Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin Part 27

_Shanghae.--January 25th._--After full consideration I have resolved to go at once to Hong-Kong, and take the Canton difficulty in hand. A variety of circ.u.mstances lead me to the conclusion that the Court of Pekin is about to play us false. Ho, the Governor-General of the Two Kiang; the Tautai of this port; and the Treasurer of the district, all well-disposed to foreigners, have been gradually removed from the councils of the Commissioners. Some papers which we have seized also indicate that the Emperor is by no means reconciled to some of the most important concessions obtained in the Treaties. This row at Canton is therefore very opportune. I have taken a high tone, informed the Commissioners that I am off to the South to punish disturbers of the peace there, and that when I have taught them to respect treaties, I (or my successor) will return to settle matters still pending here, pacifically or otherwise as the Emperor may prefer. It is to be hoped that this language will bring them to their senses, or rather bring the Court to its senses, for I do not suppose that the Commissioners are so much to blame. I had already asked all the society here to a party this evening, so it will be a farewell entertainment, and I shall embark as soon as it is over.

[Sidenote: Pirate-hunting.]

_At Sea, near Hong-Kong.--Tuesday, February 1st._--Two war-steamers and a gunboat have just pa.s.sed us on some expedition after pirates. It may be all right, but I fear we do some horrible injustices in this pirate-hunting. The system of giving our sailors a direct interest in captures is certainly a barbarous one, and the parent of much evil; though perhaps it may be difficult to devise a remedy. The result, however, is, that not only are seizures often made which ought not to be made at all, but also duties are neglected which do not bring grist to the mill. B. once said to me, in talking of the difficulty of exercising a police over even English vessels which carry coolies to foreign ports:--'Men-of-war have orders to seize vessels breaking the law; but as they are not prizes, and the captain if he seizes them wrongfully is liable to an action for damages, how can you expect them to act?'

[Sidenote: March into the interior.]

_February 11th._--I ought to tell you that on the 8th, a body of troops about 1,000 strong started on an expedition into the interior, which was to take three days. I accompanied or rather preceded them on the first day's march, about twelve miles from Canton. We rode through a very pretty country, pa.s.sing by the village of Sheksing, where there was a fight a fortnight ago. The people were very respectful, and apparently not alarmed by our visit. At the place where the troops were to encamp for the night, a cattle fair was in progress, and our arrival did not seem to interrupt the proceedings.

_February 13th._--The military expedition into the country was entirely successful. The troops were received everywhere as friends.

Considering what has been of yore the state of feeling in this province towards us, I think this almost the most remarkable thing which has happened since I came here. Would it have happened if I had given way to those who wished me to carry fire and sword through all the country villages? Or if I had gone home, and left the winding-up of these affairs in the hands of others?... I say all this because I am anxious that you should appreciate the motives which have made me prolong my stay in this quarter.

On the 15th he started, intending to join General Straubenzee in an expedition up the West River; but finding that his presence would be of no use, and might be an embarra.s.sment, he resolved instead to spend the time in visiting the port of Hainan, the southernmost port opened by the new Treaty. Unfortunately, when he arrived off Hainan, a wind blowing on sh.o.r.e, and very imperfect charts, prevented his entering the port; but on his way he had an opportunity of revisiting one of the few places on the coast possessing any historical interest, namely Macao, the residence of Camoens; and also of touching at St. John, the scene of the labours and death of Francis Xavier.

[Sidenote: Macao.]

_February 11th._--We reached Macao yesterday morning. I visited the garden of Camoens, and wandered among the narrow up-and-down streets, which with the churches and convents, and air of quiet _vetuste_, remind one of a town on the continent of Europe.

[Sidenote: St. John.]

_February 20th.--Sunday._--We have just anch.o.r.ed in a quiet harbour, on the island of St. John, or Sancian, as Huc calls it; the first place in China where the Portuguese settled. Here, too, St. Francis Xavier died. I should land and look at his tomb if I thought it was in this part of the island, but it is late (5 P.M.), and a long way to pull.

On returning to Hong-Kong he found that his letter to the Chinese Government had had the effect which he desired and antic.i.p.ated.

[Sidenote: Mission completed.]

_Hong-Kong.--February 23rd._--I have good news from the North. As I was walking on the deck this morning at 8 A.M., Mr. Lay suddenly made his appearance. He had come by the mail-packet from Shanghae, with a letter from the Imperial Commissioners, announcing that the seal of Imperial Commission had been taken from Hw.a.n.g, the Governor-General of this province, and given to Ho, the Governor-General of the provinces in which Shanghae is situated. Lay further states that his friend the Tautai informed him that they are prepared to receive the new Amba.s.sador peacefully at Pekin, when he goes to exchange ratifications. If so, I think that I shall be able to return with the conviction that the objects of my mission have been accomplished.

