trade which they knew was carried on there. The right hon. gentleman then argued at considerable length that there had been every reason to expect that the Chinese Government would legalise the traffic of opium; and that, therefore, it would have been premature and inexpedient to send out instructions to the superintendent, authorising him to seize and send home any British subjects who should have been found carrying on that trade. He insisted, also, on the impracticability of giving effect to any prohibition of the illicit traffic, except by the exertions of the Chinese themselves; and asserted his belief that the positive prohibition of the opium trade by Captain Elliot, unsupported by physical force, would have been inadequate to put the trade down. As to whether it were wise or not on the part of the Chinese Government to prohibit the importation of opium, there might be a doubt, and on that point the governor of China alone was competent to decido; but when they resorted to measures unjust and unlawful, confined our innocent countrymen, and insulted the Sovereign in the person of her representative, then he thought the time had arrived when it was fit that we should interfere. With respect to the present motion, whatever its results might be, he could not believe that the House would agree to a vote of censure so gross, so palpable, or so unjust as that which was conveyed in its terms; and he trusted that even if there should be a change of men consequent upon the conclusion of the debate, there would, at all events, be no change of measures. Sir William Follett, in replying to Mr. Macaulay, gave the following account of the mode in which supercargoes under the East India Company acted in the Chinese waters. The company took from their own ships and officers a bond that they would obey the orders of those supercargoes. No ship could trade to China at all without having a licence from the East India Company, which was forfeited in case of disobedience; in which case the ship was liable to be sold, and the crew might be arrested by the supercargoes, sent as a proviso to England, tried, convicted, fined, and imprisoned for that offence. The supercargoes, therefore, had complete and positive control over the ships and commerce. Sir George Staunton considered, though very reluctantly, that this war was absolutely just and necessary under existing circumstances. With respect to the immorality or impolicy of the opium trade, he yielded to no member of the House in his anxiety to put it down altogether. But the question between us and the Chinese Government with regard to the opium trade was not a question of morality or policy, but a question whether there had been any breach of international rights or international law. Now, from the earliest period, foreigners had not been permitted directly to come before the Chinese tribunals, but through the medium of the Hong merchants. The remedy was first against their sureties, then against the property of the party. Up to the arrival of Commissioner Lin there was no other law. The remedy against the property of the person extended to the confiscation of all found withia the river of Canton, but there was no law which reached property out of that river. When the Imperial Commissioner Lin arrived in that city, he brought with him a law of a very extraordinary character, denouncing death against any foreigner who traded in opium, accompanied by the confiscation of his property to the Crown. However that might be justified, Sir George Staunton maintained that the attempt to punish those under the new law, who had arrived in China under the old law, was a most atrocious injustice. Such an act, without looking at all to any subsequent events, was a full justification of the measures that had been taken to exact reparation. Our empire in the East was founded on the force of opinion; and if we submitted to the degrading insults of China, the time would not be far distant when our political ascendancy in India would be at an end. If ever the opium trade was put down, it would be by the co-operation of the Chinese Government with our own. That co-operation could be maintained only by a treaty, which he hoped would be established." Sir George Staunton considered it in the highest degree unjust to visit upon Her Majesty's present Ministers the consequences of a system which had received the approval of the House and of the country, and even of Sir James Graham himself. He was bound to say that he could not at all connect the unhappy state of things in China with the orders issued by Lord Palmerston. They were to be attributed wholly to the extraordinary conduct of Commissioner Lin. Captain Elliot, too, had exhibited great gallantry, and what appeared to be vacillating policy on his part was only extreme anxiety to meet the various exigencies of the case. A number of other speakers having addressed the House, Mr. Gladstone rose and threw additional light upon the causes of the rupture. He said that after Captain Elliot had prohibited the British shipping from going up to Whampoa, and had stated that he would establish himself with the English merchants at Canton, this was regarded as a claim on the part of the British merchants to go to the very focus of smuggling; and this afforded a suspicion, a seemingly wellfounded suspicion, to the Chinese that it was their intention that the opium trade should be resumed there. The Chinese had no armament really wherewith to expel us from Canton. They therefore said, "We will resort to another mode of bringing you to reason: we will expel you from our shores by refusing you provisions;" and then, of course, they poisoned the wells. Here the speaker was interrupted by Ministerial cheers. He continued: "I am ready to meet those cheers. I understand what they mean. I have not asserted, I do not mean to assert, that the Chinese have actually poisoned their wells. All I mean to say is, that it was alleged that they had done so. They gave you notice to abandon your contraband trade. When they found that you would not, they had a right to drive you from their coasts, on account of your obstinacy in persisting in this infamous and atrocious traffic." Sir S. Lushington reprobated those sentiments of Mr. A.D. 1840.1 DEFENCE OF THE CONDUCT OF GOVERNMENT. 