Captain Elliot and the Founding of Hong Kong Read online

  In mid-July 1834 Andromache approached Macao. Charles Elliot had had a long time, too long a time, in which to dwell on his present situation, his career prospects, and his family’s future. His ponderings now came to a swift end, as the Napier and Elliot families stepped ashore. Clara Elliot wrote to her sister-in-law that ‘There was an immediate scramble of people to stare at the King’s mandarin as Lord Napier is designated. We were carried in chairs (most delightful conveyance) to the late Chief’s house, Mr Davis who is now our 2nd superintendent.’15 The Elliots had to wait several weeks in lodgings before moving into a modest house made available to them by the East India Company rent-free until the following May. ‘I wish with all my heart’, Clara wrote, ‘it was for a longer period, but many things may happen by that time.’16

  Meanwhile, Napier wasted no time in setting the Commission’s work in train. His brief had been delivered to him in the final weeks before his departure from England in the form of his formal Commission from the King, a subsequent letter from the Foreign Secretary, Palmerston, private advice from Palmerston, and a letter from the Prime Minister, Earl Grey. Even if all parties had been conveying the same message and the Foreign Secretary’s instructions had been consistent in themselves, there would doubtless have been differences of tone and emphasis in these several communications which would have caused Napier some uncertainty. As it was, Napier’s task as set out by his superiors was impossible to fulfil. He was to protect the interests of the British merchant community at Canton; to attempt – as had Macartney and Amherst before him – to establish regular diplomatic relations with China; to explore the possibility of increasing the number of Chinese ports at which the British could trade; to proceed directly to Canton and become resident there; and to announce his arrival at Canton by sending a letter notifying the Viceroy accordingly. These orders were at least clear; what made their execution inoperable without confusion were simultaneous instructions not to enter into new and unusual arrangements with the Chinese and to conform to the laws and usages of China. Diplomatic relations and trade expansion could not be considered other than new arrangements, and according to the laws and usages of China you could not enter Canton without a permit, let alone live there, nor did you communicate with the Viceroy except through the guild of Chinese merchants, the Co-Hong.

  To these conflicting instructions were added, as if to emphasise a British view that they really could have their cake and eat it, the approach to be taken to illegal trading along the coast (the word opium, with disingenuous coyness, was not used). Palmerston wrote:

  Peculiar caution will be necessary … with regard to such ships as may attempt to explore the coast of China for purposes of traffic. It is not desirable that you should encourage such adventures, but you must never lose sight of the fact that you have no authority to interfere with, or to prevent, them.17

  Palmerston’s equivocation on the China question was partly a consequence of his preoccupation with foreign affairs in Europe and the Middle East; China was simply nowhere near the top of his agenda, and while there might come a time at which it would need closer attention, that was for the future. His apparent indecisiveness also reflected the absence of any current crisis; that there was a question at all was the result of the British decision to change arrangements, with the ending of the Company’s monopoly, for trading on the China coast. So far as Palmerston was concerned the issue would be resolved with the Chinese authorities in a manner and on a timescale of British choosing.

  From the Prime Minister the message was clearer. Recognising the problems inherent in communication with so distant a country, and perhaps particularly conscious of the fraught recent history of dealing with China, Grey had written to Napier before his departure:

  You are aware of the jealous and suspicious character of the Chinese people and government. Nothing must be done to shock their prejudices and excite their fears. The utmost forbearance therefore will be required in any point of difference that may arise, and prove injurious to our commercial relations with that country. Persuasion and Con-ciliation should be the means employed, rather than anything approaching to the tone of hostile and menacing language; and I should rather recommend where persuasion and conciliation failed, a submission for a time or till instructions could be received from home, than a vigorous enforcement of demands no matter how just.18

  Napier had little choice but to accept this instruction, but the strategy was not in line with his own thinking. During the voyage he studied the background and context of which he thought he would need to be aware for his task, and concluded that the policy of the Company – both the Directors in London and its officers in Canton – had resulted in exploitation by the Chinese, especially by local officials for personal gain:

  it is evident throughout that the Select Committee [responsible for the Company’s affairs in Canton] have in many instances acted with great indiscretion, making threats and menaces when they had not the power of carrying them into execution, by which they always lost their point.

