Captain Elliot and the Founding of Hong Kong Read online

  This stratagem also meant, crucially, that the growing western – especially British – demand for tea could be satisfied. There was little awareness in Britain that opium was being used to help in the purchase of tea, but at this stage – the late eighteenth century – even had the practice been more widely known, there would have been no particular concern. In Britain the emphasis was on the medicinal use of opium; the drug was regarded as overwhelmingly beneficial and in due course became a key ingredient in a wide range of medicines such as laudanum and chlorodyne. Partly to decrease reliance on opium imports, mainly from Turkey, attempts were made to grow opium in Britain and while there was some success for a time, the venture never attained long-term commercial viability.

  After the Chinese imperial ban at the turn of the century opium exports from India to China had the status of smuggled contraband. Since the Company could not itself engage in illegal trafficking, it sold off the opium crop at auction in Calcutta to the Country traders, on whom it now relied entirely to complete sales to the Chinese at Canton. Indian opium exported to China in this way continued at approximately the same annual level for some twenty years, but between 1821 and 1831 was to rise dramatically from 4,244 to 18,956 chests a year.19

  These developments in Southeast Asia had done nothing to ease the frustration of the British government over its relations with the Middle Kingdom. In 1788 it appointed the Hon. Charles Cathcart, a Member of Parliament and a young but already distinguished soldier, to lead a mission to China with the intention of establishing diplomatic and closer trade relations there. The venture was abandoned when Cathcart died en voyage, and it was another four years before a further attempt was made to make official contact with the Emperor.

  This time the mission was led by the vastly experienced Lord (George) Macartney, a successful diplomat and former colonial Governor. The Macartney Embassy, as it became known, was an altogether grander affair than its abortive predecessor. With the title and status of Ambassador, and an entourage of nearly a hundred men which included specialist artists and scientists and a military escort, Macartney sailed from Portsmouth in the 64-gun line-of-battle ship HMS Lion in September 1792.

  Ten months later the expedition reached the Gulf of Zhili on the coast of north-eastern China. Contact with the Chinese authorities was made through a local mandarin who had instructions from the imperial court to make the visitors welcome. In keeping with the teaching of Confucius – ‘To have friends coming to one from distant parts, is this not great pleasure?’- hospitality was generous, sometimes lavish, as the embassy made its way inland to Beijing and thence north beyond the Great Wall to the Emperor’s summer palace at Jehol (Chengde).20 The visitors were duly impressed, and held high hopes for a successful outcome to the mission. Discussion between the British and the mandarins assigned to accompany them was cordial, matters of potential difficulty being set aside lest the atmosphere become soured. The form of the ceremonial meeting to be held between the Ambassador and the Emperor was one such matter. There were other discordant notes; not all the mandarins with the party were hospitable, and after arrival at Jehol the mood of the embassy became uncertain as restrictions were applied. One of the participants later wrote: ‘we had plenty within our walls, but no-one had the liberty of egress’.21 The bewilderment of the less exalted members of the mission, if not of the Ambassador himself, is illustrated by a catering incident: ‘Instead of that profusion which had hitherto crowned our board, the lower classes of the embassy found scarcely enough at dinner this day to satisfy one half of them … We could perceive something too of a meditated disrespect, and of course felt some alarm.’22

  After complaint to the mandarin

  in a few minutes every table was served with hot dishes, in the usual variety and profusion. Why this entertainment, which must have been nearly ready, was thus withheld, and so speedily produced, served as an enigma to satisfy our ingenuity, but which we could never solve. Indeed no other ideas could possibly be entertained of it, than that of an effort of Chinese ingenuity to try the temper of Englishmen.23

  Despite the best efforts of both sides the question of the formalities of meeting the Emperor could not be resolved. Macartney was willing to follow the protocol in use when being presented to his own sovereign, kneeling on one knee and kissing the hand, but he was adamant that to perform the full kow-tow, kneeling on both knees three times and touching the ground with the head three times on each occasion, would be disloyal to the King and he would not do it. The Emperor was predictably affronted at what he considered the arrogant disdain shown by the British. Nevertheless, shortly afterwards he appeared to soften his stance, sending a conciliatory message and granting the Ambassador an audience. The spirits and expectations of the British rose once more. There followed a series of lavish entertainments, whose conviviality led Macartney to believe that he might at last profitably discuss with the Emperor the objects of his mission. His attempt to do so fell on deaf ears. Accepting that he would not now achieve all he had set out to do, the Ambassador hoped that a final opportunity to salvage something would be afforded by the Emperor’s forthcoming return to Beijing, when another meeting might be possible. Despite an impressive display of the latest manufactures the British had brought as gifts, and the submission of a written request, there was no further progress. It was made clear to the Embassy that there was now no purpose to be served by its remaining in China any longer. ‘The manner in which the embassy was dismissed was ungracious, and mortifying in the extreme’.24 Lord Macartney and his retinue set out for home on 7 October 1793.

