* permit such mighty interests to be regulated by merchants; an overru ling participation in the power was - demanded; a domestic board of control was established; and finally, by many further changes, of which not the least has been the gradual reduc⚫tion of the Bengal voyage from six months to three, and the organization of overland routes from Bombay in still shorter space of time, the great ■Indian colonies have long been placed under the close supervision of English domestic counsels. But that case was a splendid and a natural exception. There it was no longer a commerce, no longer a provincial factory, but a vast empire which was concerned; an empire that in many parts had resumed the throne ✓ and place Place of the Moguls-the only ■ sovereigns in the Mahometan line who have ever approached to a general sovereignty over India. The great circumstances accounted for the great change. But elsewhere things continued as they had been. At Canton especially, no symptom of an improved surveillance has been manifested. The greater distance, the lesser value at stake, explain this neglect for the present. But steam, in conjunction with railway, is rapidly annihilating the first; and circumstances, which we are now to indicate, will so vary the last, that a great revolution must now be looked for. We shall be compelled to change our system, or ruin is at hand for English interests in China. The nature of the changes to be expected, we shall briefly state. Up to the year 1785 it is not worth while to trace the little oscillations of our Canton history. It is merely the history of a counting-house, except for the interest attached to national indignities. Little real variation could take place in our relations with the Chinese court, when all trembled before a power that by one word could annihilate their prosperity, unless when some lion-hearted sailor, such as Lord (then Commodore) Anson, touched at Macao for the sake of repairs or refreshments. This gallant race of men, having no alien interests of a money nature to mislead the simplicity of their English feeling, treated the insolence of the Chinese authorities with the disdain it merited; and Lord Anson, in particular, on finding a puny opposition prepared to his passage, smashed their "crockery ware," (as he irreverently styled their forts at the Bocca,) in such a summary style, with the guns of his old storm-shaken ship the Centurion, that all the tails in Canton stood on end with horror. Frightened as the British factory was at this explosion of naval spirit, they could not hide from themselves that it succeeded for the moment, and left a useful impression behind it for a pretty long period. It was in fact the results from this demonstration of Anson's, that subsequently suggested the two embassies of the Lords Macartney and Amherst. But previously to the era even of Lord Macartney's mission, an affair of the year 1785 had put into everlasting characters of shame, had inscribed deeply upon a poor murdered victim's gravestone, what is the capacity for evil, how infinite the possible degradation under a venal spirit of moneymaking, when not counteracted and overruled by the public opinion of an honourable Christian community. The case, a memorable one for our English instruction, was this:-Either in firing a salute of honour, or on some festal occasion, a ball from one of the great guns on board an English Indiaman unfortunately killed a Chinese. Never in the history of human affairs was there a more absolute accident as respected the man who fired the gun. The man who loaded it was never discovered. But this wicked nation, who are so thoroughly demoralized as to perceive no moral difference between the purest case of misfortune terminating in a man's death and the vilest murder of premeditating malice, demanded (according to their practice) all the men to be given up who had in any way been parties to the loading, the priming, or the firing of the gun. The English factory, whose very cowardice had taken a lesson in the policy of making some resistance to monstrous demands, kicked a little at this summons. But the Chinese, being so thoroughly in the wrong, were of course thoroughly in earnest. The usual circle of remonstrances was run through by the factory; the usual insolent retorts came from the Lins of 1785; the usual steps were taken through the Hong for "closing the trade;" and then-upon that magical sesame-all scruples of honour, justice, Christian feeling, gave way at once; wide open flew English doors to the vile Chinese murderers; and, to the ever. lasting shame of poor dishonoured England, the innocent man, who had acted in obedience to absolute orders from his captain, was given up to these Canton devils, in order that they, under colour of avenging an imaginary murder, might perpetrate as real and foul a murder as human annals record. The man who had fired the gun was professionally the gunner of the vessel; and to our feeling it adds to the inhuman baseness of the surrender, that he was an elderly Portuguese, who had for many years sought by preference the service of the British flag. When the wretches came to seek him, he was on board his ship. The boat being ready, he was called to take his place in her; well he knew whither he was going, and what would be his fate. The officer was present under whose orders he had acted, yet he uttered not a murmur. He took his place modestly at a distance from the officers, and when called to take a more honourable seat by their side, again he obeyed the order. One of the captains, pitying the man's case, and admiring his meekness, humility, and