the foreign powers, Western barbarians began playing a prominent role in Chinese military affairs. A number of diverse individuals became involved: Foreign military men and diplomatic officials, customs personnel, swashbuckling adventurers, and even missionaries.61 On the whole, the participation of these individuals fell within the bounds of China's long tradition of "borrowing talent from foreign lands" (chieh-ts'ai i-ti).62 But unlike alien employees in earlier periods of Chinese history, Westerners in the nineteenth century were a new breed of barbarian, confident of their own cultural and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT 63 See Smith, "Foreign-Training,” 83-86. 64 Ward and other foreigners in the Chinese military service are studied in depth in Smith, Ward, Gordon and the Ever-Victorious Army. 65 For basic Chinese documentation on Ward's career, see IWSM TC 4: 25-276; 4: 40a; 4; 51b-52; 5: 6b-8b; 5: 33-36b; 5: 51-52; 5: 54; 6: 2a-b; 6: 14b; 6: 17b-18; 6: 19b-20; 6: 30-31; 7; 47b-48b; 9; 3-4. 66 IWSM TC 79: 11. 67 Ibid., TC 4: 25-26; see also John K. Fairbank, "The Early Treaty System," 270. 68 IWSM, TC 5: 33-36b; 5: 51-52; 6: 19b-20; 6: 30a-b. 69 Li Hung-chang, Letters to Friends, 1: 29. 70 Foreign Relations of the United States (1888), part 1, 211-217. 71 IWSM, TC 6: 17. 72 Ibid., TC 9; 3b. 73 Ibid., TC 9: 4. 74 Ching Wu and Chung Ting, eds., Wu Hsu tang-an chung ti T'al-p'ing r'ien-kuo shih-liao hsüan-chi [Selections of historical materials concerning the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in Wu Hsu's archives] (Peking, 1958), 128-129, 75 See Martin Ring, "The Burgevine Case and Extrality in China, 1863-1866," Papers on China 20 (1969). In mid-1863, Prince Kung requested that Burgevine be expunged from the Chinese population register. See IWSM, TC 17: 136 and 20b. 76 Ring, 145-146, 156 note 70. 77 IWSM, TC 10: 46-49. 78 Ibid., TC 10: 50a-b. 79 Ibid., TC 15: 10b-11. 80 I have discussed this combination in Ward, Gordon and the Ever Victorious Army. For some indications of Li's approach, consult J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (New York, 1917); I. C. Cheng, Chinese Sources for the Taiping Rebellion, 1850-1864 (Hong Kong, 1963), 120-132; Gordon Papers (British Museum), Ad. Mss. 53, 386, Robert Hart to Charles Gordon, October 7, 1863. 81 See, for example, Feng Kuei-fen's Hsien-chih-r'ang chi [Collected essays from the Hall of Manifest Aspirations] (1876), 6: 46. 82 IWSM, TC 22; 3b; 24: 29a-b; 25: 27b-28b; 27: 28-29. On Gordon's return to China in 1880 to assist Li during the so-called Ili Crisis, consult Immanuel C. Y. Hsü, "Gordon in China, 1880," Pacific Historical Review 30.2 (May, 1964). 83 See Kuo T'ing-i, Taiping t'ien-kuo shih-shih jih-chih (A daily record of historical events of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom] (Taipei, 1963), appendix, 165-167. 84 See Smith, "Foreign-Training". 85 See Mary Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T’ung-Chih Restoration, 1862-1874 (New York, 1967), 216; IWSM, TC 16; 11; 39; 22-29; 70: 38a-b and 41-42b; 85: 39a-b; 87; 31, 34-35. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 312 NOTES AND QUERIES The Deputy Commander at Taipang was the highest ranking officer in the locality of Kowloon during the Ch'ing Dynasty. At that time, the headquarters was set up within the Kowloon Walled City. This office, which also served as a garrison, still existed before the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, but had been converted into a Home for the Aged run by a Catholic Mission. In accordance with the [Kwangtung] military system adopted in Ch'ing Dynasty, there were altogether 6 battalions of armed forces under the Kowloon garrison commander. The reason why the Kowloon headquarters was named the Taipang Garrison is that the geographical name of Kowloon was once alternatively called Taipang Shan (⚟) and was politically under the sovereignty of Po On (then San On) District Magistracy.* Besides, there is also a very good harbour by the name of Taipang Bay located at the southeastern part of Po On District and east of Kowloon. In Taipang harbour the water runs to 5-10 fathoms deep where large warships can cast anchor. It was partly due to the importance of local coastal defence and partly due to the necessity of civil administration that such a garrison was established at Taipang Bay. The post of Deputy Commander was normally held in a 3 years' term; and among all the previous commanders, General Cheung was the most important in terms of historical significance. Cheung Yuk-tong, alias Hon-sang,† was born in Wei Yeung District, Kwangtung, and for many generations the Cheung's family lived in the Peach Garden in the capital town of the Wai Yeung District. In the 4th year of Hsien Feng (A.D.) (1853) he was appointed as Deputy Commander at Taipang, being promoted from staff officer at the Chin Shan Checkpoint [near Macao]. For four successive tours of service, in all a total of 13 years Gen. Cheung had been holding this post, and in those days the local inhabitants enjoyed a very peaceful time. It was not until the 5th year of Tung-chih reign (1866) that General Cheung retired from the military service at the age of 72. When the southern part of the Kowloon Peninsula was ceded to Britain as a consequence of the signing of the Peking Treaty he was still in office. As the Treaty was signed by the Imperial Court, *This is not so, but the Taipang garrison force served in and controlled Kowloon and district. Except where stated footnotes are supplied by James Hayes. † ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 164 A. D. BLUE and gorges in their upper reaches. Yet British and French explorers light-heartedly planned roads and railways through the region, when earth moving and other civil engineering techniques were primitive by modern standards. Political difficulties were equally formidable. In addition to Anglo-French rivalry, there was an involved relationship between Britain, Burma, China, and the Kachin and Shan hill peoples in the borderlands. A further complication, from 1855 to 1873, was the devastation of Yunnan by the Panthay Rebellion, a Moslem uprising almost as destructive as the more famous Taiping Rebellion. Although the Treaty of Yandabo had established Britain in Lower Burma, Upper Burma continued as an independent state, with an ill-defined tributary relationship with China. However, during the sixty years before Britain annexed Upper Burma in 1886, Britain obtained the province of Pegu (1852), and mounted a succession of expeditions to find a practicable trade route from Burma into Yunnan, contemporary with other expeditions up the Yangtze from Shanghai. Between Marco Polo in the late thirteenth century, and the French priest M. Huc in the 1840s, practically no European had travelled in West China. So little was known of it that while their compatriots in China looked on neighbouring Szechwan as the El Dorado of the East, the British in Burma and India had their eyes on the province of Yunnan. The extravagant and over enthusiastic appraisal of Yunnan's potential wealth gave rise to what became known as the "Yunnan Myth". The first British attempts to reach Yunnan and West China came from Burma in the late eighteenth century. When Captain Sorrel went to Ava in 1792 to deliver a letter to the King of Burma from Lord Cornwallis, Governor-General of India, some Burmese offered to take him overland to China. Sorrel's reference to this aroused great interest in India. Over a century earlier, Dutch East India traders in Ava and Syriam had given glowing accounts of a flourishing trade between Burma and China, conducted through Chinese merchants in Bhamo. In 1795 when Captain Michael Symes was sent on an official mission to Burma, he was instructed to “find a mart in the south west dominions of China by means of the great river of Ava”. Symes' report was enthusiastic. He said the principal export from Ava was cotton, which went up the Irrawaddy in large ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA 165 boats as far as Bhamo, and then partly by land and partly by water into China. Other exports were amber, ivory, precious stones, betel nuts, and edible birds' nests; while in return Burma got raw and wrought silk, velvet, gold leaf, preserves, and chinaware. Similar reports came from other sources. By 1850, the possibility of extending trade from Yunnan into Szechwan was envisaged, and the glowing prospect of an extensive market for British goods in West China became an obsession among many British officials and merchants in Burma and India. Captain McLeod's mission of 1836 is the first official British attempt to find an overland route to China. McLeod went from Moulmein, the port in the newly acquired province of Tenasserim, via Kungtang to Kenghang, a Shan state on the border of China. Here he failed to get permission to enter Yunnan, being told that if the British wanted to trade with China they should go to Canton, and that if he still persisted in wanting to enter Yunnan he would require official permission from Peking. McLeod had to admit defeat, and turned back. After this came a succession of other ventures from Assam and Burma, all—for one reason or another—failures. These culminated in the famous and ill-fated Dual Mission of 1874-75, which led to the Margary Affair.* This was a joint attempt to explore West China from the Burmese and Chinese sides. Previous to this the only important attempts to find a route between Burma and China from the eastern side had been Captain Blakiston's in 1861 and T. T. Cooper's in 1868. The Royal Navy's expedition of 1861 which went up the Yangtze to establish the first treaty ports on the great river—Chinkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow—continued 153 miles beyond Hankow to Yochow. Here they transferred Blakiston's party to junks in which they continued for another 1050 miles to Pingshan, nearly 1800 miles from the sea and 400 miles above Chungking. It had been intended to follow the Yangtze to its source in Tibet, and then cross the Himalayas into India. Because of unsettled political conditions at Pingshan and beyond, however, they were forced to turn back; but they had obtained valuable information about the Middle and Upper Yangtze. See pp. 169-170 below. Page 180 Page 181 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n BRUNEI: A HISTORICAL RELIC 23 Spaniards. She worried about the presence of France in Indochina on the opposite side of the South China Sea at mid-century; and later on she suspected imperial Germany of coveting northern Borneo and the Philippines. The British sphere was initiated by the private efforts of an English adventurer, James Brooke, a former officer in the Bengal Army. In 1840, he helped bring an end to an insurrection in the Sarawak River, in the southern-most area under the nominal rule of the Sultan of Brunei, and was rewarded by being granted the province. In 1845 Brooke was appointed diplomatic agent to Brunei and supervised the transfer of the island of Labuan to Britain as a colony and a naval station. He also, in 1847, negotiated a consular treaty with the Sultan which effectively gave to Britain control over Brunei's foreign relations. The colony of Labuan languished but the quasi-protectorate over Brunei served as the de facto and legal base for Britain's sphere of influence in Borneo. Such a sphere was proclaimed in 1868 as a warning to all European nations to keep out. The real carving-up of the carcass of Brunei began in earnest in 1878 with the founding of another private venture, that of a syndicate of City of London businessmen which later became the British North Borneo (Chartered) Company. The syndicate was under the control of Dent Brothers Company. Alfred and Edward Dent were sons of the owner of the former Hong Kong firm of Dent and Company. Raja Brooke had annexed, by treaty with the Sultan, additional chunks of territory before 1878. In 1853 he purchased northward to and including the large district of the Rajang River. And in 1861 he purchased the five so-called “sago rivers” as far north as Kidurong Point. When that point was reached, the Governor of Labuan objected to any further northward encroachment of Sarawak and Labuan's wishes were supported by Britain. When, however, the British North Borneo Company purchased the large area of Sabah, the whole of the island of Borneo to the northward of Brunei Town, with strong support from the Foreign Office, both Raja Brooke and the Colonial Office protested. It is interesting to note that the permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office who midwifed the company charter through officialdom in Whitehall was Julian Pauncefote, who was a former attorney-general. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 THE LIBRARY OF THE HONG KONG BRANCH ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1977-1978 At long last the ambition of having our library in one accessible location has been achieved: the books previously kept at the Public Records Office and the bound volumes of periodicals kept at the University of Hong Kong were moved to the Library of the Arts Centre just before Christmas, and the collection was ready for use at the beginning of the New Year. Revised regulations, mainly reflecting the change of location, were approved by the Council on 16th November, 1977. It is hoped that the comfortable surroundings and longer hours of opening will encourage members to make greater use of this facility. The collection has continued to grow at a satisfactory rate. The three sources of accessions are gifts, purchases, and exchange of publications with other societies and institutions. In the first category, special mention must be made of the generous donation by Mr. Stephen S. F. Hui of the following three important volumes: The Chater Collection: pictures relating to China, Hong Kong, Macao, 1655-1860... by James Orange. London, 1924. Present day impressions of the Far East... Editor-in-chief: W. Feldwick. London, 1917. Twentieth century impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai and other treaty ports of China... Editor-in-chief: Arnold Wright. London, 1908. After these have been rebound and catalogued, they will be available for consultation. Dr. J. W. Hayes has also kindly continued to donate books, and we are grateful to have received a copy of McClure's Migration and survival of the birds of Asia from Mr. F.O.P. Hechtel. Over 30 volumes have been purchased during the year, many being older books on the Far East which are becoming increasingly difficult to find at reasonable prices. The number of bound volumes of periodicals has also grown. At the time of the move to the Arts... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m JUAN YUAN'S MANAGEMENT OF SINO-BRITISH RELATIONS IN CANTON, 1817-1826 11 Ti-tzu chi, 5:11. 165 12 Four men were known by the name (or title) of Howqua. They were Wu Tung-yüan (Puiqua or Howqua II), his father Wu Kuo-yung (Howqua I) before him, his two sons, Wu Shou-ch'ang (Howqua III) and Wu Chung-yao (Howqua IV). 13 Wai-chi-tang, (hereafter cited as WCT), n.p. Copy of memorial from Juan Yüan, Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, dated TK 1/11/19 (1821/2/21). 14 +6 16 Morse, Chronicles, III, 334. Liang-kuang yen-chik, chuan on Chia-ch'ing. Ibid. 17 Morse, Chronicles, IV, 57. 18 Copy of memorials from Juan Yüan, Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, in Shih-liao Hsun-k'an 4:126a-b. 19 W. C. Hunter, The "Fan Kwae" at Canton Before Treaty Days, 1825-1844, (Shanghai, 1911), p. 40. 20 H. F. McNair, Modern Chinese History: Selected Readings, (Shanghai, 1913), 1:42. 21 Chinese Repository, V:2:422 (January, 1834). 22 Morse, Chronicles, III, 377. 23 Extract of letter from the Select Committee to the Court of Directors, East India Company, as reprinted in Parliamentary Papers, 21:104. 24 Morse, Chronicles, III, 318. 26 Ibid., 320. 26 Wai-chiao shih-liao, Chia-ch'ing 6:57. 27 28 Letter from the Select Committee, Parliamentary Papers 21:537. Wai-chiao shih-liao, Chia-ch'ing 6:57b. 20 Letter from the Select Committee, Parliamentary Papers, 21:537. 30 Morse, Chronicles, III, 381. In the listing of Company ships at Canton 1805-20, however, the security merchant for the London is given as Kinqua, Ibid. 31 Letter from the Select Committee, Parliamentary Papers 21:537. 32 Ibid. After the crisis was over, it was revealed that Pigott had been hiding on a British warship, the HMS Liverpool, then moored at Lintin. He could not return to the London when it left China because of bad weather, but managed to return to England at a later date, Morse, Chronicles, III, 382. 33 Letter from the Select Committee, Parliamentary Papers 21:539; Morse, Chronicles, III, 380. 34 Morse, Chronicles, p. 380. 35 Eliot to Palmerston, as cited in Chinese Repository IX:406 (August, 1842). **WCT-TK1/11, Chinese Repository, V:5:223. 37 *7 WCT-TK 1/11. 38 Morse, Chronicles, IV, 23. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM IN THE SHANGHAI INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENT J. H. HAAN* In this article I shall examine the special governmental structure which came into being in the Shanghai International Settlement,1 and which was virtually unique among colonial or semi-colonial territories. Put succinctly, the Settlement had the following characteristics: 1. It was a territory which had explicitly been set aside by the Chinese authorities (in 1845 on the basis of the 1842 Nanking Treaty) in order that foreigners might live in it and conduct their trade from it. For the rest it was surrounded by Chinese territory, different from, say, Calcutta, Bombay, Colombo or Batavia, which all lay in foreign-dominated areas, if not originally then eventually. 2. It was never the possession of any one single Western power. In this it was distinct from, e.g., Hong Kong, Singapore or Macau. In practice, this meant that no single foreign country was ever able to convert the city into a colony of that country, or to claim sovereignty over it. In the crown colonies, government was conducted by a Governor who was appointed by the home country, and he was assisted by an Executive Council, equally appointed by the authorities; furthermore, there was a Legislative Council which consisted partly of official, ex officio, members and partly of non-official * Mr. Haan is a student of the University of Amsterdam. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 34 J. H. HAAN principle of mutual responsibility found its way into article XII, On the other hand some articles were clearly instigated by consul Balfour, e.g. those stipulating self-government by the foreign merchants.5 The 1854 Land Regulations After some years it was deemed necessary to alter the 1845 Land Regulations. It has never been made clear why, the only contemporary comment being a note in the North China Herald that "the necessity of some thorough revision of the Land Regulations and their better adaptation to existing circumstances (has) long been very generally felt”. However, in foreign, and especially British, circles a certain resentment was felt about Chinese obstruction in the execution of some of the treaty provisions and it is not impossible that such sentiments contributed to the decision to alter the Land Regulations. At all events, in May 1853 Rutherford Alcock, the British consul, laid a draft of new Land Regulations before the American and later the French authorities. Apart from a simplification (the number of articles was reduced to 15 in the draft and 14 in the final version), it was also suggested that there be an amalgamation of the British and French concessions. This provision, however, was never acted upon and the French concession retained its independence. In contrast to the 1845 Land Regulations the Chinese authorities had had no say in the drafting of the new ones. Nevertheless a number of articles about the protection of Chinese feelings were incorporated. These had their origin, as I have shown elsewhere, in the New Park affair - a clash between Chinese and foreigners over Chinese graves during the construction of a new racecourse. Moreover, the draft contained a number of clauses which stipulated that the taotai had to agree before certain measures could be taken by the foreigners. In the discussions about this draft among the foreign authorities, chiefly the British consul Alcock and the American commissioner Marshall, however, these clauses went overboard so that the Chinese official position was weakened. The final version of these Land Regulations was discussed at a Public Meeting on July 11, 1854 and passed by the land-renters. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 38 J. H. HAAN Public Meetings and the voters I have already quoted some of the articles from the 1845 Land Regulations which dealt with the meetings of landrenters. These provisions were still rather crude, but in the 1854 Land Regulations they were refined in the tenth article, and in those of 1869 in articles IX, X, XV, XVIII and XIX. Moreover to the 1869 Land Regulations were added "Rules of Procedure to be observed at Meetings of Ratepayers". In article IX it was laid down that "it being expedient and necessary for the better order and good government of the Settlement that some provision should be made for the appointment of an executive Committee or Council, and for the construction of public works and keeping the same in repair the Foreign Treaty Consuls, L 1 P or a majority of them, shall, during the month of February or March in each year, and so early in the same as possible, fix the date for the election of the Executive Committee or Council and shall also during the said months give notice of a public meeting to be held within twenty-one days of such notice, to devise ways and means of raising the requisite funds for these purposes"; and article XV provided that "it shall be competent for the Foreign Consuls, collectively or singly, when it may appear to them needful, or for the electors, provided not less that twenty-five agree in writing so to do, to call a public meeting at any time, for the consideration of any matter or thing connected with the Municipality”. Most Public Meetings up to 1896 were probably held at the British Consulate, although a small number were convened elsewhere. The very first one was in Richard's Hotel on December 22, 1846; later some were held at the Shanghai Library (on April 8, 1861 and August 18, 1864). In 1896 a Town Hall was completed (a new one being opened in 1922) and from that date most meetings took place there. Most of the time the British consul was in the chair. Earlier we saw that foreign residents thought that municipal government ought to be based on mutual agreement and consensus; but, it might well be asked, whose agreement? In other words: who were allowed to participate in the elections and discussions at Public Meetings? Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 59 Serious measures were taken to change the whole social and political structure of the town. NOTES Preliminary note: Although the present paper is to a great extent based on fresh research, the following works have been of considerable use as they contain material about the government of the International Settlement: Feetham, Justice Richard: "Report to the Shanghai Municipal Council" 1931-1932. Johnstone, W.C.: "The Shanghai Problem", 1937. Jones, F.C.: "Shanghai and Tientsin", 1940. Kotenev, A.M.: "Shanghai, its Mixed Court and Council", 1925. Montalto de Jesus, C.A.: "Historic Shanghai", 1909. Port, F.L. Hawks: "A short history of Shanghai", 1928. 1 The International Settlement at Shanghai was formed in 1863 by the amalgamation of the original British Settlement (formed in 1845, but later increased in area) with the so-called American Settlement in the Hongkew area which had grown up without formal establishment in the 1850s, and early 1860s, and which had been formally recognised by the Chinese earlier in 1863. The French Settlement (formed in 1849) always remained separate from the International Settlement. Outside the area of the foreign settlements lay the old Chinese city and suburbs: these remained under Chinese rule, and became subject to the Greater Shanghai Municipality when that was set up by the Chinese authorities in 1927. * Cf also Treaty of the Bogue, article VII, "ground and houses, the rent of which is to be fairly and equitably arranged for, shall be set apart by the local officers in communication with the Consul." 3 Population figures for intermediate years are, 1,666 foreigners and 75,047 Chinese in 1870, and 6,774 foreigners and 345,276 Chinese in 1900. Of the 13,536 foreigners resident in 1910, 4,465 were British, 940 Americans and 3,361 Japanese. Of the 38,940 foreigners resident in 1935 no fewer than 20,242 were Japanese, as against 6,596 British and 2,015 Americans. + * Text of the 1845 Land Regulations (LR) is in Shanghai Almanac 1853. It is not too fanciful to suppose that persons willing to move to as remote a place as Shanghai in the 1840s were likely to be particularly strongly imbued with the contemporary belief in individualism, with its consequent hatred of despotism and paternalism; this almost certainly assisted in the speedy breakdown of the 1845 Land Regulations to something far more individualistic in tone. • North China Herald (NCH) 30.7.1853. * J.H. Haan: "De opkomst van de International Settlement te Shanghai 1845-1865. Een historisch — politicologische analyse" ("The rise of the International Settlement at Shanghai. A historical-political analysis"), unpublished manuscript University of Amsterdam, 1977; chapter II. Cited as Haan "Shanghai". Cf NCH 22.7.1854; text of draft LR in NCH 30.7.1853, 27.8.1853; final version in 8.7.1854. NCH 22.4.1865. 10 NCH 17.3.1866. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 134 Board (in manuscript), p. 121 kept in the Public Records Office, Hong Kong as Hong Kong Record Series 206. Pages 120-141 of the Proceedings relate to a hearing held on 6th June 1893, "Claim to a Temple at Apleichau". 10 The same man also said that Ap Lei Chau 'was built about 1850' (ibid, p. 122). However, as stated in my text, the Hung Shing temple on the island appears to date from the 18th century and another local resident (b. 1825) who gave evidence to the Squatter Board (ibid, p. 132) said that it was enlarged in 1847. The temple originally stood on its own little island, later joined by reclamation to Ap Lei Chau. See JHKBRAS 7 (1967) p. 170, footnote. 11 W.F. Mayers, N.B. Dennys and C. King - The Treaty Ports of China and Japan (London, Trubner & Co., 1867) p. 49. 'Boat building and general trade' are listed as the principal concerns. The "Ap-le-chow" and "Shek pai wan" (Aberdeen) entries in this work are bracketed. The latter had 160 houses and 205 boats and the total recorded population for the two places, together with the boat people, was 1,664. See also information given in the printed proceedings of a court case over ownership of land on Ap Lei Chau given in Sessional Papers August 1886 - September 1887" (Appendix to Report from the Land Commission of 1886-87) pp. 33-35. 1* See the Hong Kong Government's printed Sessional Papers for 1897 and 1911, pp. 484 and 103 (23) respectively. 1 Sessional Papers 1901, No. 39 of 1901. pp. (6), (18) and (20). Of the 947 vessels, 787 were fishing boats. At that time, there were 2,799 land persons living in and round Aberdeen-Ap Lei Chau. 11 Sessional Papers 1897 and 1911 at pp. quoted at note 12 above. For similar organizations of M. Freedman's article "Immigrants and Associations: Chinese in Nineteenth-century Singapore", Comparative Studies in Society and History, III (1960-61), 25-48; and for other coastal market centres in the Hong Kong region, Hayes 1977, chapters 2 and 3 dealing with Cheung Chau and Tai O respectively. 