467 Gladstone, whom he admired as the powerful champion blished, what offences were to be breaches of those of every cause he thought right. But he asked upon what principle could the seizure of men who were living in Canton under the sanction of the country's usages be justified? Not only were 200 persons maligned without any proof or trial, but they were seized, incarcerated, and then, under the greatest durance, and under threats of being suffered to die of starvation, they had their property extorted from them; while the feelings of their countrymen had been also practised upon, to coerce them into the surrender of property in order to save the lives of the prisoners. That was an act of atrocity which no usages, no custom, no respect of popular prejudices in China ever would or ought to allow England to endure, much less to sanction. 'It was," he said, "a grievous sin, a wicked offence, an atrocious violation of justice, for which England had the right, a strict, undeniable right, to demand reparation by force if refused peaceable applications. What followed? Expulsion. What next? Why, that very practice which, from all history-from the earliest days in which it was ever attempted, from the days when it was practised in Egypt, now probably 2,500 years ago, even during the time of open war, and even at periods when it might be said almost to be done in self-defence—has met with the unequivocal reprobation of the world: the practice, not of cutting off the supply, but of poisoning that source of life, by which not the enemy alone, but innocent women and helpless children were indiscriminately exterminated; and yet, to my everlasting wonder and astonishment, there fell from the hon. member for Newark another ever memorable expression. The hon. member said that the English were ordered to quit; they did not obey; they were deprived of provisions, and, of course,' continued the hon. member, the water was poisoned.' Those were the very words: I heard them at the time; they are so reported, and they are true. I might go on, but there is already ample justification for the course that the Government has taken; and when I consider all the causes which have led to the rupture, the position is quite clear that England is, by every principle of justice and of right, entitled, and she has authority by the law of God and of man, to demand redress; but, be it understood, not for a war of blood or reprisals.'' regulations, and then have constituted a court of admiralty and criminal jurisdiction, as they might have done. They have given their representative what was worse than no power-the semblance without the reality. They not merely withheld instructions, they gave him contradictory instructions; and then they pretended that, on account of the distance, it was difficult to explain the course which he was to pursue. "Again and again,” continued the right hon. baronet, "I say, do not enter into this war without a becoming spirit—a spirit becoming the name and character of England. Do not forget the peculiar character of the people with whom you have to deal, and so temper your measures that as little evil as possible may remain. Remember that the character of the people has lasted for many generations— that it is the same now which was given to them by Pliny and many subsequent writers. It is your duty to vindicate the honour of England where vindication is necessary, and to demand reparation wherever reparation is due. But God grant that all this may lead to the restoration of amicable relations with China, with little disturbance of our relations with other nations! In the absence of every confidence in Her Majesty's Ministers, I will express a wish in which the party of the right hon. member for Edinburgh would join. I would pray the Almighty Disposer, from whom all just counsels and good works proceed-I pray to God that he will dispose the minds of the people, and defend them from the evils which they may deserve-I pray to God that he will avert from them the calamities, and turn from us the evils, which I must say the neglect and incapacity of our rulers have most righteously deserved." Lord Palmerston defended the conduct of the Government and of its agent, Captain Elliot, whose zeal, courage, and patience, he said, had been signally exhibited in these transactions. As to the opium trade, he denied that, if Parliament had given the Ministry the power, and they had given the superintendent the right, of issuing an order prohibiting British subjects from engaging in that trade, it would have been obeyed. The trade, expelled from Canton, would have taken refuge in other places. It would have gone along the coast of China, studded with islands, indented with harbours, lined with cities and towns, all thirsting for trade, of whatever description, but eager for trade in this especial article; and instead of being concentrated, as now, it would be diffused over that extensive district. Without a vast police and preventive force, the instruc Our Sir Robert Peel remarked that the charge against the Government was not that it had not sufficient foresight to know what the Emperor of China was going to do, but that, after the termination of the relation between China and the East India Company, which had continued for 200 years, and after an immense change in the positions which the Ministry were ridiculed for not sending tion of this country with respect to China, Her Majesty's Government sent a gentleman to China to represent the Crown of this country, without the powers which they might have given him, which it was their duty to have given him, without instructions which he was competent to receive, and without the moral influence of a naval force, the advantage of which was demonstrated by the papers before the House. The Government ought to have supplied Captain Elliot with proper powers. It should have said what regulations were to be esta would have been nothing more than waste paper. merchants, too, would