Chapter XVII: The Arrow War, 1856-1860 (1)

Lorchas -- Outrage on the Arrow -- Question of access to
city -- Tone of British Foreign Office -- Firm tone of
British Government -- Destruction of Canton factories and
flight of foreign residents -- Operations in river.

From the earliest days of the British occupation it had been the aim of the Canton authorities to destroy the "junk" trade of Hongkong by obstructive regulations, for which the supplementary treaty of 1843 afforded them a certain warrant. But as the Chinese began to settle in large numbers on the island the claims of free commerce asserted themselves, and gradually made headway against the restrictive schemes of the mandarins. The Government fostered the legitimate commercial ambition of the Chinese colonists by passing ordinances whereby they were enabled to register vessels of their own, sail them under the British flag, and trade to such ports as were open to British shipping. Certificates of registry were granted only to men of substance and respectability who were lessees of Crown land in the colony. The class of vessel for which colonial registers were granted was of native build and rig, more or less modified, of good sea-going qualities, known by the local name of lorcha. Naturally the Canton authorities looked askance at any measure aimed at the liberation of trade, and so truculent an imperial commissioner as Yeh was not likely to miss an opportunity of wreaking vengeance on the "native-born" who dared to exercise privileges derived from residence in the hateful colony.

One of these registered vessels was the Arrow, commanded by an Englishman and manned by Chinese. This vessel was in the course of her traffic boarded at Canton at midday on October 8, 1856, by order of the Chinese authorities, with marked official ostentation, her crew forcibly carried off on a charge, according to a Chinese version, "of being in collusion with barbarians," and her ensign hauled down. How this outrage on the British flag was perpetrated, how resisted, and what came of it, have been so often set forth that there is no need to dwell upon the details here. The traditional insolence of the Chinese was reasserted in all its virulence, as in the days of Commissioner Lin, and once more the British agents were confronted with the dilemma of aggravating past griefs by submission or of putting their foot down and ending them. A single-minded and courageous man was in charge of British interests in Canton, and, left with a free hand, there could be no doubting the line Mr Parkes would take. The decision, however, lay with Sir John Bowring, governor of Hongkong, her Majesty's plenipotentiary and superintendent of trade, and with the naval commander-in-chief, Sir Michael Seymour.

We have seen that the likelihood of sooner or later having to clear accounts with the authorities of Canton had not been absent from the mind of her Majesty's Government for some years previously, though by no initial act of their own would they have brought the question to a crisis. If the governor entertained doubts whether the Arrow insult furnished adequate provocation, his decision was materially helped by the deadlock in relations which followed. A simple _amende_ for the indignity offered to the flag was asked for, such as the Chinese were adepts in devising without "losing face"; but all discussion was refused; the viceroy would not admit any foreign official to a personal conference. The small Arrow question thus became merged in the larger one of access to the city, and to the provincial authorities, which had on various pretexts been denied to the British representatives in contravention of the treaty of 1842.

It happened that the question had lately assumed a somewhat definite place in the agenda of the British plenipotentiary. Lord Clarendon had in 1854 instructed Sir John Bowring to take any opportunity of bringing the "city question" to a solution, and Sir John addressed a long despatch to Commissioner Yeh on the subject in April of that year. It had no effect, and was followed up a few months later by an effort in another direction. The turbulent character of the Cantonese people and the impracticable arrogance of the imperial officers who successively held office there had often prompted an appeal to Cæsar, and more than one attempt had been made in times gone by to submit the Canton grievances to the judgment of the Imperial Court. These attempts were inspired by a total misconception of the relations between the provinces and the capital. In the year 1854, however, it was decided to renew the effort to open direct communications with the Imperial Government. And circumstances seemed to promise a more favourable issue to the mission than had attended preceding ones. The time had come when a revision of the tariff and commercial articles of the treaties might be claimed, and besides the standing grievance at Canton there were sundry matters in connection with the fulfilment of the treaties which together constituted a justifying pretext for an unarmed expedition to the Peiho. The chances of a favourable reception were thought to be strengthened by the combination of the Treaty Powers. Sir John Bowring and the American Minister, Mr McLane, accordingly went together, with a competent staff of interpreters, to Tientsin, where they were soon followed by the French secretary of Legation.

High officials were appointed to treat with them, because it was feared that if some courtesy were not shown them the barbarians would return south and join the rebels, who were then threatening the southern provinces. But the net result of the mission was that it was allowed to depart in peace. Lord Elgin, commenting on the proceedings, sums up the instructions to the Chinese officials, gathered from the secret reports afterwards discovered, as, "Get rid of the barbarians," which would be an equally exhaustive rendering of all the instructions ever given to Chinese plenipotentiaries. On the occasion of this visit to the Peiho the foreign plenipotentiaries resorted, as had been done on sundry previous occasions, to the oriental custom of approaching a great man gift in hand. In the depleted condition of the imperial treasury they calculated that the recovery of the duties unpaid during the recent interregnum at Shanghai would be a tempting bait to the Peking Government. The offer, however, could not, it would appear, be intelligibly conveyed to the minds of the northern functionaries: unacquainted with commercial affairs, and misconstruing the proposal as a plea for the forgiveness of arrears, they at once conceded the sop to Cerberus, pleased to have such a convenient way of closing the mouths of the barbarians.

