He Had
Forthwith Gone To The Taotai Of Canton, Presented A Demand For Redress,
And That Officer Had At Once Given The Order For The Arrest Of The
Offender, With The Result Described.
There is no necessity to impugn the
veracity of the Chinaman's story, but it did not justify the breach of
"the ex-territorial rights of preliminary consular investigation before
trial" granted to all under the protection of the English flag.
The plea
of delay did not possess any force either, for the man could have been
arrested just as well by the English consul as by the mandarins, but it
would have involved a damaging admission of European authority in the
matter of a Chinese subject, and the mandarins thought there was no
necessity to curtail their claim to jurisdiction. Commissioner Yeh did not
attempt any excuses, and he even declared that "the 'Arrow' is not a
foreign lorcha, and, therefore," he said, "there is no use to enter into
any discussion about her."
The question of the nationality of the "Arrow" was complicated by the fact
that its registry had expired ten days before its seizure. The master
explained that this omission was due to the vessel having been at sea, and
that it was to have been rectified as soon as he returned to Hongkong. As
Lord Clarendon pointed out, this fact was not merely unknown to the
Chinese, but it was also "a matter of British regulation which would not
justify seizure by the Chinese.
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