fortitude, uttered some words of consolation; and other cap. tains, adding lies to their perfidy and their cowardice, assured him that not a hair of his head should be touched. But the poor Portuguese knew better -he understood the case; he knew the brutal stupidity of the Chinese, and he read his fate in the obstinacy of their pursuit. Still he murmured not; only at these delusive assurances, which added mockery to murder, he shook his head with a mournful significancy. The sequel is soon told -this humble servant of the British flag was solemnly delivered up to his assassins. Some of the better Chinese were themselves startled at the approaching tragedy; for, let it be observed, there was no deviation from the statement here made, even in credulous Canton. The Chinese version of the story differed in no iota from the English. Murmurs began to creep through that timid, servile city. The man's deportment, so humble and submissive, conciliated some pity even from the fools who thought him a criminal. It was found expedient to dispatch a courier to Pekin for further orders. In due course, the fatal mandate returned for the execution to proceed, and this poor injured man suffered on a Chinese gallows by hanging, for having fulfilled his duty on the deck of a British ship. Baseness and faint-heartedness so complicated, we willingly believe, cannot often have been repeated by British authorities even in a factory. We would even hope that the case must be unique. But it is proper that we should know what are the atrocities which, under the spirit of gain, even free-born Britons can commit, and which, under their accursed system of law, the Chinese can exact. These precedents, it will be said, belong to a past age. Certainly as regards the British share in the disgrace; but not as regards the Chinese share in the terror. The same scenes are The Chinese eternally impending. laws do do not change. It is the very expression of their improgressive state that they cannot. Centuries make no reforms in a land open to no light. That same monstrous principle, upon which a poor dependent of England was then given up to an ignominious death-the principle that, in a certain event, inevitable misfortune and malice aforethought are equally criminal, punishable equally by the death of a dog-this principle never will be abandoned. This principle has, since the year 1785, again and again brought us into terrific embarrassments; and it is idle to suppose that in a seaport, the resort of sailors from the highestspirited nation upon the earth, and liable to perpetual insults from Chinese vagabonds, any vigilance can ever close or seal up this opening to occasional manslaughters. We do not mention, as a separate evil, the liability of our people to be confounded with the Americans; from the identity of their naval costume, this must continually happen: but amongst Chinese idolaters we view the Americans as one with ourselves. They are Christiansthey have our British blood in their veins; and they have inherited from ourselves, as children of enlightened liberty, the same intolerance of wrong. It would be a petty clannish form of nationality to separate our cause from theirs. But now mark:-as yet, or at least until the last few years, this horrible Chinese degeneration of moral distinctions has operated only upon a known, distinct, and concentrated surface, upon a body of men under the eye, and partially reined up tightly by the hand, of cautious superiors. Had any other been the case, long before this the very stones in England would have mutinied for vengeance-such would have been the judicial atrocities committed by the ■ Chinese. At present all things are changing in the aspects of English colonization and of our Asiatic commerce. The mere expansion of our Indian empire, and the widening circle ■ of our Asiatic relations, would gradually multiply our shipping, our social necessities, and our points of contact with foreigners in all Eastern seas. But, - apart from India, the following im-portant changes have recently begun =to open : ■ 1st, The colonial importance of New South Wales is now annually strengthening, so much as to send off sub-de. pendencies to other parts of the same - great continent. The insular colonies of Van Diemen's will add another nucleus in the same region, which already is connecting itself, by numerous threads, with important settlements in every part of the Eastern ocean. کا 6 2dly, The infant colony of New Zealand will soon, of itself, form another and a separate nucleus in the same region of that ocean. This colony has been treated with contradictory harshness by Lord John Russell now drawing back from the most reasonable interposition of Government-now volunteering the most hostile; this day refusing the slightest expression of maternal grace from England-next day placing England, towards her own suppliant children, in the attitude of a malignant stepmother. But, for all that, New Zealand is destined to a giant's career. It is a youthful Hercules, that will throttle the snakes about its cradle. The climate, not too relaxing, the soil, the waters, the interconnexion between the noblest children of civilisation, and by very much the noblest race of savages in the world-these great advantages, combined with two others-(the first being, that a large proportion of capi talists will be concerned in this colonial edifice; and the second, that convicts will be excluded,)-compose a body of inauguration for this enterprise, which wears a promise hardly within the compass of disappointment. The long infancy of all other colonies will be spared to this; 1st, in consequence of the power and light which are now directed upon the general subject of colonization from the centres of European civilisation; 2dly, in consequence of the peculiar local endowments; and lastly, in consequence of the magical revolution in the arts of locomotion. 3dly, The missionary efforts, from Christian England, are now annually expanding their means, and organizing their forces. Were it merely through the growing knowledge of Eastern languages, this religious interest must go on at a pace liable to sudden accelerations of speed. It is in the nature of such undertakings to kindle as they advance; and, as the separate centres of radiation, begin to link on to each other, gradually interknitting as a chain of posts in active intercommunication. Our All these concurring causes will soon multiply our Oriental shipping by twenty-fold. In fact, fresh emporia, such as Singapore, have been rising of late years. Ceylon has been rising rapidly in importance. increasing intercourse with the Red Sea, (now strengthened by military stations,) will further abbreviate the intercourse between Europe and the Indian Ocean. These causes, taken by themselves, and apart from the fact that the missionaries have been applying themselves, with peculiar energy, to the vast unguarded sea-coast of China, will avail to carry into Chinese jurisdictions a score of British ships for one that has had occasion to face that danger. Occasional shipwrecks, or calls under stress of weather, will increase in the same proportion. And of this we may be assured, that opportunities for retaliation, in a twenty-fold proportion, will henceforwards offer to this ignoble people in every case where their monstrous laws may happen to be infringed. It is a subject of just alarm, that not only will the occasions for revenge be multiplied, but the chances of provoking revenge, by offending those unnatural laws, will even outrun our increased scale of intercourse. For it must never be forgotten, that the opening of the trade to China-were there no other change in operationhas, by itself, utterly deranged the old local authority of any superintendents whom the new condition of the commerce will endure. Hitherto the enterprising parties (the final controllers) capitalists-now they will be desperate adventurers. The trade, as it now stands, has succeeded to an inheritance of some ancient forms; but it has inherited no part of the ancient obedience. The obedience paid to Captain Elliot was, in all its circumstances, as different from that which once corresponded to the demands of China, as the new condition of the China seas will be from those of the eighteenth century. This obedience heretofore was compulsory-now it is prudential, and (in the literal sense of that word) precarious; for it depended upon the entreaties of Captain Elliot. Heretofore it was instant; now it followed after long deliberation. Heretofore it was unconditional; now it took the shape of a capitulation. So much obedience was sold for so much indemnification. And most undoubtedly even this form of submission would have been refused, had the quality of the indemnification been known, or its distance suspected. In future, every man will govern himself according to his separate views of Chinese policy, or his own facilities for evading it. But, amongst these facilities, the most tempting will be the unprotected state of the Chinese coast as regards the coercion of smuggling. With the inefficacy of Chinese administration will grow the cruelty of Chinese revenge, in order that vengeance may redress the weakness of foresight, and barbarous punishments make up for defective precautions. This people, who are bestial enough to think the will and the intention no necessary element in the moral quality of an act, are also savage enough to punish vicariously. A smuggler will be caught and impaled within sight of his ship: his comrades, by way of furious revenge, will land, will burn a dozen or two of villages, and massacre the flying inhabitants. These particular criminals will probably escape. But the ship that goes next on shore in China, will meet the full storm of Chinese vengeance. And, if some colonial ship freighted with emigrants, or some packet with passengers, should be driven out of her course, and touch at a Chinese port, as sure as we live some horrid record will convulse us all with the intelligence that our brave countrymen, our gentle country women, and their innocent children, have been have been cautious and intelligent subjected to the torture by this accursed state. No: it is vain to dissemble. Even without the irritations of contraband trade, and without the extension of our Eastern intercourse now opening before us, it is too certain that the humiliation and the national crime of 1785 will revolve upon us. Many times we have been on the brink of the same tragedy. And, knowing those facts, it is scarcely to be forgiven that our Government should not long ago have taken steps in a most decided way to place our relations with this immoral state upon a footing of European security. Things have at last taken a turn which, on other grounds, has induced our Government to meditate an armed negotiation with China. Now, therefore, it will be most important to combine this ancient and lasting purpose of security with the accidental purposes of the moment; and, whilst healing a present wound of our own infliction, (for the indemnity we are seeking corresponds to a surrender volunteered by ourselves,) to obtain a lasting guarantee, once and for ever, against far worse wounds to character, as