europe-in-china — Page 12

then shown , particularly by the firm of Jardine, Matheson & Co.,
to the non-commissioned officers and men of the 95th Regiment ,
was acknowledged on the part of the latter by the presentation,
to the head of that firm, of a memorial cup (February, 1849 ) .
The growingly cosmopolitan tone of public feeling in Hongkong
was evidenced by the universal approval given to the salute
which the British men-of-war in harbour fired on July 4, 1851 ,
in memory of the Declaration of the Independence of the
United States .
At the beginning of Sir G. Bonham's administration, a
Colonial Hospital was organised ( October 1 , 1848 ) and the
new Government offices (close to the Cathedral) completed
(November 10, 1848 ) . But with the exception of the erection
of a new Government House ( 1850 to 1853) , no other public
284 CHAPTER XV.

works of any pretension were undertaken . On August 8 , 1848 ,
a stirring paper from the pen of Dr. Gützlaff was read at a
meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society, advocating the advantages
to be derived from the establishment of a Botanical Garden
in Hongkong. ' A Committee was forthwith appointed to make
inquiries as to the best site and cost of the undertaking . The
Government was also approached on the subject which was
warmly applauded on all sides. But financial considerations
caused Sir G. Bonham to postpone the execution of the scheme.
The private organisation (August , 1848 ) of the Victoria Library
and Reading Rooms (which laid the foundation for a future
public library) and the existence throughout this period of three
local newspapers and two advertisers, testified to the continuance
of a literary as well as commercial spirit in the Colony. The
temporary stay of Dr. Bowring in Hongkong ( 1852 to 1853)
fanned the languishing energies of the Royal Asiatic Society
into a new flame. Masonic pursuits were popularized by the
elaborate solemnity of laying the foundation stone ( February
1, 1853 ) of the Masonic Hall, under the direction of the
Provincial Grand Master (S. Rawson) of British Masons in
-China.
Few but serious calamities marred the general prosperity
which characterized this period . A storm of unusual violence,
the severest since 1841 , swept over Hongkong on August 31
and September 1 , 1848. The barometer fell as low as 28-84
but the wind did not attain to full typhoon force . Although
timely warning had been given by the Harbour Master, the
shipping suffered severely. Thirteen vessels in harbour were
damaged or wrecked and a considerable loss of life and property
ensued. House property on shore, and the troop-ships in the
harbour ( filled with men who had been removed on board to
escape the fever) , suffered but little damage. The storm was
far more destructive in Macao and Canton than in Hongkong.
On December 28, 1851 , one of the greatest conflagrations
occurred that Hongkong ever experienced . During a strong
gale, a fire broke out near the Sheungwan market and, in spite
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR G. BONHAM. 285

of heroic efforts made by the Royal Engineers under the personal
direction of Major- General Jervois to stay the fire, 472 Chinese
houses, north of Queen's Road, between the present Fire Brigade-
Station in the East and the P. & O. Company's godowns in
the West, were entirely destroyed and thirty lives lost. Liberal
aid was afforded by Governor Bonham in housing the burnt-
out people and the crown rents of properties concerned were
temporarily abated. The whole district was speedily rebuilt with
considerable improvements. A new town sprang up in the place
and the most eastern and the most western of the new streets
were respectively named Jervois Street and Bonham Strand, the
latter being laid out on land newly reclaimed from the sea.
The obituary of this period includes, among others, the
names of Dr. and Mrs. James (April, 1848), Rear- Admiral Sir
Francis A. Collier, C.B. (October 28, 1849 ) , Captain Troubridge
(above mentioned), Macao's famous painter Chinnerey (May 30,
1852) , Mrs. J. T. M. Legge (October 17 , 1852) and Dr. Gützlaff
(August 9 , 1854 ) .
A survey of Sir George Bonham's administration clearly
marks him out as the first model Governor of Hongkong. The
renewed prosperity of the Colony, that set in with his regime,
was indeed principally due to a fortunate combination of events
quite beyond his control. But whilst it never is in the power
of a Governor to create prosperity, he has it in his power to
hinder, mar and destroy it. Sir George, when convinced that
he might gain for himself the glory of making the Colony for
the first time financially self-supporting by an increase of
taxation which he knew to be practicable, refrained from forcing
his views upon the community in deference to public feeling.
He was the first Governor of Hongkong who, basing his action
on the programme sketched out by the Parliamentary Committee.
of 1847 , administered the government of this Crown Colony on
popularly recognized principles, systematically sacrificing his
individual views and his personal advancement to the welfare
of the common weal. Both as a diplomatist and as a governor,
Sir George was an unqualified success .
286 CHAPTER XV.

Detractors of his merits were not wanting. The Hongkong
public man is nothing if not severely critical. A small opposition
party in the Colony, whilst fully admitting the affability,
hospitality, liberality and gentlemanly bearing of Governor
Bonham, alleged- that he systematically favoured Consular
Courts at the expense of the local Supreme Court ; that he lost
no opportunity of curtailing the powers of the latter and did
nothing to make good the glaring deficiencies of Court inter-
pretation ; that his ignorance of the shipping resources of the
Colony was on a par with his perfect indifference regarding
them ; that he arbitrarily created a set of pampered aristocrats
and, whilst cajoling them by pretending to consult their views
in minor affairs, ignored them concerning more weighty matters
such as the regulation of emigration ; that his conduct regarding
the currency was impolitic and disgraceful, violating a
Government proclamation (May 5 , 1845 ) that had regulated
the currency since the Island was ceded , because forsooth
the Chief Justice expressed an opinion that the proclamation
was illegal ; that his constant endeavour was to do away with the
Commissariat Treasury department, because it was not under his
control ; that he did nothing to assist the Post Office because
it was independent of him, though the Postmaster did good
service by establishing branch-offices at the Treaty ports ; that
he allowed the Police Force to sink into the most wretched
and ineffective condition such as admitted of robberies occurring
nightly and people being often knocked down in the centre
of the town in the middle of the day ; that the place had been
blockaded by pirates and nothing had been done except by fits
and starts when a smart man-of-war happened to be here ;
that in fine Sir George had been a useless governor, purely
ornamental, highly decorated and extravagantly paid.
On the other hand, when Sir George Bonham went on
furlough (March 25 , 1852) , the leading merchants of the Colony
(David Jardine, Wilkinson Dent, C. J. F. Stuart, and George
Lyall) presented him with an address signed by all the local
British firms of any standing (35 in number) . This address
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR G. BONHAM. 287

