vice was fallen upon by the Hong merchants:-One of these, by authority of the government, caused to be conveyed to Canton some individual out of a trading junk in the harbour of Macao, who, for a bribe or reward, was to personate the culprit who had shot the Chinese! He was to be imprisoned for a certain time, and previous to his trial was to be furnished with a prepared story which was to acquit him of the murder, and convert the case into one of mere accident or misfortune. Information of this scheme reached the select committee at Canton, who, though they were pretty well assured of the safety of the individual, and quite certain that he was no British subject, still felt themselves bound to address the viceroy, and to protest against these strange proceedings, with which the English name was associated by report. After some trouble and a renewed correspondence, a public edict was issued by the government, declaring that the affair in which the man was said to be involved was accidental, and "assuredly would not lead to the forfeiture of his life;" and it was subsequently understood that he was liberated.

On the 22nd April, 1834, the trade of the East India Company with China, after having lasted just 200 years, terminated according to the provisions of the new Act, and several private ships soon afterwards quitted Canton with cargoes of tea for the British islands. One vessel had, previously to that date, sailed direct for England under a special licence from the authorities of the East India Company. A most important national experiment was now to be tried, the results of which alone could set at rest the grand question of the expediency of free trade against the Chinese monopoly; or prove how individual traders were likely to succeed against the union of mandarins and mandarin merchants.

CHAPTER IV.

ENGLISH INTERCOURSE-(continued).

In the evidence before a committee of the House of Commons appointed at the beginning of the year 1830, with reference to the approaching termination of the East India Company's charter, it was clearly stated, as the opinion of some of the most competent witnesses, that the removal of the China trade from the management and control of the Company would be attended by a great increase of smuggling, and by an aggravation of all those circumstances which were calculated to embroil the English with the government of China. One witness plainly declared "the result would be, sooner or later, a war with China, accompanied by wide-spread individual ruin.” The report which the committee grounded upon the whole of this evidence was expressed in terms of caution, and by no means recommended an entire subversion of the system under which the British trade with that singular and exclusive people had attained a magnitude and importance unparalleled by that of any other country, even of America and others whose trade was free.

Many prudent and reflecting persons were of opinion that British traders from England might safely be allowed an unlimited access to Canton, as those from India had always been, but that both should still be subject to the control of the Company's authorities, who, as the channels of intercourse with the Canton government, should remain undisturbed. This was the opinion and intention of the Duke of Wellington; and when Lord Grey's cabinet subsequently proposed the bill for the entire overthrow of the Company at Canton, with the immediate subversion of the long-esta

blished system, his grace entered his protest against it. In the debate of the 13th May, 1840, on Lord Stanhope's motion with reference to China, the duke declared that "there existed on the records of their Lordships' House amendments moved by him to the China Trade Bill, in order to induce the government and parliament to continue the trade in the hands of the East India Company, simultaneously with British subjects at large, and to leave in the hands of the East India Company most particularly the management of the whole business with the Chinese government at Canton."

Dis aliter visum !-We have since been at war with China; and it will be the business of this chapter to present a succinct narrative of events, from the subversion of the East India Company's administration in 1834 to the end of the year 1839. The official documents have all been made public in that famous compilation prepared for both Houses of Parliament, and named the Blue Book. In the year 1833 a bill was carried through parliament by Mr. Grant (now Lord Glenelg), president of the India Board, by which it was enacted "that it should be lawful for his majesty, by commission under his royal sign-manual, to appoint not exceeding three superintendents of the trade of his majesty's subjects with China, and to give to such superintendents certain powers and authorities." The East India Company were not only deprived of their exclusive right of trading with China, but of the right of trading at all, in common with the rest of the king's subjects; and, as the operation of the Act was to be immediate, their commercial property and shipping were sold at a great loss. The English community at Canton were scarcely less surprised at the suddenness of the revolution than the Chinese themselves were. The maxim of Bacon, that nature should be imitated by politicians in the gradual character of her changes, seems to have been forgotten or disregarded; and before the arrangements consequent on so complete a transmutation could be well completed, the chief commissioner arrived on board

the Andromache frigate, in the person of Lord Napier. an amiable nobleman and zealous public servant, who deserved a more propitious errand and a better fate.

The rumours of judicial and fiscal powers to be exercised under the new commission were calculated to excite the alarm of the jealous and watchful government of the country, whose attention had only just before been drawn to the attempts of English traders on the coast to force a trade by intimidation. No previous communication whatever with the Canton authorities prepared them for the appointment of Lord Napier ;* indeed there was no time for it; and his instructions were-" Your lordship will announce your arrival at Canton by letter to the viceroy.”+ The chief commissioner was received at Macao on the 15th July, 1834, in the manner due to his rank and personal character, by the president of the committee, to whom Lord Napier produced the commission and instructions under the royal sign-manual, appointing him colleague and eventual successor to himself. Mr. Davis's intention to quit China that year had long been settled and declared, but the actual insertion of his name in the commission, and a letter from the minister who had drawn up the new bill, made him consider it his duty to accept office while upon the spot; and this was declared in an official letter, on the express condition that he should be at liberty to proceed home that same year. Sir George Robinson undertook the provisional office of

* The writer of this stated his regret at the omission, in a letter to the secretary of state, in these terms: "If I may be allowed to express my own sentiments, I cannot help thinking that a letter with a few presents from the king to the Chinese emperor, transmitted, without any embassy, through the Viceroy of Canton, as in 1795 (and I believe once again afterwards), would have been a good mode of announcing so important a change. It seems to me that the native government had some right to it, and that it was an eligible and inexpensive way of dispelling or allaying their accustomed suspicions."

Parliamentary Papers, p. 4.

third superintendent until his majesty's pleasure could be known.

On the 23rd July the commission embarked on board H. M. ship Andromache, and proceeded to the anchorage at Chuenpee, below the batteries at the Boca Tigris. At noon on the following day the superintendents left his majesty's ship, and proceeded on board the cutter on their way to Canton, where they arrived at two o'clock on the morning of the 25th.

Lord Napier addressed a letter from himself to the viceroy, announcing his arrival according to his instructions; and when this had been translated by Dr. Morrison, the Chinese secretary to the commission, it was despatched to the usual place of delivery, near one of the city gates. Under a variety of pretexts, grounded principally on the wording of the address, the mandarins at the station declined to receive the letter, the real object of the government being to oblige Lord Napier to quit Canton until the emperor's permission for his residence had been obtained. This indeed appears to be an act of sovereignty of which all states are naturally exceedingly tenacious; and the document by which this sanction is communicated is called in Europe an exequatur, the issue of which must precede the exercise of any official functions. Though China has never yet been formally recognised by any European state as participating in the rights and obligations of international law, a knowledge of the general principle was shown in those papers from the Chinese government, which declared that Lord Napier's mission should have been announced from England, and the sanction of the Peking court obtained.

It was his lordship's misfortune to be placed from the very first in an impossible position, as regarded the full and immediate exercise of the functions confided to him; but his declining to correspond with the Hong merchants, and his views as to the policy and practicability of a direct communication with the mandarins, have been fully justified by later events,