At Nanking, therefore, commissioners were appointed to treat with Sir Henry Pottinger, and as they had nothing to do but acquiesce in his demands with the best grace, while at the same time saving the face of the Imperial Government as much as the circumstances of such a surrender would allow, the long-desired treaty of commerce was at last concluded on August 29, 1842.

The two Imperial Commissioners intrusted with the negotiations were men of the highest distinction and rank, Ilipu and Kiying. Of the latter it was said that he was the first high officer who since the commencement of the war had dared to tell the naked truth to his imperial master. Their joint memorial to the throne, on which the imperial instructions for signing the treaty were based, was remarkable for its clearness, simplicity, and outspokenness, contrasting in these respects strongly with the customary tone of flattery, evasion, and bombast. Of Kiying we shall hear further in the sequel.

Ilipu was already an old man and infirm. His name is never mentioned by contemporary writers without respect amounting almost to veneration. Governor-general in Nanking, he had been appointed Imperial Commissioner and ordered to Ningpo to get the dependent island Chusan cleared of foreigners. He had thus been brought into communication with the foreign commanders in connection with the occupation of Ningpo and the capture of Chapu, out of which a correspondence ensued alike honourable to both sides. A number of Chinese prisoners, after having their wounds attended to and their wants provided for, with a small present of money, were restored to liberty by the British commander. This unexpected action seemed to impress Ilipu, who in return sent down to Chapu a number of English prisoners, who had been for some time incarcerated at Hangchow, treating them handsomely, according to his lights. The despatch of the prisoners was accompanied by a respectful letter to Sir Hugh Gough and Sir William Parker, probably the first communication deserving to be so styled that ever passed between a high Chinese officer and a foreigner. These circumstances augured well for the success of future intercourse. Ilipu was sent to Canton as High Commissioner to arrange details as to the carrying out of the treaty. He died there, and was succeeded by Kiying, who brought the ratification of the treaty to Hongkong in June 1843.

CHAPTER V.

THE TREATY OF 1842.

A one-sided bargain—Not deemed by Chinese obligatory—Condemned by powerful parties—The Chinese conscience against it—Fulfilment therefore could not be voluntary—The Chinese and Manchus compared—Repugnance to treaty common to them both—Much determination needed to obtain fulfilment.

Out of such antecedents in peace and war it was a moral impossibility that normal international relations between Chinese and foreigners should follow the conclusion of peace.

The treaty signed at Nanking by Sir Henry Pottinger in 1842, simple and explicit in its grammatical construction, and fulfilling as far as words could do so all the conditions of a charter of fair trade, was tainted with the vices of a one-sided bargain. Indeed the Chinese did not regard it in the light of a bargain at all, but as a yoke temporarily imposed on them which it was their business to shake off. Sir John Davis has told us that "at Peking almost every Chinese of rank and influence was opposed to the fulfilment of the stipulations of the treaty. The negotiators of it shared in the odium of the cowardly generals who had deceived their sovereign by false representations of their powers of defence." The obligations of the treaty, in fact, sat so lightly on their consciences, that only so far as they were held rigorously to its provisions would they observe them.

The open-mouthed denunciation of the treaty in high quarters was but the textual confirmation of what was obvious in the nature of the case, that the Chinese Government regarded the treaty of Nanking as a ruse de guerre, a mere expedient for purchasing present relief, "a temporary arrangement in order to recover from our losses."

The official animus and the political conscience were thus entirely on the side of what we call bad faith, a state of things which has come down unabated to our own time, though prudence on the one side and pressure on the other have generally toned down the outward manifestation of it.

Fulfilment of the treaty under these circumstances could only be hoped for by the actual employment of the coercive agency which had secured its signature, or by the conviction, firmly rooted in the minds of the Chinese, that such agency was always ready to be invoked. But as perpetual coercion on the part of Great Britain was not to be thought of, the establishment and maintenance of satisfactory working relations demanded on the part of the British agents responsible for the execution of the treaty a rare combination of personal qualities. They had, in fact, to assume a power which they did not possess, to trade upon the prestige which their country had gained by the success of its arms, trusting that their pretensions might be tacitly acquiesced in. Had this attitude been consistently maintained, in small as well as in great things, from the very outset, there is no telling whether the observance of the treaty might not have become a matter of Chinese routine, and in time acquired the sacred authority of custom. But the contrary was the case, and it was not the observance but the non-observance of the treaty that was allowed to acquire the sanction of custom.