  The Chinese no doubt have acted from first to last on principles the most arbitrary and vexatious. It would lead one to suppose that the Viceroys and Hoppos were only appointed to make their fortunes at the expense of the Foreign Merchants, and then retire. It is equally clear that if the British are determined to trade on fair principles, they must use force, not menace it…. The trade is too valuable to them to be relinquished by China.19

  Napier’s view was based on an analysis of previous Anglo-Chinese encounters, which he thought proved conclusively that only a robust approach would be effective. Elaborating his thinking in a later letter to Grey, Napier was more specific, proposing the sending of a small force (a large one would not be needed) to China the following year with the southwest monsoon. Its task would be to take possession of the island of Hong Kong. This place, he thought, with its deep water natural harbour and location near the mouth of the Pearl River, would make an excellent base from which the British could develop the China trade.20

  The ‘country traders’, of whom William Jardine and James Matheson were among the most prominent, were dismissive of both the former regime – the Company – and the arrangements intended to replace it. They wanted a firm line, but considered that they themselves were best placed to judge what form it should take. Jardine, for one, was personally very clear what was required, but reflected the uncertainty, if not apprehension, of the merchant communities on both sides when he wrote home to a colleague in June 1834 that:

  The appointment of Lord Napier … has created a sensation here [in Canton] and in Macao…. The authorities here have not yet made up their minds as to the reception to be given to the Superintendent. They are waiting with much anxiety and much will depend on his own conduct. They will probably send the Hong Merchants to him in the first instance, to whom, I trust, he will behave with great courtesy but not permit them to say a word on business. A reference will then be made to Peking by the Viceroy and others; and, should this be the case, the First Superintendent should order the Frigate he comes out in to prepare for a trip to the Yellow Sea and proceed to the Imperial Palace there to state our grievances to the Son of Heaven himself and demand redress. If this is done in good manly style I will answer for the consequences. It may do good but cannot do harm.21

  Unrealistic though it was to entertain the idea of an approach to the Emperor, Jardine was nevertheless setting out his desire for forthright action. The Superintendent could achieve something, Jardine thought, if he focussed on demonstrating British power, especially sea power, to the Chinese; but he should not attempt to interfere with the activities of the British traders.

  The Chinese view of possible developments was of course entirely different. The Co-Hong and local officials in Canton had been content with the trading arrangements hitherto, unsurprisingly since they had been established on Chinese authority and, despite their restrictions, had been adhered to by the foreigners. If the red-haired barbarians wished to seek to change
them they were entitled to do so, but such a move should be a matter of communication with the Chinese according to established conventions and procedures. It was nevertheless also clear to the Chinese that they would now have to adopt a different approach with the foreigners because their new Superintendent was not a merchant, but a senior official. New instruction would be needed from Beijing as to how to deal with this new barbarian head man. A message from the Viceroy, Lu Kun, explaining this situation was accordingly conveyed to Macao by the two leading Hong merchants, Howqua and Mowqua, for Lord Napier’s attention. The message informed the Superintendent by edict that he should remain at Macao until further notice, but Napier’s confident eagerness to get on with things had already prompted him to leave earlier in HMS Andromache for Canton, arriving there on 25 July. Not having received Viceroy Lu’s edict, Napier sent a letter to Lu requesting a meeting with him. The letter was peremptorily returned unread; and so began the sequence of abortive exchanges which afterwards came to be known as the Napier ‘fizzle’.

