volume 1, chapter 16, volume 2.

_J. Ross, The Manchus._

_Abbé Hue, Christianity in China, volume 2-3._

CHINA: A. D. 1839-1842. The Opium War with England. Treaty of Nanking. Opening of the Five Ports.

"The first Chinese war [of England] was in one sense directly attributable to the altered position of the East India Company after 1833. [See INDIA: A. D. 1823-1833.] Up to that year trade between England and China had been conducted in both countries on principles of strict monopoly. The Chinese trade was secured to the East India Company, and the English trade was confined to a company of merchants specially nominated for the purpose by the Emperor. The change of thought which produced the destruction of monopolies in England did not penetrate to the conservative atmosphere of the Celestial Empire, and, while the trade in one country was thrown open to everyone, trade in the other was still exclusively confined to the merchants nominated by the Chinese Government. These merchants, Hong merchants as they were called, traded separately, but were mutually liable for the dues to the Chinese Government and for their debts to the foreigners. Such conditions neither promoted the growth of trade nor the solvency of the traders; and, out of the thirteen Hong merchants in 1837, three or four were avowedly insolvent. (State Papers, volume 27, page 1310.) Such were the general conditions on which the trade was conducted. The most important article of trade was opium. The importation of opium into China had, indeed, been illegal since 1796. But the Chinese Government had made no stringent efforts to prohibit the trade, and a Select Committee of the House of Commons had declared that it was inadvisable to abandon an important source of revenue to the East India Company. (State Papers, volume 29, page 1020.) The opium trade consequently throve, and grew from 4,100 chests in 1796 to 30,000 chests in 1837, and the Chinese connived at or ignored the growing trade. (Ibid., p. 1019). ... In 1837 the Chinese Government adopted a fresh policy. {422} It decided on rigourously stopping the trade at which it had previously tacitly connived. ... Whether the Chinese Government was really shocked at the growing use of the drug and the consequences of its use, or whether it was alarmed at a drain of silver from China which disturbed what the political arithmeticians of England a hundred years before would have called the balance of trade, it undoubtedly determined to check the traffic by every means at its disposal. With this object it strengthened its force on the coast and sent Lin, a man of great energy, to Canton [March, 1839] with supreme authority. (State Papers, volume 29, page 934, and Autobiography of Sir H. Taylor, volume 1, appendix, page 343.) Before Lin's arrival cargoes of opium had been seized by the Custom House authorities. On his arrival Lin required both the Hong merchants and the Chinese merchants to deliver up all the opium in their possession in order that it might be destroyed. (State Papers, volume 29, page 936.) The interests of England in China were at that time entrusted to Charles Elliot. ... But Elliot occupied a very difficult position in China. The Chinese placed on their communications to him the Chinese word 'Yu,' and wished him to place on his despatches to them the Chinese word 'Pin.' But Yu signifies a command, and Pin a humble address, and a British Plenipotentiary could not receive commands from, or humble himself before, Chinese officials. (State Papers, volume 29, pages 881, 886, 888.) And hence the communications between him and the Chinese Government were unable to follow a direct course, but were frequently or usually sent through the Hong merchants. Such was the state of things in China when Lin, arriving in Canton, insisted on the surrender and destruction of all the opium there. Elliot was at Macao. He at once decided on returning to the post of difficulty and danger; and, though Canton was blockaded by Chinese forces and its river guarded by Chinese batteries, he made his way up in a boat of H. M. S. 'Larne,' and threw himself among his imprisoned countrymen. After his arrival he took the responsibility of demanding the surrender into his own hands, for the service of his Government, of all the British opium in China, and he surrendered the opium which he thus obtained, amounting to 20,283 chests, to the Chinese authorities, by whom it was destroyed. (Ibid., pages 945, 967.) The imminent danger to the lives and properties of a large number of British subjects was undoubtedly removed by Elliot's action. Though some difficulty arose in connection with the surrender, Lin undertook gradually to relax the stringency of the measures which he had adopted (ibid., page 977), and Elliot hoped that his own zealous efforts to carry out the arrangement which he had made would lead to the raising of the blockade. He was, however, soon undeceived. On the 4th of April Lin required him, in conjunction with the merchants, to enter into a bond under which all vessels hereafter engaged in the opium traffic would have been confiscated to the Chinese Government, and all persons connected with the trade would 'suffer death at the hands of the Celestial Court.' (Ibid., page 989.) This bond Elliot steadily refused to sign (ibid., page 992); and feeling that 'all sense of security was broken to pieces' (ibid., page 978), he ordered all British subjects to leave Canton (ibid., page 1004), he himself withdrew to the Portuguese settlement at Macao (ibid., page 1007), and he wrote to Auckland, the Governor-General of India, for armed assistance. (Ibid., page 1009.) These grave events naturally created profound anxiety. A Select Committee of the House of Commons had formally declined to interfere with the trade. The opium monopoly at that time was worth some £1,000,000 or £1,500,000 a year to British India (ibid., page 1020); and India, engaged in war with Afghanistan and already involved in a serious deficit, could not afford to part with so large an amount of its revenue (ibid., page 1020). Nine-tenths of the British merchants in China were engaged in the illegal trade (ibid., page 1030), while Elliot, in enforcing the surrender of the opium, had given the merchants bonds on the British Government for its value, and the 20,000 chests surrendered were supposed to be worth from 600 to 1,200 dollars a chest (ibid., page 987), or say from £2,400,000 to £4,800,000. ... As the summer advanced, moreover, a fresh outrage increased the intensity of the crisis. On the 7th July some British seamen landed near Hong Kong, and engaged in a serious riot. A native was unfortunately killed on the occasion, and though Elliot, at his own risk, gave the relations of the victim a large pecuniary compensation, and placed the men engaged in the riot on their trial, Lin was not satisfied. He moved down to the coast, cut off the supplies of British subjects, and threatened to stop the supplies to Macao if the Portuguese continued to assist the British. (Ibid., pages 1037-1039.) The British were in consequence forced to leave Macao; and about the same time a small schooner, the 'Black Joke,' was attacked by the Chinese, and a British subject on board of her seriously wounded. Soon afterwards, however, the arrival of a ship of war, the 'Volage,' in Chinese waters enabled Elliot to assume a bolder front. He returned to Macao; he even attempted to procure supplies from the mainland. But, though he succeeded in purchasing food, 'the Mandarin runners approached and obliged the natives to take back their provisions,' and Elliot, exasperated at their conduct, fired on some war junks of the Chinese, which returned the fire. A week afterwards Elliot declared the port and river of Canton to be in a state of blockade. (Ibid., page 1066.) The commencement of the blockade, however, did not lead to immediate war. On the contrary, the Chinese showed considerable desire to avert hostilities. They insisted, indeed, that some British sailor must be surrendered to them to suffer for the death of the Chinaman who had fallen in the riot of Hong Kong. But they showed so much anxiety to conclude an arrangement on this point that they endeavoured to induce Elliot to declare that a sailor who was accidentally drowned in Chinese waters, and whose body they had found, was the actual murderer. (State Papers,