In December following a favourable opportunity seemed to present itself for renewing the attack on the exclusiveness of Canton. The Taiping rebels had blockaded the river, and in a "pitched battle" defeated the imperialist fleet and were actually threatening the city. In this emergency Yeh implored the aid of the English forces. Sir John Bowring thereupon proceeded to Canton with a naval force of five ships to protect the foreign factories, the presence of the squadron having at the same time the desired deterrent effect on the rebels, who withdrew their forces. Now at last the governor felt confident that the barrier to intercourse was removed, and he applied to the viceroy for an interview; but Yeh remained obdurate, refused audience as before, and with all the old contumely. Precisely the same thing had happened in the north in 1853, when the governor of Kiangsu applied through Consul Alcock to the superintendent of trade, Sir George Bonham, for the assistance of one of her Majesty's ships in defending Nanking against the expected attack of the Taipings. Divers communications of like tenor had, during several months, led up to this definite application. The appeal was most urgent, and yet in the title given to her Majesty's plenipotentiary the two important characters had been omitted, indicating that his power emanated from the ruler of an "independent sovereign state." "Such an omission," remarked Mr Alcock, "is characteristic of the race we have to deal with, for even in a time of danger to the national existence they cannot suppress their arrogance and contempt for barbarians." Arrogant and contemptuous of course they were, and yet it may perhaps be questioned whether such terms fully explain the mutilation of the plenipotentiary's official titles. Although they had been compelled by mechanical force to accord titles implying equality to foreign officials, yet in the innermost conviction of the Chinese an independent sovereign State was at that time almost unthinkable, and could only be expressed by a solecism. If, therefore, we ask how an imperial commissioner could demean himself by soliciting protection from the barbarians to whom he was denying the scantiest courtesy, we have to consider the point of view from which China had from time immemorial and without challenge regarded all the outer States. For it is the point of view that is paradoxical. To Yeh, considering barbarians merely as refractory subjects, there was no inconsistence in commanding their aid, while denying their requests. The position is analogous to that of Ultramontanes, who claim tolerance for themselves in heretical communities by a divine right which excludes the idea of reciprocity. This key to the history of foreign intercourse with China is too often forgotten.

Nothing daunted, Sir John returned to the charge in June 1855, on the occasion of the appointment of the new consul, Mr Alcock, whom he asked permission to introduce to the Imperial Commissioner. His letter was not even acknowledged for a month, and then in the usual contemptuous terms.

So far, indeed, from Yeh's being mollified by the assistance indirectly accorded to him in defending the city from rebel attack, or by the succession of respectful appeals made to him by Sir John Bowring, a new campaign of aggression was inaugurated against the lives and liberties of the foreign residents in Canton. This followed the traditional course. Inflammatory placards denouncing foreigners, and holding them up to the odium of the populace, were extensively posted about the city and suburbs in the summer of 1856. These, as usual, were followed by personal attacks on isolated Englishmen found defenceless, and, following the precedents of ten years before, the outbreaks of anti-foreign feeling in Canton found their echo also in Foochow, where an American gentleman met his death in a riot which was got up there in July. So serious was the situation becoming that Mr Consul Parkes, who had succeeded Mr Alcock in June, solemnly warned the Imperial Commissioner that such acts, if not promptly discountenanced by the authorities (who of course were well known to be the instigators), must inevitably lead to deplorable consequences. The Chinese reply to this remonstrance was the outrage on the lorcha Arrow. To isolate that incident, therefore, would be wholly to miss the significance of it: it would be to mistake the match for the mine.

Those who were on the spot and familiar with antecedent events could have no doubt whatever that, in condoning the present insults, the British authorities would have invited greater and always greater, as in the days of Lin. The tone of recent despatches from the Foreign Office fortified the governor in taking a strong resolution; the clearness of Consul Parkes' view made also a deep impression on him; and yet another factor should not be altogether overlooked which contributed its share in bringing the two responsible officials to a definite decision. It was not an unknown phenomenon in public life that two functionaries whose co-operation was essential should mistrust each other. This was distinctly the case with Sir John Bowring and Sir Michael Seymour. They needed some connecting medium to make them mutually intelligible, and it was found in the influence of local public opinion. The mercantile community, which for twenty years, or as long as they had had utterance, had never wavered in the conviction that in strength alone lay their safety, were to a man for vigorous measures at Canton. And it happened that, scarcely perceived either by themselves or by the other parties concerned, they possessed a special channel for bringing the force of their views to bear on the two responsible men. Sir John Bowring had himself deplored "the enormous influence wielded by the great and opulent commercial houses" when adverse to his projects. He was now to experience that influence in another sense, without perhaps recognising it, for when the wind is fair it makes slight impression on those whose sails it fills.

Among the business houses in China two stood pre-eminent. One had a son of the plenipotentiary for partner; both were noted for their princely hospitality, especially to officers of the navy. "Those princely merchants, Dent & Co., as well as Matheson," writes Admiral Keppel in his Diary, "kept open house. They lived in palaces." One of the two buildings occupied by the former firm, "Kiying House," which some twenty years later became the Hongkong Hotel, was as good as a naval club for all ranks, while admirals and post-captains found snug anchorage within the adjoining domain of the seniors of the firm. The two great houses did not always pull together, but on this occasion their separate action, converging on a single point, was more effectual than any half-hearted combination could have been. Night after night was the question of Canton discussed with slow deliberation and accumulating emphasis in the executive and the administrative, the naval and the political, camps respectively. Conviction was imbibed with the claret and cheroots, and it was not altogether without reason that what followed has sometimes been called the "Merchants' War."

