The English Merchants, Alarmed At The Situation, Petitioned Lord Napier To Allay The Storm He Had Raised By Retiring From Canton To Macao, And, Harassed In Mind And Enfeebled In Body, Lord Napier Acquiesced In An Arrangement That Stultified All His Former Proceedings.

The Chinese were naturally intoxicated by their triumph, which vindicated their principle that no English merchant or emissary should be allowed to come to Canton except by the viceroy's permit, granted only to the petition and on the guarantee of the Hong merchants.

The viceroy had also carried his point of holding no intercourse with the English envoy, to whom he had written that "the great ministers of the Celestial Empire, unless with regard to affairs of going to court and carrying tribute, or in consequence of imperial commands, are not permitted to have interviews with outside barbarians." While the Chinese officials had been both consistent and successful, the new English superintendent of trade had been both inconsistent and discomfited. He had attempted to carry matters with a high hand and to coerce the mandarins, and he was compelled to show in the most public manner that he had failed by his retirement to Macao. He had even imperiled the continuance of the trade which he had come specially to promote, and all he could do to show his indignation was to make a futile protest against "this act of unprecedented tyranny and injustice." Very soon after Lord Napier's return to Macao he died, leaving to other hands the settlement of the difficult affair which neither his acts nor his language had simplified.

On Lord Napier's departure from Canton the restrictions placed on trade were removed, and the intercourse between the English and Chinese merchants of the Hong was resumed. But even then the mandarins refused to recognize the trade superintendents, and after a short time they issued certain regulations which had been specially submitted to and approved by the Emperor Taoukwang as the basis on which trade was to be conducted. These Regulations, eight in number, forbade foreign men-of-war to enter the inner seas, and enforced the old practice that all requests on the part of Europeans should be addressed through the Hong in the form of a petition. It therefore looked as if the Chinese had completely triumphed in carrying out their views, that the transfer of authority from the East India Company to the British crown, with the so-called opening of the trade, had effected no change in the situation, and that such commerce as was carried on should be as the Chinese dictated, and in accordance with their main idea, which was to "prevent the English establishing themselves permanently at Canton." The death of the Viceroy Loo and the familiarity resulting from increased intercourse resulted in some relaxation of these severe regulations, and at last, in March, 1837, nearly three years after Lord Napier's arrival in the Bogue, the new superintendent of trade, Captain Elliot, received, at his own request, permission through the Hong to proceed to Canton.

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Words from 95602 to 96109 of 191255