The conduct of the war offered conclusive evidence that though certain individuals, from either better knowledge or higher principle than their contemporaries, were inclined to meet their enemies fairly, yet the conscience of the State, as authoritatively represented in the emperor's edicts, rejected as absurd the notion of keeping any kind of faith with the barbarians. Hence the barren result of all appeals to the binding authority of the compact, unless when backed by force; hence also the efficacy of every application of force in the dealings of foreign nations with China whether before or after the treaty of 1842. This consideration is indeed of the essence of our Chinese relations, though habitually ignored in the conduct of our intercourse.

As regards the attitude of the Chinese Government towards foreigners in connection with the war and the peace, an interesting and suggestive distinction has been drawn by Sir John Davis between the two elements in the Government, the Chinese and the Manchu,—a distinction which has been independently made by other observers. It is therefore a point well worthy of being kept in view both in the conduct of official intercourse and in speculations as to the future of the Chinese empire. Sir John Davis, who, first as a Company's agent in China, then for a short time as British envoy before the war, and eventually chief superintendent of trade for some years after that event, had much experience in dealing with officials of the two races, is emphatic on the point that moderation and humanity were always found on the side of the Manchus, while implacable ferocity allied with treachery distinguished the Chinese officials. The war, he says, was solely the work of the latter, the peace, of the former. "New Tajin was a thorough Chinese, and, like the rest of his tribe, vociferous for war while it was absent, but unable to sustain its presence; while the Tartars were generally advocates for peace, though they did their duty in an emergency." The antithetic character of the two races shown collectively and individually has been a matter of general remark by foreigners acquainted with both. "Ilipu," says Davis, "a Manchu by birth, possessed the un-Chinese quality of straightforwardness and honesty of purpose.... As an early adviser of the sovereign, he had endeavoured to dissuade him from risking a foreign quarrel in making the English a party to the question of restricting the consumption of opium among his own subjects."

The Manchu Kishen, who replaced Commissioner Lin on the failure of the latter, was also a man of good faith. He did his best first to avoid and then to terminate the war, and in the middle of it concluded a convention with Captain Elliot by which Hongkong was ceded and six millions of dollars were to be paid as ransom for Canton. Yet having been admonished by the emperor "to arouse the patriotism of the nation and send the heads of the rebellious barbarians to Peking in baskets, for to treat them reasonably is out of the question," he had to excuse himself by resort to a false pretence of treachery. The convention he represented as a ruse, because "his reinforcements were yet far off"; but he declared that, "bearing the barbarians many a grudge," he only abided his time "for exterminating them whenever it can be done." In the impeachment of that capable statesman one of the charges was, "You gave to the barbarians Hongkong as a dwelling-place, contrary to our law of indivisibility," to which he was fain to answer, "I pretended to do so, from the mere force of circumstances, to put them off for a time, but had no such serious intention; ... a mere feint to avert the further outrages of the barbarians."

He took up similar ground in apologising for the conduct of Admiral Kwan, a brave and respectable officer, who had asked and obtained an armistice in the Canton river: "He has agreed to a truce with the barbarians merely to gain time and be in a state to resist them."

The courtesy of the Manchus was no less conspicuous. Lord Jocelyn, as quoted by Mr Hunter, remarked, after a meeting with Kishen: "He rose at our entrance and received the mission with great courtesy and civility. Indeed the manners of these high mandarins would have done honour to any courtier in the most polished Court of Europe." A French envoy was similarly impressed in an interview with Kiying: "I have visited many European Courts," he said, "and have met and known many of the most distinguished men belonging to them, but for polished manners, dignity, and ease I have never seen these Chinese surpassed."

While the noblest of the officials were thus driven to assume a perfidy which was not really in their heart in order to accommodate themselves to the prevailing temper, the baser minds were clamouring open-mouthed for meeting honour with dishonour. For it is instructive to recall that the most truculent officials—Commissioner Lin, for example—based their slippery strategy on the known good faith of the barbarians, "which made their engagements sacred," as the Roman generals took advantage of the Sabbatical prejudices of the Jews. The Chinese could afford to play fast and loose with their end of the rope, knowing the other end to be secured to a pillar of good faith. The commissioners who signed the treaty in their report to the throne also testified that "the English had acted with uniform sincerity."

