europe-in-china — Page 3

In these views Mr. Davis was cordially supported by the
whole British community of Canton and Macao, who forwarded
(December 9, 1834) a petition signed by sixty-four British
subjects and addressed to the King's Most Excellent Majesty
in Council. Their unanimous opinion was that the long
acquiescence in the arrogant assumption of superiority over the
monarchs and people of other countries, claimed by the Emperor
44 CHAPTER V.

of China, had caused the disabilities and restrictions which
had been imposed on British trade in China, and that Lord
Napier's not having the requisite powers, properly sustained by
an armed force, had put British merchants in their present
degraded and insecure position. Accordingly they suggested to the
King in Council, that a determined maintenance of the rank of
the British Empire in the scale of nations was the proper policy
to adopt, and they recommended the plan which was actually
carried out seven years later in the so-called opium war, viz . , that
a Plenipotentiary, with an armed force, proceed to a convenient
station on the east coast of China and demand of the Emperor
ample reparation for the insults offered to Lord Napier, to
the King and to his subjects, and to propose the appointment
of Imperial Commissioners to arrange with the British
Plenipotentiary a basis for regulating British trade, so as to
prevent future troubles, and to extend trade to Amoy, Ningpo
and Chusan .
The fact that at the close of the year 1834 ample reasons
existed for making this demand and for taking this action,
which without coercive measures was impossible, is important.
Equally important is the other fact that the subsequent war
of 1841 did no more than what was needed and demanded in
the year 1834. For these facts show that the subsequent
expulsion of the British community from Canton (in 1839 )
and the whole opium question, as connected with the war
of 1841 , were merely accidental accessories to the fact already
patent in the year 1834 to every resident in China, the foreign
merchants and the British Superintendents, that the necessities of
British trade, combined with British national and individual
self-respect, were so irreconcilable with Chinese contempt of
trade and Chinese notions of supremacy and autocracy, as to
make war between Great Britain and China an absolute
necessity. In no other way could the Chinese Authorities be
induced to make reasonable concessions to the merchants ,
whom they had themselves invited and whom they desired
to continue their commerce with China. Nothing short of
 DISSENSIONS AND A QUIESCENT POLICY. 45

an armed demonstration of force could induce the Chinese
Mandarins to grant foreign trade a dignified modus vivendi.
War with China was, at the close of the year 1834, a mere
question of time. Strictly speaking it was simply a question
of arousing public opinion in England to a recognition of the
actual necessities of the case. But it took years to accomplish
this, and meanwhile affairs in China were in a state of transition,
which made the position of the British merchants and their
Superintendents extremely awkward .
British merchants in Canton, at Macao and at the anchorage
of Lintin, were nominally under the control of the British
Superintendents. But the Chinese Authorities persistently
protested against their claim of an official status, and the
British Cabinet left their political authority unsupported and
their jurisdiction over British subjects undefined . Moreover
it was asserted by many British merchants that their own
Government had broken faith with them in the matter of
the dissolution of the East India Company's trade monopoly.
For the Government had by Act of Parliament thrown open
the trade with China and thereby invited them to operate at
Canton, and yet the Government appeared to tolerate and
sanction a survival in Canton of the East India Company's
trade monopoly in the form of a Financial Committee of bill
brokers who, with the resources of the Indian revenues at their
command, hampered, and domineered over, the commercial
operations of British free traders. This yoke was the more
chafing, because the Chinese Authorities increased their exactions
on British trade almost from month to month, ever since the
East India Company's charter had ceased .
Consequently, headed by Jardine, Matheson & Co. , R.
Turner & Co. , J. Innes, J. McAdam Gladstone, A. S. Keating,
J. Watson, N. Crooke, W. S. Boyd, J. Templeton & Co. , and
Andrew Johnstone, the British Chamber of Commerce at Canton
protested against the continuance in China of any part of the
East India Company's factory, even for the purpose of selling
bills on India and purchasing bills on England, by making
46 CHAPTER V.

advances on the goods and merchandise of individuals intended
for consignment to England. They pleaded that this practice
was an infringement of the Act of Parliament which required
the East India Company to abstain from all commercial business ;
that it raised the prices of Chinese produce ; that it encouraged
improvident speculation ; that it shut out British mercantile
capital through occupying the field with the revenues of India ;
and that it formed, through an understanding with the Hong
Merchants, a close monopoly of the most desirable teas.
Meanwhile the Chinese Authorities continued their previous
tactics . They had not the slightest wish to kill the goose
which laid the golden eggs ; only the goose must have no
aspirations above a goose and remain in their own exclusive
grasp. As soon as they heard of Lord Napier's arrival in
Macao, they re-opened trade (September 29 , 1834) and rescinded
the prohibition against pilots bringing foreign vessels up to
Whampoa. Trade forthwith re-commenced and proceeded as
briskly as ever, both at Canton and at Lintin. But the
Cantonese Authorities and the Hong Merchants scrupulously
avoided recognizing the British Superintendents as having any
official status whatever, whilst they used every possible means ,
fair and foul, to persuade individual British merchants to
disavow the authority and jurisdiction of the Superintendents.
They even attempted to induce the Chamber of Commerce to
nominate a trading tai-pan ' (a Chief- Supercago) to be officially
recognized by the Chinese Government as responsible for the
personal conduct and for the commercial transactions of every
foreign merchant, and especially also for the Lintin opium
trade. To the invitation to nominate a trading tai -pan , specially
ordered by the Governor (October 19 and 20 , 1834) , the British
merchants, having been particularly warned by the Secretary
to the Superintendents to remain loyal ( November 10, 1834) ,
replied in a body, that no authority of the kind could be held by
any British merchant without the authority of the British Crown .
Nevertheless the British community did not disguise to the
Superintendents that, if the suggestions they had both made
 DISSENSIONS AND A QUIESCENT POLICY. 47

