that Captain Elliot's arrival was sanctioned in order that he might fulfil his official duties of "controlling the merchants and seamen." The value of this concession was very greatly reduced by the stipulation that he was to strictly observe the old regulations, and not to rank in any way above the supercargoes. The conditions which the Chinese sought to, and did for a time, impose on these English officials, were those that a proud and arrogant Government might seek to inflict on a body of traders. They could not possibly have proved enduring in the case of a Government not less proud and solicitous of its dignity than any other.

A new element of discord revealed itself with steadily increasing force during these years. The foreign trade, regarded in the abstract, had always been distasteful to the Government of Pekin and to the old school of ministers, but it had become a means of livelihood to a considerable class in the population of Canton and the maritime provinces of the South; it was also a source of profit to a large number of the active officials. Its abolition would, therefore, excite as much disapproval as approbation, and the Pekin authorities felt constrained to allow matters to progress in the natural way, consoling themselves with the reflection that so long as the trade was confined to Canton, the influence of the "outer barbarians" could not do much mischief. But if it was just endurable that foreign races should come to traffic with the Celestial people for the purpose of enriching them, and in order to place at their service articles unknown in the Flowery Land, it was simply intolerable that these strange traders should carry off with them much of the national wealth, and in the form of all others the most disagreeable, its money—the silver bullion of the realm. The Doctors of the Hanlin, the most prejudiced of the students of Confucius, availed themselves of the fact to stir up the prejudices of the people, and to arouse the Emperor's mind to the terrible dangers that would accrue from the impoverishment of the State.

The facts, too, were startling enough, and would have excited apprehension in the minds of any thoughtful Government. The Chinese were neither unreasonable nor exercising

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any questionable right in attributing this extraordinary drain of public treasure to the foreign intercourse, and in denouncing it accordingly. It was officially stated-and the figures do not appear much exaggerated that ten million taels of silver were annually taken out of China; and it was not difficult to draw from this the conclusion that, if it were allowed to proceed unchecked, the country would be reduced to a state of bankruptcy. The Chinese did not attempt to analyze the matter, and they could not lay any consolation to their hearts about the balance of trade being against them. They saw the plain fact of the depletion of the national treasure, and they angrily denounced the trade with foreigners as its sole cause. The mind of the Government being cleared up on this point, it only remained to decide how best to put a stop to, or at least to reduce to its smallest possible limits, the cause of this glaring evil.

Never at any period of their history had the ruling powers in China been more desirous of curtailing and arresting the growth of intercourse with foreigners than in the years immediately following the expiry of the monopoly, and the transfer of authority from the Company to the Crown. But with the will the power of doing so did not come. The difficulty of summarily ending the matter had been indefinitely increased by the fact that the foreign trade had become an integral part of the national life in the great emporium of the south, and that it could only be discontinued at the cost of some popular suffering and discontent. Dislike of the whole connection with foreign countries screened itself behind the opposition to one item in particular, and the immutable principles of morality were invoked to cast a stigma on those who supplied the people, in defiance of the law, with the means of gratifying their passions.

There had been references at an earlier period to the import of foreign opium, and the Emperor Kiaking had begun a reign of misfortune with an edict denouncing its use as the indulgence of a hopeless sin. But the lesson he strove to inculcate had never been learnt. A new generation had grown up, which only knew that the life of Kiaking and his courtiers had been in flat contradiction with these fine moral

theories, and who continued to follow their inclination in the matter of opium-smoking. When attention was officially drawn to the same subject under Taoukwang, it was not as a question of morality, but of finance. The annual drain of the silver coin, not the deterioration in the moral or physical qualities of the Chinese, was the motive which stirred Taoukwang's Government into action. The proof of this is furnished by numerous edicts and decrees issued by both the Emperor and the Viceroy at Canton. If further proof were needed, it would be found in the simple fact that the first official utterance on the subject was a proposal to legalize the importation of opium, and for the simple reason that the greater the penalties passed upon its use, the wider had the practice spread.