10 See the account given in the printed Ap Lei Chau Hung Shing Festival brochure for year (1983) now in Hong Kong Collection, University of Hong Kong Library, 10 Squatter Board proceedings, p. 138. The word "Kaifong" (#) or street association was commonly used in South China to describe (a) all the inhabitants of an area (b) the voluntary organization of leading residents which managed the affairs of that community, e.g. the Kaifeng looked after the interests of all kaifongs. On Ap Lei Chau, the Kaifong and the Fongs' leaders seem to have been one and the same. For Kaifongs in the Hong Kong region see Hayes 1977, pp. 64-69, 81-84, 96-98, 171-172 and 218 note 27. Also, Hayes 1983, pp. 45-46 and 56-59. 18 For divining blocks, see J.J.M. De Groot, The Religious System of China (Ch'ing Wen reprint, Taipei 1976) Vol. VI, pp. 1285-1287. 1o See Hayes 1977, p. 219, note 41, for similar honours paid to leading office bearers reported from Canton (1902). * The shopkeeper petitioners who came to see the Registrar General in 1893, as recorded in the Squatter Board proceedings, stated that "The temple is the property of the inhabitants of Ap Lei Chau and the boatpeople who subscribe”. The Ap Lei Chau section of this article is based mainly on the oral statements of Messrs. CHENG Kam-kwu ($##) b. 12.10.1887, CHENG Lim () b. 17.12.1891 and LUN Shing-fun () b. ... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 138 JAMES HAYES 37 CO 129/99, Despatch No. 115 of 28 July 1864. 38 Ibid. The report, by Lieutenant Adams, R.N., dated ‘Woodcock’, Hong Kong, 28 June 1864, is at pp. 37-45. 39 Reports on the Past and Present State of Her Majesty's Colonial Possessions (hereafter Blue Book) 1845, No. 38 Hong Kong, p. 149. 40 Blue Book for 1847, No. 36 Hong Kong, p. 308. 41 e.g. W.F. Mayers, N.B. Dennys and C. King, The Treaty Ports of China and Japan. (London, Trubner and Co., 1867), p. 108, for two very bad piracies there. 42 Harbour Master's Report for 1887 in Sessional Papers (Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong) September 1887-December 1888, p. 258. 43 Blue Book for 1845, No. 38 Hong Kong, p. 151. 44 **科大蘭,陳鴻基,吳倫霓霞, 合品 香港碑銘彙編 p. 98 (D. Faure, B. Luk, A. Ng The Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong (Hong Kong Urban Council 1986) p. 98-101, 75-78. 45 Public Record Office, London: CO129/12/9757, para 12. 46 E.J. Eitel Europe in China op. cit. p. 132. 47 J.W. Hayes The Hong Kong Region op. cit. p.62, (and see also p. 27, n. 11). 48 Unpublished Temple Directory, The Temples Unit, Home Affairs Dept. H.K. Government, 1980, p. 17. 49 Mayers, Dennys and King, op cit, p. 2. Sin Ngan (#) variously romanized herein as San-on, Sun-on and Hsin-an was the county to which Hong Kong Island belonged in 1841. Tungkwan ( ) otherwise Tung-Kwun was the older, larger county from which it was created in 1573. For Hsin-an see Peter Y.L. Ng, prepared for press and with additional material by Hugh D.R. Baker, New Peace County, A Chinese Gazetteer of the Hong Kong Region (Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 1983). 50 Mayers, Dennys and King, op. cit. p.3 51 52 53 Friend of China, 24 July 1858 (courtesy of Revd. Carl T. Smith), Ibid. See J.W. Hayes The Hong Kong Region op. cit. pp. 46-53. See also J.W. Hayes, The Rural Communities of Hong Kong, Studies and Themes (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1983) pp 9-10. 54 Petition dated 8th day of 4th lunar month, Tao Kuang, 21st year, i.e. 28th May 1841, to the District Magistrate of Hsin-an. This and other quoted papers belong to the Tang family of Kam Tin, New Territories. I am grateful to the District Officer, Yuen Long and Mr. J.T. Kamm for the translations that appear here. They have been checked against the originals by my friend Dr. Anthony K.K. Siu. Kwan Tai Lo was a village near the foot of the present Leighton Hill. 55 Copy of an undated instruction to a presumably subordinate office following the above. 56 Petition dated 28th day of 5th lunar month, Tao Kuang 23rd year i.e. 25th June 1843. 57 Undated reply to the petitioners, presumably from the District Magistrate, following receipt of the foregoing petition. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 225 Adv. NCH 7.1.1854; according to Griffin, o.c., p. 306, n. 6 partner 1850-1859. 64 65 Adv. NCH 27.1.1855, 7.1.1860. 66 C.J. Dudgeon "The Battle of Muddy Flat" in United Empire, June 1914, p. 480; NCH 8.4.1854 only “Mr. Gray". 67 F.L. Hawks Pott: "A Short History of Shanghai”, (1928), fac. p. 81. 68 CR Jan. 1847. 69 NCH 3.8.1850; SA 1853, 1854, 1855. 70 Adv. NCH 24.4.1858. 71 Adv. NCH 20.11.1858. T2 Adv. NCH 12.1.1861. 73 Adv. NCH 7.1.1860; Griffin, o.c., p. 306, n. 6: till 1866. 74 Notification 6.4.1865; in NCH 15.4.1865. 75 CR Jan. 1844. 76 CR Jan. 1846, Jan. 1848. 77 CR Jan. 1849. Griffin, o.c., p. 306, n. 6; NCH 27.1.1855. 79 Adv, NCH 20.11.1858. 80 Adv. NCH 12.1.1861. 81 NCH 18.8.1860. 12 Obituary by Henri Cordier in T'oung Pao, Vol. VII (1907), p. 123-124. Adv. NCH 3.10.1857. 14 Adv. NCH 1.1.1859. 05 Maybon & Fredet, o.c., p. 289. 16 Ibid., p. 445. 17 JNCBRAS, Vol. 1 (1865), p. 146. 18 Cordier, Letter, (see n. 32) p. xvi and obituary (see note 82). 49 For Hanbury School see e.g. A. Wright: “Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong, Shanghai and other Treaty Ports of China” (1908), p. 489. 90 BS IV, 2557. 91 Lockwood, o.c., p. S. 92 Adv. NCH 7.6.1862. 93 Adv. NCH 5.1.1856; see also Wright, o.c., p. 612. 94 NCH 31.12.1864, 8.7.1865. 95 NCH 3.8.1850. 96 Adv. NCH 5.8.1854. 97 Adv, NCH 19.1.1861. ** NCH 21.11.1863, 31.12.1863. 99 CR Jan. 1847. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 154 WEI PEH TI teachers and preachers in China. Jane Hunter, in her research on women missionaries of that era, found that women who went to China under the auspices of one of the forty-one American women's missionary boards had come from humbler background than those heading for the settlement houses at home." Perhaps that was why Edith had joined the China Inland Mission founded by an Englishman instead of a local Baptist mission. Philadelphia, despite being the seat of the Continental Congress that renounced king and country in 1776, had retained the British mystique. Perhaps it was this snobbish preference for things British that led Edith to the China Inland Mission, which, by that time, had established a recruitment centre in the United States. Apparently both Edith and Louese had toyed with the idea of becoming missionaries while at school. In one of the letters, Edith asked Louese, “Do you remember your desire to be a missionary? Can't you spare one of these darlings (Louese's children) and consecrate one for Foreign Service?” J. Hudson Taylor, who had worked in China under the China Evangelization Society during the 1850s, had become concerned that Protestant missionaries were more interested in establishing hospitals and introducing educational and social changes than in spreading the Gospel. He organized the China Inland Mission in London and brought the first group of twenty-four men and women missionaries under its auspices to China in 1866. As the name indicates, work of this organization was to be concentrated in the interior provinces, away from the treaty ports. The centre of the mission was located at Shanghai, with stations in the capital of each province and sub-stations in various towns. Despite hostilities shown by the local populace during the last decades of the nineteenth century and ravages on the missionaries and Chinese Christians during the Boxer Rebellion, the work of the China Inland Mission continued. By the time Edith arrived at Taiho in March 1903, a sub-station of the Anhui Mission at Wuhu, work in the vicinity had already begun. In 1905, there were 828 missionaries working in China under the umbrella of the China Inland Mission." Taiho was a market town at the juncture of the Sha and the Ying Rivers in the northwestern corner of Anhui. Even the most ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 265 NOTES AND QUERIES MORE ABOUT THE KOWLOON WALLED CITY The Kowloon Walled City, situated to the north of the present Kai Tak Airport, was the most important military base in the Hong Kong region during the later Ch'ing Dynasty. It was built in the 27th year of Tao Kuang (1847) to strengthen the fortification of Kowloon.1 The first invasion that it faced was not of British troops but of Chinese bandits. On the 26th day of the Seventh Moon in the 4th year of Hsien Feng (1854), bandits under Lo Ah-tim2 took possession of the Walled City. Seven days later, on the 4th day of the leap Seventh Moon of the same year, imperial forces under Cheung Yu-tang recaptured the Walled City. The fighting lasted for only one day, over thirty bandits were killed, and only two soldiers, Liu Tat-bong and Lam Yu-ping*T, died. Since then, the Walled City remained under the rule of the Ch'ing Government. 3 Then in the 24th year of Kuang Hsu (1898), the New Territories was leased to the British. The following terms were stipulated by treaty: "The Chinese officials stationed there (i.e. the Kowloon City) shall continue to exercise jurisdiction, except so far as may be inconsistent with the military requirements for the defence of Hong Kong. Within the remainder of the newly-leased territory, Great Britain shall have sole jurisdiction. Chinese officials and people shall be allowed as heretofore to use the road from Kowloon to Hsinan. It is further agreed that the existing landing place near Kowloon City shall be reserved for the convenience of Chinese men-of-war, merchant and passenger vessels, which may come and go and lie there at their pleasure; and for the convenience of movement of the officials and people within the city.” However, in the 25th year of Kuang Hsu (1899), when the British encountered strong resistance to the occupation of the New Territories," according to Chinese sources, they asked for the help of the Ch'ing Government. Six hundred soldiers were then sent to assist the Brigadier of the Tai Pang Battalion to suppress the upris- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 14 Ibid., part 106. 15 Ibid., part 105. 43 16 Lockhart, p. 77; Hayes, p. 164. 17 13 For the Kowloon Street and its kaifong, see ibid., pp. 171-173. 18 See ibid., pp. 168-171; also Chiu-lung Luo-shan-t’ang pai-nien shih-shih HACKETT (One hundred years of the Lok Sin Tong) (Hong Kong, the lang, [1980]). 19 Peter Wesley-Smith, Unequal Treaty 1898-1997 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1980) pp. 19-20; Stanley F. Wright, Hong Kong and the Chinese Customs. China. The Maritime Customs. VI Inspector Series: no. 7 (Shanghai: Statistical Department of the Inspector-General of the Customs 1930), pp. 9-10. “Native” customs offices were handed over to the Inspector-General of Maritime Customs after the signing of the Hong Kong Opium Agreement in 1886. 20 See Faure et. al., vol. 1, p. 166, p. 251. 21 Siu, Chiu-lung ch'eng, p. 37. #1 23 24 25 Bowring to Grey, August 21, 1854, despatch 61: CO129/47. Krone, p. 116. Macdonnell to Buckingham, August 27, 1867, despatch #358: CO129/124. Jarrett, Vincent H.G. "Old Hong Kong”, vol. 2, p. 613. This is a series of articles on the history of Hong Kong taken from the South China Morning Post from June 17, 1933 to April 13, 1935, and re-arranged alphabetically by subject. A Xerox copy of copies typed from the original articles is deposited in four volumes at the University of Hong Kong Library. 26 Bowring to Grey, August 21, 1854, despatch 61. 27 W.J. Norton-Kyshe, The History of the Laws and Courts of Hong Kong, 2 volumes (Hong Kong: Vetch & Lee, 1971; 1st published 1898) vol. 2, 423–429. Another case occurred in 1896 when a Chinese policeman was shot in Hong Kong. His murderer was arrested in Canton and brought to Kowloon City where he was beheaded. (John Luff, “The Hong Kong Police", China Mail, February 24, 1960). Macdonnell to Kimberley, April 3, 1872, despatch #976: CO129/157. 29 See Faure et. al., vol. 1, pp. 103, 114, 133. 30 The tablet is dated the first year of the Tung-chih reign, i.e. 1862. It is still in very good condition. 31 Newspaper cutting dated May 27, 1886, enclosed in Marsh to Granville, May 31, 1886, despatch #183: CO129/226. 32 3 Hua-tzu jih-pao #711, January 17 and 18, 1896. Daily Press, January 20, 1896. 34 Wesley-Smith, Unequal Treaty, p. 17; The open nature of the gambling was also decried by the Hsun-huan jih-pao, December 17, 1885. 35 Norton-Kyshe, vol. 2, p. 423. 36 In fact gambling houses were re-opened as soon as Chinese officials departed from Kowloon, Blake to Chamberlain, August 18, 1899, in Great Britain, Colonial Office. Confidential Prints Eastern (Series 882) (hereafter CO882)/5, no. 66, p. 340. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 195 his alarm allayed amidst the warmest applause from the audience for his clever and successful "sell". In addition the editor wrote that this Prologue afforded H. E. more valuable hints how to treat the Rebellion than all the suggestions that have been submitted to him since his arrival. Apparently Bonham was "so much delighted that we are not without hopes a report on the performances may form the subject of his first despatch from Shanghae”. So much for modesty. As regards the performances themselves, the writer had it in confidence from a tall whiskered male who occupied a front seat disguised in a dress coat, that although Hong Kong theatre is now more conveniently lit up in the Victoria Theatre in acting Shanghae would not suffer by comparison". "That treaty port chauvinism was not lacking even at that early stage was made clear when the visitor insisted that our Head Actor has been brought from Hong Kong”. Despite his earlier lukewarm praise he must have made some sour remarks too, for the editor wrote that "except as to the heroine, his critical skill was evidently at fault in discriminating the excellences of the other performers in Betsey Baker; and all he could be got to say regarding Apartments was something about Mr. and Mrs. Keeley having many worse imitators” (Robert Keeley, 1793-1869; and Mrs. Keeley (Mary Ann Coward), 1806-1899: famous British actors). (NCH 26.3.1853). 