expressed the satisfaction felt by the community with the
Governor's general administration and stated that the changes
made in the administration of justice had gained him the
confidence of all and particularly of the Chinese community,
improving the latter and increasing native trade. The address
also acknowledged that Sir George's social qualities had produced
general harmony and confidence . Again, in 1854, when Sir
George Bonham finally left the Colony, another public address,
as numerously signed as the previous one, was presented to him
(April 7 , 1854) . This farewell memorial gave Sir George the
renewed assurance of the general confidence reposed in his
administration, and referred to important and beneficial changes,
introduced by him, which had promoted the general interest.
The same merchants who six years before had assured Sir J.
Davis that the Colony was ruined, lauded Sir G. Bonham on
the ground that the evidence of the increased prosperity of the
Colony was now quite apparent. They pointed to the new town
(Bonham Strand) which had sprung up with remarkable rapidity
and contributed to the large increase of the native population.
In conclusion this address stated that the friendly intercourse
which had subsisted between Governor Bonham and the com-
munity would leave a lasting memorial of the high estimation
in which he had been held .
Nevertheless this model Governor, the first really popular
and successful one of the Colony's rulers, was soon forgotten
by the fluctuating community. In modern Hongkong , Sir
George Bonham is about the least known of its former governors.
Her Majesty's Government also bestowed no further honours
on the man who had done such credit to Lord Palmerston's
selection . Sir George Bonham died in 1863, leaving his greatness
to appeal to the future for the recognition it deserves.
 CHAPTER XVI.



A BRIEF SURVEY.
A.D. 1634 to 1854.


THE THE period covered by the administration of Sir G. Bonhanr
clearly marks, when compared with the preceding epochs,
a turning point in the history of Hongkong. The reader who
cares only for a detailed record of the most noteworthy facts and
events connected with the history of Hongkong, will readily
dispense with this chapter and hurry on to the next . But he
who would understand that history in itself, discern its inner
workings and decipher its deeper import, so as to study the
history of Hongkong in the light of cause and effect, may well
pause at this point for a brief survey of the facts presented in
the preceding chapters.
The Island of Hongkong, it will have been observed, was
even in its pre-British times an eccentric vantage point. It
never was so much of an integral portion of Asia as to be of
any practical moment to the Chinese political or social organism .
Its very name was unknown to the topographers or statesmen
of China and men had to come from the Far West to give it a
name in the history of the East. Its situation at the farthest
south-east point of the Chinese Empire, in line with the British
Possessions in Africa, India and North-America, constituted it a
natural Anglo-Chinese outstation in the Pacific. Hongkong
never belonged naturally either to Asia or to Europe, but was
plainly destined in God's providence to form the connecting
link for both.
As the place so its people. Ever since the first dawning
of its known history, Hongkong was the refuge of the oppressed
from among the nations. The Hakkas ill-treated by the Puntis,
 A BRIEF SURVEY. 289

the Puntis Tie-chius and Tan-ka people weary of the yoke of
mandarindom, as well as the Chinese Emperor fleeing before
the ruthless Tartar invaders, the industrious Chinese settler as
well as the roving pirate, and finally the British merchant
self- exiled from Europe finding his personal and national self-
respect trampled under foot by Manchu-Chinese tyrants -all
turned, with hesitating reluctance but impelled by resistless fate ,
to the Island of Hongkong as the haven of refuge, the home
of the free.
It was not in the nature of things that Hongkong should
at once become a paradise of liberty . It was not to be expected
that the seekers of liberty, self-expatriated from the antipodes
of the West and the East yet with the love of their respective
national homes fresh in their hearts, would either be left
undisturbed from without or consolidate otherwise than by years
of internal friction into one political and social organism within
the Colony. A stormy career, war without and dissensions
within, yet real though slow growth withal and eventual power
radiating from a healthful centre of innate Anglo- Saxon vitality,
was what the seer gifted with power to look into the future might
have predicted as the fate in store for this phenomenal Anglo-
Chinese Colony in the Far East.
Searching deeper still into the underlying causes of this
Eurasian phenomenon, it will be seen that the evolution of
the Colony of Hongkong was in reality the product of a quasi
marriage-alliance between Europe and Asia, concluded at Canton
(after 1634 A.D. ) between the East India Company and the
Chinese Government . But this international union carelessly
entered upon was characterized, in the course of the next two
centuries, by a deep-seated and growingly manifested incompati-
bility of temper, such as made Anglo-Chinese international life
at Canton a burden too heavy to be borne by either nation .
British free trade notions based on the assumption of international
equality could not remain in wedlock with China's iron rule
of monopoly based on the claim of political supremacy over
the universe. The crisis came when that claim was confronted
19
290 CHAPTER XVI.

(A.D. 1833) by an Act of Parliament establishing British
authority in the East and by the substitution ( A.D. 1834)
of an independent community of lusty free traders for the servile
and effete East India Company. The domestic alliance contracted
after A.D. 1634 between Europe and Asia on terms so
humiliating for the former, was bound to result in a temporary
divorce. That divorce was solemnly and emphatically pro-
nounced, though with patent unwillingness, by Commissioner
Lin ( A.D. 1839) acting on behalf of Asia, whereupon Captain
Elliot, acting as the representative of Europe, secured Hongkong
as a cradle for the offspring of that unhappy union (born A.D.
1841 ) , that is to say for the Colony whose divine destiny it
is to reconcile its parents hereafter in a happier reunion by a
due subordination of Asia to Europe. The elder shall serve
the younger and be taught to love and obey -such is the
historic problem which Hongkong has to solve in the dim
future.
This conception of Hongkong as the vantage point from
which the Anglo - Saxon race has to work out its divine mission of
promoting the civilization of Europe in the East, and establishing
the rule of constitutional liberty on the continent of Asia and
on the main of the Pacific, is not a mere fancy. However
imperfectly the problem may have been stated here, the foregoing
remarks undoubtedly contain an approximate formulation of a
true historic lesson which he who runs may read. Now this
lesson, however it may be modified and amended by a critical
reader, provides the student of the history of Hongkong with
a definite standard by which he can measure the progress of
the Colony and judge the merits of its Governors at any
successive period. If the reader is once clear as to what it
is that the past history of Hongkong shews the purport of the
establishment of Hongkong to have been in the providence of
God, he will have no difficulty in determining, with regard
to the public measures or public men of any period , whether
they marred or promoted the Colony's progress towards fulfilling
its divine mission.
 A BRIEF SURVEY. 291