The die was cast. The great Canton bubble, the bugbear of a succession of British Governments and representatives, was at last to be pricked, though with a delay which, however regrettable at the time, perhaps conduced to greater thoroughness in the long-run. Those of our readers who desire to trace the various operations against Canton during the twelve months which followed cannot do better than consult Mr Stanley Lane-Poole's 'Life of Sir Harry Parkes,' the volume of 'Times' correspondence by that sage observer and vivacious narrator, Mr Wingrove Cooke, and the delightful sailors book recently published by Vice-Admiral Sir W. R. Kennedy. The campaign unfolded itself in a drama of surprises. The force at the admiral's disposal being too small to follow up the initial movement against the city, which gave no sign of yielding by first intention, Sir Michael Seymour had to content himself with intimating to the Viceroy Yeh that, notwithstanding his Excellency's interdict, he had, with a guard of bluejackets, visited the Viceregal Yamên; and with keeping hostilities alive by a blockade of the river while awaiting reinforcements.

The Arrow incident occurred in October. In December the foreign factories were burned by the Chinese, and the Viceroy Yeh issued proclamations offering rewards for English heads. The mercantile community retired to Hongkong, a few to the quieter retreat of Macao. The vengeance of Commissioner Yeh pursued them exactly as that of Commissioner Lin had done in 1839. Assassinations were not infrequent on the outskirts of the city of Victoria; and in January 1857 the principal baker in the colony was induced to put a sack of arsenic into his morning supply of bread, which only failed of its effect through the excess of the dose acting as an emetic.

The early portion of the year 1857 was enlivened by active operations in hunting out Chinese war-junks in the various creeks and branches of the river, commenced by Commodore Elliot and continued on a brilliant scale by Commodore H. Keppel, who arrived opportunely in the frigate Raleigh, of which he speaks with so much pride and affection in his Memoirs. That fine vessel, however, was lost on a rock approaching Macao, sinking in shallow water in the act of saluting the French flag, a war vessel of that nationality having been descried in the anchorage. The commodore and his officers and crew, thus detached, were soon accommodated with small craft good for river service, and in a very short time they made a memorable cutting-out expedition as far as the city of Fatshan, destroying formidable and well-posted fleets of war-junks in what the commodore described as "one of the prettiest boat actions recorded in naval history." Sir W. Kennedy served as a midshipman in those expeditions, and his descriptions supply a much-needed supplement to that of the Admiral of the Fleet, correcting it in some particulars and filling in the gaps in a wonderfully realistic manner. No adequate estimate can be formed of the importance of the year's operations in the Canton river without reading Admiral Kennedy's brilliant but simple story.

The Canton imbroglio made the kind of impression that such occurrences are apt to do in England. The merits of the case being usually ignored, the bare incidents furnish convenient weapons with which to assail the Government that happens to be in office. Under such conditions statements can be made and arguments applied with all the freedom of a debating club. The Arrow trouble occasioned a temporary fusion of the most incongruous elements in English politics. When Lord Derby, Lord Lyndhurst, Bishop Wilberforce, Mr Cobden, Mr Bright, Mr Gladstone, and Mr Disraeli were found banded together as one man, it was neither common knowledge nor any sincere interest in the question at issue, but "unanimosity" towards the Premier, that inspired them. The Opposition orators took their brief from the published despatches of Commissioner Yeh, which they assumed as the starting-point of the China question, and found no difficulty whatever in discovering all the nobility and good faith on the Chinese side, the perfidy and brutality on the side of the British representative. Though successful in carrying a vote of censure on the Government, the attitude of the Coalition did not impress the public, and Lord Palmerston's appeal to the electorate was responded to by his being returned to power by a large majority.

How very little the question itself affected public men in England may be inferred from the notices of it in the Memoirs, since published, of leading statesmen of the period. The fate of China, or of British commerce there, was not in their minds at all, their horizon being bounded by the immediate fate of the Ministry, to them the be-all and end-all of national policy. What deplorable consequences all over the world have arisen from the insouciance of British statesmen as regards all matters outside the arena of their party conflicts!

Sir John Bowring was made the scapegoat of the war. A philosophical Radical, he had been president of the Peace Society, and his quondam friends could not forgive a doctrinaire who yielded to the stern logic of facts. As consul at Canton he had had better opportunities of studying the question of intercourse with the Chinese than any holder of his office either before or since his time. No one had worked more persistently for the exercise of the right of entry into Canton. Superseded in the office of plenipotentiary by the appointment of the Earl of Elgin as High Commissioner for Great Britain, Sir John Bowring remained Governor of Hongkong, and it fell to him to "do the honours" to his successor, from whom he received scant consideration. Indeed Lord Elgin made no secret of his aversion to the colony and all its concerns, and marked his feeling towards the governor by determining that he should never see the city of Canton--that Promised Land so soon to be opened to the world through Sir John's instrumentality.

