Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin Part 19

_January 9th._--Yesterday I went up again to the front without Gros, and pressed matters forward towards a solution. The result was, that my plan of getting the Governor of the province to consent to return to his Yamun and resume his functions, a board of our officers, supported by a large body of troops, being appointed to inhabit his Yamun with him, and to aid him in the maintenance of order, prevailed.... To-day we went, Gros and I, in great procession to the Governor's Yamun, to reinstate him in his office on the above conditions. We were carried in chairs through the town, attended by a large escort. The city seemed fuller of people than on the occasion of my former visit, and they looked more cheerful.

_January 10th._--By a ludicrous mistake, no orders had been given to release the Governor and Tartar General, so that, after waiting for them for an hour, we heard that the sentry would not let them leave the room in which they were confined. The consequence was that it was getting late, and as I wished to get my escort out of the streets before it was dark, we were obliged to hurry through the ceremony a little. We began with a kind of squabble about seats; but after that was over, I addressed the Governor in a pretty arrogant tone. I did so out of kindness, as I now know what fools they are, and what calamities they bring upon themselves, or rather on the wretched people, by their pride and trickery. Gros followed, in a few words endorsing what I had said. The Governor answered very satisfactorily.

I then rose, saying that we must depart, and that we wished him and the Tartar General all sorts of felicity. They were good-natured- looking men, the General being of great size. They conducted us to the front door, where we ought to have found our chairs; but they had disappeared, to the infinite wrath of Mr. Parkes.... I say the front door; but in fact the house consisted of a series of one-storied pavilions, placed one behind the other, and connected by a covered way with trellis-work panels running through a sort of garden. We got at last into the chairs, and hastened off to the city wall, which we reached just as it was getting dark, having thus terminated about the strangest day which has yet occurred in Chinese history,--the Governor of this arrogant city of Canton accepting office at the hand of two barbarian chiefs!

_Wednesday, January 13th._--You get the least agreeable picture of the concerns in which I am engaged; because, as I write this record from day to day, all my anxieties and their causes are narrated. On the whole I think the last fortnight has been a very successful one. I walked through the city to-day with the Admiral and an escort, and saw evident signs of improvement in the streets. The people seemed to be resuming their avocations, and the shops to be re-opening. My 'Tribunal' is working well. In short, I hope that the evils incident to the capture of a city, and especially of a Chinese city, have been in this instance very much mitigated. The season is very changing.

Three nights ago the thermometer did not fall below 72, and last night it fell to 40. There is a cold wind; and it was necessary to walk briskly to-day to keep one's-self warm.

[Sidenote: Exodus.]

_January 16th._--Though I was able to send off the last despatches with something of a satisfactory report, we are by no means, I fear, yet out of the wood. I took a long walk in the city of Canton yesterday. I visited the West Gate, where I found a stream of people moving outwards, and was told by the officer that this goes on from morning to night. They say, when asked, that they are going out of town to celebrate the New Year, but my belief is that they are flying from us. The streets were full, and the people civil. Quant.i.ties of eating stalls, but a large proportion of the shops still shut. As we got near the wall in our own occupation, some people ran up to us complaining that they had been robbed. We went into the houses and saw clearly enough the signs of devastation. I have no doubt, from the description, that the culprits were French sailors. If this goes on one fortnight after we have captured the town, when is it to stop?...

It is very difficult to remedy.... Nothing could, I believe, be worse than our own sailors, but they are now nearly all on board ship, and we have the resource of the _Cat_.... All this is very sad, but I am not yet quite at the end of my tether. If things do not mend within a few days I shall startle my colleagues by proposing to abandon the town altogether, giving reasons for it which will enable me to state on paper all these points. No human power shall induce me to accept the office of oppressor of the feeble.

[Sidenote: A sober population.]

[Sidenote: Maintenance of order.]