to the British Government were disregarded, the mercantile
community would have no faith whatever in the quiescent policy
of the Superintendents, and that, unrecognized as the Commission
remained in relation to the Chinese Authorities and unable to
assert their claims to political and judicial authority, they
ought not to expect the British mercantile community to look
to them for guidance, direction or protection . One of the
merchants, Mr. Keating, having a petty dispute with the firm
of Turner & Co. concerning a claim of three hundred dollars,
preferred against him by that firm, went so far as to deny
the jurisdiction of the Superintendents altogether, on the ground
of the undefined character of their functions and of their want
of power to enforce their decisions. On the same grounds
Mr. Innes, another British merchant, when wronged by the
Chinese, deliberately threatened the Superintendents with taking
the law into his own hands and making independently reprisals
upon the natives.
Whilst these and similar disputes divided the foreign
merchants and their Superintendents, the Chinese Authorities
and the Hong Merchants were not in any more amicable
relations. The Hong Merchants were severely censured by their
superiors for having failed to bring the foreign merchants under
a responsible foreign head and for the consequent failure of
any means of inducing them to stop the trade carried on at
Lintin by the opium receiving- ships. Moreover, free trade
principles began to assert themselves on the Chinese side. The
Hong Merchants' own monopoly began to crumble down . For
some time past the Senior Hong Merchant, who alone was
solvent, had virtually been acting as the sole holder of the
monopoly, but lately the other Hong Merchants, tempted by
their indebtedness to the foreign merchants and to the Mandarins,
had taken to the practice of sub-letting some of their privileges
to private Chinese traders and shopkeepers, to whom they
individually issued licences to deal in foreign goods under the
names of the respective Hong Merchants. In this way it had
come to pass that the neighbourhood of the factories at Canton
48 CHAPTER V.

was gradually surrounded by a colony of Chinese free traders.
and shopkeepers. At the sight of this inroad of free trade
principles, the Mandarins waxed wroth and a series of fulminating
edicts went forth against the Hong Merchants and the
sub-licensees.
Such was the state of affairs in January 1835 , when
Mr. Davis, seeing himself unrecognized , powerless and without
prospect of an early change of policy, prudently vacated his
post as Chief Superintendent and returned to England (January
21 , 1835) . Sir George Best Robinson now assumed office as
the Head of the King's Commission , declaring his intention
to follow the quiescent line of policy initiated by Mr. Davis.
Mr. J. F. Astell acted as Second and Captain Ch . Elliot ,
R.N., as Third Superintendent, but when Mr. Astell resigned
soon after (April 1 , 1835). Captain Elliot succeeded to the
post of Second and Mr. A. R. Johnston to that of Third
Superintendent, whilst Mr. E. Elmslie acted as Secretary and
Treasurer.
Dissensions now multiplied on all sides. Sir George
Robinson conceived an insuperable antipathy against the British
free traders whom he falsely represented to the Foreign Office
as having caused Lord Napier's failure by their bitter party
strife, as being possessed of an anxious wish, aiding and
abetting therein the Chinese Authorities, to avoid any reference
to the Superintendents, and as divided among themselves by
virulent dissensions to a fearful extent. Sir George was,
however, equally at variance with his colleagues in the
Commission. He differed from the other two Superintendents
on matters of policy, so much so, that he not only separated
from them, leaving them at Macao or Canton while he
established himself (November 2 , 1835 ) , with the Secretary
and the archives of the Commission, on board the cutter
Louisa at Lintin , but wrote from thence to Lord Palmerston
(January 29 , 1836) recommending to reduce the Commission
to one member 6 because disunion and opposition inevitably
results from the existence of a Council or Board of three.'
 DISSENSIONS AND A QUIESCENT POLICY. 49

At Lintin Sir George remained enthroned in the very
centre of the hated opium traffic, which the other Superintendents
equally loathed as a source of disgrace and danger. Sir George,
though residing in the midst of the opium dealers, was no
admirer of the opium trade. On the contrary, he expressly
applied to Lord Palmerston for orders to authorize him to
prevent British vessels engaging in this traffic. Sir George
fondly imagined then that he would be able to enforce such
orders. But the opium consumption had by this time already
assumed such dimensions and gained such popularity on the
Chinese side, that no power on earth, whether British or
Chinese, could have stopped either the demand by the Chinese
people or the supply by the foreign shipping. Very properly,
therefore, Sir George further advised Lord Palmerston (February
5 , 1836 ) that a more certain method would be to prohibit
the growth of the poppy and manufacture of opium in
British India.'
Throughout his tenure of the office of Chief Superintendent
(January 22 , 1835 , to December 14 , 1836 ) , Sir George
B. Robinson had no communication with the Hong Merchants
nor with the Cantonese Authorities, who rigidly adhered to
their determination not to recognize the presence of any
foreign official. When the crew of the Argyle were seized on
the Chinese coast and detained (January 25, 1835 ) , Captain
Elliot went to Canton (February 4, 1835 ) and demanded their
liberation. He was curtly ordered to leave Canton, but the
crew was set at liberty (February 18, 1845 ) . On February
23, 1835, the Canton officials made a public demonstration of
their determination to carry out the Imperial edict (of
November 7 , 1834) and , having seized some chests of opium,
burned them in public. In private, however, they continued
to connive at and to foster the opium trade, and commerce
continued quietly throughout the year. In autumn (October
16, 1835) Sir G. B. Robinson wrote to the Duke of Wellington ,
to whom he looked as his patron rather than to Lord Palmerston,
that he had never in the slighest degree perceived any disposition
4
50 CHAPTER V.