It appears then from this point of view that the Colony
of Hongkong, the offspring of a union between Europe and Asia,
ushered into the world in the year 1841 , was nursed by brave
Captain Elliot in the cradle of liberty and free trade, solemnly
christened at Nanking, in 1842, by the despotic autocrat, Sir
H. Pottinger, weaned from 1844 to 1848 by pedantic Sir
J. Davis amid an amount of tempest and strife which made
the empoverished Colonial nursery resound with cries for
representative government and with groans condemnatory of
monopoly, until Parliament stepped in (in 1847 ) and laid down
the programme on which the schooling of the young fledgeling
was accordingly conducted by Sir G. Bonham, who gave the
Colony its first common-sense instructions in the A- B- C of
constitutional government. In other words, of the first four
Governors of Hongkong only Captain Elliot and Sir G. Bonham
appear to have read aright the lessons of the past history of
British intercourse with China and to have applied those lessons
correctly to the establishment of the Colony of Hongkong.
To begin with Captain Elliot, he seems to have recognized
or at any rate acted upon the following principles- ( 1 ) that
Hongkong must be regarded in the first instance as a point from
which should radiate the general influence of Europe upon Asia ;
(2 ) that it is therefore of primary importance to maintain at
Hongkong British supremacy ris à vis Chinese mandarindom ;
(3) that the settlement on Hongkong must be treated rather
as a station for the protection of British trade in the Far East
in general than as a Colony in the ordinary sense of the word,
that is to say that Hongkong is in truth neither a mere Crown
Colony acquired by war nor a Colony formed by productive
settlement ; (4) that the Colony of Hongkong can be made
to prosper only by keeping sacredly inviolate its free trade
palladium and by governing the colonists on principles of
constitutional liberty. Unfortunately Captain Elliot was recalled
before he could give full effect to these fundamental principles.
But that he established the Colony on this basis redounds to
his honour.
 ·




292 CHAPTER XVI.

It was even more unfortunate that Captain Elliot's successors,
Sir H. Pottinger and Sir J. Davis, pursued a policy which,
while theoretically accepting the first of those propositions,
virtually ran counter to all of them. It is quite possible that
the recall of Captain Elliot implied a condemnation on the
part of the Colonial Office of the above stated propositions rather
than of his Palmerstonian war policy, and that the contrary
principles adopted by Elliot's successors originated with the
Downing Street Authorities rather than with themselves. But
if so, it is remarkable that both Sir H. Pottinger and Sir J.
Davis appear to have carried out con amore those pernicious
instructions and to have personally identified themselves with
the autocratic and protectionist spirit that must have governed
the authors of those instructions whoever they were. Sir H.
Pottinger, indeed, gloriously maintained, while the British army
and navy were at work, the ascendancy of Europe in Asia ,
but, the moment the sword was sheathed, he allowed Mandarin
duplicity and arrogance to cajole him so as to surrender one
and all of the principles established by Captain Elliot. Sir
H. Pottinger thought so highly of Chinese officials and so badly
of British merchants that, for very fear of furthering the
interests of opiam dealers and smugglers, he shrank from
maintaining free trade principles. In result , he preferred to
allow the Cantonese Authorities to frame regulations for
Hongkong's commerce which effectually strangled it . Moreover,
whilst thus sacrificing the liberty and prosperity of British
commerce, Sir H. Pottinger, though in the Nanking Treaty he
had defined Hongkong as a mere naval station for careening and
refitting British ships, governed the settlers as if Hongkong
were a regular Colony bound to maintain by taxes an extrav-
agantly expensive official establishment, and yet refused to give
them any representation or voice whatsoever in a Council which
autocratically disposed of the taxpayers' money. Sir J. Davis,
specially selected as the trained tool of Mandarin autocracy
and monopoly, not only followed in the footsteps of his
predecessor, but went even farther in violation of the principles
 A BRIEF SURVEY. 293

which had guided Captain ElliotElliot.. By his Triad Society's
Ordinance he sacrificed the rudimentary principles of European
civilization and the British axiom of the liberty of the subject
to a cringing subservience of the aims of Mandarin tyranny
in its most barbaric aspects. By his buccaneering expedition
of April, 1847 , he injured British prestige in the East even
more than his predecessor had ever done. By his monopolies
and farms and petty regulations he hampered and injured the
foreign and native commerce of the Colony and nullified the
freedom of the port . The result of the misgovernment, initiated
by Sir H. Pottinger and continued by Sir J. Davis, was that
Parliament had to step in to warn the Colonial Office against
the mischievous policy pursued at Hongkong, and to rescue the
Colony from plainly and imminently impending ruin by a return
to the principles established by Captain Elliot. Let the reader
who doubts the soundness of the above analysis of Hongkong's
early history ponder the incontrovertible fact that the policy
of autocracy, monopoly and protectionism, pursued by Sir H.
Pottinger and Sir J. Davis, not only drove commerce away from
Hongkong and made the Colony contemptible in the eyes of the
Chinese, but brought the settlement to the verge of commercial
and financial ruin and delivered British commerce at Hongkong ,
under the shadow of the British flag, into a bondage of Chinese
mandarindom, as effective, as despicable and as galling as that
under which the East India Company and the British free
traders ever groaned whilst located at Canton . What stayed off
the impending ruin was a reversion to the principles of Elliot.
The foregoing remarks may serve to show that the formula-
tion, by the Parliamentary Committee of 1847 , of the programme
essential for Hongkong's prosperity, was but a comprehensive
re-statement of the principles which led to and guided the
original establishment of the Colony. Those principles, discarded
for a while by Sir H. Pottinger and Sir J. Davis to the Colony's
manifest injury, were re-introduced by Sir G. Bonham who
conformed his administration to those principles, though he
did not agree with all the propositions which the Parliamentary
294 CHAPTER XVI.