  Macartney’s refusal to perform the kow-tow has sometimes been cited as the main reason for the Embassy’s failure. Its aims however had been to establish regular trade and diplomatic relations with China and to extend trading opportunities there, and it seems highly improbable, given the prevailing Chinese and British views of the world and their respective places in it, that those objectives could ever have been achieved. The kow-tow impasse undoubtedly made things worse, but to the imperial court the visitors from Britain, though important, were never in the end more than emissaries from a vassal state. They had come from further away than was usual for those bearing tribute, but the explanatory announcement on welcoming banners en route to Beijing had made the position clear: ‘The English Ambassador carrying tribute to the Emperor of China’.25 Nor were the self-sufficient Chinese interested in developing trade. The clocks, porcelain, carpets, portraits and other gifts brought by the visitors were of passing interest, no more. So far as the Emperor himself was concerned, ‘Strange and costly objects do not interest me. As your Ambassador can see for himself we possess all things. I set no value on strange objects and ingenious, and have no use for your country’s manufactures.’26

  Twenty-three years later, when the wars with the French were over, the British tried again. The 1816 Embassy was headed by William, first Earl Amherst. He was not a professional diplomat, but came from a well-connected family which had included a number of prominent military men. The Embassy sailed from England in early February 1816 and arrived back in mid-August the following year. There had been exploratory voyages in the eastern seas and long overland journeys in China, but only a few days had been spent in Beijing seeking to pursue the business of the mission. On this occasion the refusal to perform the kow-tow was indeed the immediate cause of the Embassy’s failure. Far from making any progress, the Amherst mission had sharpened mutual antagonisms and significantly damaged the chances of improving trade and diplomatic relations.

  On the south China coast the system of trading convenience between the Honourable East India Company and the Country traders (or ‘private English’ or ‘free traders’) was beginning to fray. Along with cotton, ever more opium was being shipped from India, upsetting the balance of the arrangement and, some felt, inhibiting possibilities for commercial growth. The problem could be greatly alleviated, the Country traders thought, if the Company’s China trade monopoly were to cease. After sustained
pressure, reflecting the longstanding disquiet of domestic manufacturers as well as the concerns of the free traders, Parliament abolished the monopoly with effect from April 1834. The consequences were not all straightforward or beneficial; one of the questions in the new situation was what should be the channel of communication between the Chinese merchants (the Co-Hong), who had been used to dealing only with the Company, and the British. To this the British response was to appoint a Chief Superintendent of Trade. The post’s first incumbent was Lord Napier, whose Commission’s Master Attendant was Captain Charles Elliot, RN.

  Chapter Seven

  Fizzle, Silence and Quiescence

  That Charles Elliot should have been chosen to serve with Lord Napier in China was not on the face of it surprising. He had in the opinion of several members of the government (especially his friend Lord Howick) performed well in British Guiana; he came from a family distinguished for its public service; and he was personally recommended by John Francis Davis, a senior East India Company man and an accomplished sinologist (and also a friend). Davis wrote of Elliot that ‘the talents, information and temper of that gentleman would render him eminently suited to the chief station in this country [China]’.1 On the other hand, though he had served with the Royal Navy in the East India Squadron, he had had little experience of the east and none of China, and there was a sense in some quarters that the Elliot family had acquired more than its fair share of influential positions in public life.2 (There does not however seem to be any evidence that any of his relations were instrumental in securing him this post).

  Elliot’s own reaction to the appointment was unsure and uneasy, perhaps reflecting a suspicion of differing views or an absence of enthusiasm on the part of those behind it. Excluding specialists such as the surgeons and interpreter, there were four levels of seniority below Napier as Chief Superintendent: the Second Superintendent; the Third Superintendent; the Secretary; and the Master Attendant, whose role was to include the oversight and management of British shipping movements in the section of the Pearl River known as the Bogue, where the river delta narrows sharply on the approach to Canton.3 Elliot’s naval experience was clearly relevant, but he would have little if any involvement in diplomacy or matters of policy, and conscious of his background and his achievements to date Elliot felt humiliated. A few days before sailing from Devonport in HMS Andromache, a 28-gun frigate, he wrote to Lord Howick,

  I am appointed Master Attendant at Canton with a salary of £800 a year, and certainly if I had pursued my own inclinations I should have declined the office, for when I sought employment in China I never expected it in the shape it has reached me, but it seemed to me to be my duty on public grounds to accept this appointment and I shall endeavour to discharge it faithfully’.4,5

  Whether or not he was fully aware of the duties and the status of the job when he accepted it, he was told by Lord Glenelg, President of the Board of Control,‘a few days before I left England that circumstances had prevented him from recommending me to His Majesty as one of the Superintendents’.6,7 Whatever the ‘circumstances’ were it seems clear that Glenelg, at least, felt – perhaps with some embarrassment – the need to acknowledge to Elliot that a more senior position for him had been a possibility.

  This general unease about his status was compounded by the awareness that he and Napier held the same service rank, that of post captain in the Royal Navy. Elliot was prepared to concede that Napier was ‘a good sort of man’, but was at a loss to understand why, as a sailor turned sheep farmer with no experience of diplomacy or of China, he had been chosen for his current role.8 Napier was however a long-standing friend of the King and had been appointed a Groom of the Bedchamber, a fact to which Elliot made mocking reference. Napier’s salary of £6,000, more than seven times his own, would have added to his discomfiture.

  All in all, Elliot was upset, resentful and not a little bewildered by his appointment as Master Attendant, but resolved to set these feelings aside and get on with the job. He wrote frankly to his sister Emma shortly before Andromache sailed:

  I feel all this to be a humiliation, and a very sore one too, but I shall take very good care, that no sense of that description shall deaden the ardour of my own efforts in my own behalf. Neither am I without the conviction, that it will be very proper to wear a mask of good humor, or at least of indifference out of doors.

  This last stroke has not been without its advantages. It has given me the true touch of bitterness and real selfishness, without which there is no success in this world.9

  As with others appointed to serve overseas, Charles and Clara Elliot had decisions to make about the care of their children. A letter from Charles to Emma two months before their departure shows that their inclination then had been to take with them only the 2-year-old Hughie.10

  The correspondence between Charles and Emma, in this instance and in the coming years, reveals the extent to which Charles treated, perhaps needed, Emma as a confidante to whom he entrusted details of his feelings about his relationships and his job. His admiration for and gratitude to Clara, tempered with occasional irritation, are an indication both of his devotion to his wife and of his own tendency to impatience:

  I write Dear Emy with great difficulty, and you will excuse this illegible incoherence. Think for us. I am sure if we do resolve to leave the children, you will take every care of them, that your situation enables you to. Clara does not do herself justice. She has more sense and feeling than I have, but she seems at times to consider it fine to talk nonsense. She has been a great consolation to me, whenever I have really wanted affection, and self denial, and never more so than since you left us yesterday. Poor dear, God grant that her own health may be equal to the trial which awaits her.11

  After much agonised deliberation Charles and Clara decided that Harriet (aged four) as well as Hughie should accompany them, and that their new baby, Gilbert (Gibby), should stay behind with Emma and her husband, Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Hislop, at Charlton Villa, southeast of London.

  The voyage to Macao, via Rio de Janeiro and the Cape of Good Hope, took a little over five months. Elliot’s letters to his sister were much taken up with commentary on Lord and Lady Napier, who were also travelling in Andromache, with two teenage daughters Maria and Georgiana, the eldest of their six children. He commented on how he and Clara regarded them, and on how he thought the Napiers – Lord Napier particularly, his superior – viewed himself and Clara. The two families kept a civil distance from each other socially. There was cordiality, but no affinity:

  We have as little intercourse as possible, but there seems no room for blame on either side. He does not desire to know more of me than I of him, and with this indifference there can be neither surprise to witness or fault to impute, that we are so slenderly known to each other.12

  This observation to Emma probably reflected the sensitivity he still felt, three months into the voyage, about the level of his appointment. He could not avoid repeated mention of his dissatisfaction with the way his career was unfolding; his apparent willingness – to his sister at any rate – to make the best of it did little to conceal the hurt he continued to feel:

  I am afraid I shall not be very successful, while things remain as they do now. Not that I would very willingly have you believe I think the clearness and soundness of other men’s views are likely to throw my own calling into the shade but my position puts me beyond the possibility of being known or heard and I do not imagine there can be much disposition to move me forwards.

  I have no complaints to make, however; there are two ways of considering such points. Upon the one hand it is irritating enough to see the people, who the state of circumstances forces over one’s head but then on the other, there is something very sedative in the contemplation that thousands of abler and better men would gratefully accept what I have got.

  The rottenness [of advancement through patronage and personal connection] is passing away, God’s gracious name be praised, and the time is at
hand when if a man does not move higher, it will be sufficiently obvious that he ought not to move higher.13

  This last comment, more an expression of hope than expectation, was perhaps an indication of a sub-conscious attempt on Elliot’s part to think positively, not least in order to counter the pain of being parted from his infant son Gibby. He needed to feel that this sacrifice would in the end be worthwhile, an unavoidable price to pay for what he would be able to achieve serving his country overseas; but so far as Emma – and presumably anyone else who cared to ask – was concerned, he gloomily decided, at this stage in the middle of the voyage to China, that he did not wish to return to England:

  I hope this letter will find my angel under your roof, but if he be not there, I am sure it will only be because you are abroad. God Almighty bless and preserve him. He shall not be away from me long. My mind is fixedly made up to sit myself down permanently somewhere in this Eastern part of the world – Van Diemen’s Land [Tasmania] if I possibly can. But with England I have done for ever unless by a miracle I make a fortune, and there are no miracles nowadays.14