on the part of the Chinese Authorities to enter into any
communication, or even to permit any intercourse with the
officers of this Commission and that Elliot's attempts to open
up communication with them had only involved him in
additional contumely and insult, thereby greatly impeding
the prospective adjustment of existing difficulties. The words
which the Duke of Wellington penned (March 24 , 1835)
in condemnation of Lord Napier's mission, he (the Chief
Superintendent) must not go to Canton without permission,
he must not depart from the accustomed channel of com-
munication, but he must have great powers to enable him to
control and keep in order the King's subjects (the free
traders) , and there must always be within the Consul- General's
reach a stout frigate and a smaller vessel of war,' seemed to
be always ringing in Sir George's ears and formed the keynote
of what he loved to call his perfectly quiescent policy.' He
regarded himself as a Consul-General, unaccredited indeed to
the Chinese Government, but specially commissioned to keep
the free traders in order where they most needed it, at Lintin .
There he remained, out of touch with the leaders of the
legitimate trade at Canton and Macao, unrecognized by the
Chinese Authorities and separated from his own colleagues in
the Commission who desired to follow an active policy. Until .
the close of the year 1836 , Sir George practically did nothing
except signing ships' manifests and port clearances and writing
dispatches to Lord Palmerston, in which he triumphantly
reported from time to time that trade continued to flourish
without disturbance, thanks to his own perfectly quiescent
line of policy, and persistently dinning into the Minister's
ears that he was waiting for His Lordship's positive and
definite instructions as to future measures.'
In one point, however, Sir George went beyond the lines of
the Duke of Wellington's policy. He was constantly on the
look-out for a place where British trade might be conducted
without being shackled with the extortions and impositions of
the Mandarins, and where the Chief- Superintendent might be
 DISSENSIONS AND A QUIESCENT POLICY. 51

beyond the dissensions and virulent party strife of the Canton
free traders. At first he thought only of a passive demonstration
(April 13, 1835) to be made, against the Canton Authorities,
by a temporary removal of all British subjects to merchant ships
to be stationed in some of the beautiful harbours in the
neighbourhood of Lantao or Hongkong.' Next he recommended
(December 1 , 1835) that the Commission should be permanently
stationed at Lintin, and later on (January 29, and April 18,
1836 ) he informs Lord Palmerston , that the Chinese Authorities
seem to have but one object , viz ., to prevent the Commission
establishing themselves permanently at Canton, and that without
intimidation and ultimate resort to hostilities no proper under-
standing can be established . Accordingly he suggested, that
'the destruction of one or two forts, and the occupation of one
of the islands in the neighbourhood, so singularly adapted by
nature in every respect for commercial purposes, would promptly
produce every effect we desire.' If Sir George B. Robinson had
been a prophet, he could not have anticipated more distinctly
the future origin of our Colony, the battle of Chuempi and the
occupation of the Island of Hongkong as accomplished seven
years later, in January 1841.
Lord Palmerston, however, was not prepared yet to express
an opinion as to any suggestion leading up to the permanent
establishment of a British station or colony in the East. Neither
did the Duke of Wellington's ideas go beyond the establishment
of a Consul-General in a Chinese port, backed by a stout frigate
and a smaller vessel of war. Lord Palmerston had all along
been little inclined to listen to Sir George Robinson's expositions
of the Duke's notions or to pay any attention to his monotonous
dithyrambics on the subject of the quiescent line of policy. As
to the positive and definite instructions regarding future measures,
for which the Superintendents were waiting in vain from 1834
to 1836 , it was not until Lord Palmerston's views had gained
the ascendancy in the public mind over those of the noble Duke,
that the Minister vouchsafed to give Sir George any instructions
as to his policy. And when (June 7 , 1836 ) he at last did so ,
52 CHAPTER V.

he curtly informed Sir George that there was no longer any
necessity for maintaining the office of Chief- Superintendent
which was hereby abolished, and that Sir George's functions
should cease from the date of the receipt of this dispatch.
Accordingly he instructed Sir George to hand over the archives
of his office to Captain Elliot whom he requested to consider
himself as Chief of the Commission. Sir George, nothing
daunted, remained at his post and appealed for reconsideration
(probably looking to the Duke of Wellington for rescue), but
it was all in vain. The Cabinet had begun to see that the
quiescent policy had failed . Four months afterwards Lord
Palmerston repeated his instructions and Sir George returned
to England.
Thus ended the reign of the quiescent policy of Mr. Davis
and Sir George Robinson . A more active policy was to be
inaugurated as soon as public attention in England could be
aroused to a sense of the dishonour heaped upon British
merchants and officers by Chinese autocracy.




=3
 CHAPTER VI.



THE SEARCH FOR A COLONY.

IR George B. Robinson was by no means the first discoverer
SIR
of the need of a British Colony in the East. Nor was Lord
Palmerston the only statesman that shrank from the idea and
found himself unable to form hastily a final opinion upon such a
suggestion until the force of events had actually accomplished it.
So far back as 1815 , Mr. Elphinstone, then President of
the Select Committee of the East India Company's Supercargoes
at Canton, recommended to the Court of Directors, that they
should establish a high diplomatic Plenipotentiary on a
convenient station on the eastern coast of China, ' and as near
the capital of the country as might be found most expedient .
He further recommended that this Plenipotentiary should be
attended by a sufficient maritime force to demand reparation of
the grievances from which the trade was suffering. The Directors
of the Company, with all their statesman-like sagacity, did not
see their way to follow up this suggestion, the carrying out
of which would have anticipated the sound basis of commercial
relations which was eventually obtained some thirty-six years
later, by the very course of action first recommended by
Mr. Elphinstone .
The next person to take up and develop Mr. Elpinstone's
idea of a station on the east coast of China as a point d'appui
for a naval demonstration, intended to compel China to redress
grievances and to make some commercial concessions, was
Sir George Staunton, the famous translator of the original
statutes of the Tatsing Dynasty (Penal Code of China ), who had
also been a trusted servant of the East India Company in
China. Having returned to England, he entered Parliament.
In the course of a debate which took place in the House of
54 CHAPTER VI.

