Rupture with China page 2

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 within 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 well- founded 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. Gladstone, whom he admired as the powerful champion 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, «, strict, undeniable right, to demand reparation by force if refused peaceable applications. What followed P 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.' "

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 position 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 established, what offences were to be breaches of those 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 instructions which the Ministry were ridiculed for not sending would have been nothing more than waste paper. Our 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 Barnes 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 deserve - this 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."

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 be removed out of his sight. On the same night all the native servants were taken away from the merchants; the supplies were cut off; an arc of boats filled with armed men was formed on the river in front of the factories, and another armed force was placed in their rear. Thus subjected to a rigorous blockade, and at the mercy of the furious Commissioner, Captain Elliot advised the merchants to submit, and deliver up the opium. When this was done, the blockade of the factories, which had lasted a month, ceased at Canton, and leave was given for all to quit except sixteen individuals, who subsequently 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.