carry on the trade under the American flag; under that flag they would snap their fingers at our cruisers, and thus the trade in opium would not be put down. Instead, therefore, of thinking himself liable to the censure of the House, he absolutely claimed merit for not having given to the superintendent at Canton such powers and instructions as the right hon. member for Pembroke (Sir James Graham) recommended. Lord Palmerston read a memorial addressed by a number of American merchants to their own Government, in which they condemned the course adopted by the Chinese Commissioner Lin as no better than robbery, and recommended vigorous co-operation on the part of America and France with the British Government in obtaining satisfaction, and placing the commerce with China on a satisfactory footing. He also read a letter addressed to himself by thirty London firms engaged in the China trade, who declared their deliberate opinion that, unless the measures of the Government were followed up with firmness and energy, the trade with China could no longer be conducted with security to life and property, or with credit and advantage to the British nation. The noble lord, therefore, called upon the friends of the Government to support them in resisting this motion of censure which they did not deservethis palpable endeavour to substitute another Ministry in their place. On a division, the motion was negatived by a majority of 10; the numbers being-ayes, 261; noes, 271. A few incidents connected with our dispute with China may be given here. In January, 1839, a proclamation was issued by the local government of Canton addressed to all foreigners, announcing the approach of a special Imperial Commissioner to put a stop to the opium traffic, and it was required that the receiving ships on the outside should be all sent away, on penalty of hostile measures. As a warning intimation of the nature of those measures, his approach was heralded by an execution. A native smuggler was suddenly brought down into the square before the foreign factories, escorted by a body of troops, and he was there publicly strangled. All the European flags at Canton were hauled down, and no attention was paid to any remonstrances on the subject. Commissioner Lin issued a characteristic proclamation, not only demanding that every particle of opium on board the ship should be delivered to the Government in order to its being burned, but that the ship should never again dare to bring opium, on pain of forfeiture of goods and death to the crew, but he required a bond that such punishment "would be willingly submitted to." sequently departed in obedience to an edict from the Government which forbade them ever to return. Captain Elliot, meantime, wrote urgently to Lord Auckland, Governor-General of India, demanding military protection, and describing the course of "violence and spoliation which had broken up the foundations of this great trade, perhaps for ever." In the August of the same year an affray took place at Macao, between some English sailors and Chinese villagers, in which one of the latter was killed. Commissioner Lin immediately demanded that the homicide should be given up to him to be put to death. This being refused, Lin issued an edict forbidding any provisions or other necessaries to be supplied to the British at Macao. About the same time a British schooner, called the Black Joke, while on her way from that port to Hong Kong, was attacked by several Chinese junks and boarded, when several of the Lascars who manned the schooner were cut down and thrown overboard. Mr. Moss, a young Englishman who happened to be on board, was at the same time barbarously maltreated. Happily, another British schooner came up at the critical moment, and the Chinese made off in their boats. In consequence of these proceedings, Captain Elliot, accompanied by a number of the English residents, removed to Hong Kong, where they were protected by the Volage and the Hyacinth. Towards the end of the year, Lin, who styled himself “ Imperial High Commissioner, and Yang, Viceroy of Wan-tung," issued a decree against the importation of any British goods, concluding thus:-"We, the High Commissioner and Viceroy, are at no loss for skilful translators and interpreters, so that it will be still more easy for us to ascertain the country whence they come. Let, then, every foreign merchant beware! Do not, for a trifling advantage, lose a much more important object, thus involving yourselves in the same unpleasant consequences." Captain Elliot, hoping to mollify the Viceroy by soft words and a submissive manner, petitioned him in the following humble terms: -"England having already enjoyed commercial intercourse with the heavenly dynasty for about 200 years, all that I now beg at this time is the continuance of our legal commerce as of old; and that everything be done in respectful submission to the statutes of the great pure dynasty, while at the same time the laws of my native country be not opposed, thus causing that both may exist and remain together." Under these circumstances Captain Elliot, the British Commissioner, obtained an interview with Lin, who insisted that Mr. Dent, one of the most respectable of the English merchants, should go into the city and appear before his tribunal; to which Captain Elliot consented, on receiving an assurance under the seal of the Imperial Commissioner that the prisoner should not Lin's reply is a model of haughty condescension. be removed out of his sight. On the same night all the After enumerating the crimes of the English, be native servants were taken away from the merchants; said, Having already closed the port against you, the supplies were cut off; an arc of boats filled with properly speaking, we ought to hold no further comarmed men was formed on the river in front of the munication with you; but seeing that you have adfactories, and another armed force was placed in their rear. dressed a duly prepared petition, begging and praying Thus subjected to a rigorous blockade, and at the mercy for certain favours, we, out of pure indulgence, of the furious Commissioner, Captain