I. THE EARL OF ELGIN AND HIS MISSION.

Capture of Canton -- The Treaty of Tientsin -- Comments on
the treaty -- Sequel to the treaty -- Omission to visit
Peking -- Comments thereon -- How to deal with Chinese --
Commissioners to Shanghai to negotiate the tariff -- Two
pressing questions to be settled -- Delay of Commissioners'
arrival -- Resentment of Lord Elgin and change of tactics
re Canton -- Canton question same as Chinese question --
Chinese demand for abandonment of Resident Minister -- Lord
Elgin's assent -- Comments thereon -- Treaty with Japan --
The Taku disaster.

The transports bringing the troops from England were meanwhile hurrying at top speed--not in those days a very high one--round the Cape of Good Hope, and the navy was being reinforced by several powerful ships, including the mosquito squadron of gunboats which were destined to play so useful a part, first in the operations of war, and subsequently in patrolling the coast and rivers for the protection of peaceful traders. Lord Elgin's arrival in Hongkong, coinciding in time with that of the frigates Shannon, commanded by Sir William Peel, and Pearl, Captain Sotheby, put heart into the long-suffering British community at the port. But sinister news from India had reached Lord Elgin on his voyage to China, in consequence of which, and on the urgent request of the Governor-General, he took on himself to intercept the troopships wherever they could be met with, and turn their course to Calcutta. Before he had been many days in Hongkong, foreseeing an indefinite period of inaction in China, and being obliged in any case to wait the arrival of his French colleague, without whom no French co-operation could be had, Lord Elgin determined to proceed himself to Calcutta, taking with him the two frigates Shannon and Pearl. This welcome reinforcement not only arrived opportunely in India, but, as is well known, did heroic service in throwing back the tide of mutiny.

Fortune seemed in all this to be favouring the Chinese, nothing more hurtful threatening them than a passive blockade of the Canton river and its branches. But a fresh expedition was promptly despatched from England to take the place of that which had been diverted to India. A body of 1500 marines arrived in the autumn, and on them, supplemented by the Hongkong garrison, devolved the duty of bringing China to terms, the navy, of course, being the essential arm in all these operations.

Lord Elgin returned to China in ample time to meet the French plenipotentiary, Baron Gros. His lordship's policy had from the first been an interesting theme for speculation, not less so as the time for putting it in force drew near. It had been surmised that his object would be to leave Canton alone, and set out on another wild-goose chase to the north. That so futile a scheme should not be carried out without at least a protest, the mercantile community met Lord Elgin on his arrival in June with an address couched in the following terms:--

We venture upon no opinion at present respecting the
readjustment of our relations with the empire at large,
though always prepared to hold our advice and experience at
your lordship's command; but upon that branch of the
question which we distinguish as the "Canton difficulty" we
would take this, the earliest opportunity, of recording our
opinion--an opinion founded upon long, reluctant, and, we
may add, traditional experience--that any compromise of it,
or any sort of settlement which shall stop short of the
complete humiliation of the Cantonese,--which shall fail to
teach them a wholesome respect for the obligations of their
own Government in its relations with independent Powers,
and a more hospitable reception of the foreigner who
resorts to their shores for the peaceable purposes of
trade,--will only result in further suffering to themselves
and further disastrous interruptions to us.

Many of us have already been heavy sufferers by the present
difficulty. It must be apparent to your lordship that our
best interests lie upon the side of peace, and upon the
earliest solid peace that can be obtained. But,
notwithstanding this, we would most earnestly deprecate any
settlement of the question which should not have eliminated
from it the very last element of future disorder.

The meaning of these weighty words, as interpreted by Wingrove Cooke, was, "You must take Canton, my lord, and negotiate at Peking with Canton in your possession." And he adds, "Such is the opinion of every one here, from the highest to the lowest." We learn from his private letters that it was by no means the opinion of the new plenipotentiary. "The course I am about to follow," he writes, "does not square with the views of the merchants." Yet his reply to their address was so diplomatic that he was able to say "it gave them for the moment wonderful satisfaction." The editor of Lord Elgin's letters suppresses the rest of the sentence. The new plenipotentiary hoped even "to conclude a treaty in Shanghai, and hasten home afterwards,"--a hope which could only coexist with an entire disregard of our whole previous experience in China; almost, one might argue, with an entire ignorance of the record.[37]

On his return from India, however, and on the assembling of the Allied forces, he found that the course prescribed by history and common-sense was, after all, the only practical one to follow, and that was to commence hostilities at Canton. Yet Lord Elgin seems to have submitted to the inexorable demands of circumstances with no very good grace. Indeed his attitude towards the Canton overture and his mission generally was decidedly anomalous. The two leading ideas running through the published portion of his correspondence were, "It revolts me, but I do it"; and, "Get the wretched business over and hurry home." Lord Elgin's mental constitution, as such, is of no interest to us except as it affected his acts and left its impress on the national interests in China. From that point of view, however, it is public property, and as much an ingredient in the history as any other quality of the makers of it. First, we find him at variance with the Government which commissioned him, in that he speaks with shame of his mission: "That wretched question of the Arrow is a scandal to us." Why? Her Majesty's Government had deliberated maturely on the Arrow question, had referred it to their law officers, had concluded it was a good case, and had written unreservedly in that sense to their representative in China. Was it, then, greater knowledge, or superior judgment, that inspired Lord Elgin to an opposite opinion? And in either case would it not have been better to have had the point cleared up before undertaking the mission?