The confiding spirit of the English tempted the common run of Chinese officials to practise systematic deception. Thus a disreputable Tartar, who was governor of Canton, reported that he had "resolved to get rid of them by a sum of money, as by far the cheapest way.... But once having got rid of them, and blocked up all the passages leading to Canton, we may again cut off their commerce, and place them in the worst possible position," thus anticipating almost to the letter what took place at the Taku forts in the second war between 1858-59. A pamphlet, attributed to Commissioner Lin, whose wanton atrocities had provoked the war, after testifying to the habitual good faith of the barbarian, urged the Government "never to conclude a peace: an armistice, a temporary arrangement for the present, in order to recover from our losses, is all we desire."

The Manchu and Chinese races are the complement of each other in the economy of the State. The Manchus, with their military heredity, were best fitted for the imperial rôle, while the Chinese are by tradition rather men of business than administrators. From which it may be inferred that the material progress of the country will rest more with the Chinese with all their faults than with the Manchus with their governing instincts. The Peking Court, indeed, has been long under the numerically preponderant influence of the Chinese, and except in matters of dynastic interest they are Chinese rather than Manchu ethics which govern the acts of State. The counsels of such men as Lin and the Chinese party generally prevailed, as we have seen, over those of the distinguished Manchus, some of them belonging to the imperial family, who had to do with the foreign imbroglio, and it was in full accord with Chinese sentiment that the Emperor Tao-kuang was brought to declare that such a nation as the English should not be allowed to exist on the earth.

Much of the hostility to the treaty may no doubt be fairly referable to the military humiliation of a Government to whom war was rebellion and rebellion parricide. Nor is the exasperation of the Chinese against their conquerors to be measured by those chivalrous standards which have been evolved from the traditions of nations accustomed, even in war, to meet as equals. They were playing the game under a different set of rules. But when every such allowance has been made, the moral principle governing Chinese official conduct cannot be designated by any word in Western vocabularies but perfidy. Belligerency as understood by Western nations did not enter into their conception, and their war tactics of kidnapping, poisoning the water, torturing and massacring prisoners, and so forth, differed little from their procedure in time of peace, being in either case based on the implicit negation of human rights in connection with foreigners.

It may thus be seen what difficulties had to be encountered, even under the treaty, in guiding the intercourse between Chinese and foreigners into safe and peaceable channels; how much depended on the tact and capacity of the newly appointed consuls, and how little assistance they could hope for from the department which commissioned them. For no matter how perspicacious the Home Government might from time to time be, they were as much in the hands of their representatives after as they had been before the war. The distance was too great and the communication too slow for the most vigilant ministry to do more than issue general instructions. "The man on the spot" would act as his judgment or his feelings or his power prompted as emergencies might arise, and we have seen how even the clear intentions of Lord Palmerston were thwarted by the idiosyncrasies of some of his agents in China.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FRUITS OF THE WAR AND PROSPECTS OF PEACE.

Pretensions of British and Chinese irreconcilable—International equality inconceivable by Chinese—British aims as set forth by merchants—The inadequacy of their demands—Clearer insight of their Government—Unsteadiness of British policy—Consistency of Chinese policy—Treaty to be observed so far as needful to obviate another war—Canton irreconcilable—Ransoming the city in 1841 the cause of much subsequent trouble there.

The pretensions of the contending parties being absolutely irreconcilable, no spontaneous accommodation was possible between them. The Chinese could never acknowledge, or even comprehend, equality among nations, the single relationship of victor and victim being the beginning and the end of their international ethics. If, therefore, they ever set before their minds the issue to be decided by a war, it must have assumed the brutal but simple oriental form, Whose foot is to be on the other's neck? The question, then, to be submitted to the ordeal of battle between Great Britain and China was, Which should be the uppermost; which should henceforth dictate to the other? In justice to the Chinese, it must be admitted that they realised more clearly than their adversary what the quarrel really signified. What disconcerted them and led to chronic misunderstanding in the sequel was the after-discovery that the victor was slack in claiming the fruits of his victory. Whether they really expected success to attend their arms may be an open question, for their ingrained habit of boasting of their prowess may have deceived even themselves. With this caveat the temper in which the Chinese entered on hostilities may be gathered from a proclamation of the High Commissioner and the viceroy of Canton in September 1839:—