_January 20th._--I hinted at my ideas as to the evacuation of the city, and it has had an excellent effect.... There is a notable progress towards quiet in the city. Still, I fear the tide of emigration is going on. Parkes is exerting himself with considerable effect, and he is really very clever. There were a great many more shops open in the streets yesterday than I had seen before.... What a thing it is to have to deal with a sober population! I have wandered about the streets of Canton for some seven or eight days since the capture, and I have not seen one drunken man. In any Christian town we should have had numbers of rows by this time arising out of drunkenness, however cowed the population might have been. The Tribunal convicted a Chinaman the other day for selling 'samshoo' to the soldiers. I requested Parkes to hand him over to the Governor Pehkwei for punishment. This was done, and the arrangement answered admirably. The Governor was pleased, he presented himself before the Chinese as the executor of our judgments, and at the same time we, to a certain extent, seemed to be conceding to the Chinese the principle of exterritoriality which we a.s.sert as against them.... I have no 'responsible ministers' here, though the presence of a colleague, and, since military operations began, the position of the naval and military Commanders-in-Chief, have required me to act with some caution, in order to make the wheels of the machine work smoothly and keep on the rails. For this reason it was that I suggested a few days ago the plan of evacuation. The maintenance of order in a city under martial law was, I felt, an affair rather for the Commander-in-Chief than for me, therefore I was in a false position when I meddled with it directly. But the question of remaining in the city or not was a political one. By letting it be known that I had there my lines of Torres Vedras, upon which I should fall back if necessary, I obtained the influence I required for insuring, as far as possible, the adoption of satisfactory arrangements within the city. I must add that this evacuation plan was not intended by me to be a mere threat. I have it clearly matured in my mind as a thing feasible, and which would be under certain circ.u.mstances an advisable plan to adopt. In taking Canton we had, as I understand it, two objects in view: the one to prove that we could take it; the other to have in our hands something to give up when we come to terms with the Emperor,--'a material guarantee.' I believe that the capture of the city, followed by the capture of Yeh, has settled the former point. Indeed, from all that I hear, I infer that the capture of Yeh has had more effect on the Chinese mind than the capture of the city. I believe, therefore, that we might abandon the city without losing much if anything on this head. No doubt we should lose on the second head; we should not have Canton to give up when a treaty was concluded, if we had given it up already. Even then however we might, by retaining the island of Honan, the forts, &c., do a good deal towards providing a subst.i.tute; so that you see my threat was made _bona fide_. I certainly should have preferred the loss to which I have referred, to the continuance of a state of things in which the Allied troops were plundering the inhabitants.

_January 24th._--Baron Gros and I were conversing together yesterday on affairs in this quarter, and among other things he told me that we were both much reproached for our laxity, and that I was more blamed on that account than he. I said to him: 'I can praise you on many accounts, my dear Baron, but I cannot compliment you on being a greater brute than I am.'

Whatever was the feeling of the British residents, and whatever excuses may be made for it, the consistent humanity shown both in the taking and in the occupation of the city did not fail to strike Mr. Reed, the Plenipotentiary of the United States, who wrote to Lord Elgin: 'I cannot omit this opportunity of most sincerely congratulating you on the success at Canton, the great success of a bloodless victory, the merit of which, I am sure, is mainly due to your Lordship's gentle and discreet counsels. My countrymen will, I am sure, appreciate it.' 'This,' observes Lord Elgin, from the representative of the United States, is gratifying both personally and politically.'

_January 28th._--I am glad to say that this mail conveys, on the whole, a satisfactory report of the progress of affairs, though this letter puts you in possession of all the ebbs and flows which have taken place during the fortnight. I send a leaf of geranium, which I culled in the garden of the Tartar general.

[Sidenote: Canton prisons.]