Elliot advised the now take up the reason of our conduct, and with the merchants to submit, and deliver up the opium. When utmost clearness make the same known unto you, causthis was done, the blockade of the factories, which had ing at the same time that all the people of your country, lasted a month, ceased at Canton, and leave was given as well as yourself, may equally and alike know the for all to quit except sixteen individuals, who sub-cause why this port is now shut against you." Some concessions were, however, made, and the trade of Chusan harbour, the ships of war taking up a position was resumed below the Bocca Tigris, until an unfortunate in front of a hill upon which there was a large temple or occurrence caused further complications. Captain "joss house." A summons to surrender was answered by Warner of the Thomas Coutts, having arrived from the appearance of the Chinese admiral and two manSingapore, instead of repairing to Hong Kong, broke darins on board the Wellesley, who acknowledged their through the regulations of the British superintendent, inability to resist, but attempted to evade the requireproceeded direct to the Bocca Tigris, and signed the re- ment. They were told that if the city did not surrender quired bond of consent to the new laws involving the by daybreak next morning, it would be attacked. In infliction of capital punishment by Chinese forms of the morning the hill and shore were crowded with troops, trial. In consequence of this, Lin required that all other and from the mast heads the city was seen at the disBritish ships should enter only on the same terms. tance of a mile with the walls well manned. On Temple Matters now proceeded to hostilities. On the 3rd of Hill, about the landing place, and on a round tower November a Chinese squadron of twenty-nine sail adjacent, were planted twenty-four guns of small calibre, anchored close to the British vessels, when the Chinese while a number of war junks hovered near our ships. demanded that an Englishman should be delivered up Major-General Burrell, however, determined to land his to them. Captain Smith resolved to compel them to troops. A fire was immediately opened upon them from return to their former anchorage. At noon, therefore, the batteries on shore, and from the war junks. These the signal was made to engage, and the ships then were soon silenced by broadsides from the British ships. lying hove to at the extreme end of the Chinese line, The invading force was then placed in position before bore away ahead in close order, having the wind on the the city, when a fire was opened from the walls, which starboard beam. In this way, and under easy sail, they was kept up till midnight without doing any execution ran down the Chinese line, pouring in a destructive fire. whatever. Early on the morning of the 6th ten guns The lateral direction of the wind enabled the ships to were got into position within 400 yards of the walls, on perform the same evolution from the other extreme of which the flags were seen floating as they had been on the line, running up again with their larboard broad- the preceding evening. But no sound was heard, no sides bearing. The Chinese answered with much spirit, human being was visible; all was as still as a city of the but the terrible effect of the English fire was soon mani- dead. A reconnoitring party advanced to see whether fest. One war junk blew up at pistol-shot distance from it had been evacuated, and scaled the walls by means of the Volage, three were sunk, and several others water- a ladder which was found outside. Then was given a logged. In less than three quarters of an hour the touching proof of the great truth that God has made of Chinese admiral retired in great distress to his former one blood all the nations that dwell upon the earth, and anchorage. The Chinese authorities at Canton sent a that however different portions of our race may stigmaboat-load of poisoned tea packed in small parcels to be tise one another as barbarians, in times of emergency sold to the English sailors; but the boat happened to be and danger they mutually recognise the instincts and captured by Chinese pirates, who sold the cargo to their sympathies of a common nature. Two unarmed Chinese countrymen, many of whom died in consequence. Re- appeared above the gate, and hung a placard over the wards were also offered on a graduated scale for the wall, on which was inscribed this appeal-" Save us for ships and heads of the English; 20,000 Spanish dollars the sake of our wives and children.” for an English man-of-war, 3,000 for an English commander, and so on. The proof required of having destroyed a ship was her board with her name of having killed an Englishman, his head; either of which, on being delivered to any district magistrate, entitled the bearer to receive the promised reward. Englishmen sailing or pulling in small schooners or boats were ordered to be attacked and exterminated. The proclamation said, "Honours, rewards, and happiness will be the lot of him who kills an Englishman." An attempt was also made to burn the British shipping, which was happy frustrated. On a very dark night a number of fire-rafts, constructed of very old fishing boats filled with combustible materials and ignited, were set afloat towards the vessels, but the danger was perceived in time to be avoided. But the crisis was now at hand. On Sunday the 5th of July, 1840, the English captured the island of Chusan, and for the first time wrested from his Celestial Majesty a portion of his dominions. On the previous day the Wellesley, the Conway, the Alligator, the Rattlesnake, and two transports arrived in the anchorage A company of the 49th Regiment took possession of the principal gate, and the British flag was planted on the ramparts of the city of Ting-hae. The walls were built of granite and brick, and were about six miles in circumference, with numerous bastions, surrounded by a ditch or canal about twenty-five feet wide, so that the place could have been easily defended by good troops, CHAPTER XLIX. Progress of the Chinese War-Keshin, the Imperial Commissioner-His |