But, in point of fact, the Arrow question was not the question with which Lord Elgin had to deal, as it had long before been merged, as we have said, into the much larger one of our official relations with China.

The truth seems to be that Lord Elgin came to China filled with the conviction that in all our disputes the Chinese had been the oppressed and we the oppressors. Of our intercourse with them he had nothing more complimentary or more definite to say than that it was "scandalous." For his own countrymen he had never a good word, for the Chinese nothing but good--until they came into collision with himself, when they at once became "fools and tricksters." Having assembled a hostile force in front of Canton, he writes, December 22, 1857, "I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life.... When I look at that town I feel that I am earning for myself a place in the Litany immediately after 'plague, pestilence, and famine.'" Becoming gradually reconciled to events, however, he writes, "If we can take the city without much massacre I shall think the job a good one, because no doubt the relations of the Cantonese with the foreign population were very unsatisfactory." But why "massacre," much or little? It was but a phantasy of his own he was thus deprecating. The curious point is, however, that Lord Elgin imagined that everybody was bent on this massacre except himself, and when all was over, and "there never was a Chinese town which suffered so little by the occupation of a hostile force," he appropriates the whole credit for this satisfactory issue! "If," he writes, "Yeh had surrendered on the mild demand made upon him, I should have brought on my head the imprecations both of the navy and the army, and of the civilians, the time being given by the missionaries and the women." An insinuation so purely hypothetical and so sweeping would not be seriously considered in any relation of life whatsoever; but no one who knows either the navy or the army would hesitate to affirm that the humanity of every officer and man in these services was as much beyond reproach as Lord Elgin's own, albeit it might assume a different form of expression. When the city, "doomed to destruction from the folly of its own rulers and the vanity and levity of ours," had been occupied, and the bugbear of massacre had vanished, the object of Lord Elgin's sympathies became shifted: "I could not help feeling melancholy when I thought that we were so ruthlessly destroying"--not the place or the people, but--"the prestige of a place which has been for so many centuries intact and undefiled by the stranger." Had he written this after witnessing some of the horrors of the city described by Wingrove Cooke, possibly these regrets for its defilement might have been less poignant. But though reverence for the mere antiquity of China is a most salutary lesson to inculcate in these our days, it is pathetic to see the particular man whose mission was to humble her historical prestige tortured by compunctions for what he is doing. One is tempted to wish the "job" had been intrusted to more commonplace hands.

Some of those English officials by whose vanity and levity the "city was doomed to destruction" were also writing their private letters, and this was the purport. "I confidently hope," wrote Mr Parkes, before Lord Elgin's first arrival in China, "that a satisfactory adjustment of all difficulties may be attained with a slight effusion of blood. Canton, it is true, must fall. I see no hope of any arrangement being arrived at without this primary step being effected, but I trust that with the fall of that city hostilities may end, and that the emperor may then consent to receive a representative at Peking." However, as soon as he gets to actual business with the Chinese, Lord Elgin finds that he also has to be stern even as others. As early as January 10, 1858, a week after the occupation of the city, "I addressed the governor in a pretty arrogant tone. I did so out of kindness, as I now know what fools they are, and what calamities they bring upon themselves, or rather on the wretched people, by their pride and trickery." But what the novice was only beginning to find out the veterans had learned years before.[38]

His attitude to his countrymen generally is scarcely less censorious than towards the officials who had borne, and were yet to bear, the burden and heat of the day in China. From Calcutta he wrote:--

It is a terrible business being among inferior races. I
have seldom from man or woman since I came to the East
heard a sentence which was reconcilable with the hypothesis
that Christianity had ever come into the world.
Detestation, contempt, ferocity, vengeance, whether
Chinamen or Indians be the object.

From China:--

The whole world just now is raving mad with a passion for
killing and slaying, and it is difficult for a person in
his sober senses, like myself, to keep his own among them.

Again:--

I have seen more to disgust me with my fellow-countrymen
than I saw during the whole course of my previous life....
I have an instinct in me which loves righteousness and
hates iniquity, and all this keeps me in a perpetual
boil.... The tone of the two or three men connected with
mercantile houses in China whom I find on board is all for
blood and massacre on a great scale.

The perennial fallacy that underlies the "one-righteous-man" theory from the days of Elijah the Tishbite downwards, and the ineptitude of all indiscriminate invective, would be sufficient answer to such sweeping maledictions. Below these ebullitions of the surface, however, there lay a grave misgiving in Lord Elgin's mind concerning his mission as a whole, in which many thoughtful people must have shared: "Whose work are we engaged in when we burst thus with hideous violence and brutal energy into these darkest and most mysterious recesses of the traditions of the past?" This was written at Tientsin after the passage of the forts, and it is well worth recalling, now that the vultures of Europe are wheeling round the moribund empire.

Canton city was occupied by the Allies on January 2, 1858. Commissioner Yeh was captured, carried on board the paddle-sloop Inflexible, and conveyed to Calcutta, where he eventually died. His absence made it easier to deal with the other authorities. He is perhaps the only Chinese official who has ever been made personally responsible for attacks on foreigners.

A provisional government was established under three commissioners nominated by the Allied commanders-in-chief, though in fact the labour and responsibility rested solely on one of the three, Mr Parkes. Having induced the native governor, Pikwei, to resume his functions and administer the affairs of the city, under supervision, order was partially established, and the chiefs, diplomatic and military, withdrew--much too abruptly, it was generally thought--to prepare an expedition to the north.