_January 31st._--I visited yesterday two of the Canton prisons, and witnessed there some sights of horror beyond what I could have pictured to myself. Many of the inmates were so reduced by disease and starvation, that their limbs were not as thick as my wrist. One man who was in this condition was in the receptacle for untried prisoners, and said he had been there seven years. In one of the courts which we entered, there was a cell closed in by a double row of upright posts, which is the common style of gate at Canton, and I was attracted to it by the groans of its inmates. I desired it to be opened, and such a spectacle as it presented! The prisoners were covered with sores, produced by severe beatings; one was already dead, and the rats,--but I cannot go further in description. The others could hardly crawl, they were so emaciated, and my conviction is that they were shut in there to die. The prison authorities stated that they had escaped at the time of the bombardment for which they had been punished as we saw. If the statement was true, they must have been systematically starved since their recapture. Our pretext for visiting the prisons was to discover whether any Europeans, or persons who had been in the service of, or had had relations with Europeans, were confined in them. We took out some who professed to belong to the latter cla.s.ses.

I went a step further, by taking out a poor boy of fifteen, whom we found in chains, but so weak that when we took them off he was unable to stand. I told Mr. Parkes to take him to Pehkwei from me, as a sample of the manner in which his prisons are managed.

_February 2nd._--Pehkwei was very indignant at our visit to his prisons, and hinted that he would make away with himself, in a letter which he wrote to me on the subject. However, he was obliged to admit that some of the things we found were very bad, and quite against the Chinese law. On reviewing the whole I must admit, that, except in the case of the one cell that I have described, it was rather neglect, want of food, medical care, cleanliness, &c., than positive cruelty, of which one found evidence in the prisons.

[Sidenote: Move northwards.]

Canton the impregnable had been taken, and was in the military occupation of the allied forces; Yeh, the Terror of Barbarians, was a captive beyond the seas; so completely was all resistance crushed, that it was found possible to raise the blockade of the Canton River, and to let trade return to its usual channels. Still nothing was achieved so long as the Emperor remained aloof, and could represent the affair as a local disturbance not affecting the imperial power. To any permanent settlement it was essential that he should be a party; the next step, therefore, was to move northwards to Shanghae, and there open direct negotiations with the Court of Pekin; and, for the success of these negotiations, it was obviously of great importance that the envoys of England and France should have the co- operation of the representatives of Russia and the United States.

_February 4th._--Still no letters. To-morrow, Frederick is to go to Macao, to take to Messrs. Reed and Putiatine copies of all my diplomatic correspondence with Yeh, &c., and an invitation to each that he will join us in an attempt to settle matters by negotiation at Shanghae. It is the commencement of the third act in this Chinese affair.

_February 6th._--I have a letter from Mr. Reed, saying that he is going to the North this day, so that perhaps Frederick will not find him. This would be a great disappointment.

_Sunday, February 7th._--A month without news is very long to wait.

Perhaps time pa.s.ses a little more quickly than when one was dawdling and doing nothing at Hong-Kong; but still this life is tiresome enough. I do not suppose that there ever was a town of the same extent, or a population of the same number, more utterly uninteresting than the town and population of Canton--low houses, narrow streets, temples containing some hideous idols, which are not apparently in the least venerated by their own worshippers. The only other resource is the curiosity shops, and, as you know, I have not the genius for making collections.

_February 9th._--Things have taken a better turn. F. by steaming at night from Macao to Hong-Kong caught Reed about an hour before that fixed for his departure for the North. He was delighted with my communication, and has written undertaking to co-operate cordially with us. This is, I think, a very great diplomatic triumph, because it not only smooths the way for future proceedings, but it greatly relieves our anxiety about Canton, as the Americans are the only people who would be likely to give us trouble during the military occupation.

_February 10th._--We have got Putiatine's letter for Pekin. It is very good; perhaps better than any of the lot.... However, the _entente_ is now established. My mind, too, is a good deal relieved to-day by seeing the wretched junks, which have been shut up so long by the blockade, with their sails set, gliding down the river. I sent Mr.