Committee had deduced therefrom . Sir G. Bonham's administra-
tion stands thus connected positively with that of Captain Elliot
and negatively with that of Sir H. Pottinger and Sir J. Davis..
This view comprehends, in one organic process, the whole period
from 1841 to 1854 as the first epoch in the pragmatic history
of Hongkong. It also gives its due importance to the
administration of Sir G. Bonham which, as it was with regard
to the misrule of his two predecessors, the grave of the past ,.
was at the same time, by the restoration of Elliot's vital
principles, the cradle of the future.
What constitutes, therefore, the close of Sir G. Bonham's
administration as one of the great turning points in the history
of the Colony is this, that by this time both the colonists and
the Colonial Office had attained to the clear consciousness of
Hongkong's mission as the representative of free trade in the
East and of the need of some sort of representative government .
An equally clear apprehension of the difficulties standing in
the way of a practical realisation of this ideal was not wanting.
But the recognition of the ideal itself was now established.
This was for the young Colony what the first effulgence of
personal self-consciousness is in the evolution of the human
mind. Autocratic despotism, protectionism and monopoly, were
now doomed , in principle at least . The commercial and financial
prosperity of Hongkong was now, though not perfected yet ,
virtually established . A definite prospect of the Colony becom-
ing soon absolutely self-supporting, was now looming within
measurable distance. And as to Hongkong's exercising, on
behalf of Europe, a civilizing influence upon the adjoining
continent of Asia, the colonists and their rulers could well
trust to the natural course of events to work out that problem.
A British Colony thus firmly established in Asia, on the root
principles of European liberty, was and is sure to play, in the
drama of the future, such a part as will illustrate, in the sight of
Asia, the superiority of British over Chinese forms of civilization.
and government and make Hongkong for all times the bulwark
of the cause of Europe in the East.
 CHAPTER XVII.



THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR JOHN BOWRING.

April 13, 1854, to May 5, 1859.

DURING the ten months of Sir G. Bonham's absence on
furlough (1852 to 1853) , while Major- General Jervois
administered the government of the Colony, the affairs of the
Superintendency of Trade were, as mentioned above, separately
attended to by H.M. Consul of Canton who, for this purpose,
temporarily resided at Government House, Hongkong. That
Consul and Acting Chief- Superintendent of British Trade in
China was Dr. Bowring.
He had previously gained for himself a measure of European
renown and the verdict of public opinion was, to use the words
of his own epigrammatic critique of Byron, that more could be
said of his genius than of his character. Dr. Bowring's natural
abilities were marked by great versatility but appeared to lack in
depth. Starting in commercial life and having occupied several
responsible posts on the Continent, he distinguished himself as
a linguist, as a racy translator of foreign literature, as the author
of promiscuous pamphlets on commerce, finance, and political
economy, and as a member of numerous Literary Societies.
So great was his literary and political reputation , that, when
the Westminster Review was started (1824) to expound the
doctrines of the so-called philosophical radicals, headed by
Jeremy Bentham, and to advocate the views of the advanced
liberal party, he was chosen as first editor and successfully held
the office for many years in conjunction with H. Southern .
During Earl Grey's Ministry, the Government also recognized
his abilities and employed him repeatedly, first as Secretary
to a Commission for investigating the public accounts, and
296 CHAPTER XVII.

on subsequent occasions in connection with Commercial Treaties
concluded with France, the Zoll -Verein, the Levant and Holland .
Whilst in Holland, he received ( 1829) from the Academy of
Groningen the honorary title of Doctor Literarum Humaniorum.
In the year 1833 he entered Parliament as Member for
Kilmarnock ( 1833 to 1837 ) and, after three unsuccessful contests
for Blackburn and Kirkcaldy, sat for seven years for Bolton
( 1841 to 1849 ) . During this period he directed ( in 1846 )
the attention of the Ministry to alleged illegal flogging in
Hongkong and took, as a member of the Parliamentary
Committee of 1847 , a prominent part in the inquiry into
Hongkong affairs and British relations with China . He was
also for a number of years President of the Peace Society
(established since 1816 ) which labours to procure universal
disarmament and the substitution of international arbitration
for war. Earl Clarendon and Lord Palmerston thought highly
of Dr. Bowring and always remained his staunch supporters.
Owing to financial reverses, however, Dr. Bowring had to seek
a lucrative post and accepted, in January 1849 , a Consular
appointment. Lord Palmerston,' he says in his autobiography,
offered me the Consulship of Canton where diplomatic questions
with the Central Kingdom were discussed . ' His actual occu-
pations in Canton were, however, of a disenchantingly humble
description and even during his short tenure of the Acting
Superintendency in 1852, he disdained the limits of his little
reign and considered himself a disappointed man . However,
he adhered to Sir G. Bonham's policy, ruled in peace over
the few Consular stations and abstained, while in Hongkong,
from all interference with the affairs of the Colony, beyond
resuscitating by sundry sinological contributions and by the
inspiration of his personal presence the moribund Hongkong
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. One of the most valuable
papers he wrote at this time is his dispatch to Lord Clarendon
of April 19, 1852, in which he correctly and lucidly summed
up the policy of the Chinese Government, during the preceding
ten years, as one of unflinching hostility and shewed the
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. BOWRING. 297

