Chapter 40

STORES AND PROVISIONS--A FIRE IN CANTON--SAILORS AS FIREMEN--THE VICEROY'S GRATITUDE.

BARGAINING.

When the Commodore arrived at Canton he was visited by the principal Chinese merchants, who affected to appear very much pleased that he had met with no obstruction in getting thither. They added that, as soon as the Viceroy should be informed that Mr. Anson was at Canton, they were persuaded a day would be immediately appointed for the visit, which was the principal business that had brought the Commodore thither.

The next day the merchants returned to Mr. Anson, and told him that the Viceroy was then so fully employed in preparing his despatches for Pekin, that there was no getting admittance to him for some days; but that they had engaged one of the officers of his court to give them information as soon as he should be at leisure when they proposed to notify Mr. Anson's arrival, and to endeavour to fix the day of audience. The Commodore was by this time too well acquainted with their artifices not to perceive that this was a falsehood, and had he consulted only his own judgment he would have applied directly to the Viceroy by other hands. But the Chinese merchants had so far prepossessed the supercargoes of our ships with chimerical fears, that they were extremely apprehensive of being embroiled with the government and of suffering in their interest, if those measures were taken which appeared to Mr. Anson at that time to be the most prudential; and therefore, lest the malice and double-dealing of the Chinese might have given rise to some sinister incident which would be afterwards laid at his door, he resolved to continue passive as long as it should appear that he lost no time by thus suspending his own opinion. With this view he promised not to take any immediate step himself for getting admittance to the Viceroy, provided the Chinese with whom he contracted for provisions would let him see that his bread was baked, his meat salted, and his stores prepared with the utmost despatch. But if, by the time when all was in readiness to be shipped off (which it was supposed would be in about forty days), the merchants should not have procured the Viceroy's permission, then the Commodore proposed to apply for it himself. These were the terms Mr. Anson thought proper to offer to quiet the uneasiness of the supercargoes; and notwithstanding the apparent equity of the conditions, many difficulties and objections were urged, nor would the Chinese agree to them till the Commodore had consented to pay for every article he bespoke before it was put in hand. However, at last the contract being passed, it was some satisfaction to the Commodore to be certain that his preparations were now going on, and being himself on the spot, he took care to hasten them as much as possible.

During this interval, in which the stores and provisions were getting ready, the merchants continually entertained Mr. Anson with accounts of their various endeavours to get a licence from the Viceroy, and their frequent disappointments, which to him was now a matter of amusement, as he was fully satisfied there was not one word of truth in anything they said. But when all was completed, and wanted only to be shipped, which was about the 24th of November, at which time, too, the north-east monsoon was set in, he then resolved to apply himself to the Viceroy to demand an audience, as he was persuaded that without this ceremony the procuring a permission to send his stores on board would meet with great difficulty. On the 24th of November, therefore, Mr. Anson sent one of his officers to the mandarin who commanded the guard of the principal gate of the city of Canton with a letter directed to the Viceroy. When this letter was delivered to the mandarin, he received the officer who brought it very civilly, and took down the contents of it in Chinese, and promised that the Viceroy should be immediately acquainted with it, but told the officer it was not necessary for him to wait for an answer, because a message would be sent to the Commodore himself.

A FIRE AT CANTON.

Two days after the sending the above-mentioned letter a fire broke out in the suburbs of Canton. On the first alarm Mr. Anson went thither with his officers and his boat's crew to assist the Chinese. When he came there he found that it had begun in a sailor's shed, and that by the slightness of the buildings and the awkwardness of the Chinese it was getting head apace. But he perceived that by pulling down some of the adjacent sheds it might easily be extinguished; and particularly observing that it was running along a wooden cornice which would soon communicate it to a great distance, he ordered his people to begin with tearing away that cornice. This was presently attempted, and would have been soon executed, but in the meantime he was told that, as there was no mandarin there to direct what was to be done, the Chinese would make him (the Commodore) answerable for whatever should be pulled down by his orders. On this his people desisted, and he sent them to the English factory to assist in securing the Company's treasure and effects, as it was easy to foresee that no distance was a protection against the rage of such a fire, where so little was done to put a stop to it; for all this time the Chinese contented themselves with viewing it and now and then holding one of their idols near it, which they seemed to expect should check its progress. However, at last a mandarin came out of the city, attended by four or five hundred firemen. These made some feeble efforts to pull down the neighbouring houses, but by this time the fire had greatly extended itself, and was got amongst the merchants' warehouses, and the Chinese firemen, wanting both skill and spirit, were incapable of checking its violence, so that its fury increased upon them, and it was feared the whole city would be destroyed. In this general confusion the Viceroy himself came thither, and the Commodore was sent to and was entreated to afford his assistance, being told that he might take any measures he should think most prudent in the present emergency. And now he went thither a second time, carrying with him about forty of his people, who upon this occasion exerted themselves in such a manner as in that country was altogether without example. For they were rather animated than deterred by the flames and falling buildings amongst which they wrought, so that it was not uncommon to see the most forward of them tumble to the ground on the roofs and amidst the ruins of houses which their own efforts brought down with them. By their boldness and activity the fire was soon extinguished, to the amazement of the Chinese, and the building being all on one floor, and the materials slight, the seamen, notwithstanding their daring behaviour, happily escaped with no other injuries than some considerable bruises. The fire, though at last thus luckily extinguished, did great mischief during the time it continued, for it consumed an hundred shops and eleven streets full of warehouses, so that the damage amounted to an immense sum. It raged, indeed, with unusual violence, for in many of the warehouses there were large quantities of camphor, which greatly added to its fury, and produced a column of exceeding white flame, which shot up into the air to such a prodigious height that the flame itself was plainly seen on board the Centurion, though she was thirty miles distant.

Whilst the Commodore and his people were labouring at the fire, and the terror of its becoming general still possessed the whole city, several of the most considerable Chinese merchants came to Mr. Anson to desire that he would let each of them have one of his soldiers (for such they styled his boat's crew from the uniformity of their dress) to guard their warehouses and dwelling-houses, which, from the known dishonesty of the populace, they feared would be pillaged in the tumult. Mr. Anson granted them this request, and all the men that he thus furnished to the Chinese behaved greatly to the satisfaction of their employers, who afterwards highly applauded their great diligence and fidelity. By this means the resolution of the English at the fire, and their trustiness and punctuality elsewhere, was the subject of general conversation amongst the Chinese, and the next morning many of the principal inhabitants waited on the Commodore to thank him for his assistance, frankly owning to him that they could never have extinguished the fire of themselves, and that he had saved their city from being totally consumed. And soon after a message came to the Commodore from the Viceroy, appointing the 30th of November for his audience, which sudden resolution of the Viceroy, in a matter that had been so long agitated in vain, was also owing to the signal services performed by Mr. Anson and his people at the fire, of which the Viceroy himself had been in some measure an eye-witness. The fixing this business of the audience was, on all accounts, a circumstance which Mr. Anson was much pleased with, as he was satisfied that the Chinese Government would not have determined this point without having agreed among themselves to give up their pretensions to the duties they claimed, and to grant him all he could reasonably ask; for, as they well knew the Commodore's sentiments, it would have been a piece of imprudence not consistent with the refined cunning of the Chinese to have admitted him to an audience only to have contested with him.