Wade to visit Yeh yesterday, to see how he took the notion of being sent out of the country to Calcutta or elsewhere. He adhered to his policy of indifference, real or affected, I cannot tell which. I suppose it is a point of pride with him never to complain.

[Sidenote: Adieu to Canton.]

_H.M.S. 'Furious.'--February 20th._--I am now off from Canton, never I hope to see it again. Two months I have been there--engaged in this painful service--checking, as I have best been able to do, the disposition to maltreat this unfortunate people.... On the whole I think I have been successful. There never was a Chinese town which suffered so little by the occupation of a hostile force; and considering the difficulties which our alliance with the French (though I have had all support from Gros, in so far as he can give it) has occasioned, it is a very signal success. The good people at Hong- Kong, &c., do not know whether to be incredulous or disgusted at this policy.... I am told a parcel of ridiculous stories about arming of Braves, &c. I heard that in the western suburb the people 'looked ill- natured,' so I have been the greater part of my two last days in that suburb, looking in vain into faces to discover these menacing indications. Yesterday I walked through very out-of-the-way streets and crowded thoroughfares with Wade and two sailors, through thousands and thousands, without a symptom of disrespect.... I know that our people for a long time used to insist on every Chinaman they met taking his hat off. Of course it rather astonished a respectable Chinese shopkeeper to be poked in the ribs by a st.u.r.dy sailor or soldier, and told, in bad Chinese or in pantomime, to take off his hat, which is a thing they never do, and which is not with them even a mark of respect. I only mention this as an instance of the follies which people commit when they know nothing of the manners of those with whom they have to deal.... We are steaming down to Hong-Kong on a beautiful fresh morning. I feel as if I was a step on my way home.

At Hong-Kong he remained nearly a fortnight, that his ship might be fitted to go to the North: his letter for Pekin being sent on, in the meantime, to Shanghae, by the hands of his secretary, Mr. Oliphant.[1]

_February 26th._--To-morrow this letter goes, and still no mail from England. I think of starting in a few days, and calling at the other ports--Foochow, Amoy, and Ningpo. I have a line from Oliphant, who took up my letter to Shanghae, and made a quick though rough pa.s.sage.

We shall be a good deal longer on the way, and my captain advises me to be off, to antic.i.p.ate the equinox. I have just written a despatch to Lord Clarendon, to tell him that perhaps I may go direct from Shanghae to j.a.pan, and so home. It is almost too good a prospect to be realised.

[Sidenote: Home news.]

_February 27th_.--I had Reed to dine with me yesterday. He is off this morning to Manila, _en route_ for Shanghae. The Russian returns on Monday, and we are going to Shanghae by the same route most fraternally.... Your accounts of the boys make me feel as if I had been an age away from home. G.o.d grant that I may get through this business soon, and return to find you all flourishing!

_March 1st_.--I received your letters yesterday.... How I wish that I had joined that merry dance on Christmas Day at Dunmore, and seen B.

and R. performing their reel steps, and F.[2] snapping his fingers!

You knew now how differently my New Year was pa.s.sed--traversing that vast city of the dead--meditating over that 28th December which Herod had already hallowed.... These letters are my conscience and memory, the only record I keep of pa.s.sing emotions and events.... Depend upon it the true doctrine is one I have before propounded to you: Do nothing with which your own conscience can reproach you; _nothing_ in its largest sense; _nothing_, including _omission_ as well as _commission_; not nothing only in the meaning of having done no ill, but nothing also in the meaning of having omitted no opportunity of doing good. You are then _well with yourself_. If it is worth while to be well _with others_--SUCCEED.

[Sidenote: Swatow.]