From the British point of view the object of the China expedition was set forth with conspicuous moderation by the merchants of London and of the great industrial centres. And here it seems not unfitting to remark upon the lively and intelligent interest which the commercial community of that period was wont to take in the affairs of China. The trade of Great Britain and of British India with that country had not reached the annual value of £12,000,000 sterling including treasure, yet we find in the years 1839 and 1840 a series of ably drawn memorials to Government bearing the signatures of all the important houses in the kingdom, showing the most intimate acquaintance with everything that was passing in China, even though they failed to apprehend the full signification thereof. The signatories of these papers pointed out without circumlocution the measures necessary to be taken in order to place the commercial interests of her Majesty's subjects on a satisfactory footing. It would appear, therefore, that it was from the independent merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain and British India that the true inspiration came to Lord Palmerston, who was then Foreign Minister; and not the inspiration only, but the courage which was needed to throw over the pusillanimous traditions of the Honourable East India Company, and to apply the maxims of common-sense to our relations with the Chinese authorities.

Among the memorials addressed to, and by request of, the Foreign Secretary, that from the East India and China Association, representing the merchants of London interested in the Far East, gives perhaps the clearest exposition of the whole case from the commercial point of view. After a succinct historical résumé of our successes and failures in China, each traced to its cause, the memorialists state their opinion that "submission will now only aggravate the evil, and that an attempt should be made, supported by a powerful force, to obtain such concessions from China as would place the trade upon a secure and permanent footing." And they conclude with an outline of the commercial treaty which they think would conduce to that result.

These stipulations, and the hypothetical form in which they were advanced, show how imperfect, after all, was the grasp which the mercantile community had as yet taken of the situation. While fully recognising the necessity of force and urging its employment, they yet seem to have clung to the hope that in some way or another the expected treaty was to be the result of amicable negotiation. They did not clearly realise that as without force nothing could be obtained, so with force everything could be.

And from what an abyss the status of British subjects had come to be regarded when it could be deemed a boon that they be placed under the protection of Chinese law—instead of being kept for ever outside the pale of law and of common human suffrages! Fortunately the Government, profiting by past experience and better versed in political science, held a more consistent course than that marked out for it by the merchants, and went far beyond them in the concessions demanded of the Chinese Government. Instead of trusting to Chinese law, protection for the persons and property of British subjects was provided for under the laws of Great Britain, a stipulation in the treaty which has been the palladium of the liberties of all nationalities in China for sixty years. The ambiguity which characterised the public appreciation of the China question, even when expressed through the most authoritative channel, deserves to be noted here on account of the influence it was destined to exercise on the future conduct of affairs; for though the British Government was perspicacious in the conduct of the war and in arranging terms of peace, yet, lacking the sustained support of a well-instructed public opinion, its Chinese policy was subject to many backslidings. During protracted intervals of inadvertence the pernicious influences which it was the purpose of the war to suppress were allowed to regain lost ground, with the result that during the whole sixty years our Chinese intercourse has been marred by the chronic recrudescence of the old hostile temper which inspired the outrages before the war.

On the part of the Chinese Court there was undoubtedly a desire for such substantial fulfilment of the treaty as might obviate the risk of a renewal of the war. The final instruction of the Emperor Tao-kuang while the negotiations were proceeding was, "Be careful to make such arrangements as shall cut off for ever all cause of war, and do not leave anything incomplete or liable to doubt." And so long, at least, as the material guarantee of Chusan was retained by Great Britain—that is, until 1846—no open violation was to be apprehended. The Chinese war party, however—as distinguished from the more reasonable Manchus—were furious in their denunciations of the treaty; and it was the opinion of Sir John Davis that the situation was only saved by the financial exhaustion of the country: "the ordinary taxes could not be collected." There would in any circumstances have been a strong presumption of covert evasion being resorted to, a presumption which was reduced to a certainty by the indulgence extended to that ancient focus of mischief, Canton. By one of those aberrations of judgment which it is scarcely unfair to call characteristic, Captain Elliot desired to save Canton, of all places in the Chinese empire, from the pressure of war, and in 1841, in the midst of hostilities on the coast, he accepted ransom for the city, a transaction so inexplicable that her Majesty's Treasury, at a loss what to do with the money, after much explanatory correspondence declared itself unable to appropriate the fund in the manner intended by her Majesty's representative. The arrogance of the Cantonese had been so immeasurably puffed up by this misguided clemency that the peace left the populace of the city and district absolutely convinced of their invincibility. As the eradication of this dangerous delusion was among the primary purposes of the war, so the pandering to the pride of Canton proved, as was inevitable, the malignant root of all subsequent bitterness.[12]

CHAPTER VII.