Commons (June, 1833) concerning the arbrogation of the East
India Company's trade monopoly, Sir George Staunton moved
a series of resolutions, one of which (No. 8) ran as follows :
6
That, in the event of its proving impracticable to replace
the influence of the East India Company's Authorities by any
system of national protection, directly emanating from the
Crown, it will be expedient (though only in the last resort) to
withdraw altogether from the control of the Chinese Authorities,
and to establish the trade in some insular position on the
Chinese coast where it may be satisfactorily carried on beyond
the reach of acts of oppression and molestation, to which an
unresisting submission would be equally prejudicial to the-
national honour and to the national interests of this country.'
Whilst this important subject was under discussion , the House
was counted out, and on a subsequent resumption of the debate
the resolutions were negatived without a division , indicating
the general indifference as regards Chinese affairs which then
prevailed in England .
At the time when Sir George Staunton drafted the
foregoing resolution , the project of stationing in Canton three
Superintendents of British trade in China was definitely placed
before the country by the Bill above mentioned which passed
into law two months later. In speaking of a system of national
protection directly emanating from the Crown, ' Sir George
Staunton referred to Lord Napier's proposed mission , the failure
of which he appears to have foreseen . In suggesting a remedy
for this expected failure, the establishment of the Commission
in some insular position on the coast, beyond the reach of acts
of oppression and molestation,' Sir George Staunton may not
have had in his mind more than the establishment of a trade
station after the fashion of the East India Company's factories,
but he evidently came very near the idea of a British Colony.
He had to advantage studied the history of the East India
Company and drawn from it lessons which Cabinet Ministers
failed to master. Speaking before the House of Commons in
support of the above resolution, he argued that the port of
 THE SEARCH FOR A COLONY. 55

Canton was one of the least advantageous in the Chinese
dominions, either for exports or for imports, that the trade of
Canton was wholly abandoned to the arbitrary control of the
Local Authorities, and was by them subjected to many and
severe and vexatious burdens and to various restrictions and
privations of the most galling and oppressive nature, and finally
that those evils were wholly attributable to the nature and
character of the Chinese Government.
About the time when these sage counsels were urged in
the House of Commons upon an apathetic audience, another
former servant of the East India Company, Sir J. B. Urmston ,
who had been at the head of the British Factory in Canton
in the years 1819 and 1820, published (London, 1833 ) a
pamphlet under the title ' Observations on the Trade of China '
(printed for private circulation only) . In this pamphlet, Sir
J. B. Urmston impressed upon the British Government the
necessity of removing the trade entirely from Canton to some
other more northern port of the Empire. His argument was
that British trade at Canton had always been at the mercy of
the caprice and rapacity of the Cantonese Authorities and their
subordinates, and that Canton was one of the worst places in
the Empire which could have been chosen as an emporium for the
British trade. Accordingly Sir J. B. Urmston named Ningpo
and Hangchow as central and convenient places for British
commerce, but gave it as his decided opinion that an insular
situation, like Chusan, would be infinitely more so . We see,
therefore, that Mr. Elphinstone, Sir George Staunton and Sir
J. B. Urmston were of one and the same way of thinking,
having correctly drawn the lessons of the past history of British
trade in China, but that , as former employees of the East India
Company, they thought of a factory rather than of a Colony.
It is remarkable, however, that Cabinet Ministers profited so
little from the advice thus tendered in Parliament and in the
Press, as to commit the blunders which characterized , a few
months later, their design of Lord Napier's mission and the
instructions by which they frustrated it .
 56 CHAPTER VI.

When an echo of the foregoing discussions reached Canton
at the close of the year 1833, a writer in one of the local
publications, signing himselfA British Merchant,' made some
further suggestions. Canton, he said, should no longer be the
base of operations, be they of negotiation, of peace, or of war.
An Admiral's station should be selected, and, for the sake of
resting on some point, Ningpo might be adopted or the adjacent
island of Chusan. The writer then goes on discussing the
annexation of Formosa, the seizure of the island of Lantao
(close to Hongkong), the cession of Macao to be obtained from
the Portuguese, but finally rejects the seizure of any portion
of Chinese territory as impolitic and the cession of Macao as
impracticable. The author of this letter thereupon labours to
recommend the idea of negotiating a treaty with China under
which some port of the east coast of China should be opened
to British trade, free from the restrictions in force at Canton .
A treaty port with a British Consulate seemed to him preferable
to a Colony, but how such a treaty could be negotiated without
compulsion by force of arms, he did not explain.
The honour of having first discerned and directed attention
to the peculiar facilities afforded by the Island of Hongkong
belongs to Lord Napier. In a dispatch addressed to Lord
Palmerston (August 14, 1834) , in which he urged the necessity
of commanding, by an armed demonstration, the conclusion of
a commercial treaty to secure the just rights and interests
of European merchants in China. Lord Napier distinctly
recommended that a small British force should take possession
of the Island of Hongkong, in the eastern entrance of the
Canton River, which is admirably adapted for every purpose.'
It is possible, however, that Lord Napier, as subsequently Captain
Elliot, thought of Hongkong as a future Chinese treaty port
rather than as a British Colony. The next advocate of a similar
policy was Sir George B. Robinson , who, as stated above, urged
upon Lord Palmerston (in 1836 ) to withdraw from Canton
and to occupy one of the islands in the neighbourhood (of
Lintin) so singularly adapted by nature in every respect for
 THE SEARCH FOR A COLONY. 57

