site shore, part of a village had been inundated. They still went on encroaching, till the good-natured viceroy, whose patience was enduring enough, went for a time into the country, and was succeeded by a deputy-governor of a temperament very different from that of his principal. This officer went down to the factory with a body of men, and then and there abated the nuisance, but took care to leave every bit of wood and stone, plank and other materials, in and on the premises of the factory. What then did the committee do? They sent the factory keys to the Foo-Yuen, who refused to receive them-they published a notice in the name of the Representatives of the British Nation in China,' in the Chinese language, and posted it in conspicuous places in Canton,' intimating that, should the evil complained of remain unremoved, all commercial intercourse between the two countries would be suspended on the 1st August.'

The Canton authorities appear to have treated all these proceedings with profound indifference; but the Foo-Yuen had taken his measures: he had represented their conduct to Pekin, and the result was an imperial edict, containing eight regulations, which the supercargoes call new, but which their masters, the Court of Directors, tell them are little more than a repetition of those enacted at former periods. The subjects of them were, 1. Leaving Canton at the end of the season. 2. Prohibition of Chinese to lend money to foreigners. 3 and 4. Prohibition of foreigners employing Chinese servants, &c. 5 and 6. Prohibiting females and sailors, and black demon slaves,'-also guns and musketsfrom being brought to Canton. 7. Captains of ships to carry a flag in sampan boats. 8. Provides for addresses and appeals both through Hong merchants and at the city gates,

After all that had happened,-we think any impartial person would see, in these regulations, the moderation of the Chinese government; and so it appears the directors thought, for in their despatch they observe

The aggression of the Foo-Yuen was characteristic of his nation, and had the works which he destroyed been originally carried on under the sanction of the local authorities at Canton, his conduct would have afforded a strong ground for remonstrance; but when it is clearly shown that the works were begun without authority; that when part only was sanctioned, the whole was carried forward, and the edicts and proclamations pointedly prohibiting the measures were treated with contempt, it cannot be matter of astonishment that the local government of a city, in the vicinity in which you reside solely for the purposes of trade, (not under any defined treaty, but by sufferance only,) and which government has the means of retaliation in its own hands, should, after the repeated instances in which its authority was set at defiance, and very probably instigated by the imperial

edict (which arrived at Canton on the day of the outrage) confirming the new regulations, have acted in the peremptory manner adopted by the Foo-Yuen on this occasion.'-Papers on Affairs of E. I. Company,

1831-2.

Mr. Marjoribanks, however, thinks differently; and though resistance to lawful authority, where not a shadow of claim can be in any shape supported, has hitherto produced nothing but defeat and disappointment, he advises Mr. Grant to insist upon demands that are utterly incompatible with our situation in China; and, if not conceded, to proceed instanter to acts of direct hostility.

Let commissioners be sent, accompanied by a part of the naval squadron in India; for, to command the slightest attention or respect. in China, you must appear with an appropriate force; let your requisitions be such as you are justified in making, and be prepared to insist upon them if refused. This may be readily done by occupying, should you be compelled to it, one of the numerous islands in the Canton river, and, if necessary, seizing the forts which command its entrance. They have no force, either military or naval, to oppose to you, that is not contemptible. Under such circumstances I feel satisfied your demands would be granted in a very brief period.'-Letter, p. 53.

This charitable advice of letting loose the strong to oppress the weak, so conformable with the Christian precept of doing to others as we would have others do to us,-this humane measure, founded on the unerring principles of justice,—is recommended to the moral, religious, and high-minded President of the Board of Control!—and it is thus followed up in the same strain:

เ

The best of all embassies to them are occasional visits of our ships of war, whose officers can readily explain the object of our merchants, and, when necessary, be prepared to defend them against violence and outrage. Lord Nelson well and sagaciously observed, that a British admiral was the best of all ambassadors, for he settled in a few hours what it took more accomplished diplomatists weeks and months to effect. The diplomacy which he recommended will alone prove successful in China and the countries which surround it. Yet we are gravely told by some persons-you must, if you will go to these countries, accommodate yourselves to their customs and laws. In Siam, for instance, the monarch has three hundred wives, the first dignitary of the state is a white elephant, the second minister in rank is a white monkey. Are we to select our future representatives at the court of Siam from the Zoological Gardens, or the waggons of Mr. Polito's menagerie ?'-Letter, p. 62.

Pass we by this clumsy attempt to be facetious, which is sadly out of place in juxta-position with advice so reprehensible, and addressed to such a quarter. A British admiral!-why the only one that was ever sent to China was Admiral Drury, who was foiled in his diplomacy, and beaten back in his boats. Mr. Marjoribanks

Marjoribanks had told the Committee of 1830, that he found the Chinese would have nothing to say to admirals, captains, or king's officers-of course his present advice is that their negociations should be conducted solely by the voice of their cannon. We are well assured that M. Grant will prefer listening to the arguments of the court of directors :

To attempt to maintain a purely commercial intercourse such as that with China, by force of arms, would, in a pecuniary point of view, be any thing rather than a matter of profit, even if justice and humanity could allow us for a moment seriously to contemplate such a step. We cannot in fairness deny to China the right which our own nation exercises as she sees fit, either by prohibiting, restraining, or subjecting to certain laws and regulations its commercial dealings with other countries. China must be considered free in the exercise of her affairs, without being accountable to any other nation; and it must be remembered that she has rejected every effort made by us, as well as by almost every other European state, to form a commercial intercourse with her upon those principles which govern commercial relations with other countries.'-Papers on Affairs of E. I. Company, 1831-2.