well as property, which have continually impended over our Canton connexion. Let us now consider in what way this great object can be compassed; and how it may be possible to extract from an ill-advised rupture, not merely a satisfaction for the momentary grievance, but such concessions in regard to our permanent perils, as may reconcile us all to the rashness of Captain Elliot, and may turn the opium loss (were that even past retrieval) into a mere pepper-corn rent for the very amplest condition of commercial privilege. What we want with Oriental powers like China, incapable of a true civilisation, semi-refined in manners and mechanic arts, but incurably savage in the moral sense, is a full explanation of our meaning under an adequate demonstration of our power. We have never obtained either the one or the other. Our two embassies were faithfully executed, but erroneously planned. To pause at the outset upon what may be thought a trifle, but is really no trifle in dealing with Oriental princes, even the presents in those embassies were not childishly, so much as ruinously selected. Certain departments of public business have immemorially been conducted as jobs in Great Britain: for instance, the building of palaces, and the regulation of national presents. The first, instead of being confided to a national superintendence, has constantly settled upon the individual caprice of the existing prince; which caprice taking every variety of direction, it has naturally followed, that more money has been spent in merely undoing and pulling down walls, than availed in France to build the Louvre, the Tuileries, and Versailles; and with this final result, -that, excepting Windsor, we have no palace worthy of the nation. The same hole-and-corner influence has mismanaged the department of presents. For no reason upon earth, beyond an old precedent, thousand-guinea diamond boxes were at one time given to a variety of people on every occasion of signing a treaty: and, in Mr Canning's brief administration, when that minister was questioned about them, it actually came out that no person was officially responsible for the boxes being worth any thing approaching to the price paid by the nation. In another case, and a very important one-viz. the Algerine presents-we have the evidence of a most respectable consul, Mr Broughton, who made large personal sacrifices for the British honour, that blunders the most childish were committed-blunders interpreted as insults. Had an old frigate, or even a corvette, of which so many were going to decay "in ordinary," been sent to the Dey, the present would have been received thankfully as a royal one: instead of which an assortment of bijouterie was offered, by which the Dey thought himself mocked. The diamond-box concern had interfered as usual. A musical snuff-box, valued to the nation at five hundred guineas, was scornfully tossed by the Dey to his cook; and the only article which he thought worthy of himself was a brace of finely finished pistols, which probably had not cost above fifty guineas. Thus highly does the nation pay to found a lasting sense of injury in the minds of foreign princes. As respected China the matter was worse. Amongst the presents assorted for the Celestial Emperor was actually a complex apparatus, (suited to the bedchamber of an invalid,) which NO. CCXCVI, VOL. XLVII. cannot be mentioned with decorum. Oriental princes will not believe that the sovereign, who is nominally the presenter of such offerings, has not a personal cognizance of the affront. In their own establishments every trifle of this nature is duly reported and discussed, as one means of relieving the dire monotony which besieges the sensual lives of the East. And, besides, not to have had cognizance of what concerned a brother potentate, is already an affront. That preliminary being first of all settled, which requires great tact in the case of China, from the jealousy with which they regard our superiority in the mechanic arts, and their entire incapacity for the liberal arts, a project is suggested by our present exigencies which has slightly been entertained in former times. It is now certain that we must have some sort of military expedition against China. It is also certain that we can never have full explanations exchanged, or the basis of any treaty laid, without a solemn diplomatic congress between the two nations. What if the two appeals were combined? Embassies have failed in the East, partly because, speaking from no apparent station of power, and appealing to no previous knowledge of our European rank, they could not command the requisite attention and respect. On the other hand, a warlike invasion is too openly an expression of coercion to found a settlement that will last. But what if the feelings of an arrogant state were so far consulted as to allow her some colourable varnish for wounded vanity? What if, instead of a negotiating army, we were to send an armed negotiator? Instead of an army with an ambassador in its rear, an ambassador followed by an army for his train? Such retinues are not unknown in many Eastern lands. A column. of 14,000 men, with a suitable train of artillery, it is understood to be the opinion of military men, would easily march to Pekin, if landed at the nearest point. One person, indeed, assures us that we underrate the Chinese Tartar troops: an experienced native, it seems, of Nepaul, had told him, "that the Chinese scymetar cuts deeply." Now, if this officer confined his remark literally to the swords, (and not using the word as a general symbol for martial power,) there is no doubt ; 3 A |