commercial purposes.' At the same time when Sir George
Robinson sought to impress upon the Foreign Office the
advantages of an island station, away from Canton, another
former resident of China appealed to the British public,
commending the same policy, seeking to arouse public opinion
in England and to turn it in favour of the project first advanced
by Mr. Elphinstone . In a pamphlet , entitled " The Present
Condition and Prospec ts of British Trade with China,' and
published in Londo n in 1830, Mr. James Matheson of Canton ,
expounded and expanded Mr. Elphinstone's advice of sending
a Plenipotentiary to China, who should take his station on one
of the islands on the east coast of China and thence negotiate ,
by the demonstration of a small naval force, a commercial
treaty, the object of which should be to secure for British
trade in China an insular location beyond the reach of Chinese
officialdom . This clearly pointed to a British Colony to be
established on the coast of China .
Mr. Matheson, however, was no advocate of war with China.
Neither did he imagine that China would readily consent to
the establishment of a British Colony at her very gates. Mr.
Matheson argued that a state of preparedness for war is the
surest preventive of war, especially in our dealings with a
nation like China, and that a firm policy, plainly supported
by a strong fleet, ready for war, might, if judiciously pressed
home, be all that would be absolutely necessary. Thus Mr.
Matheson struck, in 1836, the key-note of the policy which
eventually procured the establishment of the Colony of Hongkong.
What Mr. Matheson thus urged upon the home country
as a whole by his pamphlet, he impressed especially also upon
the various Associations and Chambers of Commerce within reach
of his influence in England and Scotland. In the course of
the year 1836 , several memorials were accordingly presented
at the Foreign Office from various parts of Great Britain,
requesting that immediate and energetic measures should be
adopted for the extension and protection of commerce in China.
Among them was a memorial of the Glasgow East India
58 CHAPTER VI.

Association, addressed to Lord Palmerston. This document
suggested, no doubt at the instigation of Mr. Matheson, ' the
obtaining, by negotiation or purchase, an island on the eastern
coast of China, where a British factory may reside, subject to
its own laws and exposed to no collision with the Chinese.'
When the Glasgow merchants thus recommended to seek, by
negotiation or purchase, the cession of an island for the
establishment of a factory, they did not mean a factory like
the trade stations of the East India Company, but a factory
of British and notably Scotch free traders , in the Canton sense
of the word. They forestalled thus in principle the future
cession of Hongkong, although their thoughts then turned,
with Mr. Matheson, more in the direction of Chusan than of
Hongkong.
The idea which Mr. Matheson thus prominently brought ,
by his pamphlet, before the general public, and by the Glasgow
memorial before the Cabinet, to desert Canton and to seek,
somewhere on the east coast, an island where British trade with
China might be conducted under the British flag, on British
ground, and under British government, was not left without its
opponents. Mr. H. Hamilton Lindsay, also a former Canton
resident and ex - member of the East India Company's Select
Committee, published, in 1836, a Letter addressed to Lord
Palmerston under the title British Relations with China . ' In
this pamphlet, whilst recommending the adoption of a belligerent
policy in opposition to Mr. Matheson's armed peace procedure,
Mr. Lindsay advocated the formation, on the coast of China,
of two or three depots with floating warehouses, like the above
mentioned hulks anchored at Lintin . Each of those depots, he
suggested, should be guarded by a stout frigate and thrown
open for the resort of merchant vessels to trade there . As
to the project of forming a Colony, Mr. Lindsay added that he
would on no account advocate the taking possession of the
smallest island on the coast.
Another opponent of the Colonial policy came forward
anonymously, by a pamphlet published in London, in 1836, by
 THE SEARCH FOR A COLONY. 59

6
a resident in China, under the title British Intercourse with
China .' The anonymous author of this pamphlet represented
the Missionary view of the question and suggested that the
Government should choose a pacific policy towards China on
grounds of expediency, humility and generosity, and confine its
political action to the establishment of a Consulate at Canton
together with a small fleet for the protection of trade.
To combat the foregoing opponents of his scheme, Sir George-
Staunton now came forward again and published , in 1836 , a
pamphlet entitled ' Remarks on British Relations with China.'
Sir George had, however, but little to say that was new.
argued, as before, that Canton was the very worst station to
select for trade purposes, but he now advocated the occupation
of an island on the coast without previous negotiation with
the Chinese Government. He stated that there were many
islands on the coast over which the Chinese Government exercised
no act of jurisdiction, and that such an island might easily be
taken possession of with the entire consent and good-will of
the inhabitants if there were any. Moreover he now pointed,
very aptly, to the precedent afforded by the Portuguese Colony
on the island of Macao, the original occupation of which was
an act precisely of that description which Sir George Staunton
advocated, and not the result of any previous authentic cession
by the Chinese Authorities, as pretended by the Portuguese.
So far, however, this general search for a Colony in the
East was more a groping about for an island on the east coast
of China than in the neighbourhood of Canton. Chusan was
most in favour. Next came Ningpo and Formosa . But other
places also were mentioned . At the close of the year 1836 ,
when this war of the pamphleteers was transferred from England
to Canton, the general divergence of views was increased.
Mr. G. Tradescant Lay, a naturalist who had accompanied
Captain Beechy's Expedition to the Bonin Islands, strongly
advocated, in the Canton newspapers and by a pamphlet published
in 1837, the occupation of one of those islands for the purpose
of a British Colony. Hongkong was almost out of the running.
60 CHAPTER VI.

However, the annexation of Hongkong was under the
consideration of the Canton free traders early in the year
1836, when a correspondent of the Canton Register made the
following prophetic remarks (April 25, 1836 ) . " If the lion's
paw is to be put down on any part of the south side of
China, let it be Hongkong ; let the lion declare it to be
under his guarantee a free port, and in ten years it will be
the most considerable mart east of the Cape. The Portuguese
made a mistake : they adopted shallow water and exclusive
rules. Hongkong, deep water, and a free port for ever ! '
This anticipation of the future was but the view of a minority
at Canton . Most of the British merchants continued to cling
to the notion that the inner waters of Canton afforded a
special vantage ground, that the lion's share was there where
their trade was acknowledged by the Chinese Authorities,
that at Canton therefore the British representative should
reside and that, unless he were to reside there, he would be
simply nowhere, whether for the Chinese Government or for
his countrymen. At the time when the discussion as to the
best location of the British trade waxed hottest in the Canton
papers, there was published in the same papers (December, 1836 )
a detail description of the coast of China for the benefit of
mariners, and in these papers, entirely unconnected with the
above-mentioned search for a Colony, we find Hongkong
referred to in the following words :-
' On the west of the Lamma channel is Lantao (about
60 miles S.E. of Canton ) and on the east are Hongkong
and Lamma. North of Hongkong is a passage between it
and the main, called Ly-ee- moon, with good depth of water
close to the Hongkong shore, and perfect shelter on all sides.
Here are several good anchorages. At the bottom of a bay
on the opposite main is a town called Kowloon and a river
is said to discharge itself here (a statement the incorrectness.
of which is palpable, unless by the word river a little creek
is meant) . On the S.W. side of Hongkong, and between it
and Lamma, are several small bays, fit for anchorage, one of
 THE SEARCH FOR A COLONY. 61