essential incompatibility of British and Chinese aims in the
Far East.
On the return of Sir G. Bonham, Dr. Bowring, instead of
resuming his duties at Canton, went on furlough (February 16 ,
1853 ) and returned by way of Java to England . There he
secured for himself the long coveted appointment to the double
office of H.M. Plenipotentiary in China and Governor of
Hongkong. On December 24, 1853, he was created by Her
Majesty a Knight Bachelor and a warrant issued which, while
making provision for the eventual separation of the office of
Chief- Superintendent of Trade from the Governorship of Hong-
kong, appointed Sir John Bowring to be H.M. Plenipotentiary
and Chief-Superintendent of Trade, as well as Governor of
Hongkong and its Dependencies and Commander-in-Chief and
Vice-Admiral of the same. When Sir John received (February
13, 1854) his instructions under this warrant, and found himself
also authorized to arrange for a commercial treaty with Siam,
he felt his greatness overpowering him. To China I went,'
says Sir John, as the representative of the Queen, and was
accredited not to Peking alone but to Japan, Siam, China and
Corea, I believe to a greater number of beings (indeed no less
than a third of the race of man) than any individual had been
accredited before .' Thus, bearing his blushing honours thick
upon him, he sailed to China with the sound of glory ringing
in his ears.
When he arrived in Hongkong (April 13, 1854), where he
had Colonel W. Caine for his Lieutenant- Governor and the Hon.
W. T. Mercer for his Colonial Secretary, he found the community
contented and the Civil Service still free from any dissension.
The residents were certainly not enamoured with their new
Governor but, though they attributed to him an inordinate
anxiety for self-glorification, humorously saying that he had
come back big with the fate of China and himself, there was no
ill-will against him. Stirring times were certainly approaching.
Within a fortnight of his arrival in Hongkong, Sir John
received the news of the declaration of war (March 28, 1854)
298 CHAPTER XVII.

against Russia. Immediately he started off, with the Admiral
(Sir James Stirling) for Chusan, hoping to intercept the Russian
fleet under the command of Count Pontiatin. It was a wild
goose chase. The Russians had left for regions unknown.
Meanwhile the fear of a Russian descent upon Hongkong grew
apace among the residents. Indeed fear developed into panic
(June 3 , 1854) when the Lieutenant- Governor announced the
defenceless condition of the Colony and in hot haste ordered
batteries to be erected . Nothing came of it, however, as the
combined Anglo-French squadron kept the Russians at bay on
the Siberian coast. The port of Petropaulowsky was bombarded
(September 1 , 1854) but the land attack failed. The allied fleet,
consisting only of six vessels, was too weak for any purpose
but that of harrassing the Russian outposts. The Governor
returned inglorious . But Hongkong patriotism vented itself
in a public meeting (February 21 , 1855) which resulted in an
amalgamation of sundry private subscriptions that had been
commenced, and sums of money eventually aggregating £2,500
were forwarded to the Patriotic Fund in London. This was
C
done as a testimony of the admiration felt in the Colony for
the heroic deeds of the British Army and Navy engaged in what
was called ' the noble struggle against Russian aggression ' and
of Hongkong's sympathy with the sufferings consequent thereon .
In addition to this, a patriotic address to the Queen was
dispatched (March 15 , 1855 ) declaring the approval of the
community of the war against Russia and of the alliance entered
into with the great French Empire,' and expressing a hope
that this contest so unavoidably taken up would be vigorously
pursued. The excitement was renewed when news came that
the Hon. Ch. G. J. B. Elliot, in command of H.M. Ships Sibylle,
Hornet, and Bittern, having discovered five Russian vessels in
hiding in Castries Bay, had sneaked away, to the disgust of his
subordinate officers, not daring to engage the Russians. The
matter became afterwards the subject of a court martial in
England which exculpated the commander of the squadron .
The only event in the Russian war that affected Hongkong
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. BOWRING. 299

directly was the arrival in the harbour (September 21 , 1855 )
of the German brig Greta in charge of a prize crew of H.M.S.
Barracouta with 270 Russian prisoners of war and among them
Prince Michaeloff. These were the officers and men of the
Russian frigate Diana which had been wrecked at Japan. The
Greta, having been chartered to convey the Russians from Simoda
to Ayen was captured by Admiral Stirling. In November
(1855 ) , the Vice-Admiralty Court of Hongkong condemned the
vessel as a lawful prize to H.M.S. Barracouta. Great was the
rejoicing when the news of the restoration of peace with Russia
was received (June 26 , 1856 ) . All the ships in harbour were
dressed in their gayest, salutes were fired, and thanksgiving
services were held in Union Church (July 2, 1856) and on the
following Sunday in the Cathedral.
Siam next claimed the attention of Sir J. Bowring. The
British Government had long been anxious, in the interests of
commerce, to conclude a treaty with Siam, but repeated attempts
made in this direction by the Governor-General of India and
subsequently (1850) by Sir James Brooke of Sarawak had failed .
The United States of America also had been foiled in their
endeavour to open up Siam to foreign trade. Sir J. Bowring
now tried his hand and succeeded where greater men had signally
failed . He began by opening up a private literary correspondence
with the young King who had received a European education
and, being a kindred spirit likewise endowed with belletristic
aspirations, was fascinated by the learned doctor's fame as a
literary genius. Consequently, in reply to Sir John's overtures
of literary brotherhood, there arrived in Hongkong (August 12,
1854) two envoys from Siam, bearers of a royal dispatch. Sir
John adroitly arranged through these envoys an official visit
as a proper compliment in return for the favour of a royal
missive. Fortunate as he had been so far, he was even more
favoured by fortune in securing for this delicate mission , the-
utter failure of which was confidently predicted on all sides,
the services of that astute young diplomatist, Mr. (subsequently
Sir) Harry Parkes of the Canton Consulate. Great was the
300 CHAPTER XVII.

