restoration of their country. Their literature is more intimately connected with the history of their incessant political struggles than is the case with any other nation; it is a most potent weapon, which they now understand how to use. The time may yet come when the following passage shall have ample realization, though not designed for them, even on earth, as it assuredly will in Heaven" In that time shall the present be brought unto the Lord of Hosts of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, the mount Zion."Isaiah, xviii. v. 7. ART. IX.-1. Canton Register, July to December, 1839. 2. The Chinese vindicated, or another View of the Opium Question, being in Reply to a Pamphlet by Samuel Warren, Esq. Barrister at Law in the Middle Temple. By Captain T. H. Bullock, H. H. the Nizam's Army. London: Allen and Co. 1840. 3. The Opium Question. By Samuel Warren, Esq. F.R.S. of the Inner Temple, Barrister at Law. 4th edition. London: Ridgway. 1840. 4. The Opium Question as between Nation and Nation. Barrister at Law. London: Bain. 1840. By a 5. Brief Observations respecting the pending Disputes with the Chinese, and a Proposal to bring them to a satisfactory Conclusion. London: Ridgway. 1840. 6. Is the War with China a just one? By H. Hamilton Lindsay, late of the Honourable East India Company's Service in China. 2d edition. London: Ridgway. 1840. THE age of wonders in every period, we presume, has been the time of the historians of that epoch; but still we think there are strong probabilities in favour of this estimate not being very far remote from the truth with respect to our own. Inventions, unquestionably of the most singular character, mark it beyond all others, as in this respect surpassing; and of historical events certainly one may be adduced, "sui generis," War with China. For more than 200 years matters had remained in the "status quo," when the great movement party in this country considered the Celestials had enjoyed quiet enough, and immediately proceeded to set three hundred millions by the ears, and it will be more by luck than wit if it does not discover what it is to catch a Tartar. It has been our endeavour, in a previous paper, to set the Opium Question in a proper light before the country, and we shall now proceed to show that far larger interests are becoming involved, and that matters are now assuming an aspect of alarm that few but the foolhardy and reckless men that sway the present fortunes of this state can regard without concern. True courage consists not, in our notion, in the mere deprivation of the sense of fear, but in the knowledge and appreciation of difficulties, and in manning the spirit to meet them. Herce Antar and the heroes in Homer vary strongly in their character. The Bedouin we see without fear, and he loses interest, for we always anticipate the sequel; but in the Grecian warriors we find the appreciation of danger and the resolve to dare it. In the one it is animal impulse, in the other high-souled feeling. The appreciation of danger, then, is perfectly consistent with the highest element of courage; and courage unconnected with this feeling may be compared to the Malay, who is prepared with blind fury" to run a muck" at all he meets, and who becomes proportionately valueless since he cannot be directed against the right object. Before these lines are read we shall have war proclaimed by our valiant governorgeneral against the Chinese Empire, though he has quite enough to do with India, for any power he possesses to manage it. This proclamation will, probably, at no remote period, array against us in India and China 500 millions, together with Mahomet Ali, Dost Mahomet, and the Schah of Persia. Pretty well for Asia. Let us look then into the origin of the Chinese affair, the Opium Question. Unhappy England! "Poppy nor mandragora, Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, Opium had netted to the Indian government, on the showing of the Bombay merchants themselves, during twenty years past from 1839 from half a million sterling annually, until latterly it had attained to two millions sterling per annum, Of course China had the benefit of this, and the Emperor of the Celestials found all his subjects nodding in whatever direction he moved, and was even smoked out of his own imperial palace. His people seemed to be plunged in one all absorbing lethargy, and the Celestials were fast abjuring their allegiance to him for the victorious Somnus. Half measures Celestials never deal in, and Tang, governor of the two Kwang provinces in which Canton is situated, President of the Board of War, was ordered to make war on the opium eaters. The said Tang executed the Son of Heaven's orders most effectually, as the following sentences from his proclamation will, we think, prove. "For the seller of opium, if he do not quickly forsake his vile calling, decapitation will follow conviction. For the smoker of opium, if he do not quickly renounce the habit, there will be little chance of escape from strangulation." Now, however tight these enactments may seem to draw the line, they still were confined to the Chinese alone, capitally in the first instance. The Emperor was perfectly right in making such enactments, and no doubt had read Vattel or some equally profound writer, since the policy of the Chinese has for ages proceeded on the principle of making all foreigners bow to the influence of their own country. We say no doubt he had read Vattel, because he clearly conceives that what he says to one he says to all. Now Vattel says as follows :— "Even in the countries where every stranger freely enters, the sovereign is supposed to allow him access only upon this tacit condition, that he be subject to the laws; I mean the general laws made to maintain good order, and which have no relation to the title of citizen, or of subject of the state. The public safety, the rights of the nation, and of the prince, necessarily require this condition, and the stranger tacitly submits to it, as soon as he enters the country, as he cannot presume upon having access upon any other footing. The empire has the right of command in the whole country, and the laws are not confined to regulating the conduct of the citizens among themselves, but they determine what ought to be observed by all orders of people throughout the whole extent of the state. In virtue of this submission, the strangers who commit a fault ought to be punished according to the laws of the country."-Book ii. c. 8. Still as foreigners are rather slow at understanding anything against their interest, and our own countrymen have a sort of independent feeling peculiar to Caucasian tribes, of making up their mind to act in every country as if they were the rulers, and not the ruled, these edicts were not obeyed. They had not studied Vattel, or were determined not to study anything opposed to their interest. The Emperor, commiserating their ignorance, decreed that in foreigners the first offence should be visited with perpetual banishment, the second with death. An American house, Messrs. Olyphant, announced their instant intention to comply with this regulation. This was on the 20th July last. As a matter of policy this was possibly quite right, but on the general feeling among merchants it would appear equally wrong. It certainly was meanspirited, and the house merely resorted to it to obtain exclusive dealings with the Chinese. Captain Elliot and the English merchants refused to sign any bond to this effect. Their expulsion from Macao immediately followed, and they had previously vacated Canton. This took effect on the 26th August. The proceedings that led to the secession of the merchants from Canton were of the following character. On the 26th February a native dealer in opium was found guilty and sentenced to be strangled. The place of execution selected was opposite the English factory. The same sentence had been attempted to be carried into execution in the previous year at the same spot, and had been frustrated with respect to the locality, but not with regard to the unhappy culprit. On this second occasion the hint was too palpable to be mistaken, and with strong protest on the part of the merchants the execution took place in the offensive spot, which certainly must have been rather unpleasant both in conscience and causality to our countrymen. Captain Elliot protested strongly against the spot selected for this purpose. At this unfortunate period, two boats passed the Custom House without submitting to the regulations made by our own commissioner, and only excused themselves on the ground of its being dark when they passed the Bogue. They might have stated their dark dealings, for they carried opium probably. At this juncture a new commissioner, Lin, arrived at Canton, with extraordinary powers. His edict, on arrival, stated what is perfectly true, that China does not go to the rest of the world for productions, but that the rest of the world comes to her. It demanded the delivery of every particle of opium in the ships. There can be no question raised, we apprehend, as to the right of any government to seize on a contraband article warehoused in its ports, but the Chinese went further, and demanded all in the ships. We think them right also in this view, since the seas of China and ports are as much under the laws of the country as the land. We therefore attach small force to objections from the extent of the seizure, and to arguments in favour of indemnity from that circumstance. The Chinese government further proceeded to denounce punishment to the same effect as we have seen in the proclamation of the Governor of Canton, Tang. One sentence as a specimen of Chinese political economy we think ought not to be lost sight of by our government. "You who have travelled so far to conduct your commercial business, how is that you are not yet alive to the great difference between the condition of vigorous exertion and that of vigorous repose-the wide difference between the power of the few and the many." The day after the publication of this edict, the Governor of Canton issued a notice that, "During the stay of the commissioner in Canton, and while the consequences of his investigation, both as to foreigners and natives, are yet uncertain, all foreign residents are forbidden to go to Macao." The immediate effect of this notice, with the announcement of Commissioner Lin, was, that the Hong merchants persuaded the Chamber of Commerce to give up 1073 chests of opium. The notice of detention of British subjects at Canton immediately induced Captain Elliot, with great gallantry, but with still greater indiscretion, to come to Canton, by which step he only placed our chief commissioner as a "detenu."* The merchants thanked him for his conduct at a later period, and they had excellent reasons for so doing, but though we can conceive they had cause to be pleased with him, yet the fact of the highest British authority at Canton being a prisoner did not raise us in the eyes of the Chinese. A demonstration which seems so much the rage had not been ill placed at this moment. He published an extremely injudicious proclamation, alluding to the execution of the Chinese in front of the factory, their warlike preparations, and the regulations respecting the detention of foreigners. The last was the only subject on which he ought to have touched. He remained protesting uselessly, unheard and unheeded. Arrangements were then entered into for delivering up the opium, and on the 5th May the passage from Canton became again open, except for fourteen merchants, who remained hostages for the fulfilment of the treaty. On the 4th May, Captain Elliot proclaimed that he had determined to remove her majesty's factory from Canton, and requested the merchants to make the necessary preparations. On the 24th May he quitted, but not with the entire factory. On the 31st May an imperial edict from Peking directed that the opium should be destroyed, and it was so, though well worth 20,000,000 dollars. The conduct of the emperor in sacrificing for the good of his subjects so valuable a possession, needs no comment: it shows unquestionably he was in earnest, though it is still asserted that he is not. We now proceed to detail the events that led to the expulsion from Macao. Captain Elliot continued to remain at Macao, without much variation of incidents, until the 7th July, when unhappily a party of sailors from the Carnatic and the Mangalore went on shore, and it appears, on our own showing, acted as sailors often do, heedlessly, but on this occasion even worse, for in an affray that ensued a Chinese named Lin-wei-he was killed. The Chinese laid the dead body on the beach, abreast the shipping, where it He was imprisoned seven weeks, with armed men parading day and night before his gates, and threatened with the privation of food, water, and life, it is said, but we cannot substantiate these latter points. |