_H.M.S. 'Furious,' Swatow.--March 5th_.--I am again on the wide ocean, though for the moment at anchor.... The settlement here is against treaty. It consists mainly of agents of the two great opium- houses, Dent and Jardine, with their hangers-on. This, with a considerable business in the coolie trade--which consists in kidnapping wretched coolies, putting them on board ships where all the horrors of the slave-trade are reproduced, and sending them on specious promises to such places as Cuba--is the chief business of the 'foreign' merchants at Swatow. Swatow itself is a small town some miles up the river. I can only distinguish it by the great fleet of junks lying off it. The place where the foreigners live is a little island, barren, but nicely situated at the mouth of the river. A number of Chinese are resorting to it, and putting up rather good houses for Chinese. The population has a better appearance than the Cantonese. The men powerful and frank-looking, and some of the women not quite hideous. Our people get on very well with the natives here.

They have no consuls or special protection; so they act, I presume, with moderation, and matters go on quite smoothly. I went into the house of one of the 'Shroffs' (bankers or money-dealers) connected with Jardine's house, and I found the gentleman indulging in his opium-pipe. He gave us some delicious tea.... The Shroffs here are three brothers. They came from Canton, their father remained behind.

The mandarins wanting money to carry on the war with us, called upon him to pay 12,000 taels about 4,000_l_. They used him as the screw to get this sum from his sons who were in foreign employ. Though the old man had resolved to leave his home and his patch of ground rather than pay, his sons provided the money and sent him back. Such cases are constantly occurring here, and they show bow strong the family affections are in China.

[Sidenote: Rough justice.]

Another case was mentioned to me yesterday, which ill.u.s.trates the very roundabout way in which justice is arrived at among us all here. The coolies in a French coolie ship rose. The master and mate jumped overboard, and the coolies ran the ship on sh.o.r.e, where the crew had their clothes, &c., taken from them, but were otherwise well treated.

On this a French man-of-war comes, proceeds to Swatow, which is fifty miles from the scene of the occurrence, and informs the people that they will bombard the place immediately unless 6,000 dollars are paid.

They got the money, but the mandarins at once squeezed it out of these same Shroffs, saying, that as they brought the barbarians to the spot, they must pay for the damages they inflicted. Meanwhile, the 'foreigners' have it, I apprehend, much their own way. They are masters of the situation, pay no duties except tonnage dues, which are paid by them at about one-third of the amount paid by native vessels of the same burthen!

[Sidenote: Mr. Burns.]

Hearing that Mr. Burns, a missionary, whose case is narrated in the series of 'insults by the Chinese authorities' submitted to Parliament (he having been in fact very kindly treated, as he himself acknowledges), was at the island, I invited him to breakfast. I found him a very interesting person, really an enthusiastic missionary, and kindly in his feelings towards the Chinese. He wears the Chinese attire, not as a disguise, but to prevent crowds being attracted by his appearance. He does not boast of much success in converting, but the Chinese are very willing to listen to him and to take books. They approve of all books that inculcate virtue, morality, &c., but they have no taste for the distinctive doctrines of Christianity. As Yeh said, when a Bible was presented to him from the Bishop:--'I know that book quite well, a very good book. It teaches men to be virtuous, like the Buddhistic books;' and then turning very politely to his captain, 'Will you be good enough to take care of this book till I want it.'