need for diplomacy. There was a strong party at the Siamese
Court, determined to make no concessions to foreign commerce.
Sir John, therefore, starting for Siam in February, 1855, with
but two vessels of war, avoided all display and went to work
with the utmost caution. But the promptitude with which
every obstacle, that the opposition party placed in the way of
the mission, was astutely brushed away, was partly owing to the
resource and acumen displayed by Sir Harry Parkes. Within
an unexpectedly short period all preliminaries were settled and
an important commercial treaty solemnly concluded (April 18,
1855) . Sir J. Bowring returned to Hongkong victorious (May
11 , 1855 ) while Sir Harry Parkes proceeded to England to
obtain Her Majesty's signature and a year later the ratified
treaties were exchanged ( April 5 , 1856 ) and supplementary
articles signed ( May 13 , 1856 ) . The great progress which Siam
thenceforth made in commerce and civilization and the annually
increasing trade which at once sprang up between Siam and
Hongkong, date from the conclusion of these treaties, the success
of which is in the first instance due to Sir John Bowring.
During his brief tenure of the Superintendency of Trade.
Sir John devised, and succeeded in persuading the Earl of
Clarendon (in 1854) to adopt, a scheme which has not only
endured to the present day but formed the model of Consular
organization followed by other nations, and was finally introduced
in Hongkong (by Sir H. Robinson) as a Cadet scheme . It
was a scheme for supplying the British Consular Service in
China with Student Interpreters who, while studying the
Mandarin dialect and the written language of China, should make
themselves acquainted with the routine of Consular business.
In sanctioning the immediate adoption of Sir J. Bowring's plan,
the Earl of Clarendon forthwith presented one nomination to
King's College, London, and one to each of the three Queen's
Colleges in Ireland.
In his relations with the Chinese Government the learned
doctor was unfortunate. His experience in the negotiation and
formulation of commercial treaties, which had proved so
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. BOWRING. 301

eminently successful in Siam, gave him no advantage in contact
with a nation that despised trade. As to literary affinities,
there was nothing but contempt on the Chinese side. The
doctor's gown of Groningen, which captivated the Siamese
King, appeared ridiculous in the eyes of Chinese Mandarins
whenever he displayed it before them. The most ingenious
and persistent efforts which he put forth to open up personal
relations with high Chinese officials invariably met with a stolid
rebuff. Sir John saw this very soon but, ignorant yet of the
utter futility of peaceful measures, he attempted to gain by
direct intercourse with the Court at Peking what he had failed
to obtain at the hands of provincial dignitaries . Accordingly
he started (September 16, 1854 ) in H.M.S. Rattler for Shanghai,
in company with the French Minister M. Bourbillon, leaving
Mr. D. B. Robertson in charge of the Superintendency of Trade
at Hongkong, while Colonel W. Caine acted, as before, as
Lieutenant-Governor. After some consultations held at Shanghai ,
Sir John, the U.S. Minister McLane and M. Bourbillon's
Secretary proceeded , with H.M.S. Rattler and U.S.S. Powhattan,
to the mouth of the Peiho where a conference, vainly expected
to result in the opening up of direct negotiations with Peking ,
had been arranged with deputies of the Viceroy of Chihli .
Beyond the opportunity which the foreign Ministers bere had
of stating their wishes, ventilating their grievances and hinting
at intervention in aid of the suppression of the Taiping rebellion,
this move was absolutely futile. On their return to Shanghai ,
the Ministers observed the strictest silence as to the results of
their conference at the Peiho. Undeterred by this failure, Sir
John was, two years later (October, 1856 ) , on the point of
starting on a second visit to the Gulf of Pehchihli, when troubles
arose at Canton. But of these later on.
Sir John and the other Ministers had thought they might
possibly succeed in securing direct diplomatic intercourse with
Peking, without the pressure of an armed demonstration, because
the Imperial Government was at this time hardly pressed by
the progress of the Taiping rebellion and supposed to be secretly
302 . CHAPTER XVII.

desirous of foreign intervention. Sir John, following the example
of his predecessor, and having sent Consular Officers to Chinkiang
and Nanking (September, 1854) to report to him upon the
stability, resources and prospects of the Rebel Dynasty, came
to the conclusion that the Rebel Government was a gigantic
imposture. Hence he concluded that the interests of British
commerce in the East demanded an abandonment of the
neutrality insisted upon by the Foreign Office and he vainly
hoped to secure the opening up of China to foreign trade by
the offer of foreign intervention . In taking this view, Sir John
ran counter to a party powerfully represented in China and in
England by Bishop Smith and the Missionary Societies whose
views were at the time efficiently advocated by a Consular
Officer (T. T. Meadows) . If the Taipings,' wrote Mr. Meadows,
were to succeed, then 480 millions of human beings out of 900
millions that inhabit the earth would profess Christianity and
take the Bible as the standard of their belief.' That Sir John,
with his conviction of being accredited, as the Queen's
representative, to so great a portion of the human race, resisted
the temptation of posing as the apostle of the much belauded
Taiping cause does credit to his sagacity. But that the ex-
President of the Peace Society should think of putting the
sword of Great Britain into the scale against the so-called
Christian Taipings and eventually draw the sword against the
ruling Manchus, was an anomaly which, while it caused his
fanatical opponents in China to slander him as being an atheist,
alienated from him the attachment of his calm political friends
in England .
Meanwhile the Taiping rebels continued their depredations
in the central and southern provinces of China. In July, 1854,
the city of Fatshan (the Birmingham of South-China) fell into
their hands and a panic broke out in Canton (July 20 , 1854)
resulting in a general exodus of the wealthier classes. Crowds
of fugitives took refuge in Hongkong . Kowloon city, opposite
Hongkong, was at the end of September, 1854, repeatedly
taken and retaken by the Rebels and the Imperialists. The
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. BOWRING. 303

former closed in upon Canton from all sides and commenced
a blockade of the Canton River which caused the junk trade of
Canton city to migrate for a time to Hongkong. Owing to
the general increase of piracy and the facilities for smuggling
afforded by the general paralysis of the Imperial revenue service,
there sprang up in Hongkong a strong demand for small
European vessels (lorchas ) which were chartered or purchased
by local Chinese firms to convoy fleets of junks or to engage
in an irregular coasting trade. Sir J. Bowring fostered this
movement by passing two Ordinances ( No. 4 of 1855 and No. 9
of 1856) which granted a Colonial register, and the use of the
British flag, to vessels owned by such Chinese residents as were
registered lessees of Crown lands within the Colony. The
capture, by the Taipings, of the Hoifung and Lukfung district
cities (in the N.E. of Hongkong) in September, 1854, seriously
interfered, for a time, with the market supplies of the Colony.
Armed bands of Taipings also paraded the streets occasionally ,
until the police (December 21 , 1854) stopped it by arresting,
in the Lower Bazaar, several hundred armed Rebels who were
about to embark to attack Kowloon city. About the same
time, the Governor issued a Neutrality Ordinance (No. 1 of
1855) to regulate the exclusion from the harbour of armed
vessels under the contending Chinese flags and the manufacture
and sale of arms and ammunition. Since September, 1854,
•
there was at anchor in the harbour a fleet of war-junks under
the command of an alleged prince ( Hung Seu-tsung) of the
Taiping Dynasty who, with his officers, fraternized with the
local Chinese Christians and some of the Missionaries . More
than a week elapsed after the passing of that Ordinance without
its being acted upon and meanwhile the Colony narrowly escaped
(January 23 , 1855 ) the danger of a naval battle being waged
in the harbour, as nine war-junks, carrying 2,000 Imperialist
soldiers, arrived and anchored west of the Lower Bazaar whilst
a large number of Taiping war-junks were lying close to the
Hospital-ship Minden. After much delay, however, both parties
were ordered off and peacefully departed in different directions.
304 CHAPTER XVII.