But the commissioners were left with inadequate forces to maintain order, fettered as they were by instructions which rendered them immobile. The British admiral, after nearly a year and a half's experience in the river, might have known something of the Canton problem, while the Allied plenipotentiaries apparently understood nothing of it. This was shown by what contemporary opinion designated Lord Elgin's "first symptom of weakness." When the figurehead Pikwei was brought from his prison to be invested with authority under the Allied commanders he coolly claimed precedence of the English admiral and general, and Lord Elgin, contrary to his own pre-arrangement of seats, &c., conceded the claim, thereby striking the keynote of the relations which were to exist between the Allied commissioners and the Chinese officials. Lord Elgin had occasion to remember this when, in 1860, Prince Kung tried to lead him into a similar trap, whereby he himself would have been relegated to a second place. The result of these arrangements was very much what might have been expected. Finding the foreign garrison passive, the turbulent elements in the city and the surrounding villages soon began to fan the embers of their former fires. They refused to consider themselves conquered, and set about reorganising their forces as they had done on previous occasions, and, beginning with secret schemes of assassination, they became emboldened by impunity, and by-and-by mustered courage to attack and annoy the garrison of the city, which was as helpless to repel insults as the mounted sentries at the Horse Guards. The army of occupation was besieged, the prestige of the capture of the city was in a few months wholly dissipated, and the officials and gentry affected to believe that the barbarians were only in the river, their presence in the city being ostentatiously ignored in public correspondence. During the whole of the year 1858 the cry went up continuously from the commissioners and military commanders, but it remained practically unheeded by the chiefs in the far north, except in so far that they drew still shorter the tether of the beleaguered force, in order that they might avoid all possible collision with their Chinese assailants. Lord Elgin at first deemed the turbulence at Canton a good reason for effecting a speedy settlement with the Imperial Government; but, as we shall see presently, that settlement when made had no influence at all upon either the Government officials or the gentry and populace of that city. The solution of the Canton problem was found in an entirely different direction.

It may be mentioned here that besides the administration of the city, several important matters of business were arranged during the commissionership of Mr Parkes. There was the question of the site at Shameen for the future residence of foreigners; and the regulation of coolie emigration, which had been carried on in an unsatisfactory manner; and last, not least, the first lease of Kowloon, on the mainland facing Hongkong, and forming one side of the harbour. This important concession, as already said, was negotiated on the sole initiative of Mr Parkes, the military authorities being talked into it afterwards. It was the first response to the demand of Wingrove Cooke, Why we had not taken possession of the peninsula of Kowloon, for "if any other Powers should do so--and what is to prevent them--the harbour of Hongkong is lost to us." Several important exploratory expeditions were also undertaken in 1859, in which Parkes was everywhere warmly received by officials and people, one of these excursions being far up the West river, the opening of which, however, to foreign trade remained in abeyance for forty years thereafter.

The next object of the plenipotentiaries, of course, was to negotiate at Peking, or wherever properly accredited negotiators could be met with, Canton being held in pledge. Progress was slow, because the fleet was so largely composed of sailing-vessels, which must wait for the fair monsoon; and the plenipotentiaries did not assemble within the river Peiho--the forts at its mouth having been silenced and the guns captured--until June. There followed Lord Elgin to Tientsin the French, American, and Russian Ministers, all bent on making treaties and on observing each other. The resources of Chinese resistance having been provisionally exhausted, imperial commissioners came to arrest the further progress of the foreigners by negotiations, or, to speak with strict accuracy, to concede the minimum that was necessary to induce them to depart. Such, we may be sure, was the beginning and the end of their instructions then, as it was afterwards. The work of negotiation, so far as the form went, seems to have fallen to Mr H. N. Lay, whose place was very soon to know him no more; but, in the words of Lord Elgin, "anybody could have made the treaty."

The contents of the treaty, signed June 26, 1858, fulfilled the instructions of Lord Clarendon, and the commercial articles which constituted its main body corresponded substantially with the desiderata of the merchants as set forth in their memorials in response to the invitation of Lord Elgin, the treaty going in advance of their demands on certain points and falling short of them on others. Opium was not mentioned, but was afterwards placed on the tariff; and a toleration clause for the Christian religion was inserted, without much apparent consideration for the consequences involved in it. A special memorandum from Consul Alcock, called for by the Foreign Office, had dwelt mainly on the precautions which should accompany the exercise of such new privileges as promiscuous residence in the interior; but, excepting in the case of merchants, where little or no risk was involved, the warnings of Mr Alcock were unheeded alike in the text of the treaty and in the subsidiary regulations.

"The most important matter gained by the treaty," however, in the opinion of Lord Elgin, was "the resident Minister at Peking," "without which," wrote Mr Parkes, "the treaty was not worth a straw." And substituting "lost" for "gained," such was also the opinion of the Chinese negotiators. It was, indeed, the universal opinion. Diplomatic representation at Peking might be fairly considered to have been the primary object of the war of 1857-58, as commercial extension and access to Canton had been that of 1839-42. And when "the miserable war was finished" and "his liberty regained" Lord Elgin cleared out his force, bag and baggage, as if he had been escaping from something, leaving not a trace behind.