The views of this memorialist, although stated in clear language, were not such as to commend themselves to the minds of Chinese officials. At Pekin it seemed that to legalize the importation of opium would have exactly the opposite effect from what was contemplated. By increasing the opportunity of purchasing opium, it was said that the quantity consumed would increase in the like proportion. An angry discussion followed in the pages of the Pekin Gazette, and the memorialist was roughly handled, although his arguments remained unanswered. The one remedy received with any favour was to expel the foreigner, and to destroy all the stores of opium on which the authorities could lay their hands. Many threats were made to execute the former project, and some attempts to carry out the latter; but although a little opium was burnt, and a great deal more appropriated for the personal use of the mandarins, the Pekin Government long hesitated, not so much from fear of foreign reprisals as from a not unnatural dread of the consequences of disturbing the existing order of things, to give effect to its own wishes and decrees.

Increased significance was given to this controversy by the interruption of official communications between Captain Elliot and the Chinese authorities at the end of 1837, less than six months after he had been permitted to proceed to Canton. He sent home a letter of complaint, in general

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terms, as to the difficulty of conducting any sort of amicable relations with the local mandarins, and endorsed the growing demand for the right of dealing with the Pekin Government direct. So far as official intercourse was concerned, this rupture proved complete. Captain Elliot hauled down his flag at Canton and removed to Macao-thus showing, for a second time, that the attempt to conduct diplomatic relations on a basis of trade involved circumstances that were incompatible with one another, and that could not be reconciled.

Twelve months later, when a small squadron had been sent to the Bogue from India, Captain Elliot returned to Canton and re-hoisted his flag. A conflict seemed likely to ensue when the Chinese forts fired on an English ship and compelled her to undergo a search. The English fleet proceeded to Canton, and the Chinese mustered their forces, both on the river and on shore, for the purpose of making such resistance as they could. When the affair looked at its worst, and seemed to hardly admit of a peaceful ending, a friendly understanding was happily effected. The admirals met and exchanged cards; and the mandarins, being assured of the general good-will of England, seemed disposed to relax their hostile regulations towards her subjects. But the import of opium and the steady outflow of silver continued to excite their feelings; and the antipathy arising from these causes, after a very brief interval, regained the upper hand in their councils.

It will be appropriate to close this chapter at a point when the growing dimensions of the trade, and the extraordinary conditions under which it was conducted, were beginning to raise grave doubts as to the possibility of placing it, until the Chinese had been compelled to recognize in foreign countries nations with rights equal to their own, on any basis likely to endure, but before the hope had been abandoned of discovering a solution save by force. Chinese policy was of a double kind, and it was hampered in its action by two rival influences, urging it in opposite directions. Neither the knowledge nor the traditions of the Pekin Government allowed it to look with a favourable eye on the possibility of close intercourse with foreign nations. The

admission of equality with outside peoples could not but exercise a corrosive effect on the ideas and political existence of the Celestials. On the other hand, the people themselves, particularly those in the great commercial capital of the South, were most strongly disposed to trade, and in the indulgence of these natural instincts it mattered comparatively little with whom they carried on commercial relations. The one condition, from their point of view, was that the trade should be profitable to them. It became the chief object of the Government, in its endeavour to arrest its development, to show that the profits were secured by the foreigner; and in this, as later events will reveal, it met with more than partial success.

An event had occurred which, although having apparently no direct connection with the further progress and development of China's external relations, was destined to prove the precursor of many circumstances calculated to bring the minds of two great peoples to an inclination of greater friendship, and to make the policies of their respective Governments more harmonious and compatible with each other. It so happened that, at the most critical point of the question of English intercourse with China, a new sovereign, young and accomplished, succeeded to the discharge of the difficult duties of ruler of the British Empire-a circumstance which, if in itself not calculated to ensure conviction as to a satisfactory issue from a tedious and intricate controversy, raised a hope in at least some loyal breasts* that the yet unwritten pages of Queen Victoria's reign would record the settlement of the relations between England and China, not on a footing of distrust and latent hostility, but on one of confidence and mutual consideration. Glancing back in the full light of our present knowledge to the events of a reign which with each year has gathered new glory, and in which each achievement, whether in peace or in war, has seemed to

* "A new reign is fertile in brilliant projects,' and one might argue from probabilities that the plans that are to fill one day with their details the yet unwritten history of Queen Victoria, will be distinguished by no common lustre. From such a series of noble attempts one, at least, should not be wanting a sincere and persevering endeavour to improve the British relations with China."-" Chinese Repository," vol. vii. p. 149.