THE NEW INTERCOURSE: CANTON, 1842-1847.

The fundamental difficulty of giving effect to the treaty—Necessity for thoroughness—Character of Kiying, Imperial Commissioner—His amicable relations with British Superintendent of Trade—Turbulence of Canton—Outrages on British merchants—Condoned by Chinese Government, if not encouraged both by imperial and provincial authorities—Sir John Davis's testimony—His passive treatment—False policy of allowing Chinese Government to screen itself behind the mob—Postponement of entry into city—Climax in affair—Evacuation of Chusan—Increase of insults at Canton—Sir John Davis palliates and then asks for redress—Sudden reaction in his policy consequent on Lord Palmerston's becoming Foreign Secretary—His clear despatches—Sir John Davis makes a raid on the river defences—Has the city at his mercy—But makes an unsatisfactory agreement—Withdraws protection in spite of remonstrance of merchants—Massacre of six Englishmen in 1847—Redress—Whole question of British protection brought up—Canton consul objects to ship of war at factories—Palmerston orders one to be there—Agreement to defer entry into city till 1849—People intoxicated with their success—The potency of the people—Its limitations—Interesting correspondence—Final agreement dictated by people and signed by Sir John Davis and Kiying.

To carry out a treaty which was odious to Chinese officials in general, most of all to the bureaucracy and populace of the main centre of intercourse, Canton, required an effort analogous to that of maintaining a body of water at an artificial level—success in either case depending on completeness. It is easier to keep the reservoir intact than to compromise with leakages, as in certain conditions of the human will total abstinence is less irksome than moderation. To carry out the treaty, the whole treaty, and nothing but the treaty, would seem, therefore, to have been the obvious course for British agents to follow, a course suited equally to strong and to weak characters. This was, no doubt, understood by some, though not by all, of the British staff,—fifty years ago, as in our own day; but in the distribution of the personnel it fell out that the fundamental condition of success was least realised just where it was most imperatively needed—to wit, at that intermittent volcano, Canton. For even the close proximity of the chief superintendent—only 120 miles distant—at Hongkong was insufficient to keep the cistern of our Canton relations water-tight. Sir John Davis, on the whole a competent official, shared to some extent in the common human imperfection of knowing what was right without always doing, or being able to do, it. He is indeed himself the most candid witness to the breakdown of the patchwork policy which he permitted to grow up in Canton, perhaps because he could not do otherwise.

The first British plenipotentiaries under treaty were exceptionally fortunate in their Chinese colleague, the High Commissioner, Kiying. He being a near kinsman of the emperor, and, with Ilipu, the principal instrument in promoting the conclusion of peace, his appointment must have been considered the best recognition the Court could accord of the validity of the treaty. "Kiying," says Sir J. Davis, "was by far the most remarkable person with whom Europeans have ever come in contact in that part of the world; the most elevated in rank as well as the most estimable in character." Intercourse with Kiying, therefore, was pleasant, and conducive to self-respect.

Both officials were unfortunate in having to reckon with an intractable peace-disturbing element in their mutual relations. This is the name which, for want of a more exact designation, must be given to the people of Canton, "who, through every event since 1839, remained incorrigible in the real hatred and affected contempt for foreigners."

It has always been, and still is, the practice of the Chinese authorities to make use of the populace in their aggressions on strangers. There is at all times in China, as in most countries, an inexhaustible fund of anti-foreign sentiment ready to be drawn upon by agitators, whether within the Government circle or not, and subject also to spontaneous explosion. By working on these latent passions, and inflaming the popular mind by the dissemination of odious calumnies, Government could at any moment foment an anti-foreign raid. It was a political engine in the use of which Chinese officialdom had become thoroughly expert. It was tempting by its cheapness, and it had, moreover, the special fascination for them that in the event of being called to account for outrage they could disavow the excesses of the "poor ignorant people." Such a force, however, is not without its drawbacks to those who employ it. Like a fire, which is easy to kindle but hard to control, the popular excitement was apt to extend beyond the limits assigned by its instigators, and many an engineer has thus been hoist by his own petard. "Otho had not sufficient authority to prevent crime, though he could command it," says Tacitus; and the observation fits the case of successive generations of Chinese rulers as if it had been written for each one of them separately.