which, named Heang-keang, probably has given name to the
island . Tytam harbour is in a bay on the S.E. side of the
island, having the S.E. point for its protection to the
eastward, other parts of the island on the N. and W. and
several small islands off the entrance of the bay to the south.
It is roomy and free from danger.'
It was unfortunate that the search for a Colony had met
with opposition in Canton and developed in England into a
war of pamphleteers. This conflict confused instead of forming
public opinion . At any rate nothing definite was accomplished.
Parliament would not take up the question , and Lord Palmerston ,
whose mind was by this time made up, preferred to wait
until he was sure as to the drift of public opinion .
No one, it will be observed, took a share in this search
for a Colony except persons directly connected with the China
Trade past or present, unless we except a crude concoction
by a writer of the East India House (a Mr. Thompson)
who, in a pamphlet published under the title Considerations
representing the Trade with China ' (London, 1836 ), deprecated
war for commerce only. Neither public opinion nor the
Cabinet approved of or took more than a languid interest in
the measures discussed . However, attention had been called
to the subject in prominent places, and the public mind
was now, in some measure at least, prepared to accept,
reluctantly though it be, the idea of establishing a British
Colony in the East, when, four years later, this project was
suddenly presented to the nation as an accomplished fact by
the news of the cession of Hongkong brought about by the
force of events rather than by any continuation of this search
for a Colony.




3-
 CHAPTER VII.



CHANGE OF POLICY.
1836 to 1838.

N June 1836 a marked change commenced in the policy
IN of the British Cabinet. Previous to that time the Duke

of Wellington's Memorandum of March 24, 1835 , had, as above
mentioned, suggested that the British Chief- Superintendent of
Trade in China should not proceed to or reside at Canton ,
that he should not adopt high-sounding titles , that he should
not depart from the accustomed mode of communication with
the Chinese Government, that he should not assume a power
hitherto unadmitted, but keep, by the support of a stout frigate,
the enjoyment of what little had been got, and leave it to the
future to decide whether any effort should be made at Peking
or elsewhere to improve our relations with China, commercial
as well as political . This quiescent line of policy initiated by
the Duke and expounded in China, after Lord Napier's defeat,
by Mr. Davis and Sir George Robinson , ended on June 7 , 1836 ,
for it was now to be substituted by Lord Palmerston's own
diplomacy, hitherto restrained by the indolence of public opinion
and by the divergent views of the Duke of Wellington .
The merchants at Canton, though disappointed in their
expectation that the Government would take steps to obtain
redress for the insulting treatment accorded to Lord Napier, soon
had reason to perceive that a different policy was about to
be inaugurated . When the firm of Jardine, Matheson & Co.
introduced ( September 20, 1835 ) the first merchant steamer
Jardine to ply on the Canton River, Captain Elliot, then still
under the sway of the quiescent policy, protested against such
a proceeding as contrary to the laws and usages of China, and,
under the orders of Sir George Robinson, placed an interdict
 CHANGE OF POLICY. 63

on the employment of the steamer in Chinese waters . But
now (July 22 , 1836 ) Lord Palmerston wrote to Captain Elliot
warning him that, whilst avoiding to give any just cause of
offence to the Chinese Authorities, he should at the same time
be very careful not to assume a greater degree of authority
over British subjects in China than that which he in reality
possessed.
Another indication of the change of policy that had now
taken place, was a direction Lord Palmerston gave, plainly
intimating that free trade and free traders were now viewed by
the Cabinet in a light different from that in which the Duke
of Wellington had looked at them. What had constituted in
the eyes of Canton merchants the most galling element of the
Duke's quiescent policy was his determination, expressed in his
Memorandum, ' to control and keep in order the King's subjects,'
implying that the British community at Canton consisted of
a set of smugglers, pirates and ruffians, requiring that the
Superintendents be armed with the strongest powers for their
coercion rather than protection . Mr. Davis, Sir George Robinson
and even Captain Elliot, had hitherto been under the impression
that all the powers and authorities formerly vested in the
Supercargoes of the East India Company, including the power
to arrest and deport to England unlicensed or otherwise
objectionable persons, might be lawfully exercised by the
Superintendents of British Trade in China ; but now (November
8, 1836 ) Lord Palmerston informed Captain Elliot that, as no
license from His Majesty was now necessary to enable His
Majesty's subjects to trade with or reside in China, such power
of expulsion had altogether ceased to exist with regard to China.
To avoid recurrence of the difference of opinion between
co-ordinate Authorities, which had hampered the Commission
during Sir George Robinson's tenure of office , Lord Palmerston
abolished the office of Third Superintendent , and, whilst
confirming Captain Elliot as Chief, and Mr. Johnston as Second
Superintendent, now (November 8, 1836 ) placed the latter under
the orders and control of the former. The suite, salaries and
64 CHAPTER VII.

