[From Foreign Mud. Copyright © 1946 by Maurice Collis. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1947. (Rights reverted to Faber and Faber, Ltd., London.) Reprinted by permission.]

THE MISADVENTURES OF A BARBARIAN EYE*

1834-35

By Maurice Collis

(Irish Historian and Biographer; Indian Civil Service 1912-34)

THE APPOINTMENT OF LORD NAPIER

When it was decided to terminate the [East India] Company's monopoly of the China trade, arrangements had to be made to fill the gap left by the departure from Canton of the Select Committee. The free merchants could not be left without some authority to regulate their actions. A Chamber of Commerce would not suffice alone. In the particular circumstances of the Canton situation, where a miscellaneous body of British merchants was living within the territory of the Emperor of China, who had never accepted the principle of diplomatic representation at his Court, it was clearly essential that they should have at their head a person with authority from the Crown both to oversee and protect them. The Whig administration of Lord Grey, in which Lord Palmerston was Foreign Secretary, was well aware that things were going on at Lintin and on the China coast that could result in consequences hard to foresee, and which, involving as they might matters of high policy, would be too difficult for a non-official head to cope with.

The Viceroy [of the province of Kuangtung, of which Canton was the chief city] had also given some thought to the matter and had expressed the opinion as early as 1831 that a chief merchant would have to be appointed with authority, like the Select Committee's, over the other merchants. The Co-Hong [a corporation of Chinese mercantile contractors] had conveyed this hint to the Select Committee, which reported it to London. The Viceroy was not suggesting that the chief merchant should be an official or that he should enjoy any privileges that the Select Committee did not possess. The present

*NOTE BY SUBCOMMITTEE STAFF.-The entire book, from which this excerpt is taken, is recommended reading. Commenting on the effort of Dutch envoys sent to Peking in the mid-17th Century to ask for a port and for free trade, Mr. Collis reports that the Chinese Emperor took pains: to make clear to them that China was a closed country, that he regarded them as barbarians from beyond the outer confines, but was glad to receive their tributory presents. for, as Lord of the World and the Dispenser of Light, it was proper that they had come to admire and worship him. The Dutch deplored this view of their efforts to open trade relations, but utterly failed to modify it.

Referring to British forces on the China coast in 1840, Mr. Collis reports another Chinese Emperor saying: After prolonged negotiation has made the Barbarians weary and exhausted, we can suddenly attack them and thereby subdue them.

system would, of course, be continued. In fact, no change in it could have been made without the Emperor's express sanction. And the Emperor had not the smallest intention of modifying the Eight Regulations or abolishing the Co-Hong.

The British Cabinet, though aware that a Crown appointment would be a new departure, does not seem to have realized its full implications from the Chinese point of view, in spite of the mass of evidence that had become available as a result of the Macartney and Amherst embassies and of the report of a Parliamentary Committee recently published. Having decided on its policy, it looked round for a suitable man and picked Lord Napier of Merchiston, a Scottish Peer. . . .

Turning now to the letters printed in Correspondence and Papers relating to China, a White Paper laid before Parliament in 1840, we may see precisely what Lord Napier was expected to do when he got to Canton.

His appointment was to be called a Chief Superintendency of Trade, and he was to be assisted by a Second and Third Superintendent, the persons to be nominated having been members of the defunct Select Committee of the East India Company. His Commission under the Sign Manual dated 31st December 1833 contained the following points, which denote clearly enough the Chinese policy of His Majesty's Government: he was to take up his residence at Canton; he was to protect the interests of the British merchants and advise and mediate between them and the officers of the Chinese Government; in his relations with the Chinese Government he was to abstain from all unnecessary use of menacing language, be moderate, cautious, and not ask for the help of the navy except when "the most evident necessity shall require that any such menacing language should be holden, or that any such appeal should be made"; he should respect the laws and usages of China.

It will be noticed at once that the first of these instructions clashes with the last. He was to obey the Chinese regulations, yet he must reside at Canton. As he was not a merchant but an officer of the Crown holding what today resembles a consular appointment, he had no right under Chinese law to reside at Canton. Under that law persons like him should report their arrival to the Viceroy and await înstructions from Peking. The Emperor never allowed such officials to enter China except to come as tribute bearers to the Celestial Court. For him to sanction Lord Napier's residence at Canton in his capacity as an agent of his sovereign would have been a new departure and tantamount to a reversal of the long-established policy of refusing to receive resident consular or ambassadorial representatives. It was impossible that he would give such permission, even if the utmost efforts were made to obtain it. But Lord Napier was given no instructions even to seek that permission. He was simply to go to Canton and take up his duties there forthwith. From the very start, therefore, his orders were to break one of the most fundamental of Chinese regulations. He was expected to effect a revolution in Chinese policy by the simple method of ignoring its existence. This revolution was inherent also in the instruction that he mediate between the merchants and the local officers. Under the existing rules no correspondence or contact of any

kind with the local officers was permitted: all such business had to be conducted through the Co-Hong, a body of mercantile contractors. Yet at the same time he was directed to be cautious, complacent, to abstain from giving offence, to maintain friendly relations. In short, he was expected to be as mild and discreet as had been the Honourable Company, and yet immediately to do all the things that it had desired to do but refrained from doing for fear of exciting hostility. That the Cabinet should have issued such instructions and that he should have expressed a willingness to carry them out shows that neither had taken the trouble to obtain expert advice or to read the state papers relating to China. As the Cabinet had no intention at that time of bringing to bear the force that would have been necessary to effect such a revolution in its relations with the Court at Peking, it was sending the unfortunate Napier on a wild-goose chase.