The country in this neighbourhood is very lawless. Burns, a few days before he was arrested, slept with his two companions, two native Christians, in a large village. During the night the house he was in was broken into, and all they had stolen. Nothing remained but a few of their books, which they carried tied to sticks over their shoulders. A peasant came up to him and said, 'I see you are not accustomed to carry loads,' and took his burden and carried it for him six miles, asking for nothing in return. Other natives bought the books (they had previously given them gratuitously), and thus they got money enough to go on with. When they got into this princ.i.p.al town, and were arrested by the police, the authorities seemed rather to regret it. They underwent some interrogatories which Burns seems to have turned into a sort of sermon, for he went at length into Christian teaching, and the judges listened most complacently. They confined them in prison, but did everything they could to make Burns himself comfortable. His companions were not so well treated. He joined them at one time at his own request, under circ.u.mstances curiously ill.u.s.trative of Chinese manners. A subordinate of the gaoler with whom he was lodged died from swallowing opium. The gaoler was at once held responsible, and his house was mobbed. On which Mr. Burns, not knowing the cause of the disturbance, asked to rejoin his companions. He found them shut up in a very loathsome cell, with several other prisoners; a place something like my Canton prisons; but he said they did very well while there, for they were able to preach to the other prisoners. At one of the interrogatories, one of his companions, the more zealous of the two, on being asked why he had brought a foreigner to the place, answered that it was because he was a Christian, and that their books said, 'It is better to die with the wise than to live with fools.' This sentiment was not considered complimentary by the mandarins, who immediately ordered him to be beaten, upon which he got ten blows on each side of his face with an instrument like the sole of a shoe. Mr. B. told this story, but added that he believed the beating had been determined on before, for his other companion, who was the more worldly of the two, and who had probably found his way to the heart of the gaoler, was told that he too would be beaten that day, but that the blows would be laid on by a friendly hand, and that if he kept his cheek loose, he would not feel them much.

[Sidenote: Amoy.]

_March 8th._--We are entering Foochow; a most beautiful day; the sea smooth as gla.s.s. We left Amoy last night. I went to church in the forenoon at the Consulate. An American missionary preached. There are several missionaries at Amoy. They have, as they say, about 300 converts. The foreigners and natives get on very well there. The town is a poor enough place, and the island seems rocky and barren. How it can sustain the great population which inhabits the villages that cover it is a mystery.

_March 14th._--A vessel from Shanghae brought me this morning a letter from Oliphant, which shows that he has got well through the business which I entrusted to him.[3] He went with my letter for the Prime Minister of the Emperor to a city named Soochow, which is not open to foreigners, and which is moreover the seat of beauty and fashion in the empire, and he seems to have been well received. This is a good sign. An edict has moreover been issued by the Emperor degrading Yeh, and moderate in its tone as regards foreigners. All this looks as if there would be at Pekin a disposition to settle matters. G.o.d grant that it may be so, that I may get home, and not be required to do farther violence to these poor people.

[Sidenote: Foochow.]

The scenery of Foochow and its neighbourhood struck him as singularly beautiful. Even in an official despatch we find him writing of it as follows:--

With the exception perhaps of Chusan, I have as yet seen no place in China which, in point of beauty of scenery, rivals Foochow. The Min river pa.s.ses to the sea between two mountain ranges, which, wherever the torrents have not washed away every particle of earth from the surface, are cultivated by the industrious Chinese in terraces to their very summits. These mountain ranges close in upon its banks during the last part of its course: at one time confining it to a comparatively narrow channel, and at another suffering it to expand into a lake; but in the vicinity of the PaG.o.da Island they separate, leaving between them the plain on which Foochow stands. This plain is diversified by hill and dale, and comprises the Island of Nantai, which is the site of the foreign settlement. At the season of my visit, both hills and plain were chiefly covered with wheat; but I was informed that the soil is induced, by irrigation and manure applied liberally, to yield in many cases, besides the wheat crop, two rice crops during the year. We walked with perfect freedom, both about the town and into the surrounding country. Nothing could be more courteous than the people of the villages, or more quaint than the landscape, consisting mainly of hillocks dotted with horseshoe graves, and monuments to the honour of virtuous maidens and faithful widows, surrounded by patches of wheat and vegetables. Kensal Green or Pere la Chaise, cultivated as kitchen gardens, would not inaptly represent the general character of the rural districts of China which I have visited.

In some respects, however, the impression was not so satisfactory. In his journal he says:--

The people whom we met in our peregrinations were perfectly civil. The Consul, too, and Europeans were civil likewise. They were willing to give me information. I do not know that I carried much away with me, except the general impression, that our trade is carried on on principles which are dishonest as regards the Chinese, and demoralising to our own people.