contingent allowances of the Commission were also reduced at
the same time, and the two Superintendents were given to
understand that their appointments were only provisional and
temporary. This was unfortunate, for it caused doubts,
both among the British community and among the Chinese
Authorities, as to the official status of the two Superintendents.
Some years later Captain Elliot, with a view to control the
conduct of lawless British subjects, carrying on (in daily conflict
with Chinese revenue cruizers ) a forced contraband trade
between Lintin and Whampoa, established (April 18, 1838 )
a system of police regulations exclusively applicable to the
crews of British-owned vessels under the British flag. Lord
Palmerston, after keeping the Regulations submitted to him
unnoticed for a whole year, wrote at last, on the day when
the whole foreign community were already under rigorous
confinement in consequence of those lawless doings, a dispatch
in which he suddenly came forward with notions of international
law which ought to have entirely vetoed the former mission
of, and Privy Council instructions given to, Lord Napier.
Lord Palmerston then (March 23, 1839 ) informed Captain
Elliot that the Law Officers of the Crown were of opinion
that the establishment of a system of ship's police at Whampoa,
within the Dominions of the Emperor of China, would be
an interference with the absolute right of sovereignty enjoyed
by independent States, which could only be justified by positive
treaty or by implied permission from usage. Accordingly Captain
Elliot was instructed to obtain, first of all, the written approval
of the Governor of Canton for those Regulations . By the time
this curious dispatch reached Elliot, British trade had been
driven out from Canton, thanks to Lord Palmerston's inaction.
But, whilst thus curtailing the powers and restricting the
official standing and jurisdiction of the Commission, Lord
Palmerston sought to uphold their position in other respects
in relation to both the Macao and Canton Authorities.
It appeared to British observers that the Macao Governors
had, ever since Lord Napier's arrival, played into the hands of
 CHANGE OF POLICY. 65

the Chinese Authorities and secretly professed themselves as
their allies against the British . Latterly, when the Chinese
Government, and even some of the British merchants, openly
disowned and defied the authority and jurisdiction of the British
Superintendents, the Macao Governor had the hardihood of
declining to recognize His Majesty's Commission, going even
so far as to omit returning answers to their letters. After
making strong representations on this subject to the Government
of Portugal and causing proper instructions to be sent from
Lisbon to the Governor of Macao, Lord Palmerston now
(December 6, 1836) informed Captain Elliot that measures had
been taken to recall the Governor of Macao to a proper sense
of the respect which is due to Officers acting under His Majesty's
Commission, and that orders had been issued for a ship of war
to be stationed in Chinese waters with special instructions to
watch over the interests of British subjects at Macao.
The firm attitude thus assumed towards the Government
of Macao, Lord Palmerston desired also to apply to the regulation
of Captain Elliot's relations with the Cantonese Authorities.
In direct opposition to the Duke of Wellington's Memorandum,
Lord Palmerston repeatedly (July 22, 1836, and June 12 , 1837)
instructed Captain Elliot to decline every proposition to revive
official communication through the customary channel of the
Hong Merchants, to communicate with none but Officers of
the Chinese Government, under no circumstances to give his
written communications with the Chinese Government the name
of petitions, and to insist upon his right , as an Officer
commissioned by the King of England, to correspond on terms
of equality with Officers commissioned by any other sovereign in
the world. It might be very suitable, ' wrote Lord Palmerston ,
' for the servants of the East India Company, themselves an
association of merchants, to communicate with the Authorities
of China through the Merchants of the Hong, but the
Superintendents are Officers of the King, and as such can
properly communicate with none but Officers of the Chinese
Government.'
5
 66 CHAPTER VII.

It seemed at this moment as if the British Lion was
beginning to wake up, but the Chinese cared nothing for
his growl from a distance. When Lord Palmerston , however,
discovered (November 2, 1837 ) that Elliot could not possibly
communicate with the Chinese Authorities otherwise than as
a tributary barbarian petitioner, he shrank from the simple
expedient of a naval demonstration which, by the destruction
of the Bogue forts, would, in a couple of hours, have prevented
years of misery. Nevertheless, Lord Palmerston once more
enjoined Captain Elliot to continue to press, on every suitable
opportunity, for the recognition , on the part of the Chinese
Authorities, of his right to receive, direct from the Viceroy,
sealed communications (not orders) addressed to himself without
the intervention of the Hong Merchants. Whilst anxious that
Elliot should have a distinct official position and gain it by
the logic of plausible arguments, he left him unsupported by
a sufficient fleet to apply the only logic the Chinese would
have respected, the demonstration of power. When Elliot urged
(November 19 , 1837) that Lord Palmerston should at least
write a letter to the Viceroy of Canton, as the Directors of
the East India Company had done on several occasions, or send a
Plenipotentiary to present, at the mouth of the Peiho, an auto-
graph letter of Queen Victoria, claiming a settlement of all the
grievances of British trade in China, Lord Palmerston explained
that, in such a case, the question of the opium trade would have
to be taken up, but that Her Majesty's Government did not
yet see their way towards such a measure with sufficient clearness
to justify them in adopting such a course at the moment .
What hampered Captain Elliot, next to his want of a fleet,
was the undefined state of his jurisdiction which prevented
both the Chinese Government and the foreign community in
Canton understanding or recognizing his authority. Lord
Palmerston sought to amend this defect by means of the China
Courts Bil! which was before Parliament at the end of the
year 1838 , but it was arrested in its progress, mainly in
consequence of objections raised by Sir George Staunton.
 CHANGE OF POLICY. 67