  Lord Napier had sailed for Canton with all members of his Commission, including the Second and Third Superintendents, the Secretary/Treasurer (John Harvey Astell), the missionary Robert Morrison, who acted as interpreter, and Charles Elliot as Master Attendant. His response to the rebuff from the Viceroy was to refuse to accept the first or any subsequent edicts, though their contents were made known to him via intermediaries. From the New English Factory, one of thirteen premises on the Canton waterfront at which the merchants of European nations and America were permitted to carry on their business between September and February each year, the Barbarian Eye (as Napier was suspiciously called by his Chinese hosts) opined in a letter to Palmerston that there would be no progress with his mission unless the Emperor of China and his subjects were disabused of the belief that other nations, including England, were mere tributaries.22,23 Napier was also aware that Chinese officialdom regarded trade, especially with foreigners of whose products China had no need, as relatively unimportant. He informed Palmerston of the Viceroy’s explanation that ‘The Celestial Empire appoints officers – civil ones to rule the people, military ones to intimidate the wicked. The petty affairs of commerce are to be directed by the merchants themselves’.24 The merchants of the Co-Hong, who were accountable to the mandarins for the conduct of the foreigners and who were vulnerable to heavy fines or worse if the barbarians misbehaved, did their best to persuade Napier to return to Macao as Lu had ordered, but without success.

  The Hong merchants issued a notice suspending trade, more to demonstrate to the mandarins that they were doing their best to pressurise the foreigners than with any serious intent to disrupt, trade being particularly slack at that time. The suspension was nevertheless a shot across the bows for Napier, who despite the lack of clarity in the instructions he had been given never lost sight of his main responsibility for the protection of British trade in China. He was also realistic about political and commercial pressures at home, writing to Grey that,

  if after a fair trial of all justifiable means I find the merchants likely to suffer, I must retire to Macao, rather than bring the cities of London, Liverpool and Glasgow upon your Lordship’s shoulders; many of whose merchants care not one straw about the dignity of the Crown or the presence of a Superintendent.25

  In what proved to be the last official gesture towards resolution of the impasse the Viceroy cancelled the suspension, casting Napier as a man doing his country a disservice: ‘the tea, the rhubarb, the raw silk of the inner dominions are the sources by which the said nations’ people live and maintain life. For the fault of one man, Lord Napier, must the livelihood of the whole nation be precipitately cut off?’26 Though British dependence on rhubarb was probably overstated by Lu, and his observation no more than yet another indication of the Celestial Empire’s continuing view of barbarian inadequacy, he was trying to avert open hostility. The Hong merchants, too, sought to isolate Napier by inviting the English traders to a meeting from which he was to be excluded. It never took place; Napier had rallied the British by hastily forming them into a Chamber of Commerce, one of whose first acts was to decline the Co-Hong’s invitation.

  Buoyed up and confident that he now held the initiative, Napier’s next move was to prepare for publication to the people of Canton a broadsheet setting out his own version of events and the current situation. Its main purpose was to demonstrate to the ordinary Chinese populace, for whom Napier professed some regard, how unreasonably and ineptly their officials were behaving and how little they had at heart the interests of the population as a whole.27 The promulgation of the broadsheet was the last straw for Viceroy Lu, who saw it for what it was, a blatant attempt to stir up popular feeling against himself and his colleagues. On 2 September it was decreed that all trade would cease until Napier left Canton. Chinese militia surrounded the factories and there was a mass exodus of servants from the foreigners’ living quarters.

  At the Bogue Andromache had been joined by HMS Imogene, also a 28-gun frigate, which was due to replace her in China waters. The besieged Napier now issued orders, stealthily conveyed via a merchant schooner, for the two warships to sail upriver towards Canton. They began their short voyage when weather permitted on 7 September, with the former East India Company cutter Louisa close astern. Fired on almost immediately first by war junks and then by the batteries of the forts on each side of the Bogue, the frigates tacked up the channel returning fire, their manoeuvrability enabling them gradually to progress relatively unharmed past the fixed-position cannon of the forts. (The story is told that Charles Elliot followed in the cutter Louisa, sitting under an umbrella on the open deck throughout the exchanges. If true, it was an act combining bravery and bravado which perhaps echoed some of the more flamboyant exploits of his father).