5.5.1853 (Thur) G.A.A. BECKETT: "Siamese Twins" (1834) T: Farce (1 act) R. BUTLER: "The Irish Tutor" (1822) T: Farce (1 act) C: Amateurs F: Music by the band of the Susquehanna Th: Imperial Theatre (B) N: Final performance of the season R: The close of the season by the amateurs who called themselves the "Lily Troupe" for a "bumper house"; with some “admirable music by the Band of Susquehanna" — a steamer belonging to the U.S. Japan Squadron. (NCH 7.5.1853). 8.3.1854 (Wedn) J.M. MADDOX: “A Fast Train! High Pressure!! Express!!!" (1853) T: Farce W.B. BERNARD: “A Practical Man" (1849) T: Farce C: Amateurs P: Music Th: Tac Ming Theatre (C) R: At the start of the evening a, for part of the audience at least, unexpected treat was in store: “On the rising of the curtain a ludicrous incident quite upset our friend BUSKIN. He was set down to enact "Colonel Jack Delaware" (in A Fast Train — JH) but a storm met him as soon as he appeared on the stage and he was fairly hissed off when a stranger leapt over the footlights and announced his intention of supporting the character. The curtain dropped and after a short delay the volunteer Yankee came forward, dressed in the most extravagant fashion and took up the part with great spirit". Was the leading actor-manager really taken by surprise? This could hardly be, and it must be assumed that it was, like the "rebellion" before, a set up. At any rate the "interloping Yankee was enrolled in Buskin's company. The musical department was sustained by "Messrs Thalberg and Koenig with their usual talent and success". Both these noms de théâtre were after well known musicians: Sigismund Thalberg (1812-1871), a Swiss pianist and composer; and Friedrich Koenig, a German violinist. (NCH 11.3.1854). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 246 King, F.H.H. and P. Clarke: “A Research Guide to China Coast Newspapers 1822-1911”, Cambridge (Mass), 1965. Kosch, Wilhelm: "Deutsches Theater Lexikon", Klagenfurt, 1960. Kounin, I.I.: "The Diamond Jubilee of the International Settlement of Shanghai", Shanghai, n.d. (c. 1939). Kunitz, Stanley (Ed.): "British Authors of the 19th Century", N.Y., 1936. Lang, H.: “Shanghai considered socially", Shanghai, 1875. Lanning, G. and S. Couling: "The History of Shanghai", Vol. I.; Shanghai, 1921. MacGuire, Paul: "The Australian Theatre", Melbourne, 1948. MacLellan, J.W.: "The Story of Shanghai from the opening of the port to foreign trade". Shanghai, 1889. Makepeace, Walter, Gilbert E. Brooke and R. St. J. Bradwell (Ed): 'One Hundred Years of Singapore", 2 vols.; London, 1921. Maybon, Charles B. & J. Fredet: "Histoire de la Concession Francaise de Changhai'', Paris, 1929. Maude, Cyril: "The Haymarket Theatre, Some Records and Reminiscences" London, 1903. Mullin Donald (Ed.): "Victorian Actors and Actresses in Review", Westport, 1983 National Union Catalogue. 1 Nicoll, Allardyce: "A History of English Drama 1660-1900", 6 vols,; Cambridge 1952ff. Pal, John: "Shanghai Saga", London, 1963. Pearsall, Ronald: "Victorian Popular Music", Newton Abbot, 1973. "The Player's Library. A Catalogue of the Library of the British Drama League”, London, 1950. Pope, W.J. Macqueen: "Haymarket, Theatre of Perfection", London, 1948. Reynolds, Ernest: "Early Victorian Drama (1830-1870), New York, 1965 (reprint of 1936 edition). Riemann, Hugo: "Musik Lexikon", Berlin, 1916 (8th edition). Rowell, George (Ed.): "Nineteenth Century Plays”, Oxford, 1972. “Shanghai Alamanac” 1855, 1856, 1858, 1862; Shanghai, 1854ff years. **Shanghai t'ung yen-chiu tzu-liao (Shanghai Research Materials), Hong Kong 1972 (reprint of 1936 edition). Smith, C.; "The Hong Kong Amateur Dramatic Club and its predecessors" in: "Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the R.A.S.", Vol. 22 (1982), p. 217-251. Thomson, Peter: "Plays by Dion Boucicault", Cambridge, 1984. Toll, Robert C.: 'Blacking Up. The Minstrel Show in 19th century America”, New York, 1974. Troubridge, St. Vincent: "The Benefit System in the British Theatre”, London, 1967. Wearing, J.P.: "American and British Theatrical Biography", London, 1979. White, Walter: "China Station 1859-1864", London, 1972. Williams, Harold S.: "Tales of the Foreign Settlements in Japan", Tokyo, 1972. Wright, Arnold and H.A. Cartwright: "Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong. Shanghai and other Treaty Ports of China", London, 1908. Abbreviations: NOTES BGM: Boletim do Governo de Macao. NCH: North China Herald. SCR: Shanghai Commercial Record. 1 Performance 6.5.1852. NCH 8.5.1852. Only passing attention has been paid to the early theatre in Shanghai: Lanning & Couling. p. 429-430: MacLennan: p. 85-86. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 242 Chartered Bank Until 1840 or so banking facilities in Hong Kong were provided by the large hongs, such as Jardine's, Dent's and Russell's. However, once the Colony was considered stable enough, bankers came here following the traders, and, after the establishment of the Treaty Port System, starting in 1843, a number of joint-stock banks with their headquarters in India or London opened. The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, one of the principal promoters of which was James Wilson MP, the founder of The Economist, and a successful businessman, was such a bank. It was established in London in 1853, and its first branches in the East were founded in Calcutta and Shanghai, both in 1858. Only six years after receiving its Royal Charter Makalee (F), as the bank is called in China (a direct translation of John MacKellar, the first manager in Shanghai), set up a branch in 1859 in Hong Kong. Since 1862, Jah Da (†) (as 'Chartered' is usually called in Cantonese in Hong Kong) has issued its own bank notes. It is at present the oldest foreign bank and was the first licensed financial institution in the Colony. Together with the Hong Kong Bank, the Bank of East Asia, and the Overseas-Chinese Banking Corporation, the 'Textile Bank' (yet another sobriquet for 'Chartered' because of its connections with that industry) was one of four overseas banks that was allowed to keep its branch in Shanghai after the People's Republic Government came to power in 1949. The author recalls opening his first account with the Chartered Bank in early January 1955, not in the building that was demolished in 1986 (which was completed in 1959 and at the time was the tallest building in Hong Kong) but in the one before that. There was a colonial atmosphere about the place, with paddle-type fans suspended from ceilings. Few buildings in Hong Kong were air-conditioned then. The bank did not open its first branch in the Territory until early 1962. This was in Tsuen Wan. A time-worn adage had it, a little unkindly perhaps, that officers of Chartered were bankers aiming to be gentlemen, and that expatriates in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank were gentlemen trying to be bankers. In those days the Hong Kong Bank did not employ Chinese, other than in menial positions, and local staff were mainly Eurasians. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 255 The Hong Kong Guide 1893 (republished 1982) Hughes, Richard, Borrowed Place Borrowed Time, Hong Kong and its Many Faces (London 1968, reprinted 1976) Hunter, W.C., The "Fan Kwac" at Canton Before Treaty Days 1825-1844 (republished 1965) Hutcheon, Robin, The Blue Flame, 125 Years of Town Gas in Hong Kong (1987) Hutcheon, Robin, Wharf. The First Hundred Years, 1886-1986 (1986) Ingrams, Harold, Hong Kong (London, 1952) Jardine, Matheson & Company... an historical sketch (undated) Jarrell, Old Hong Kong Jones, Stephanie, Two Centuries of Overseas Trading. The Origins and Growth of the Inchcape Group) (England, 1986) King, Frank H.H., The History of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, vols. I to IV Lawrence, Anthony, and Frederick Amentrout, The Taipan Traders Liu Kwang-ching, Anglo-American Steamship Rivalry in China 1862-1874 (Harvard 1962) Luff, John, Hong Kong Cavalcade (1968) Luff, John, The Hidden Years, Hong Kong 1947-1945 (1967) Luff, John, The Hong Kong Story (circa late 1960s) MacMillan, Alistair, Seaports of the Far East (1925) Morris, Jan, Hong Kong, Xianggang (England, 1988) Murray, Simon, Legionnaire (England, 1980) Peak Tramway. 1888–1988 Present Day Impressions of the Far East and Prominent and Progressive Chinese at Home and Abroad, Managing Director W.H. Morton-Cameron, Editor-in Chief W. Feldwick (1917) Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, journals, various The Thistle and the Jade. A Celebration of 150 Years of Jardine. Matheson & Co. Editor Maggie Keswick (London, 1982) Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong. Shanghai, and Other Treaty Ports of China, Editor in Chief Arnold Wright (1908) Wong Siu-lun, Emigrant Entrepreneurs: Shanghai Industrialists In Hong Kong (1988) UNPUBLISHED BOOKS Book 1, The Canton Dispensary 1828-1838 Book II, The Hong Kong Dispensary 1841-1862 Book III, A.S. Watson and Company 1862-1886 COMPANY BROCHURES, LEAFLETS AND MAGAZINES A.S. Watson & Co., Limited Brief History: The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation China Light and Power Co. Ltd. (annual reports) Deacon's The Elements of Power, China Light & Power History of Hong Kong & China Gas Co. Ltd Hong Kong Bank Group Magazines Hong Kong Land 1889/1989 Hong Kong's Noonday Gun (Jardine) Hutchison Whampoa Limited (annual reports) Inchcape: The International Services and Marketing Group A Pictorial History of Hong Kong Electric Standard Chartered News ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 310 Dr Elizabeth Sinn explained at intervals during the three-day trip something of the history of Amoy. Together with Ningpo, efforts were made by the British to establish the two towns as centres of trade before Canton secured commercial dominance in 1757. The Canton monopoly was broken in 1842, with the Treaty of Nanking, by the opening of not only Amoy and Ningpo but also the Treaty Ports of Foochow and Shanghai. From and to these ports, among other commodities, were shipped tea, silk, and opium. But before then, in the late 17th century, Amoy had been the lair of freebooting, swashbuckling Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong), who not only drove the Dutch from Taiwan to make it an anti-Manchu base but also attempted to wrest power from the Qing Dynasty. Today, the People's Republic is trying to proclaim that Koxinga, who had a Japanese mother, was no common pirate but a national hero. Amoy also played a big part in the infamous, so-called in Chinese, 'pig business'. The first Chinese contract coolies left Canton in 1845, but they were soon being shipped from other ports in southern China. Recruiters frequently shanghaied labourers who departed for various countries, including Hawaii, Trinidad, British Guiana, Jamaica, and British Borneo. The journey to Peru or Cuba took about 130 days. Conditions aboard, because of overcrowding, were unimaginable. With a lack of food, unsanitary conditions, and harsh treatment, and 500 men crowded into a hull with barely room to lie down, riots and murders sometimes occurred. Over one-quarter of the labourers are said to have died aboard in their 'pens'. Many others, however, emigrated from Fujian under somewhat better conditions, and today most families in Xiamen have relatives living overseas. But the Province's most famous son has to be Tan Kah Kee (1874-1961), well known for his philanthropy, which is evident in several parts of town, including Xiamen University. This was completed in 1919 on its 100-hectare campus. Tan (pronounced Chan in Cantonese) was born just north of Xiamen to a father who had emigrated to Singapore and was engaged in the rice, pineapple, and rubber business. At an early age, Tan Junior also transferred to the British Colony, as it was then, where he later had four wives and fathered 17 children. Although he spoke neither Mandarin nor English, for business convenience, he became a British subject in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j themselves they had to turn to migration to urban centres and overseas emigration, and to nonfarm work in the villages. Following the path of the traditional junk trade, overseas emigration was common in southern Fukien (Fujian) and eastern Guangdong in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but it did not spread to the rest of Guangdong until the nineteenth century. In the 1860s, when the European powers were initiating mining and plantation projects in Southeast Asia, and when the American continent was building transcontinental railways, China became a popular source for labour recruitment. There were three major emigrant areas in South China: first, southern Fujian and eastern Guangdong; second, the western part of the Pearl River delta and Siyi, namely Kaiping, Enping, Xinhui, and Xinning (later renamed as Taishan); and third, northeastern Hainan Island. People from the first area were the first to emigrate because of the junk trade with Southeast Asia. The Nanking (Nanjing) Treaty following the Opium War in 1842, which stipulated the establishment of treaty ports along the coast of China, broke the Canton monopoly. The newly opened ports of Shanghai, Ningbo, Fuzhou and Amoy (Xiamen) competed with Canton for China's foreign trade. With the rich Yangzi River valley as its hinterland, Shanghai soon began to fulfill its extraordinary potential as a port of trade. By 1850 the volume of trade in Shanghai had surpassed that of Canton. Trade routes were diverted to these cities, causing a lot of porters and boatmen to lose their jobs. Canton was no longer a recipient of any substantial foreign investment. It went either to Shanghai or Hong Kong. The development of Hong Kong with a shift of British interest from Macau and Canton also attracted many Cantonese merchants to search for economic opportunities. For instance, Cantonese traders, artisans, and laborers from all neighbouring districts followed the British merchants in flocking to the British colony. Moreover, Hong Kong had become a major centre of Cantonese emigration abroad. The high points of overseas emigration came between 1890 and 1904. Between 1885 and 1900, a total of 1,830,572 Chinese emigrants embarked at the port of Hong Kong. The overwhelming majority of the Cantonese emigration came from the Pearl River delta region, particularly from the counties shown in figure 1. The Xinning, Xinhui, Kaiping and Enping were known collectively as Siyi while Panyu, Nanhai and Shunde were Sanyi. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j Cantonese, while only four out of 16 compradors from Russell & Co between the 1830s and 1870s were non-Cantonese. Jardine, Matheson & Co. employed 18 Cantonese from its total 32 Chinese compradors between the 1850s and the 1900s, however only three out of the rest were non-Cantonese and 11 were from uncertain native places. Dent & Co. totally had twenty-one compradors in the period of the 1830s to the 1860s. Non-Cantonese were not recorded but nine were reported as of uncertain native places. Moreover, as Hao pointed out, Cantonese had a supremacy amongst Chinese compradors not only in China but also in Southeast Asia and Japan. They were regarded to have talent in tea trade, whereas Zhejiang compradors were especially skilled in silk trade and banking business. Zhejiang compradors overshadowed their Cantonese counterparts in Shanghai by the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century. It is of interest that Western merchants always went to explore business in Asia with their Cantonese compradors, particularly in Yokohama and Nagasaki. Perhaps this might be linked to the local influence of Cantonese merchants in the above places. The comprador system was soon imported to Hong Kong when British firms flocked to open their business there. It lasted until the Second World War; longer than at any other Chinese coastal city. During the growth of early colonial society in Hong Kong, by the 1850s the Chinese community was beginning to develop leaders and most of them were successful compradors, merchants, and contractors. Typical of this emerging Chinese middle class were Cantonese compradors like Wei Yuk (Wei Yu), Robert Ho Tung (He Dong), and Law Pak Sheung (Luo Bochang). They formed the core of leadership in the local Chinese community. Wei succeeded his father Wei Kwong who came from Choy Mei village near Macau as the comprador of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China in Hong Kong in 1879. In 1896, he was appointed an unofficial member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, being the fourth Chinese to this post (the first was Ng Choy [Wu Tingfang]). Wei held a lot of appointments in public and private organizations and represented Chinese interests in the government. He Dong acted as Jardine's Hong Kong comprador from 1883 to 1900. He was among the richest of the Chinese compradors in the treaty ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 15 He returned with his savings. In middle age, he started his own business, a timber shop in Hong Kong. When I was young I lived in the village. When grown up I went to California. I came to Hong Kong in my middle age and established the business of the Kwong Ut Lung timber shop. Fortunately I accumulated some savings and invested them in property, business and shares of which the following... Li Hing, a Dongguan native, had worked in an opium shop in Hong Kong for more than twenty years. As he said, he was diligent and economical otherwise he could not save money. It was known that his "little money" amounted to 5,440 taels, for Li held partnerships in a native bank, two opium shops, a timber shop and a wharf in Hong Kong. In addition he also had eleven shops and a share in the Hong Kong Fire Insurance Co. of $340. As he mentioned in his will: I (Li Hing), alias Peng Sam, maker of this will, I am a native of the Village called Tong Mei, in the District of Tung Koon, I have been employed, as a Manager, in the Tuk Lung opium shop over twenty years. I have always been contented with my lot, and I have always behaved myself with decorum. I have been diligent and economical, and by self-denial, I have fortunately obtained favour from Heaven above, and saved a little money. Li was not only employed in the opium shop, but he had also invested for himself, though we do not know from the above whether his investment was started after he left the Tuk Lung firm or when he worked in the firm. Table 1 Native Origins of Hong Kong Merchants Native places 1850-70 1871-80 1881-90 1891-1900 1901-06 Total Xinning 7 3 4 14 Xinhui 3 4 6 I 14 Kaiping 2 2 4 Xiangshan 2 2 9 3 17 Baoan 1 2 2 6 Panyu 3 5 9 2 8 5 15 Nanhai among the richest of the Chinese compradors in the treaty ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 30 enterprises," but also challenged their foreign counterparts by planning, organising, and managing most of the modern Chinese enterprises. As Thomas Rawski has pointed out, Western firms in Chinese treaty-ports such as Shanghai were ineffectual on their own; they had to rely on Chinese compradors to conduct business with their Chinese associates. Cantonese compradors were in such a position that they could dominate the main business in Shanghai during the nineteenth century where they had fully shown their special entrepreneur genius." Notes Assessment of recent studies of Chinese ethnic groups is mainly quoted from Emily Honig (1992) pp. 6-7 2 As Yen-p'ing Hao mentioned most of the Cantonese compradors came from the coastal prefectures of Guangdong province as Zhongshan, Nanhai and Panyu See Hao (1970a). p. 13 1 For sample of letter of recommendation for comprador used in the 1870s, see Appendix + HKRS#144-245 Wong Kong (August 1867) 4 Hao has explained why Western firms in Japan employed Chinese instead of Japanese compradors. See Hao (1970a), pp. 51-9 6 The first three British firms opened were Dent & Co. (first established Canton, 1832), and Gibb, Livingston & Co. (1836 in Canton) 7 Wei came from the Zhongshan prefecture, his father was a comprador to two American merchants Benjamin Chew Wilcocks and Oliver H. Gorden. He followed a missionary and moved from Canton to Hong Kong. In 1852 he entered Bowra & Co. as a comprador and five years later when the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China established a branch in Hong Kong he joined the Bank as its first comprador. See Smith (1985), pp. 62-9 and Wei A Kwong's will, HKRS#144-368: Wei A Kwong (October 1866), Wei Yuk's brother Wei Long Shan went to Shanghai to learn business in 1871. He returned to Hong Kong after twelve years and then became comprador to the Eastern Extension and Great Northern Telegraph Co. from 1882 to 1902. He was also assistant comprador at the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank from 1885 to 1895. In the absence of sufficient sources, it is difficult to assess Wei's wealth accumulated during his comprador's years. The Ho family, beginning with Ho Tung, was called a comprador family. Ho introduced his two brothers Ho Fuk and Ho Kom Tong as assistant compradors to Jardine who later succeeded him; his adopted son Ho Sai Wing was the Hong Kong Bank's comprador through thirty-four years from 1912 to 1964. Ho Sai Wing's brothers: Ho Sai Iu was comprador of the Mercantile Bank of India, Ho Sai Kwong of David Sassoon & Co.; Ho Sai Leung of Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ho Sai Ki of Arnhold & Co. Ho Sai Wa, son of Ho Kom Tong was an assistant comprador in Mercantile Bank. See Group Archives of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Comprador Files. Ho Sai Wing. Ho Fuk (Ho Fook)'s son was said to have assisted him in Jardine's work. 10 This company was said to have close business relations with Shanghai's Ting Tai firm. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 36 Kong, Capital Communications Lid Ho, Ping-ti 1966a. Zhongguo huiguan shilun (On the history of Landsmannschaften in China). Taibei, Shihuo Chubanshe. 1966b. The Geographical Distribution of Hui-kuan (Landsmannschaften) in Central Upper Yangtze Provinces. In Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 5/2 120-52 Honig, Emily. 1992. Creating Chinese Ethnicity Subet People in Shanghai 1850-1980. New Haven and London, Yale University Press. Hunter, William C 1882 'Fan Kwae' at Canton Before Treaty Days, 1825-1844, London Kegan Paul, Trench & Co King, Frank H. H. 1983. edited. Eastern Banking Essays in the History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation London, Athlone Press Keswick, Maggie 1982. The Thistle and the Jade: A Celebration of 150 Years of Jardine, Matherson & Company London, Octopus. Lai, Chi-kong. 1992 The Qing State and Merchant Enterprise: the China Merchants' Company, 1872-1902. In Jane K. Leonard (edited) 139-56. Lee, Pui Tak. 1990 Kindai Chugoku ni okeru kōsho Kigyō no rekishi teki tenkai Kanyahyōkōshi wo jirei toshite (The historical Origins of Commercial and Industrial Enterprises in China, the Case of Han-yeh-p'ing Coal & Iron Company Limited, 1896-1991) M Litt. Thesis. University of Tokyo. Leonard, Jane K 1992. edited; To Achieve Wealth and Security, the Qing Imperial State and the Economy, 1644-1911. Ithaca, East Asia Program, Cornell University Leung, Yuensang 1982 Regional Rivalry in Mid-nineteenth Century Shanghai. Cantonese vs Ningpo Men. In Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i: 4/8; 29-50. 1986. The Shanghai-Tientsin Connection. Li Hung-chang's Political Control over Shanghai during the Late Ch'ing Period In Chinese Studies 4/1 315-31 1990 The Shanghai Taotai: Linkage Man in a Changing Society, 1843-90 Singapore. National Singapore University Press Liu, Kwang-ching 1979 Credit Facilities in China's Early Industrialization The Background and Implications of Hsu Jun's Bankruptcy in 1883. In Modern Chinese Economic History 499-509, Edited by Chiming Hou Taibei, Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica 1982 A Chinese Entrepreneur In Maggie Keswick (edited) 103-30. — 1990. Jinshi Shixuang yu Xincheng Qiye (The new thoughts and modern enterprises) Taibei, Lianjing Chuban Shiye Gongsi Mann, Susan Jones 1972. Finance in Ningpo the 'Ch'ien Chuang', 1750-1880 In W E. Willmott (edited) 47-78 1974 The Ningpo Pang and Financial Power at Shanghai In Mark Elvin & G. William Skinner (edited) 73-96 — 1976. Merchant Investment, Commercialization, and Social Change in the Ningpo Area In Reform in Nineteenth-Century China 41-8. Edited by Paul A, Cohen Cambridge and Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. McElderry, Andrea Lee 1992 Guarantors and Guarantees in Qing Government-Bussiness Relations In Jane K. Leonard (edited) 119-38 1993 Guarantors in China's Treaty Ports the Evolution of Employee Bonding Unpublished paper presented at the 34th International Congress on Asian and North African Studies, Hong Kong Mei, June 1979 Socioeconomic Origins of Emigration Guangdong to California, 1850-1882 In Explorations in Economic History 7/4 451-73 Qing Xu Yuzhi xiansheng ruḥ zixu nianpu (Chronological autobiography of Xu Run) Reprinted in 1981 Quan, Hansheng 1972 Zhongguo Jingjishi luncong (Collected essays on Chinese economic ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 37 history) Hong Kong, Xinya Yanjiusuo Rawski, Thomas G. 1970. Chinese Dominance of Treaty Port Commerce and its Implications, 1860-1875. In Explorations in Economic History 7/4, 451-73. Redding, Gordon S. 1991. Weak Organizations and Strong Linkages: Managerial Ideology and Chinese Family Business Networks. In Gary Hamilton (edited), 30-47. Rhoads, Edward J. 1975. China's Republican Revolution: the Case of Kwangtung. Cambridge and Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. 1977. Merchants Associations in Canton, 1895-1911. In William Skinner (edited), 97-117. Rowe, William T. 1984. Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796-1889. Stanford, Stanford University Press. Sekkó Zaibatsu (The Zhejiang financial clique). Edited by Mantetsu Shanhai Jimusho. Shanhai, Mantetsu Jimusho, 1929. Shanghai duiwai maoyi (Shanghai foreign trade, 1840-1949). Compiled by Shanghai Shehui Kexueyuan Jingji Yanjiusuo and Shanghai-shi Guoji Maoyi Xuehui Xueshu Waiyuanhui. Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 1989. Shanghai Sojourners. Edited by Frederic Wakeman and Wen-hsin Yeh. Berkeley, Institute for East Asian Studies, University of California, 1992. Sinn, Elizabeth. 1989. Power and Charity: The Early History of the Tung Wah Hospital. Hong Kong, Hong Kong Oxford University Press. Skinner, William G. 1974 (edited). The Chinese City: City Between Two Worlds. Stanford, Stanford University Press. 1976. Mobility Strategies in Late Imperial China: A Regional-System Analysis. In Regional Analysis, Volume One: Economic Systems, 327-64. Edited by Carol A. Smith. New York, Academic Press. 1977 (edited). The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford, Stanford University Press. Smith, Carl T. 1983. Compradores of the Hongkong Bank. In Frank H. H. King (edited), 93-111. 1985. Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong. Hong Kong, Oxford University Press. 1993. Hong Kong Chinese Wills, 1850-1890. Unpublished paper presented at the International Conference on Folk Documents and Regional Society in South China, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Su, Waigong. 1933. Xianggang, Shanghai, Guangzhou shangye mingrenlu (Prominent business characters of Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Canton). Shanghai, Shangye Bianshu Gongsi. Topley, Marjorie. 1964. Capital, Savings and Credit among Indigenous Rice Farmers and Immigrant Vegetable Farmers in Hong Kong's New Territories. In Capital, Saving and Credit in Peasant Societies: Studies from Asia, Oceania, the Caribbean and Middle America, 157-86. Edited by Raymond Firth and B. S. Yamey. London, George Allen & Unwin. 1968. The Role of Savings and Wealth among Hong Kong Chinese. In Hong Kong: A Society in Transition, 167-227. Edited by Ian C. Jarvie and Joseph Agassi. New York, Frederick A. Prager. Toyama, Gunji. 1944. Shanhai Dota: Go Kensho (The Shanghai taotai Wu Jianzhang). In Gakkai 1/7, 45-54. 1945. Shanhai no shinsho: Yo Bo (A gentry-merchant in Shanghai: Yang Fang). In Toyoshi Kenkyu 1/4, 17-34. Tsai, Jung-fang. 1975. Comprador Ideologists in Modern China: Ho Kai (Ho Chi, 1859-1914) and Hu Li-Yuan (1847-1916). PhD thesis, University of California, Los Angeles. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 99 rebellion [1851-1868], led by Chang Lo-hsing, was a rising of impoverished peasants against the Manchu dynasty in the area to the north of the Huai River. It was defeated by the local Huai Army under Li Hung-chang into whose army many Nien were enlisted for service in the troubles in the North-west. Ningpo: a treaty port on the coast of the eastern province of Chekiang. Pai-lou: an ornamental archway in memory of a deceased person of exceptional chastity, loyalty or filial piety. Seals [Mandarin]: Every Chinese official of any standing had a seal of office. [all seals, either government, business house (hong) or personal were usually referred to as 'chops' by foreigners] Sedan chairs: Mesny was first carried by two bearers but was upgraded to three shortly afterwards. The emperor alone was entitled to sixteen bearers, princes of the blood eight, and all other officials down to Prefect four, including District Magistrates if in office. Below this grade two was the rule. All tao-t'ai's rode in green chairs carried by four bearers, accompanied on their official visits by a great number of attendants, some of whom were bodyguards, the others bearers of the insignias of office. 'Self-Strengthening': a Chinese term denoting the policy of selective adoption of western technology and institutions between 1860 and 1895. One of the main proponents was Li Hung-chang about whom Mesny wrote many complimentary and other not so complimentary comments. Squares: pu-tzu: Square badges denoted the nine grades of official ranks in later dynastic China, worn front and back of the official's surcoat. They were some twelve inches square, embroidered in various designs, portraying, for example, a silver pheasant for a civil official grade 5, and a tiger for a grade 4 military official. Squeeze: applied both as a verb and substantive to peculation of any kind. Originally it was the commission Chinese servants, fully in accordance with Chinese custom, charged their masters on all articles purchased. Ta Ch'ing**: The Great Pure Dynasty: The name of the last Imperial ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 166 Hai Journal, no 12 | August 1981, pp 191-201) 1 Lo Hsiang-lin, Hong Kong and Its External Communications Before 1842 The History of Hong Kong Prior to British Arrival (Hong Kong Institute of Chinese Culture, 1963) Barbara Ward, "Rediscovering our social and cultural heritage", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, (JHKBRAS) 20, pp 116-124, p 124 See Jack Potter Capitalism and the Chinese Peasant. Social and Economic Change in a Hong Kong Village (Berkeley, Calif University of California Press, 1968) He contradicts the theory that the industry and commerce of the treaty ports were the principal reasons for the bankruptcy of the Chinese countryside by showing how in Ping Shan, the effects of capitalism were beneficial to peasants. James Hayes, The Hong Kong Region 1850-1911. Institutions and Leadership in Town and Countryside (Hamden, Connecticut Archon Books, 1972), The Rural Communities of Hong Kong Studies and Themes (Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 1983), Tsuen Wan Growth of a New Town and Its People (Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 1993) 7 For the special nature of the District Officer's duties, see Austin Coates, Myself a Mandarin Memoirs of a Special Magistrate (Hong Kong Heinemann, 1975) Selina Ching Chan, "Tradition Inherited, Traditional Reinterpreted. A Chinese Lineage in the 1990s", (Unpublished Ph D thesis, Oxford University, 1995) Alan Birch and Martin Cole, Captive Years the Occupation of Hong Kong 1941-45 (Hong Kong Heinemann, 1982) and Captive Christmas (Hong Kong. Heinemann, 1979) 10 Most of the Rev Smith's work was published in articles in various, often obscure, journals, but more recently they have been collected in anthologies - Chinese Christians, Middlemen and the Church in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 1985) and A Sense of History Studies in the Social and Urban History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong Educational Publishing Co, 1995) See especially, DJ Dwyer (ed) The Changing Face of Hong Kong. Proceedings of a Weekend Symposium of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch (Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 1971) 12 Editorial, JHKBRAS, vol 7(1967)pp 1-3,p 2 13 PH Hase and Elizabeth Sinn (eds) Beyond the Metropolis Villages in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Joint Publishing (HK) Ltd, 1995) 14 Marjorie Topley, (comp) "Anthropology and Sociology in Hong Kong Field Projects and Problems of Overseas Scholars" Proceedings of a Symposium, February 8-9, 1969 (Hong Kong Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1969) See Ian Diamond, "The Paper Chase - Archives and the Public Records Office of Hong Kong" ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 206 —, Intimate China, the Chinese As I have Seen Them, London Hutchison, 1899 Little, Archibald John, Through the Yang-tse Gorges, or, Trade and Travel in Western China, London Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1888 1 Mount Omer and Beyond, London Heinemann, 1901 Ljungstedt, Andrew, An Historical Sketch of the Portuguese Settlements in China, with Supplementary Chapter - Description of the City of Canton republished from the Chinese Repository, Boston James Munroe and co. 1836 Lo Hui-min, ed, The Correspondence of G E Morrison, Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1976 Loch, Granville Gower (1813-1853), The Closing Events of the Campaign in China the Operations in the Yang Tze-Kiang, and the Treaty of Nanking, London J Murray, 1843 Lockwood, Stephen C. Augustine Heard and Company, 1858-1862, Cambridge (Mass) Harvard University Press, 1971 Lonsdale, Anne, Merchant Adventurers in the East, London Longman, 1980 Low, John, Into China, London John Murray, 1986 Lubbock, Alfred Basil, The Opium Clippers, Boston Lauriat Company, 1933 (New York Reprint. AMS) Lutz, Jesse Gregory, China and the Christian Colleges 1850-1950, Ithaca Cornell University Press, 1971 • - Christian Missionaries in China (19/20 Centuries), Boston DC Heath Problems in Asian Civilization series Lyster, Thomas (1840-1865), With Gordon in China, Letters from Thomas Lyster, Lieutenant Royal Engineers, London TF Unwin, 1891 Lyttelton, Edith Sophy (Balfour b1865), Travelling Days, London G Bles, 1933 Macartney, George, First Earl Macartney, Journal of Lord Macartney's Embassy to China, London British Museum, 1897 (Microfilm copy at Hong Kong University Library) Macartney, Lady, An English Lady in Chinese Turkestan, London Ernest Benn. 1931 (Hong Kong Reprint Oxford University Press) Macfarlane, W, Sketches in the Foreign Settlements and Native City of Shanghai, reprinted from The Shanghai Mercury, Shanghai, 1881 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 209 Nevins, John Livingston (1829-1893), China and the Chinese, New York Harper, 1869 Northey, James E, People Go to Church the Story of Greater Lancashire, London Salvationist Publication and Supplies, 1973 Oliphant, Laurence (1829-1888), Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan in the Years 1857, 1858, 1859, New York Harper, 1860 Orleans, Pierre Joseph d' (1641-1698), History of the Two Tartar Conquerors of China. Including the two Journeys into Tartary of Father Ferdinand Verbiest, in the Suite of the Emperor Kang-Hi from the French, London printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1854 Osbeck, Per (1723-1805), A Voyage to China and the East Indies Together with an Account of Chinese Husbandry by John Reinhold Forster - Appendix of Faunula and Flora Sinensis, London B White, 1771 Owen, David Edward, British Opium Policy in China and India, London and Oxford Oxford University Press, 1934 Parker, Edward Harper, Chinese Customs, a Lecture, Shanghai Kelly and Walsh, 1899 Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons (1857) Session 2, No XLIII, papers relating to the opium trade in China 1842-56 (Opium Trade 1932, Correspondence Relating to China 1840, Additional Correspondence Relating to China 1840, Report from the Select Committee on the Trade with China 1840) Paterno, Roberto M, The Yangtze Valley anti-Missionary Riots of 1891, Harvard University PhD dissertation, 1967 Pelliot, Paul, Notes on Marco Polo, Paris Imprimerie Nationale, 1957-1963 1 Le voyage de MM Gabet et Huc a Lhasa (a reprint of 1850 article) in Toung Pao 24 133-78 (1926) Pennell, Wilfred V, A Lifetime with the Chinese, Hong Kong Privately printed, 1974 Percival, William Spencer, The Land of the Dragons, My Boating and Shooting Excursions to the Gorges of the Yangtze. London Hurst, 1889 Twenty Years in the Far East, Sketches, London Simpkin, 1905 Pereira, Thomas, The Treaties and the Sino-Russian Treaty of Nerchinsk, 1689, the Diary of Thomas Pereira, SJ, Rome 1961 (Bibliotheca Instituti Historici S J vol 18) Playfair, G M H, The Cities and Towns of China, a Geographical Dictionary, Shanghai Kelly and Walsh, 2nd edition, 1910 (Taipei Reprint Ch'eng-wen publishing) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 116 of an English-based lingua franca In the Gazette of September 9 1685, the following notice appears- "That excellent, and by all Physitians approved, China drink, called by the Chinese Toha, by other nations Tay, alias Tee, is sold at the Sultaness Head, a coffee house in Sweetings Rents by the Royal Exchange, London." The earliest recorded import of Tea by the East India Company is dated 1667. An early writer, in memoirs of 1726, relates- “I remember well how in 1681, I for the first time in my life drank Thee at the house of an Indian Chaplain, and how I could not understand how sensible men could think it a treat to drink what tasted no better than hay-water. This quotation illustrates how, at the end of the seventeenth century, tea-drinking was becoming a social fad which eventually generated huge demands on European - and later American - China traders. Tea was, of course, readily available in India and the Arab world - but this particular fad grew around the Chinese teas - Bohea (Mou yi), Congo (Gung fu), Pekoe (Baak hou), Oolong, Souchong (Siu chung) and Hyson (Yue chin). The manner of the tea trade is best understood from the books of William C. Hunter- "Bits of Old China” (1855) and “Fan Kwae at Canton Before the Treaty Days" (1882). Foreign traders were only permitted into Canton to trade during the tea season: they were required to retreat to Macau or further during the closed season. No foreign women were permitted into Canton and the lives and work of the traders were strictly regulated by imperial edict. The most comprehensive set of controls was brought in 1760, but this was little more than codification of regulations which had been in force for decades. The tea trade, on the Chinese side, was carried out by licensed trading houses - the Hong Merchants. The merchants were incorporated in 1720. Foreign traders were allowed to Canton by specific sponsorship by the Hong merchants, who were personally responsible for their conduct. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 119 adapted This pamphlet, costing a penny or two, was continually in the hands of servants, coolies and shopkeepers. The author was a Chinaman whose ingenuity should immortalize him. I have often wondered who the man was who first reduced the "outlandish tongue" to a current language. Red candles should be burnt on altars erected to his memory, and oblations of tea poured out before his image, placed among the wooden gods which in temples surround the shrine of a deified man of letters. F Accepting this widely-reported account of the "Devil's Talk" pamphlet to be correct, it is easy to understand how the vocabulary became established; after all, to the classically-trained Chinese mind, what appears in print becomes canon law. For fussy English-speakers to correct something which had been laid down in a Chinese textbook would have been no easy undertaking. Be quite clear on one point. Throughout the period of the Hong merchants and up to Treaty days, Pidgin English was not merely a means of communication between Europeans and their menials. It was a vital tool in a rapidly growing China trade in the southern Chinese ports. Hunter describes his discussions in Pidgin with the famous Hong merchants—How Qua, Ming Qua, and Pan Kei Qua—among the commercial elite of Canton. Hunter also describes one of the commanders of the Tai-Ping Rebels, Ho A-Luh, as speaking very good Pidgin English. By the middle of the nineteenth century, China Coast Pidgin had become a well-established medium of communication. From the 1850s on, the restrictions to foreign trade and traders progressively broke down, so that the conditions which had made Pidgin's development a necessity disappeared. But the opportunities for contacts between European and Chinese people increased, and the conventions of the language were well enough engrained that it survived. The young makee-larns gradually progressed in their mastery of English, while the people with transient contacts—tradesmen and servants—picked up where they had left off. In his book “Rambles in Eastern Asia”, B. L. Ball records: “I saw a Chinaman who spoke good English, and appeared so polite that I stopped a while, and entered into conversation with him. Page 150 Page 151 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 136 The “Fan Kwae” at Canton Before Treaty Days (1825-1844). W.C. Hunter. Pb. Kegan Paul & Trench. London 1882. 