The Taiping fleet returned to Hongkong in September, 1856,
when Hung Seu-tsung addressed a letter to the Governor, stating
that he had been commissioned by the Taiping Emperor to
reduce the Kwangtung province, and asking for permission to
charter in Hongkong steamers and junks to convey his troops
to Poklo whence they would start operations against the Manchu
troops. Sir John Bowring sent a copy of the letter to Viceroy
Yeh and vainly claimed some credit for having declined the
proposed alliance.
It is worthy of notice that the long continued successes
of the Taipings did not induce the Manchu Government to relax
its anti-European policy in the slightest degree. Repeatedly
did Sir John hint to the Canton Viceroy how valuable the
friendship of England might be to him. Again and again he
reminded the stolid Mandarin of an accumulation of unredressed
grievances owing to his incessant disregard of Treaty rights ,
and pressed him to concede at least a friendly interview for an
informal discussion of the situation . It was all in vain. When
Mr. (subsequently Sir) Rutherford Alcock was to be installed
in his office as H.M. Consul in Canton, Sir John wrote to
Viceroy Yeh (June 11 , 1854 ) and proposed to introduce the
Consul to him. Yeh left the dispatch unacknowledged for a
month and then informed Sir John unceremoniously that there
was no precedent for granting his request. At the close of
the same year, when the Taipings blockaded the Canton river
and defeated the Imperialist fleet (December 29 , 1854 ) in a
pitched battle at Whampoa, the proud Viceroy, in his hour of
distress, condescended to ask Sir John to protect Canton city
against the impending assault of the Taipings. Sir John
hastened to Canton with Admiral Stirling (January, 1855 )
and, under the pretext of protecting the lives and property of
British residents at Canton, took with him a large force
(H.M. Ships Winchester, Barracouta, Comus, Rattler and
Styx). This move had the desired effect of over-awing the
Taiping fleet which forthwith retired. But when Sir John
now once more asked Yeh for an interview and alluded to the
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. BOWRING. 305

unfulfilled promise of the opening of Canton city, the ungrateful
Viceroy was as intractable as ever. The Earl of Clarendon had,
when giving Sir John his instructions ( February 13 , 1854) ,
specially warned him, ' to treat all questions of unrestricted inter-
course with the Chinese with much caution, so as not to imperil
commercial interests which, with temperate management, would
daily acquire greater extension .' But this policy of waiving at
Canton the rights granted to British residents and condoning
the insults incessantly offered to them by that proud city, did
no good with people like the Cantonese gentry. It merely
postponed the impending crisis and put off for a brief interval
the day of reckoning for years of continued breaches of Treaty
rights. Canton was now the only port in China where the
Nanking Treaty was systematically disregarded , and this was
done at Canton simply on account of the proximity of Hongkong.
The establishment of a British Colony at the mouth of the
Canton river was to the haughty Cantonese what German Alsatia
is to sensitive Frenchmen : a festering wound in their side, a
source of constant irritation.
Yeh Ming-shen, the successor of Seu Kwang-tsin in the
Imperial Commissionership and Viceroyalty at Canton and the
most faithful exponent of that Manchu policy which heeds none
but forcible lessons and is bound by none but material
guarantees. was the very man to bring the existing popular
irritation to a crisis . He was the idol of the gentry and literati
of Canton who had (in 1848 ) erected, in honour of Seu and
Yeh, a stone tablet recording their anthropophagous hatred of
Europeans in the following memorable words, whilst all the
common people yielded , as if bewitched, to all the inclinations of
the barbarians, only we of Canton , at Samyuenli ( 1841 ) have ever
destroyed them , and at Wongchukee ( 1847 ) cut them in pieces :
even our tender children are desirous to devour their flesh and
to sleep upon their skins.' Viceroy Yeh, the representative of this
party, hated the power, the commerce, the civilization of Europe
even more than any of his predecessors . He was not aggressive,
however, nor did he think it worth while to strengthen his
20
306 CHAPTER XVII.

defences or his army. Yet he was determined to maintain the
supremacy of China over all barbarians. He blamed Seu for
having had too much parleying with Plenipotentiaries and
Consuls. He would have no interviews of any sort . He would
simply dictate his terms to them. As a matter of fact he never
granted an interview to any foreigner, though Sir John plied
him with arguments and Sir M. Seymour bombarded his
residence to obtain one, and he never met a European face to
face until that memorable day (January 5 , 1858 ) when his
apartments were unceremoniously burst into by the blue-jackets
of H.M.S. Sanspareil and he was, while climbing over a wall,
caught in the strong arms of Sir Astley Cooper Key whilst
Commodore Elliot's coxswain twisted the august tail of the
Imperial Commissioner round his fist.' But I am anticipating.
From the time of Yeh's assumption of office, the anti-
foreign attitude of the literati at Canton became more and more
pronounced . There was a brief lull in 1855 and 1856 while
the Taipings hovered around Canton city. But when the rebels
retreated, the gentry of Canton resumed their hostile demeanour.
Inflammatory anti- European placards and handbills were
distributed broadcast over the city and suburbs in summer
1856. Englishmen were stoned if they shewed themselves
anywhere outside the factories. It was felt on both sides that
an explosion was imminent. Yet neither side prepared for the
coming struggle.
Such was the position of affairs when, on 8th October,
1856 , the little incident occurred which gave rise to the famous
Arrow War. The Chinese Annalist tells the story in the following
words. The difficulty arose through a lorcha (named the
Arrow ), having an English captain and a Chinese crew, anchoring
off Canton with the Russian (sic) flag flying. Now the Nanking
Treaty provided for the surrender of such Chinese as shall take
refuge in Hongkong or on board English ships. When the
Chinese Naval Authorities became aware that the crew was
Chinese, a charge of being in collusion with barbarians was
preferred and twelve Chinese seamen were taken in chains into
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. BOWRING. 307