The rowdy population of Canton enjoyed special immunity from official control. Not only had they been habitually pampered for two hundred years, and diligently taught to tyrannise over and despise foreigners, but during the war they were allowed to organise themselves independently of the authorities, and to claim the honour of driving the invaders off on the occasion when the city was admitted to ransom. On the mendacious reports of these transactions reaching him, the emperor not only bestowed rewards on the leaders but encouraged the populace to further hostile measures against the foreigners. The liberal distribution of arms during the war proved afterwards a powerful incentive to crimes of violence, of which outrages on foreigners were but one development.

The self-organised, self-trained bands of Canton were by no means disposed to submit tamely to the new order of things, in the settlement of which they had had no voice. They had bettered their official instruction in the storing up and practising of hatred and contempt for foreigners, and they did not choose suddenly to recant merely because their Government had been coerced into making a treaty in a distant province. Consequently, within three short months of its signature notices were placarded inciting the people to violence; very soon an organised attack on the British factories was made, and the buildings were burned down.

So far from attempting to repress such outrages, the governor of Canton, "while the ruins were still smoking," reported to the throne that the people "in their natural indignation had committed some excesses against the grasping barbarians," and a very gracious answer was vouchsafed to an offer of the people of certain outlying villages to join the armed bands of the city. The Imperial Government as well as the provincial government was thus identified with the popular hostility to foreigners, and opposition to the fulfilment of the treaty. "The excesses of the Canton mob," writes Sir John Davis, "were perpetually and annually resumed, up to the public decapitation of the four murderers of the Englishmen in 1847, with the subsequent punishment of eleven more."

But this is surely remarkable testimony from the Minister of Great Britain who was charged with the protection of his nationals[13] from wrong? With British garrisons in occupation of Kulangsu and Chusan, a military and naval force in Hongkong, and a Chinese commissioner professedly willing to afford protection and redress to foreigners, the acquiescence of the British authorities in these recurrent outrages seems to stand in need of explanation. The native authorities, it was clear, would not, even if they dared, coerce the Canton populace. Kiying himself, though meaning to be just, and ready to enforce redress against individual culprits, recoiled before the mob. So it would appear did the British representative, who, though vigilant in requiring compliance with the treaty in minor respects, seemed to be paralysed whenever the Cantonese were in question. He had been too long accustomed to their practices not to be aware of the cumulative quality of these outrages, and he was too practical a philosopher not to know the wisdom of arresting the virulent stream at its fountain-head. Yet "the miserable policy of the Chinese Government ... had permitted the populace of Canton ... to reach the culminating-point of organised misrule in 1846," British merchants being the sufferers. Why was nothing done to protect them at least from the consequences of this misrule?

The intricacies of the relation between the criminal rabble of Canton and the authorities there it would be hopeless to unravel, just as it would be vain to make such an attempt with regard to analogous cases which are to this day of constant recurrence. But no special penetration is needed to discover the falsity of a policy of allowing an organised government to plead its inability to control its own populace. Once admit such a plea and the security of the stranger is gone, for he has relinquished his hold on the Government without being compensated by any alternative security. Such was the state of things which had been allowed to grow up in Canton, producing the only fruit possible—outrage, ever increasing in violence and ending in massacre.

The postponement of the right of entry into the city conferred by treaty was a test case which gave the Chinese the clue to the weakness of British policy. The consequences would have been less pernicious had the right been frankly surrendered from the first, for to have it merely deferred from time to time on the avowed ground of the populace not being ready to acquiesce in it was to flatter the mob beyond measure while feeding their passion for violence. It was in this manner that the British Government had "given itself away" to the lawless rowdies of Canton.

The "climax" referred to by Sir John Davis occurred at an interesting juncture of time, for it was in 1846 that the last British soldier quitted Chinese soil, and Sir John Davis testifies that the restoration of Chusan had produced a change for the worse in the tone of the Chinese authorities. Kiying himself forgot his urbanity and acted "with a degree of brusquerie, not to say insolence, never before exhibited by him."

