With Regard To The Chinese Reverses, Niu Kien, While Admitting
Them, Explained That "As The Central Nation Had Enjoyed Peace
For a long
time the Chinese were not prepared for attacking and fighting, which had
led to this accumulation of
Insult and disgrace." In a later communication
Niu Kien admitted that "the English at Canton had been exposed to insults
and extortions for a series of years, and that steps should be taken to
insure in future that the people of your honorable nation might carry on
their commerce to advantage, and not receive injury thereby." These
documents showed that the Chinese were at last willing to abandon the old
and impossible principle of superiority over other nations, for which they
had so long contended; and with the withdrawal of this pretension
negotiations for the conclusion of a stable peace became at once possible
and of hopeful augury.
The first step of the Chinese commissioners was to draw up a memorial for
presentation to the emperor, asking his sanction of the arrangement they
suggested. In this document they covered the whole ground of the dispute,
and stated in clear and unmistakable language what the English demanded,
and they did not shrink from recommending compliance with their terms.
Keying and his colleagues put the only two alternatives with great
cogency. Which will be the heavier calamity, they said, to pay the English
the sum of money they demand (21,000,000 dollars, made up as follows: Six
million for the destroyed opium, 3,000,000 for the debts of the Hong
merchants, and 12,000,000 for the expenses of the war), or that they
should continue those military operations which seemed irresistible, and
from which China had suffered so grievously?
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Page 393 of 704
Words from 106591 to 106880
of 191255