As this move constituted a veritable crisis in Anglo-Chinese relations, it seems advisable for a moment to consider its bearings. Judging after the event, it is of course easy to perceive the fatal error of Lord Elgin in hurrying away from the Peiho. A fair criticism of his policy will confine itself strictly to the circumstances as known at the time. His experience had so closely resembled that of his predecessors, that he was aware that the Chinese were "yielding nothing to reason and everything to fear." He had seen with his own eyes the Queen's ratifications of previous treaties exhumed from a collection of miscellaneous papers in Canton, they being, as Commissioner Yeh remarked, not worth sending to Peking; he knew that the treaty of Nanking had been observed by the Chinese only as far as force or fear compelled them, and that its crucial stipulation had been for many years evaded, and then with unmasked arrogance repudiated; he knew that the very war in which he had been engaged, and his whole mission to China, were caused and provoked by the refusal of the provincial authorities to admit his predecessors or himself within the walls of Canton. In his own ultimatum to Commissioner Yeh, Lord Elgin had asked no more than the execution of the treaty of Nanking, which included access to the city of Canton, and compensation for damage to British property. Yet the Chinese Government, dreading war as they did, had notwithstanding incurred its hazards rather than open the gates of a distant provincial city. How, then, were they likely to regard the, to them, infinitely greater outrage of resident foreign Ministers in the sacred capital itself? This demand was practically the only one against which the Chinese commissioners made a stand. When everything had been written down ready for signature they drew back, saying it was as much as their heads were worth to subscribe such a condition. The answer was a peremptory threat to march on Peking, whereupon the commissioners signed the paper without another word. The crisis did not last twenty-four hours. No one could believe that a miracle of conversion had been wrought in that time, or that the enforced signature of the Imperial Commissioners had changed a fundamental principle of Chinese policy. What, under these circumstances, was the "present value" of the treaty? Was it so much as conceivable that it would be voluntarily carried out? Was it not evident rather that it was signed under _duresse_ solely with the immediate view of getting the barbarians out of doors and leaving the key within? What said the imperial decree published in the 'Peking Gazette'? "The barbarians[39] had come headlong with their ships to Tientsin. Moved by the commands of Kweiliang and his colleagues, they have now weighed anchor and stood out to sea." If our former treaty needed a material guarantee for its execution, how much more this one? The test of good faith was in Lord Elgin's own hands; he should clearly have applied it, and presented himself at Peking for audience of the emperor. Perhaps it would have been refused, in which case he would have at least known where he stood. A campaign against Peking would have been easy with the handy force he possessed, or at the worst he could have occupied Tientsin and the Taku forts until all questions were settled.

This was the view generally held at the time both by officials and the lay community in China, before any untoward consequences had revealed themselves. It was strongly expressed by Parkes, who deplored "the ominous omission that Lord Elgin had gone away to Japan without entering Peking or having an audience with the emperor." We have not the advantage of knowing what Wingrove Cooke would have said of it, but we may infer the prevailing opinion by what another newspaper correspondent wrote from Shanghai on the receipt of the first news of the signing of the treaty:--

SHANGHAI, _July 13, 1858_.[40]

The "Chinese War," properly so called, has now reached its
termination, and the fleet in the Gulf of Pechili is
dispersing. Lord Elgin arrived here yesterday with the new
treaty, which his brother, the Hon. F. Bruce, carries home
by the present mail. The document will not be published
until it is ratified by the Queen, but in the mean time the
chief points of it may be tolerably well guessed at. The
diplomatists are confident that the new treaty will "give
satisfaction." That is saying a good deal, but how could it
be otherwise than satisfactory? The emperor was so
terror-struck by our audacious advance on Tientsin, that he
was ready to concede everything we wanted rather than see
us approach any nearer to his capital. There could have
been but little discussion--the ambassadors had simply to
make their terms. The new treaty, then, provides for
indemnification for losses at Canton, a contribution
towards the expenses of the war (for which Canton is held
as a guarantee), the opening of more ports for trade,
freedom of access to the interior, toleration for
Christians, and a resident Minister at Peking. The only
omission seems to be that Lord Elgin did not himself go to
Peking; for unless the right of residence at the capital
receives a practical recognition from the Chinese
Government at once, it will certainly lead to vexatious
discussion whenever we wish to exercise it. The right of
entry into Canton, conceded by the treaty of Nanking, but
not insisted on through the timidity of our
representatives, ought to have taught us a useful lesson.
While the emperor is in a state of alarm anything may be
done with him, but when the pressure is removed and the
fleet dispersed, Pharaoh's heart will certainly be
hardened, and then Chinese ingenuity will be employed in
evading as many of the provisions of the treaty as they
dare. Let us hope, however, that when the weather cools a
little and the thing can be done comfortably, Lord Elgin
may still pay a friendly visit to his new allies at their
headquarters [which he more than once threatened to do].

Such was contemporary opinion unbiassed as yet by visible effects. When the tragedy took place a year later, of course people spoke out more clearly. Parkes then wrote:--

The Chinese Government never intended, nor do they intend,
if they can avoid it, to carry out the Elgin treaty. It was
granted by them against their will, and we omitted all
precautions necessary to ensure its being carried out--I
mean, in quitting Tientsin as we did in July 1858, instead
of remaining there until the treaty had been actually
carried into effect. You will recollect in what a hurry the
admiral and Lord Elgin, one and all, were to leave and run
off to recreate in Japan and elsewhere. By that step they
just undid all they had previously done.