A riotous attack on the foreign factories broke out in July 1846, in which the merchants were compelled in a body to defend themselves against an immense number of assailants. For this outbreak Sir John Davis blamed one of the English merchants, and got him irregularly fined by the consul. A murderous assault was committed on two British seamen in the city of Canton in October following. In the ordinary routine he reported the occurrence to the Foreign Office in a despatch of seven lines. "Two English merchant seamen," he said, "having strayed into the town, had been violently ill-used by the populace"; adding that he "considered it to be the duty of the consul to prevent seamen wandering through Canton." He at the same time instructed the consul to find some means of punishing the master of the ship for allowing his men liberty, and proposed placing greater power in the hands of the consul for the restraint of British subjects generally. Above this level the plenipotentiary seemed unable to rise.

In March 1847 an English party of six, including Colonel Chesney, commanding the Royal Artillery in Hongkong, narrowly escaped murder at the hands of a riotous mob during an excursion up the Canton river. They strayed much farther than the two sailors had done, and if they did not fare worse it was due to the almost miraculous interposition of a Chinese officer with his followers, he himself being roughly handled by the mob. It would not do to apply to Colonel Chesney's case the homœopathic treatment which was thought appropriate to the others, and Sir John Davis made a formal demand on the Chinese authorities for the punishment of the aggressors. The cup of Chinese iniquity was deemed full, and the avenger was at last let loose.

Whence, it is pertinent to ask, came this sudden access of vigour in the British representative?

The juncture of time above referred to was interesting from another point of view, for coincidently with the evacuation of Chusan and the renewed arrogance of the Chinese, a political event took place in the western hemisphere which had an important bearing on the whole attitude of Great Britain. There was a change of Government, Palmerston succeeding Aberdeen at the Foreign Office. The influence of Lord Palmerston on Chinese affairs during his long public career was so remarkable, that the ebb and flow of British prestige may be traced as closely by his periods of office as the course of the oceanic tide by the phases of the moon. Let any patriotic Englishman ransack the records of the sixty odd years of that statesman's full activity, and he will find no despatch or speech on the subject of China, even down to our own day, that will afford him such genuine satisfaction as those emanating from Lord Palmerston. They are so much the embodiment of common-sense that they might sometimes be considered commonplace; practical, true, clear as a bugle-note. He had been barely six months in office when one of his terse despatches to Sir John Davis turned that cautious official for the time being into a hero. The astonishment of Sir John may be imagined when, in reply to his placid report of the outrage on the two seamen, he received a curt communication from the Foreign Office in which his attention was directed to the punishment, not of the victims, but of the perpetrators, of the outrage.

Sir John Davis was the more ready to respond to this stirring appeal that it reached him just as he had entered on a correspondence with the Chinese respecting the attack on Colonel Chesney's party. The turn of the tide was marked with unusual distinctness in a single sentence of the plenipotentiary's despatch dated March 27, 1847. "The records of the Foreign Office," wrote Sir John, "will convince your lordship that during the last three years I have been rigidly tied down by my instructions to the most forbearing policy.... The time has, in my opinion, certainly arrived when decision becomes necessary and further forbearance impolitic." The inspiration of these instructions may be inferred from a speech of Lord Stanley's in 1845, in which he said, speaking of China, "I believe, so far as our later experience has gone, that there is no nation which more highly values public faith in others; and up to the present moment I am bound to say there never was a government or a nation which more strictly and conscientiously adhered to the literal fulfilment of the engagements into which it had entered." This from a Minister of the Crown, after three years of continuous outrages in Canton and of refusal to fulfil a specific article in the treaty, reflects either on the superintendent of trade in China as having withheld information from the Government, or on the Government itself in arriving at conclusions diametrically opposed to the tenor of their agent's despatches. If it be any justification of the Government theory to say so, the sentiments expressed by Lord Stanley were echoed by the newspapers of the day. "The Chinese," said one of them, "have acted with exemplary good faith, nor is there the least probability of their failing in future to do so."

Under the new afflatus, and backed handsomely by the naval and military commanders, Sir John Davis proceeded to prick the bubble of mob lawlessness and to reduce the Anglo-Chinese relations to working order. This he did by a sudden raid on the Canton river defences, without apparently any diplomatic preliminaries. By a brilliant feat of arms General D'Aguilar with a detachment from the Hongkong garrison, conveyed by three small steamers of the China squadron, swept the defences of the Canton river, blew up the magazines, spiked 827 pieces of heavy cannon, and placed the city of Canton "entirely at our mercy, ... all without the loss of one British life." Under the intoxication of such a triumph the plenipotentiary might be pardoned the illusion that the Canton troubles were now at an end. "The Chinese yielded in five minutes what had been delayed as many months." And yet it proved to be a fool's paradise after all in which he found shelter, for the old fatality of half-measures that has marred so many British victories overshadowed Sir John Davis's first essay in diplomacy. The agreement in seven articles concluded with Kiying on April 6, 1847, contained such blemishes as the British negotiator could perceive clearly enough when the work of other officials was in question. Having laid down broadly that the good faith of the Chinese Government bore a direct relation to the hostages they had given, yet the plenipotentiary, when he came to business on his own account, abandoned the securities which were actually in his hands, and, either from misgivings of some sort, or under the impulse of a sudden reconversion, he threw himself unreservedly on the good faith of the Chinese without any guarantee whatever.