In the Foreign Secretary's letter of supplementary instructions addressed to Lord Napier on 25 January 1834 he was ordered to announce his arrival at Canton by letter to the Viceroy. The objection to this we have already seen: it was against the rules for a man holding Napier's appointment to enter China without permission. . . .

In pursuance of these instructions, perhaps the most ill-considered ever drafted for the guidance of an officer of the Crown sent on an important mission overseas, Lord Napier, accompanied by his wife and two daughters, embarked on board the frigate H.M.S. Andromache when the daffodils were in bloom and on 15 July 1834 came to anchor in Macao Roads.

THE PALAVER AT THE GATE

. . . Having got his colleagues and assistants together, Napier acquainted them with his orders, the first of which was to proceed to Canton and inform the Viceroy Lu of his presence and what it meant. The difficulties involved in this course were no doubt pointed out to him and fully discussed, but he resolved to take it and fixed 23 July for his departure from Macao.

The mandarin in charge of the Chinese patrol boats in the vicinity reported to Canton, as soon as he became aware of it, the arrival on 15 July of a Barbarian Eye on board a British man-of-war, meaning by that curious term to denote that Napier was not a merchant but an official. On 21 July the Viceroy issued an Edict to the Hong merchants, quoting this report and citing the rule under which an officer of a foreign government was not allowed to enter China until, after petitioning for a permit, he might be authorized to do so by the Emperor. "When this order is received by the said Hong merchants," the Edict continues, "let them immediately go in person to Macao and ascertain clearly from the Barbarian Eye for what he has come to Canton province. . . . And let them authoritatively enjoin upon him. the laws of the Celestial Empire, to wit that, with the exception of the merchants and the taipans, their heads, no other Barbarian can be permitted to enter Canton, save after a report has been made and an Imperial Mandate received. . . . The said Barbarian Eye, if he wishes to come to Canton, must inform the said Hong merchants, so that they may petition me, the Viceroy, and I will by express messenger

send a memorial, and all must respectfully wait until His Majesty deigns to send a Mandate. Then orders will be issued requiring obedience. Oppose not! A special order."

On receipt of this Edict a delegation of Hong merchants hastened down to Macao by the passage through the inner creeks, but they arrived after Napier had started for Canton by the outer passage, which goes by the Bogue. As he had arranged, he embarked on board the Andromache on 23 July and came to anchor at midnight before Chuenpee, the fort guarding the eastern mouth of the Bogue.

After a late breakfast Napier started work, interviewing such merchants as were in Canton and getting his letter to the Viceroy translated into Chinese by Dr. Morrison. It was headed "Letter," not "Petition" as had been the rule in the past when the Select Committee addressed the Viceroy through the Co-Hong. While he was so engaged, Howqua, with Mowqua the second Hong merchant, arrived with a copy of the Viceroy's Edict of the 21st, which should have been delivered to Napier at Macao. When they announced their intention of enjoining it upon him, His Lordship called on them to desist, explaining that he had been instructed to inaugurate a new procedure, under which he and his colleagues would deal direct with the local authorities. "The Hong merchants," he wrote in the above quoted despatch, "were courteously dismissed with an intimation that I would communicate immediately with the Viceroy in a manner befitting His Majesty's Commission and the honour of the British nation." Howqua and Mowqua were bowed out. They were much alarmed, for they knew from old and bitter experience that when the Barbarians misbehaved themselves, they, the unfortunate members of the Co-Hong, were always fined and ran the risk also of chains and the bamboo. However, they could get no one to listen to their pleading and protestations, and they departed trembling to report to their master.

The next day, 27 July, was very trying. Whether or not what occurred was befitting the honour of the British nation, the reader shall judge. The morning opened badly by Napier's being informed that his baggage-chests had been broken open by the customs officers, though the keys had been supplied to them. This petty annoyance was followed swiftly by two others the boatmen generally employed by the firms were withdrawn by order, and certain other employees were intimidated into deserting. Old China hands knew what such pinpricks meant: the authorities were annoyed and hinted their annoyance in their roundabout way.

The letter was now ready, and Mr. Astell, the secretary, was ordered to take it to the Petition Gate, there to hand it to a mandarin for delivery to the Viceroy. The custom of presenting a petition to the Viceroy at this gate was a very old one. It was recognized that there might be occasions when a petition could not, or should not, be sent. through the Co-Hong. But such communications were petitions, not letters, and in recent edicts it had been emphasized that only in the most exceptional circumstances should resort be had to the gate. Jardine, with whom Napier dined on the previous night, was well versed in these matters. Had he not received at the gate his nickname of the Iron-headed Old Rat? He would have told Napier of the difficulties ahead. But Napier had no option. His orders enjoined this course.