Canton.' In reality, the facts were briefly these. Some Chinese
crown-lessees of Hongkong had legally purchased in Chinese
territory and from Chinese officials a small clipper-built vessel
(lorcha) which those officials had re- captured from Chinese
pirates. The purchasers, residents of Hongkong, brought the
vessel to the Colony, gave her the name Arrow, and in due form
obtained for her (in October, 1855) a Colonial register under
Ordinance No. 4 of 1855. As the original owners of the vessel
(whose rights the Chinese officials had set aside) brought an
action against the purchasers in the Supreme Court of Hongkong,
the ownership of the vessel was judicially established . The
Arrow was then employed in the legitimate coasting trade,
open to British ships, and thus visited the port of Canton, flying
the British flag, on 8th October, 1856. Although the renewal
of her register happened to be several days over-due. that did
not in law deprive her of her privileges as a British vessel. Nor
did the Chinese Authorities know of it . The unceremonious
arrest of her crew on the part of the Chinese Authorities on
the charge of collusion with barbarians ' and their refusal of
Consul Parkes' demand that the men be surrendered to him for
trial in the Consular Court (as required by the Treaty) , constitute
the indisputed facts of the case. The only point in which this
violation of Treaty rights differed from numerous previous acts
of the Cantonese Authorities was the fact that the arrest of
the crew involved in this case a deliberate insult to the British
flag.
To the Chinese merchants and shipowners residing in
Hongkong, the point in dispute appeared to be the question
whether their owning vessels, lawfully registered under a Hong-
kong Ordinance, made them liable to a charge of being in
collusion with barbarians. The Admiral on the station, Sir
Michael Seymour, rightly looked upon the case as an unprovoked
insult to the British flag, such as demanded an immediate
apology or redress . Sir John Bowring saw in this move of
the insolent Viceroy a good opportunity for settling the question
of official intercourse dear to himself and for securing the
308 CHAPTER XVII.

promised opening of Canton city demanded by the merchants .
His Chinese advisers, Consul Parkes and Secretary Wade, saw
deeper and recognized in the case, not merely the old foolish
assumption of Chinese supremacy, but the unavoidable conflict
between Europe and Asia or (as Parkes put it at the time )
between Christian civilization and semi-civilized paganism. At
any rate, this much is perfectly clear, that, even if the Arrow
case had never occurred, hostilities would have broken out all
the same.
Sir J. Bowring commenced action by demanding (October
10 , 1856 ) a public surrender of the crew. This was refused .
He next demanded ( October 12th ) an apology. This was also
refused . Sir John then authorized the seizure (October 14th ) of
a Chinese gunboat . Yeh ridiculed such petty retribution and sent
word that the gunboat was not his at all. At last (October 21st )
Sir John solemnly threatened warlike operations unless an
apology was tendered and the crew restored to their vessel within
24 hours. Yeh sent the twelve men to the Consul with a
message that two of the men must be returned to him as they
were wanted , and refused an apology. Admiral Seymour now
stepped in and undertook to avenge the insult to the British flag.
He commenced by demanding of Yeh a formal apology and
access, for that purpose, into the city. When Yeh cartly refused
this demand, there commenced what was thenceforth known as
the Arrow War.
The Admiral demolished forthwith some Chinese forts
(October 23rd and 24th) , and, when this failed to impress the
stubborn Viceroy, the Admiral bombarded ( October 27th to 29th)
his official residence. Contrary to all expectation this measure
also failed to elicit an apology. Next the city wall opposite
Yeh's residence was breached (October 29th) , but Yeh, having
removed to a safe distance within the city, defied the Admiral
to do his worst, feeling sure that the handful of men under the
Admiral's order would not venture inside Canton city which the
literati and their trainbands had declared safe from invasion.
To move Yeh's colleagues, the Admiral bombarded (November
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR J. BOWRING. 309

3rd to 5th) the official residences of the Civil Governor and of
the Tartar General. Yeh still held out. The Admiral destroyed
another fort (November 6th) and dismantled the Bogue forts
(November 12th and 13th) . But, when these measures also
Jeft the Viceroy as indomitable and intractable as ever, the
Admiral informed Sir John that, in the absence of troops.
nothing more could be done and retired to Hongkong, whence
he wrote home asking for a reinforcement of at least 5,000 meu .
Chinese and European residents of Hongkong were dismayed .
Now it was Yeh's turn to commence hostilities in his
own way. He had previously (October 28, 1856 ) put a price
of $ 30 on English heads. He now raised the reward to taels
100 per head, called upon the Chinese population of Hongkong
to leave the Colony immediately, and placarded the streets of
Hongkong and Canton with appeals to the people to avenge
his wrongs by any means whatever. In response to this appeal,
which had at first no effect in Hongkong, the Canton mob set
fire to the European factories at Canton (December 14, 1856)
and later on ( January, 1857 ) to the British docks and stores
at Whampoa.
In Hongkong, where Taiping rebels and professional pirates
and brigands had been making common cause under the aegis
of the local Triad societies, the European community was, ever
since the Arrow incident, pervaded by a growing sense of
insecurity . On 16th October, 1856, a public meeting, summoned
to consider matters seriously affecting the interests of the Colony,
bitterly complained of the total inefficiency of the Police Force
for the protection of life and property. Various forms of
registering the Chinese residents, so as to exclude all Chinese
whose honesty was not vonched for, were proposed and urged
upon the Government with the utmost confidence. Sir John ,
however, put no trust in the vouchers that would have been
produced and shrank from a measure the thorough execution
of which would have involved the forcible deportation of the
vast majority of the local Chinese residents . His refusal to
sanction any of the popular measures proposed by the British