Writing eighteen months after the event, and six months after the Taku repulse, Laurence Oliphant fully confirmed the views of Parkes. "The political importance," he observed, "of such an achievement"--_i.e._, a march to Peking--"it is impossible to overestimate. The much-vexed question of the reception of a British Minister at the capital would have been set at rest for ever." He then goes on to give a number of exculpatory reasons for the omission, which would have been more convincing had they been stated by Lord Elgin himself in despatches written at the time.

Nor was Lord Elgin's own explanation to the House of Lords any more satisfying. "In point of fact," he said, "I was never charged with the ratification of the treaty. The treaty was never placed in my possession. I never had the option of going to Peking." If his lordship had had a better case he would never have elected to rest his vindication on a piece of verbal finesse. Yet this speech gave their Lordships for the moment "wonderful satisfaction."[41]

The omission to consummate the treaty was followed a few months later by an act of commission of which it is difficult to render any clear account, and which Oliphant in his 'Narrative' makes no attempt to explain, merely reproducing the official despatches. Before leaving China Lord Elgin pulled the key-stone from the arch of his own work, reducing the treaty to that condition which Parkes had described as "not worth a straw." At the instance of the Chinese commissioners he moved her Majesty's Government to suspend the operation of "the most important" article in it, the residence of a British Minister in Peking. It is needless to follow the arguments, utterly unreal and having no root either in history or in experience, by which this fatal course was urged upon the Government, for they were of the same species as those which had induced her Majesty's Ministers to tolerate for fourteen years the exclusion of their representatives from Canton, the right to enter which city had just been recovered by force. It is most instructive to mark, as the key to many failures, how, like successive generations of youth, successive British agents in China have failed to profit by the experience of their predecessors, and have had in so many cases to buy their own at the expense of their country; for we see still the same thing indefinitely repeating itself, like a recurring decimal. Even at this the end of the nineteenth century we seem as far off as ever from laying hold of any saving principle, though it stares at us out of the whole panorama of our intercourse. Lord Elgin's procedure afforded at once the best example what to do and the clearest warning what to avoid in China, and it is the most useful for future guidance for the reason that effect followed cause as closely as report follows flash. It was his fate, much against his will apparently, to wage war on China in order to revindicate a right which had lapsed through the weakness and wrong-headedness of certain British representatives; yet in the closing act of a perfectly successful war he commits the self-same error on a more comprehensive scale, entailing on some future Government and plenipotentiary the necessity of making yet another war on China to recover what he was giving away. What is the explanation of this continuous repetition of the same mistake? It would seem that, knowing nothing of the Chinese, yet imagining they know something, the representatives of Great Britain and of other Powers, notably the United States, have been in the habit of evolving from their own consciousness and keeping by them a subjective Chinaman with whom they play "dummy," and of course "score horribly," as the most recent diplomatic slang has it. Their despatches are full of this game--of reckoning without their host, who, when brought to book, turns out to be a wholly different personage from the intelligent automaton kept for Cabinet use. Then, under the shock of this discovery, denunciations of treachery--black, base, and so forth--relieve the feelings of the foiled diplomat, while the substance of his previous triumph has quite eluded him. To this kind of illusion Lord Elgin was by temperament more predisposed than perhaps any of his predecessors save Captain Elliot. Though convinced by his first encounter that Chinese statesmen were "fools and tricksters," the simulacrum soon asserted supremacy over the actuality of experience, and to the honour of the very persons so stigmatised he committed the interests of his country, abandoning all the securities which he held in his hand.

But what, then, is the secret of dealing with the Chinese which so many able men, not certainly intending to make failures, have missed? This interesting question is thus partially answered by Wingrove Cooke. "The result of all I hear and see," he wrote, "is a settled conviction that at present we know nothing--absolutely nothing--of the nature of those elements which are at work inside China. Crotchets, &c., are rife, but they are all the offspring of vain imaginings, not sober deductions from facts.... Treat John Chinaman as a man, and exact from him the duties of a civilised man, and you will have no more trouble with him." Which is but a paraphrase of Lord Palmerston's prescription to consider the Chinese as "not greatly different from the rest of mankind." Such, however, has always been too simple a formula for the smaller minds. They would complicate it by trying, with ludicrous effect, to get behind the brain of the Chinese and play their opponent's hand as well as their own. Probably it matters less on what particular footing we deal with the Chinese than the consistency with which we adhere to it. To treat them as _protégés_, and excuse them as minors or imbeciles while yet allowing them the full licence and privileges of the adult and the sane, is manifestly absurd. To treat them as dependent and independent at the same time can lead to nothing but confusion and violent injustice. To allow engagements with them to become waste paper is the surest road to their ruin and our discomfiture. To let our Yea be Yea, and our Nay, Nay, is as much the Law and the Prophets in China as it is throughout the world of diplomacy. To this simplicity Lord Elgin had attained, at least in theory, when he told the merchants of Shanghai that in dealing with Chinese officials he had "been guided by two simple rules of action. I have never preferred a demand which I did not believe to be both moderate and just, and from a demand so preferred I have never receded."