  It took the frigates and the cutter four days to reach the anchorage at Whampoa. Major obstructions then placed in the river by the Chinese – sunken boats filled with rock and a floating barrier on the Canton side, and rafts loaded with combustible material to the south – served to prevent both Napier leaving the city and any communication with the frigates from the Bogue or Macao. Some of the foreign merchants, though used over many years to Chinese interference with normal commerce as a pressure tactic, now began to feel that enough was enough, and that the necessary action should be taken for trade to be resumed. With his health deteriorating, Napier reluctantly decided to withdraw to Macao. In his letter of 15 September he wrote to the merchants collectively:

  Gentlemen – My letter to Mr Boyd yesterday would prepare you for the present. I now beg leave to acquaint you that I now no longer deem it expedient to persist in a course by which you are made to suffer. I therefore addressed Mr Boyd that the authorities might provide me with the means of doing that which all parties desire, namely, to retire, and admit the opening of the trade…. I considered it my duty to use every effort to carry His Majesty’s instructions into execution, and having done so hitherto without effect, though nearly accomplished on two occasions, I cannot feel authorised any longer to call on your forbearance.

  I hope, Gentlemen, soon to see trade restored to its usual course of activity; and that it may long continue to prosper in your hands.28,29

  Any expectation that Napier’s departure, since the Viceroy had insisted on it, would be straightforward and rapid, was to prove unfounded. Having regained the initiative, Lu determined not to allow Napier to leave on his own terms; not only would he only be permitted to go if Andromache and Imogene sailed away first, but the frigates’ departure was also a precondition for the resumption of trade. Howqua and Mowqua, who were as anxious as the British to see the reinstatement of normal commerce, attempted to intervene but without success. In the end it fell to the surgeon, Dr Thomas Colledge, and Jardine to negotiate the final arrangements for the Superintendent to leave Canton. Viceroy Lu reported at length and with customary exaggeration to the Emperor, informing the Son of Heaven that he had dealt very firmly but mercifully with the Barb
arian Eye and his intruding warships. His mercy had been such that Lord Napier had been allowed to depart in trying and humiliating conditions, instead of being executed.30 It seems certain that the journey back to Macao had a major impact on Napier’s declining health. His small boat’s progress south down the Inner Passage, to the west of the river, was repeatedly interrupted for no apparent reason except to allow the local inhabitants to hurl insults and to intensify the constant disturbance of firecrackers and the banging of gongs. A journey which should have taken not more than three days took five. Fifteen days after reaching Macao Napier finally succumbed to fever. With his family around him, he died on October 11. He was buried with full honours in the Protestant Cemetery at Macao, Charles Elliot and five other naval captains, three British and two Portuguese, acting as pall-bearers.

  In August in her first letter home from Macao to her sister-in-law Emma, Clara Elliot made brief but telling observations concerning Chinese enterprise and Lord Napier:

  The Chinese are the most industrious clever beings I ever read or heard of but such abominable cheats that it is painful to have anything to do with them…. I dare not say one word of official news for I conclude Charlie will tell Frederick all fully. I am such a favourite with Lord Napier and he has been so kind to me that I do not like to say a word of ill nature about him but I fear much he is unfit to negotiate with the Chinese they are so cunning and clever.31

  British merchants and other old China hands resident in Macao would have concurred with her comment about Napier. Clara was nevertheless disposed to be positive about being in China; she found Macao a pleasant place and fitted in well with the expatriate community. Anxious enquiries about her infant son Gilbert featured in nearly all her letters to Emma, but she delighted in the wellbeing of Harriet and Hughie. There were tensions, nevertheless. Clara wrote later of the effect of the situation in Canton on the British families in Macao: