Imatges de pàgina
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those which have been in the habit of visiting this port shall on no account whatever be permitted to trade, but merely suffered to remain in port until every circumstance is reported to us and our pleasure made known." The course of events under Kiaking's guidance was, therefore, equally unfavourable for all Europeans. But for the corruption at Canton we do not doubt that there would then have been an end of the intercourse, until, at least, the Chinese should have come to see of their own accord its advantage to themselves.

The triumph of the Chinese in the matter of the Macao occupation did not tend to promote a feeling of confidence among the English community at Canton. Yet, strange and almost contradictory as it may be, there was, after that event, which might have been expected to increase the arrogance of the Chinese, greater harmony than there had been before. So far as trade was concerned, a period of more than twenty years passed away without any grave disagreement arising between the European merchants and the agents of the Hoppo. But, on the other hand, the political difficulties and complications between the naval representatives of the English Government and the provincial mandarins continually increased. Several collisions actually occurred, and the captains of English men-of-war could only obtain by force the supplies and water they might urgently require. Under these circumstances, it was hoped that the despatch of an embassy to Pekin from the King would have a good effect, and that the demonstration that England was a great country, and not a mere trading company, might tend to secure some fresh privileges for her subjects and some greater consideration for the King's representatives. In coming to this decision, the Home Government was guided not merely by the precedent of Lord Macartney, but by the experience it had acquired in the cases of Persia and other Asiatic States, whose rulers considered it derogatory to treat with any of lower rank than the ambassador of a sovereign. But in China the reasoning should have been exactly the opposite. The Pekin Government would much rather have dealt with the East India Company's agents at Canton alone; them it could treat as mere traders. But it was very different when it had

THOMAS MANNING.

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to deal with the spokesmen of another powerful and independent Empire. Their rights and prejudices were expected to be so far considered, that the strict and never-varying ceremonial of the Son of Heaven should be waived in favour of the claims of their ruler to rank on an equality with the sovereign of the Middle Kingdom. Such a pretension was both inconvenient for the present and dangerous for the future. Embassies from kingdoms of undoubted inferiority were welcome enough at Pekin, but those from States claiming a position of equality were quite beyond the comprehension of the Celestials, and, as such, to be deprecated, and if necessary prevented.

Great expectations were naturally formed by those who saw only their own interests, and thought nothing of the practice and dignity of China, as to the probable benefits that would accrue to England both politically and commercially from such a mission. The untoward fate of the present to Sung Tajin, the lofty tone assumed by the Emperor in his letters, and the vigilance shown in asserting the sovereign rights of China at Macao, all pointed, indeed, to a different conclusion, but they were ignored as irrelevant to the subject. It mattered not also that the treatment of those Europeans who came to China on any different errand than the buying of tea or the selling of opium did not support the sanguine views prevalent in both London and Calcutta as to the reception that awaited Lord Macartney's successor at Pekin. One traveller, among the most courageous and successful of all explorers of unknown lands, Mr. Thomas Manning, came to Canton with every circumstance in his favour that could recommend him to the Chinese. He was an excellent Chinese scholar, well-versed in their history and politics, and thoroughly enthusiastic in his desire to acquire a close knowledge of their character in order to bring the great people of the East prominently before the eyes of his countrymen. All his efforts failed, however, and he turned in despair from the sea-coast in the hope of realizing from India his object of entering the Chinese Empire.* Yet where the individual failed it

* Mr. Thomas Manning succeeded in this design to a certain extent. Although the Indian Government refused to have anything to do with

was confidently anticipated that the Government would succeed.

By a singular coincidence the second British embassy to Pekin was, like the first, contemporaneous with a disturbed state of things in the Himalayan country of Nepaul. Lord Macartney, it will be remembered, reached the capital at a time when the Chinese, having concluded a brilliant campaign, were congratulating themselves on the addition of one feudatory the more to their Empire, at the same time that they felt genuine gratification in having afforded timely protection to their unoffending and ill-provided subjects of Tibet. When Lord Amherst was on his journey to the China coast, an English general was on the point of bringing to a victorious termination operations that had been in progress during three years for the chastisement of the same offenders, the Goorkhas of Nepaul. That war had been, in more than one respect, singular in the military annals of British India. It began in the year 1814, and, whether the cause was the difficulty of the country, or the incapacity of their commander, the English troops met with several slight reverses, and were constrained to admit the valour of their opponents and the first inconstancy of fortune in India. A new commander and fresh troops promptly asserted the natural superiority of English power; but another year, and one memorable in the records of English victory, had to pass away before the result was rendered assured. Sir David Ochterlony's brilliant tactics formed no unworthy counterpart of those triumphant at Waterloo. But the Goorkhas were not finally brought to their knees until the year 1816, when a force of nearly 50,000 men in all, assembled under the Company's flag, had arrived within three days' march of the capital, Khatmandoo. The aid of the Chinese had been implored, but neither from the Amban at Lhasa, nor from the Viceroy of Szchuen, nor from the Emperor in Pekin, did the Nepaulese get the smallest grain of comfort. They were told that they were a race of

his undertaking, he managed, at great personal risk, to make his way across the Himalayas into Tibet. He resided at the capital of the Dalai Lama during the greater part of the year 1812, and remains to the present time the only Englishman who has ever visited Lhasa.

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