But Mr. Marjoribanks is almost always at variance with himself; to prove this, it is not necessary to compare the evidence he gave before the committee in 1830 with his Letter' of 1833: we need not take any retrospect; the Letter' contains within itself abundant proof, that he is constantly differing from himself; that he writes at random, and without any fixed principle: take, for instance, where he tells Mr. Grant, that it ought to be the great end and object of the Board over which he presides,' to mitigate and remove the deep and distrustful apprehension of the Chinese, and then thus instructs him how to set about it:

This will not be done by pursuing a system of wretched subserviency to a corrupt and despotic government; but by acting in strict accordance with those sound principles of national honour which we apply to our intercourse with most other nations, but which, for some ill-defined reason, we have never yet adopted for the regulation of our connexion, either political or commercial, with China.'-Letter, p. 4. To enforce this principle, the following passage is no doubt added:

It may safely be asserted, that there is no officer of the Canton government whose hands are clean, or who is not at all times ready to infringe the law which it is his nominal duty to uphold. Is it possible, let me ask, to apply the principles which regulate our international intercourse with the nations of civilized Europe, to a government constituted as this is? Yet we see it constantly attempted, and by sensible men too, both in and out of parliament.'-Letter, p. 14. And so, the thing being impossible, he kindly advises Mr. Grant, in the succeeding paragraph, not to attempt it; but why the Chi

nese

nese should be put out of the pale of nations, because they prefer white to black, and honour the left hand more than the right, we do not exactly see. We admit that the worshipping the devil, charged against them, would be very naughty were it true, but that we have reason to believe it is not.

It is much to be desired that, in any future arrangements with respect to China, you will not attempt to force indiscriminately into application those principles which regulate our commercial transactions with other countries. China may, in many respects, be said to stand alone among the nations; not only differing, but, in many instances, diametrically opposed, in the nature of its laws, customs, and institutions. A Chinese, when he goes into mourning, puts on white; the left hand they consider the place of honour; they think it an act of unbecoming familiarity to uncover the head; their mariner's compass they assert points to the south; the stomach they declare to be the seat of the understanding;' (Mr. Marjoribanks might have remembered that one Matthew Prior was of the same opinion;) and the chief god of their idolatry is the devil.'-Letter, p. 50.

Happy Mr. Grant! how much you ought to rejoice in having so pious and abstemious a Mentor, whose twenty years' experience has enabled him so clearly to discriminate the possible from the impossible, and to lay down principles so diametrically opposite to each other, but which must nevertheless govern your conduct in the very ticklish business, that is about to fall to your lot to manage!

A large portion of the Letter' is employed in ridiculing the absurdity of sending king's ambassadors to Pekin, and particularly the expedition of Lord Amherst, who, with his commissioners, we are told, (what may or may not have happened, but it is, at all events, quite new to us,) were fed in a stable-yard out of buckets usually employed in giving food to animals;' the Chinese considering, he adds, an ambassador in no other light than as a tribute-bearer. All this, we say, may be true; and yet in his evidence before the committee Mr. Marjoribanks says, I conceive that our character has been raised in public estimation in China by the conduct of Lord Amherst's embassy.' And so it was; and we can tell him why -it was through the firm and determined resistance of Sir George Staunton to the threatening and afterwards insidious attempts of the emperor's ministers to prevail on them to fall down and worship -not merely the Great Baal himself, but his representative in the shape of a yellow skreen; and thus saving the British name and character from disgrace, which a compliance would have entailed upon them. That it would have incurred disgrace, we have the authority of Mr. Marjoribanks, who tells Mr. Grant another particular that may or may not be true: viz., after attempted

tempted intimidation had failed, Lord Amherst, strongly urged by Mr. Ellis, the third commissioner communicated, I lament to state, to Sir George Staunton, that he had made up his mind to perform the Ko-tou, unless he were prepared to say that his doing so would be injurious to the interests of the East India Company.' Lord Amherst, however, we must say, was not altogether so blameable, as has been supposed, in exhibiting to the Chinese as waver ing conduct, when called on to decide. He had instructions from the secretary of state, says Mr. Marjoribanks, to abide by the precedent of Lord Macartney;' but, in subsequent instructions he was told he might deviate from that precedent, if any of the important objects of the embassy were likely to be obtained by his doing so;' and it was said, he continues, China is some sixteen thousand miles off; it is a semi-barbarous country; these are mere idle ceremonies, unworthy of being contested with an uncivilized people.' We do not believe that any such thing was said or written; but we happen to know how Lord Amherst's hesitation was occasioned. Lord Buckinghamshire, then at the head of the Board of Control, consulted a gentleman who had been in Lord Macartney's embassy, as to what should be said in his letter to the emperor, The advice given was this: Tell the emperor of China that the king of England has sent his trusty and well-beloved cousin to his presence, with suitable presents, and with strict orders to appear before him, in all respects with regard to ceremonial, and all public marks of homage and obeisance, as he is accustomed to do before his own sovereign.' This would have, at least, saved our embassy from the impertinence of Duke Ho, as Lord Amherst quaintly styles him, and his followers. Obedience to the commands of their sovereign is, with them, the first of duties, and the Chinese are reasonable enough not to exact, from the subjects of another sovereign, disobedience to his commands. But an evil genius interposed in the shape for once of Mr. George Rose, who denounced the advice as nonsense, and issued the following decree 'leave Lord Amherst to his discretion, and let him perform the Ko-fou or not, according as he may profit by the one or the other.' Thus was Lord Amherst thrown upon the wide sea of discretion; but he had a steady pilot in Sir George Staunton, a gentleman who, with great milduess, urbanity, and benevolence of disposition, unites an independence and firmness of character, not to be shaken by personal threats, to which he specially was subjected on this occasion; and by his skill and decision the ambassador's bark escaped from foundering on the rocks of degradation. The reprehensible advice which is repeated more than once in the Letter' to the President of the Board of Control is also, we are sorry, but not much surprised to see, urged in evidence before