12 All vessels bound for Whampoa were loaded with general cargo, or with rice only, and were subject to what were called Cumsha and Measurement Charges. 29 "The position of Hong merchant was obtained through the payment of large sums of money at Pekin. I have heard of as much as 200,000 taels, say £55,000 sterling. If the licence they acquired was costly, it secured to them uninterrupted and extraordinary pecuniary advantages..." 36 [Ilouqua]: “have got too much bad news... Hwang Ho have spillum too much... Man-ta-le have come see you? ... He no come see me, he send come one piece ‘chop’. He come to-morrow. He wantchee my two-lac dollar". "You pay how much? ... My pay he fifty, sixty thousand so. But suppose he no contentee? ... Suppose he No. 1 no contentee, my pay he one lac." 44 You and I are No. 1 "olo flen"; you belong honest man, only no got chance"... "Just now have settle counter, alla finishee; you go you please." 54 The position of compradore was therefore one of great responsibility, and I never knew of but one betraying the trust reposed in him. Although his pay was comparatively small, say $250 or $300 per annum, his perquisites, from sources which had long been in existence, and had become "olo custom", were very important. 99 Before she could open hatches, the formality of “Cumsha and Measurement" had to be gone through. The first word signifies "present", and was a payment made by the earliest foreign vessels for the privilege of entering the port;.. 100 Measurement: 842.2.8.5, Cumsha 810 9.6.1 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 200 The influence of these western-educated Cantonese extended northward in the 1860s when western firms such as Jardine and Swire established their branch offices in the newly opened Treaty ports — Shanghai in 1850, Fuzhou in 1854 and Hankou in 1861. It was in these new Treaty ports that the Cantonese recognized that a new job market in politics was open to them. A "Western Affairs Movement” was initiated by several powerful provincial officials in China by the 1870s. Under the patronage of these officials, economic and legal reforms were introduced into China in the name of westernization. These officials who rose to power after suppressing the Taiping Rebellion without Beijing's support, developed huge business enterprises in the name of the "official supervision — merchant management” or “western-affairs movement". The Hong Kong compradores were mainly responsible for the collection of capital. Their credibility came not from the enterprises they set up, with or without the legal backing of a company law, but from their own reputation as well as the political patronage behind them. Amidst the rhetoric of these western affairs movements, “reform-minded" officials recruited their own advisors and set up their own personal governments, known as Mufu, literally, tent government, or what we now call think-tanks. Many Cantonese, with or without imperial degrees, were sought to fill these posts. The strength of this “Cantonese party” rested on their early access to things western — the "Cantonese faction established predominance in China's internal affairs and foreign relations... [their strength] lies in the monopoly in the matter of emigration overseas ... Before 1840, Canton was the only port open to foreign traders”. On how these think-tank members were appointed, westerners observed that: in the exercise of patronage... the principle is that which animated Washington in the selection of his first cabinet. Latterly the Canton party, ultra-progressive, has come to the front. In the 1870s amidst this rhetoric of westernization, and with the assistance of western-educated Cantonese, the "reform-minded" officials managed to bargain with Beijing and develop huge business enterprises under their patronage. In an environment where company law and stock markets were absent, these reform-minded officials started these modern enterprises under an arrangement known as the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 15 25 Ibid, Chap 5 26 Ibid, pp 755 - 6; Hansard, 3rd series, vol cxlix, p 989 27 Turnbull, supra p 350 28 Act XVII of 1855, cf. Pridmore, Memoirs of Raffles Museum; Hansard, 3rd series, vol cxlix, pg 988 29 Tan DE, A Portrait of Malaysia and Singapore p 70 **Tumbull, supra, p 207** 31 Tan DE, supra, p 70 Buckley, supra, p 760; Hansard, 3rd series, vol. cxlix, p 990 + * for example, when an act was passed in 1862 to regulate coinage in India, special provision was made by the Legislative Council for the Straits Settlements, and between 1862 and 1867, copper cents for the first time bore the name 'Straits Settlements' (Turnbull, supra, p 208; Hansard, 3rd series, vol. cxlix, p 990) 34 Ibid. p 760 35 1867 Act to Provide for the Government of the Straits Settlements, para 4 36 Turnbull, supra, p 209 37 Buckley, supra, p 756 38 Mills, supra, p 241 39 Turnbull, supra, p 247 40 41 Mills, supra, p 243 Cameron J, Our Tropical Possessions in Malayan India pp 251 - 2 42 of Treaty of Tientsin Art. LIII; Prussian Treaty Art. XXXIII; Danish Treaty Art. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 19 from Pitt's India Act. The EIC accordingly found itself guaranteeing some states protection from attacks, or pledging to uphold boundary settlements. (Thio, supra, p xvi-xvii) There were cases of intervention for example, in Kedah, Perak and Selangor, brought about by Robert Fullerton, Burney, Anderson and James Low: When Robert Fullerton was governor of the Straits Settlements in 1824, he completely reversed the earlier British attitude of giving in to the claims of Siam, thus embarking on protection and expansion of British interests in the Malay Peninsula by checking Siamese attempts at extending their influence over the northern Malay states. Thus, when Ligor prepared to invade Perak and Selangor in 1825, he sent a Penang squadron to patrol the river mouths to prevent any attacks. (Mills L A, British Malaya 1824-1867, Chap 8 p 141; other examples of intervention included the following: Burney's Preliminary Treaty with Ligor in 1825. (Mills, Ibid, Chap 8 p 143-146); the Anderson Treaty (involving Selangor and Perak) in 1825. (Mills, Ibid, Chap 8, p 145-146; Purcell, supra, Chap 6, p 70) The Burney Treaty of 1826 saw British attempts to secure independence for Selangor and Perak (Newbold, British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca Vol. 2 p 26); and later, the Low Treaty of 1826 promised British assistance in maintaining Perak's independence. These two treaties had more effect on the Malay States than any other treaties, the greatest consequence being a marked ending of Siamese southward ambitions, and thus securing the British position in expanding further into the Malay States at a later stage. However, signing these treaties showed non-compliance with Pitt's India Act. Thus, where Low's Treaty was concerned, the Supreme Government continued for some time to condemn it as unauthorised and never really ratified it. In effect, the intervention in the Malay States was still somewhat restricted by the Government's policy. (Mills, Op Cit. Chap 8 p 162) Other examples include Fullerton's challenge of Ligor's claim to the Kurau District in 1826, and the Burney Treaty of 1826 after which the British ceased to intervene in Kedah. (Mills, Ibid. Chap 8 pp 160-161) Other examples of intervention included those in Naning and Sungei Ujong: The British fought the Naning War in 1831-2 to establish British right to collection of revenue in Naning. In Sungei Ujong, the British squadron was called in 1857 to destroy the village of Pengkalan Kempas, in order to punish the chiefs who had been extorting British subjects. And again in 1860, Governor Cavenagh ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 23 86 they were considered a bad influence by Sir Richard MacCulloch, Recorder of Singapore 1856-66, and merchants and Grand Juries made "vague accusations from time to time" (Turnbull, supra (on convicts), p 99) *for example, between 1830 and 1850, more than 1500 Thugs were sent to Singapore and Penang, and they played a prominent part in the Dusserah and Muharram festivals, turning them into the rowdy display of hooliganism they became by the middle of the century.' (Turnbull, supra (on convicts), p 100) 88 for example, transportation of convicts to the Straits Settlements were put to an end in 1860 (Annual retrospect for 1860 in SFP 10 Jan 1861) 89 for example, Governor Cavenagh took a personal interest in the convict administration, the health of the convicts improved, death rates fell with more attention paid to their diet; better supervision, incentive bonuses enhanced their efficiency 90 1857 riots "1 albeit that their fears were groundless in most instances BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources: Hansard Parliamentary Debates 3rd ser, cxlix, (986 - 996) Parliamentary Papers, 1862, xl (House of Commons) The Straits Times and Singapore Journal of Commerce Singapore Free Press CO273 series (Straits Settlements, Original Correspondence) Straits Settlements Records (Microfilm 139, 141, 142, 184) Treaties: Treaty of 6 February 1819 (Johore 1819) (Treaties with Native States, Part III) Treaty of Friendship and Alliance between the EIC and the Sultan of Johore (1824) (Treaties with Native States Part III) Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Alliance of 1800 (Treaties with Native States, Part I) Page 90 Page 91 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 24 Treaty of Holland (Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824), (Hertslet's Treaties Vol VIII) Pangkor Engagement of 1874 (Treaties with Native States Part II) Bill: Straits Transfer Bill (House of Commons), 1866, V (Session 1 Feb - 10 Aug 1866) Statutes: Act 24th George III Cap 25 (1784) Indian Charter Act of 1833 Indian Act No. XVII of 1855 Charters of Justice (1807, 1826, 1855) The Colonial Laws Validity Act, 1865, 28 & 29 Vic, Cap 63 The Government of the Straits Settlements Act, 1866, 29 & 30 Vic, Cap 115 The Courts (Colonial) Jurisdiction Act, 1874, 37 & 38 Vic, Cap 27 The Straits Settlements Offences Act, 1874, 37 & 38 Vic, Cap 38 Case: Regina v Willians Esq (1858) (3 Ky 16) Secondary Sources: Allen, Richard H S, 1968, Malaysia, Prospect and Retrospect. The Impact and Aftermath of Colonial Rule, Oxford University Press Auber, P, 1826, An Analysis of the Constitution of the EIC and the Laws Passed by Parliament for the Government of Their Affairs at Home and Abroad, London Blythe, W L, 1969, The Impact of Chinese Secret Societies in Malaya, Kuala Lumpur Braddell, Roland St John, (1915) 1982, The Law of the Straits Settlements. A Commentary, Oxford University Press (Kuala Lumpur) Braddle, T, (1853) 'Notices of Singapore', JIA, vii, 1328 Buckley, Charles Burton, (1902) 1984, An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore, Oxford University Press ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 # Appendix I: A chronology of events concerning Devil's Peak and its vicinity Date Event Source Remarks 1368-1643 Lei Yue Mun classified by the Ming Dynasty as one of the 16 major sea passages and placed under naval patrol. Siu, 1997, p.24 Circa 1646-1656 Lei Man Wing, a supporter of a Ming Prince, occupied Devil's Peak and established his own "customs post" at Lei Yue Mun. Siu, 1997, p.24 1656 Lee Man Wing surrendered to the Manchu Dynasty. Siu, 1997, p.25 Circa 1661 Cheng Sing King (Coxinga or Surname of the Royal Family) drove the Dutch out of Taiwan (Formosa), his general Cheng Kin settled at Lei Yue Mun. Siu, 1997, p.26 c.f. Leung 1980, pp.68-69 Circa 1735 Cheng Lin Cheng, the great grandson of Cheng Kin, a pirate, established his camp in Devil's Peak. The name Devil's Peak owed to the ferocity of Cheng. Empson, 1992, p.104 (Plate 1-19); p.106 (Plate 1-20) 1753 Cheng Lin Cheong built a Tin Hau Temple along the coast as an observation post. This temple has been repaired several times since then and still exists. Empson, 1992, p.98 (Plate 1-14) 1819 The name Devil's Peak appears in Hong Kong maps produced by James Wyld and Captain Belcher, Empson, 1992, p.128 (Plate 2-1) 1841 The term "Lei Yue Mun fort" appears in a map to the Sun On Gazetteer, referred to as "San On Country Directory", Empson, 1992, p.112 (Plate 1-24) The location of the fort is uncertain as the map is not to scale and not at all accurate. 1845 1860 The name Devil's Peak appears in the lease map for the Treaty of Peking 1860, by which Kowloon was ceded to Britain. 127 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 197 Promises were made that other colporteurs would continue to stop by Poklo, and so Ch'ea left his Hong Kong connections to return to an uncertain future. PART THREE: Darkness outside, light within: Chinese cultural rejections of Ch'ea's Christian way No further contact with Ch'ea occurred for nearly a year after he left for Poklo, partly because of changing circumstances in Hong Kong that prevented any more aggressive strategies from taking shape. Legge himself had already been living as a widower since October 1852, his wife Mary Isabella (1817-1852) succumbing to what was probably advancing tuberculosis during a burdensome delivery of a stillborn child.34 Longing to see his children who had been receiving their education in Scotland since 1853, but also anxious to show the first fruits of his plans for the Chinese Classics to the London Missionary Society Directors, Legge was predisposed to staying close to Hong Kong and not taking trips into the nearby mainland. The Arrow Lorcha affair in October 1856 heightened the political tensions over supposed conflicts in treaty provisions between the Qing and British empires, lending just enough reason for British officials to initiate full-scale war in December. Whatever plans there were for "nurturing" and "supporting" Ch'ea, the declaration of war made travel inside China for foreigners literally impossible. 35 In the meantime, Ch'ea had to make his own way. Soon after he returned to Poklo he officially gave up his "employment in the sacred temple [of Master Kong]" and apparently devoted his free time to reading the books brought with him from Hong Kong. Family members charged him with following a foreigner's religion, suggesting that he had given up his allegiance to the Manchurian empire. Neighbours and others considered him either to be mad or possessed, the latter group throwing water on him (blessed in one of the Daoist temples?) to cast out the demons. What is significant, and may not be fully understood at first notice, is that these reactions occurred months before any outright military hostilities had begun (the so-called Second Opium War). "Following ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 230 Chinese Son, pp. 115-116). For a fuller account of Taiping demonology, see the article on “Taiping Tiânguó de 'móguï'” (“The ‘Devil' in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom") by Wang Qingchéng in his book, Taiping Tianguó de lìshí hé sixiang (The History and Ideology of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom) (Běijing: Zhōnghuá Book Co., 1985), pp. 328 ff. From another perspective it must be remembered that Christian missionaries in the 19th century also regularly employed demonology to express their frustations with obstructive Qing officials, Chinese cultural attitudes, and opposing religious alternatives. 46. Quoted in David Johnson, “Communication, Class and Consciousness in Late Imperial China,” p. 47, 47. A helpful biographical account of Burns' career is written by I. Hamilton, "Burns, William Chalmers" in Nigel M. de S. Cameron, et. al., eds., Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), pp. 114-115. 48. First published in Amoy (now Xiàmén) in 1853 and repeatedly published in various revisions in Hong Kong, Canton, and Shanghai for many years, the copy of this work I have seen is entitled Tianlu lichéng túhuà (Pilgrim's Progress in the Local Language [Cantonese]) (City of Sheep [i.e. Canton]: Huishi litang, tenth year of the Tongzhi reign [i.e. 1871]). 49. This Chinese conception of conversion has also been discussed in Lauren Pfister's "A Transmitter but not a Creator." 53 50. According to Paul Reuter, international standards and institutions for settling treaty disputes were first put into place in Europe in the 1870s, and so the only formal way of advancing political agendas at this time was through war. This single and often overlooked historical fact manifestly shaped the whole situation, so that local Chinese residents could only consider the foreign military presence as a preamble to a full invasion by an even "more foreign" power—the Manchurian elite. Consult the initial pages of Paul Reuter, Introduction to the Law of Treaties, trns. José Miro and Peter Haggenmacher (London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1995). than 51. EMMC/MM (September 1857), p. 207, the quotations coming from the translation of a dictated document prepared by Ch'ea for Legge and Ho in May 1857. 52. Legge himself had vomited twice from consuming some of the bread, one of the first to feel its effects because it was his habit to rise early and work on his project related to the Chinese Classics. See reports of the trial against Cheong Alum in the China Mail, a three-page "Extra Edition," dated February 7, 1857, and Legge's own recollections in his public lecture (presented on November 5, 1872) entitled "The Colony of Hong Kong." Legge's lecture was later published in the China Review 1:3 (1872-1873), pp. 163-176. An edited version of this essay was published as a centennial recollection in the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 11 (1971), pp. 172-193. A helpful article revealing details about this event is "Cheung Ah-lum: A Biographical Note”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 24 (1984), pp. and 53. The last phrase is quoted in Helen Legge, James Legge: Missionary Scholar, p. 103, from an unknown letter she claims came from a missionary in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 THE YANGZI PORT OF ZHENJIANG DOWN THE CENTURIES 鎮江 PART I KEITH STEVENS 255 Introduction Zhenjiang is a former walled city on the south bank of what is known to the Chinese as the Chang Jiang, the Long River, or simply as The Great River, and to Westerners - the Yangzi [Yangtze]. The city lies some 40 miles downstream from Nanjing and 156 miles upstream from Shanghai, and in its prime during the Northern Song, in the eleventh century, it was one of the major ports on the River, and even though its influence and authority came to a sudden and dramatic end with its capture and destruction by the Taiping rebels in 1853 it remained the provincial capital of Jiangsu province down to the 1940s. Zhenjiang commanded one of the two junctions of the southern or main arm of the Grand Canal with the Yangzi. The city is surrounded on one side by the Yangzi and on three other sides by hills, none at all high or steep, with the Grand Canal winding past the southern and western face of the walls to its convergence with the River at the Xiannü Temple. The city has been walled since the Yuan [13th century], and was built on the level ground between the Yangzi and the Grand Canal. Three of these numerous hills, all islands or former islands in the Yangzi, Jiao Shan, Beigu Shan and Jin Shan, are part of the city's legend. Some ten miles to the south lies a range of higher hills within which foreigners used to seek their exercise, riding and hunting. Of all the treaty ports Zhenjiang is possibly the least remembered by the great majority of westerners, with very few nowadays even having heard of the place. Not even when it is explained that in former romanisations it has been known to foreigners as Chinkiang, Chin-kiang, Chen-chiang Fu, Chin-keang-foo, Tsing-kiang-foo, Kin-kiang, Chingkiang, Tsing-kiang and Jingkou [i.e. Gateway to the Capital - Nanjing]. It was even known by the title of Chin-shan [Jin Shan], Gold ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 258 Shanghai did not possess, and were undoubtedly conducive to health by promoting exercise. In winter the climate is bracing and healthy though fever and dysentery were to be dreaded in summer'. There are a number of highlights for foreign visitors beginning, perhaps, with the former foreign concession, though nowadays more than seventy years on, it is difficult to discern. Outside the Chinese old city with its modern main roads, cobbled side streets and a stone pagoda said to be 13th century Yuan dynasty, though its present condition suggests that it has either been well restored or completely remade within the last century, there are the fourth century Jin Shan temple and pagoda; the Grand Canal; the former British Consulate; the home of Pearl Buck, as well as the sites of the storming of the town by a British brigade on 21st July 1842 during the First China War [commonly referred to as the Opium War]. There are also the remains of the lengthy trench dug by the Taiping rebels to protect the city from recapture by Imperial forces as well as the ruins left after the destruction of the city by the Taipings during the 1850s. And for those who have read a little Chinese literature or attended Chinese opera the widely-known tale of the White Snake Lady is also part of the story of the Jin Shan temple. Before waxing too lyrically about its glories let us remember that Zhenjiang is the vinegar capital of China, with, if the wind is in the wrong direction, an evocative sour tang forewarning approaching visitors long before they are anywhere near to the city. The majority of Chinese when confronted with the name of the city almost to a man voice the single word 'vinegar' or to the connoisseur 'brown rice vinegar'. Zhenjiang was a treaty port with a foreign concession for sixty-eight years, from the signing of the Treaty of Tientsin in 1860 until 1928, one of the minor footholds foreigners had obtained from China in one of the 'unequal treaties' and the base for numerous foreign interests. There were great hopes for the place and Sir Robert Hart, the Inspector-General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, even anticipated that eventually it would eclipse Shanghai as a commercial centre. Despite numerous westerners passing through the place down the years only a few spent full tours of duty there. Many of the temporary visitors were the lesser employees of major western companies such as BAT and Butterfield and Swire, whose regular tours to the many small ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 311 Zhenjiang city has grown beyond all recognition. Since the Communists came to power in 1949 Zhenjiang has suffered the same trials and tribulations as all other cities in China and only within the last decade or so of the 20th century did modernisation and development take off. Today it has wide streets, modern shops, drainage and factories as well as all the benefits, or otherwise, of westernisation. Also, three historical sites have been granted Asia-Pacific Heritage Protection Awards for 2001 by UNESCO. They are the Stone Pagoda, the Guan Yin Cave and a charitable association hall, all on Xijindu Street. 1 NOTES Zhenjiang city walls were said by the British military to have been thirty feet high and five feet thick. Allom, Thomas (1844) China - in a series of views, displaying the Scenery, Architecture, and Social Habits of that Ancient Empire. London: Fisher, Son and Co Vol. IV p 41 3 The area selected to be the foreign settlement was chosen in 1861 and divided into lots. Ground rent was paid to the Chinese government by leaseholders to whom titles for 99 years were issued through the British Consulate. They would have expired in 1960 had not the treaty port as a whole been formally surrendered [rendited in official parlance to avoid using the word surrendered] in 1929 after it had been decided that minor concessions were more trouble than they were worth. A Cunynghame, Captain Arthur [1845] The Opium War: London "Taot'ai [Daotai] was the term for a Qing dynasty Circuit Intendant. *Percival, William Spencer (1889) The Land of the Dragon-My Boating and Shooting Excursions to the Gorges of the Upper Yangtze. London: Hurst and Blackett, Ltd. [Percival was a member of H.B.M's Civil Service in China]. 'Clennell, WJ (June 1922) The Historical Setting of Chinkiang or a Bit of ‘Consular Bluff Shanghai: New China Review: Vol IV. No. 3 [Clennell provides much greater detail than is offered here]. & Sun Quan's city was built on Beigu Shan. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 49 NOTES Romanization is always a problem with historical names, places and sources. For the two former, I have usually stuck with historical usage in English, whilst the sources are cited as in the originals. It should always be borne in mind that the predominant speech in and around the city of Canton was Cantonese. I am grateful to the Hong Kong Museum of History for help with illustrations, and to my friend R. Ian Dunn of Sydney for assistance in preparing them for reproduction here. The map used to indicate places comes from Peter Ward Fay's excellent book on the Opium War, published in 1975, and reissued in 1997 with a new Preface. 1 This was replaced by the Treaty System introduced under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking [Nanjing] 1842, which ended the 'Opium War'. 1 4 5 Ljungstedt, Anders (1836). An Historical Sketch of the Portuguese Settlements in China. Viking Hong Kong Publications, 1992, p.61. The full text of the revised edition of 1836. For a good modern account, see Porter, Jonathan (1996). Macau, The Imaginary City, Culture and Society, 1557 to the Present. Westview Press. Davis, John Francis. The Chinese, A General Description of China and its Inhabitants. New Edition in 3 vols (first edition 1836), London, C. Cox, 1851. Vol. I, p. 18. Parkinson, C. Northcote, Trade in the Eastern Seas 1793-1813. London, Frank Cass, 1966 (first edition, 1937), p.57. The Missionary Guide Book: or A Key to the Protestant Missionary Map of the World. London, MDCCCXLVI (1846), p.206. These were large and impressive documents. One in the British Museum dated in 1836 measures 26.25 by 19.5 inches, as recorded by Chang, Hsin-pao (1964) in Commissioner Lin and the Opium War. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, p.7. I saw another in the Guernsey Museum in 1974. Collis, Maurice (first published 1946), Foreign Mud, The Opium Imbroglio at Canton in the 1830's and the Anglo-Chinese War (New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 1968, pp.45-62 for the official and unofficial systems of trading to China in the 1830s, at pp.58-60 especially for comparative figures. See in ================================================================================