The British community of Macao and Canton were, under
these circumstances, very much thrown upon their own resources.
They established (November 28, 1836) a General Chamber of
Commerce, but the mixture of nationalities in it caused a good
deal of friction. Nevertheless the Committee (re-elected ,
November 4, 1837 ) succeeded in redressing sundry grievances by
arbitration, built a clocktower, arranged a Post Office, fixed the
regulations of the port and supervised the sanitary arrangements
of the factories. An attempt was made (January 21 , 1837)
to form a representative Committee of British merchants for
the purpose of providing an official channel of communication
between the British community and their Superintendents , and
also in order to ensure joint action in any emergency, but the
attempt failed for want of unity among the leading British
merchants. However, they were not wanting in loyalty. On
the demise of William IV, a public meeting was held (November
27, 1837 ) and an address was agreed upon , expressing condolence
with Queen Victoria, and praying that Her Majesty's reign
might be long and glorious and that Her Majesty's name might
be associated to the end of all time with things religious,
enlightened and humane.
What troubled the peace of British merchants in Canton
most of all at this time, was the insolvent condition of most
of the Hong Merchants. The foreign free traders had not,
like the East India Company, the command of an unlimited
treasury, enabling them to give long credits and to sustain a
long privation of large portions of their trading capital. Nor
were they in a position to adopt the former policy of the East
India Company's Select Committee and distribute their business
among the different Hong Merchants in proportion to their
respective degrees of solvency and thus maintain a command
of the market . Nearly all the thirteen Hong Merchants were
more or less involved at the beginning of the year 1837 ; four
were avowedly insolvent ; one, Hing-tai, was formally declared
bankrupt, his indebtedness to foreigners amounting to over
two million dollars ; and another, King-qua, was on the verge
68 CHAPTER VII.

of bankruptcy. The Viceroy of Canton sanctioned , in the
case of Hing-tai's bankruptcy, an arrangement to be made-
with his foreign creditors , but the latter rejected the terms
offered . As the Chinese Government had originally appointed
the Hong Merchants on the principle of mutual responsibility,
had repeatedly insisted upon the payment of such debts, and
imposed for many years past a special tax on foreign commerce
in order to create a guarantee fund for their liquidation , the
British merchants had both law and prescription on their side.
Morcover, on a similar occasion (A.D. 1780) , an officer in the
service of the East India Company (Captain Panton) had
succeeded, by means of a letter addressed to the Viceroy of
Canton by a British Admiral (Sir Edward Vernon ) and forwarded
by a frigate (the Sea-horse) , in obtaining (October, 1780)
an Imperial Decree ordering partial repayment of a similar
debt . Naturally enough, therefore , the British creditors of
Hing- tai now argued that the simple intervention of the
British Cabinet with the Imperial Government at Peking would
facilitate the adjustment of the whole of their claims against
the bankrupt Hongs. In this sense a memorial was addressed
(March 21 , 1838) to Lord Palmerston , signed by the following
firms, viz.: Dent , Turner, Bell , Lindsay , Dirom , Daniell, Cragg,
Layton, Henderson , Stewart , Rustomjee , Fox Rawson, Nanabhoy
Framjee , Eglinton Maclean , Bibby Adam, Gibb Livingston
Gemmell , Macdonald , Wise Holliday, Kingsley and Jamieson
How. Nevertheless , foreseeing the unwillingness of Lord
Palmerston to press their claims with due promptitude upon
the Chinese Government , the above-mentioned firms meanwhile
applied directly to the Cantonese Authorities, without the
intervention of Captain Elliot. A long and exasperating
correspondence ensued, the upshot of which was that the British
merchants obtained payment of their claims against the Hing-tai
Hong at a reduced rate but by instalments secured by the
Chinese Government , and further the Viceroy sanctioned , at
their request, the liquidation of King-qua's debts. In fact,
through firmness of purpose combined with a nominal submission
 CHANGE OF POLICY. 69

to the absolutism of Chinese officialdom, the British merchants
gained concessions which the British Government could not
have gained for them, whilst claiming international equality,
except by an armed demonstration .
Captain Elliot's relations with the Cantonese Authorities
were, throughout his whole tenure of office, characterized by
an unceasing battle for a formal recognition of his official status
and for the ordinary courtesies of official intercourse, which
China never conceded until they were wrung out of her at the
point of the bayonet by the Nanking Treaty. On the ground
of what on the surface seemed to be petty questions of official
- etiquette, Elliot had, single-handed and unsupported, to fight
the battle between China's stubborn assertion of supremacy over
all barbarian potentates, Queen Victoria included , and England's
quiet but deliberate claim of international equality. Elliot's
position in this conflict was extremely difficult .
On the one hand, the Cantonese Authorities argued that
for two centuries British merchants had acknowledged, with
abject servility, China's claim of supremacy and consented to
take the orders of the Governor or the Hoppo at the hands
of the Hong merchants ; that Lord Macartney and Lord
Amherst had brought tribute from the Kings of England ;
that Imperial Decrees, which admitted of no alteration , had
fixed the mode of governing foreign trade at Canton ; and
that there was no intelligible difference between a Royal
Superintendent like Elliot and a Supercargo of the former
East India Company, the latter having wielded , in the
experience of Chinese officials, more authority and power over
their countrymen than Lord Napier or Captain Elliot ever
possessed. On the other hand, Lord Palmerston , with equal
justice, persisted in giving Captain Elliot reiterated instructions ,
based on an assumed equality of the British and Chinese
nations, and, on account of the barbarities of the Chinese
Penal Code, virtually amounting to a claim of extra-territorial
-criminal jurisdiction over British subjects trading at Canton .
The mistake was that he, at the same time, left Elliot without
70 CHAPTER VII.

a sufficient fleet to enforce these just and proper claims. It
is hard to say what Captain Elliot ought to have done under
the circumstances. Had he carried out Lord Palmerston's
instructions literally, had he adopted the unusual mode of
communication enjoined upon him, and assumed the high-
sounding title of the King's Officer, boldly insisting upon
equality of official intercourse, he would have courted the
fate and condemnation that fell on Lord Napier. Had he
informed Lord Palmerston the thing was impossible without
having recourse to arms, and advised him to adopt the only
remaining alternative of retiring from Canton and establishing
a British Colony on one of the beautiful islands in the
neighbourhood, say Hongkong, he would probably have been
dismissed with as little ceremony as Sir George Robinson .
What Captain Elliot actually did remains to be told.
He commenced his duties with the determination not to
protract the interruption of official communication between