With regard to the protection to be afforded to the merchants and the prevention of attacks upon them, Lord Palmerston wrote in December 1846: "Wherever British subjects are placed in danger, in a situation which is accessible to a British ship of war, thither a British ship of war ought to be, and will be ordered, not only to go but to remain as long as its presence may be required. I see no reason for cancelling the instructions given to you for the constant presence of a ship of war within reach of the factories at Canton." This promise of Lord Palmerston's was the sheet-anchor of the merchants' security. The question of having a ship of war close to the factories divided the mercantile from the local official view, and as the Home Government had so clearly adopted the former, the merchants took courage to stand up for what they deemed their rights. Learning that Sir John Davis, in the plenitude of his military success, had resolved to withdraw all her Majesty's forces from Canton, they ventured to make a strong remonstrance against such a step. Sir John, however, while consenting to the retention of a portion of the force, never allowed himself to be convinced of the need of any such measure. Writing to his Government in August 1847, he declared that "the Canton factories were never less in need of the presence of such a vessel than at present,"—an opinion frequently reiterated until November 20, when "for the first time since the peace it may be confidently predicated that a steamer will not be required." This was within sixteen days of the most cruel and revolting massacre of six young Englishmen at Hwang-chu-ke, within three miles of the city. The absence of a ship of war at that moment was deeply deplored, because several of the victims were kept alive long enough to have been rescued had there been any British force at hand.

This massacre naturally produced a profound impression on the Canton community, who felt that their warnings and petitions had been cruelly disregarded. The resident British merchants, in a memorial to Lord Palmerston, quoted his lordship's own instruction as to the stationing of a British ship of war at Canton, and said "it was with the utmost surprise and regret they beheld that officer [Sir J. Davis] shutting his eyes to the danger that menaced us, ... and withholding the protection he had been directed to afford." "The heavy calamity which has befallen us," they add, "is the result of this infatuation."

So much for the protection of life and property resulting from the armed expedition of 1847. The value of the new agreement, purely local in its bearing, which was the result of the successful invasion, was esteemed but lightly by the merchants. In their memorial, written in the month of August, they said: "If it is not deemed expedient to carry out a general measure in the manner contemplated by the 4th article of the new agreement, it would be much better that the merchants be again left to themselves"; while respecting the military raid and its consequences, they represented that "the just alarm occasioned by the expedition four months ago, and the excitement kept up by these fruitless negotiations, have done incalculable injury to the trade without bettering the position of foreigners in the least."

Such diverse views of policy held by the principal parties concerned are typical of the relations which have subsisted between the protectors and the protected throughout a great part of the period which has elapsed since the British Government established relations with China in 1834.

These occurrences at Canton and the decided action taken by the British Government brought up in a definite form the whole question of the safety of British interests in China, and the means by which it was to be secured. The conversion of Sir John Davis, though much, was not everything. The aim of Lord Palmerston's policy was still liable to be deflected by the perturbing influence of a minor planet in the system. The consul in Canton gave him almost as much trouble in his day as the famous Tiverton butcher did afterwards in his; and the patience with which his lordship endeavoured to enlighten his agent on the most elementary principles of human action was admirable. It had been the practice of the consul "to report to your Excellency another wanton and unprovoked attack on the part of the populace upon a party of Englishmen," and at the same time to deprecate any measures of defence, whether by organising volunteers among the residents or having a British ship of war stationed where she could be seen.

The consul's object in all this was to avoid exciting suspicion in the minds of the Chinese populace. Sir John Davis, who had all along agreed with the consul, had now to tell his subordinate that "Viscount Palmerston was of opinion that we shall lose all advantages which we have gained by the war if we take the low tone which has been adopted at Canton."