How Very Different Was The Idea Formed Of
This Functionary By The Chinese And English May Be Gathered From Their
Official Views Of His Work.
What the Chinese thought has been told in the
words of the Hoppo.
Lord Palmerston was more precise from his point of
view. His instruction to Lord Napier read, "Your lordship will announce
your arrival at Canton by letter to the viceroy. In addition to the duty
of protecting and fostering the trade at Canton, it will be one of your
principal objects to ascertain whether it may not be practicable to extend
that trade to other parts of the Chinese dominions. It is obvious that,
with a view to the attainment of this object, the establishment of direct
communication with the imperial court at Pekin would be most desirable."
The two points of radical disagreement between these views were that the
Chinese wished to deal with an official who thought exclusively of trade,
whereas Lord Napier's task was not less diplomatic than commercial; and,
secondly, that they expected him to carry on his business with the Hoppo,
as the Company's agents had done, while Lord Napier was specially
instructed to communicate with the viceroy, whom those agents had never
dared to approach.
If it was thought that the Chinese would not realize all the significance
of the change, those who held so slight an opinion of their clear-
headedness were quickly undeceived. Lord Napier reached the Canton River
in July, 1834, and he at once addressed a letter of courtesy to the
viceroy announcing his arrival. The Chinese officers, after perusing it,
refused to forward it to the viceroy, and returned it to Lord Napier. Such
was the inauspicious commencement of the assumption of responsibility by
the crown in China. The Chinese refused to have anything to do with Lord
Napier, whom they described as "a barbarian eye," and they threatened the
merchants with the immediate suspension of the trade. The viceroy issued
an order forbidding the new superintendent to proceed to Canton, and
commanding him to stay at Macao until he had applied in the prescribed
form for permission to proceed up the river. But Lord Napier did not
listen to these representations, nor did he condescend to delay his
progress a moment at Macao. He proceeded up the river to Canton, but,
although he succeeded in making his way to the English factory, it was
only to find himself isolated, and that, in accordance with the viceroy's
order, the Hoppo had interdicted all intercourse with the English. The
Chinese declared that the national dignity was at stake, and so thoroughly
did both officials and merchants harmonize that the English factory was at
once deserted by all Chinese subjects, and even the servants left their
employment. On his arrival at Canton, Lord Napier found himself confronted
with the position that the Chinese authorities refused to have anything to
do with him, and that his presence effectually debarred his countrymen
from carrying on the trade, which it was his first duty to promote. At
this conjuncture it happened that the Chinese had discovered what they
thought to be a new grievance against the foreign traders in the steady
efflux of silver as the natural consequence of the balance of trade being
against China. In a report to the throne in 1833 it was stated that as
much as 60,000,000 taels of silver, or $100,000,000, had been exported
from China in the previous eleven years, and, as the Chinese of course
made no allowance for the equivalent value imported into their country,
this total seemed in their eyes an incredibly large sum to be lost from
the national treasure. It will be easily understood that at this
particular moment the foreign trade appeared to possess few advantages,
and found few patrons among the Chinese people.
In meeting this opposition Lord Napier endeavored to combine courtesy and
firmness. He wrote courteous and argumentative letters to the mandarins,
combating their views, and insisting on his rights as a diplomatist to be
received by the officials of the empire; and at the same time he issued a
notice to the Chinese merchants which was full of threats and defiance.
"The merchants of Great Britain," he said, "wish to trade with all China
on principles of mutual benefit; they will never relax in their exertions
till they gain a point of equal importance to both countries, and the
viceroy will find it as easy to stop the current of the Canton River as to
carry into effect the insane determinations of the Hong." This notice was
naturally enough interpreted as a defiance by the viceroy, who placed the
most severe restrictions he could on the trade, sent his troops into the
foreign settlements to remove all Chinese servants, and ordered the Bogue
forts to fire on any English ship that attempted to pass. 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.
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