The details of his Treaty having been now definitively arranged, Canton pacified, and its neighbourhood overawed by the peaceful progress through it of a military expedition, there remained nothing to detain him in the East.[6]

[Sidenote: Homeward bound.]

[Sidenote: Hong-Kong factory.]

_Canton River.--March 3rd._--I am really and truly off on my way to England, though I can hardly believe that it is so. The last mail brought me not a word either from Frederick or about his plans; only, what was very satisfactory, the approval of the Government of my arrangement respecting the residence of the British Minister in China.

I have, however, determined to start, and to take my chance of meeting him somewhere _en route_. Unless I were to go back to Shanghae, I could not do much more here now; and if I put off, I shall have the monsoon against me, and great heat in the Red Sea. Having resolved on this course, I invited the Hong-Kong merchants to come up with me to Canton, to look at the several factory sites. In their usual way they have been dictating the choice of a site to me, abusing me for not fixing upon it; and I found out that very few of them had even taken the trouble of looking at the ground. In short I found that, in my short visits, I had seen a great deal more of the sites than they had done, who live constantly on the spot, and are personally interested in the matter. I started from Hong-Kong yesterday morning, and to-day I went over the ground with them. The rain poured, and I got a good wetting.... As I was starting from the town in a gunboat to rejoin my ship, I met the military and naval expedition, which has been absent for more than two weeks, returning. I had not time to communicate with the officers, but they seemed in good spirits. It is a curious wind-up of this most eventful mission, that as I am starting from China, I should meet an Anglo-French force returning from a pacific invasion into the very heart of the province of Kwan-tung!--the _pepiniere_ of the Canton Braves, of whom we have heard so much.

_March 4th.--Eleven A.M._--I have been calculating that if Frederick does not leave England till the mail of the 25th of February, I may, by pushing on, catch him at Galle. This would be a great point. I must push on and take my chance.

[Sidenote: Pulo Sapata.]

_March 8th._--We are pa.s.sing Pulo Sapata, a bald, solitary rock, standing in the midst of the China Sea, the resort of seafowl, as is indicated by its guano-like appearance. There it stands day after day, and year after year, affronting the scorching beams of this tropical sun. All ships pa.s.s by it between Singapore and China. So I am looking at it for the fourth time--the last time, we may hope. We have made fully 200 miles a day--a great deal for this ship.

_March 10th._--We are now very near the Line, and the breeze has nearly failed us; so you may imagine we are not very cool, but we hope to reach Singapore to-morrow. These Tropics are very charming when they do not broil one; and I pa.s.sed a pleasant hour last night on the top of the paddle-box, with a balmy air floating over my face from the one side, a crescent moon playing hide-and-seek behind a cloud on the other, and right above me a legion of bright stars, shining through the atmosphere as if they could pierce one with their glance.

_March 11th._--We have pa.s.sed the Horsburgh lighthouse, and entered the Straits. Wooded banks on either side, diversified by hillocks, and a ship or two, give some animation to the scene. It is very hot, and I have been on the paddle-box getting what air I can, and watching a black wall of cloud covered with fleecy ma.s.ses, which rests on the bank to our right, and seems half inclined to sweep over us with one of those refreshing pelts of which we had a succession last night. It is this habit of showers which renders the vicinity of the Line more bearable than the summer heat of other parts within the Tropics.

However, the cloud sticks to the sh.o.r.e, so I have come down to write this line to you.

[Sidenote: Singapore.]

_Singapore.--Sunday, March 13th, Seven A.M._--This place looks wonderfully green and luxuriant after China. The variety of costumes and colours too, Malay, Indian, Chinese, &c., and the pretty villas perched on each hillock among flowering trees, give it a festival air.

Heavy showers of rain also keep the temperature down.... 3.30 P.M.--I went to church and embarked immediately after; and here we are, about ten miles from Singapore, going well through a calm sea, with a slight breeze rather against us. Twenty months ago I left this place at about the same hour with poor Peel for Calcutta.

_March 21st.--Six A.M._--I have been an hour on deck watching the great bright stars eclipse themselves, and the sun break through the clouds right astern of us. It is a lovely day, and we are a little bent over by a breeze from the sh.o.r.e of Ceylon, along which we are now running. _Noon._--Just anch.o.r.ed at Galle, after a run of about 270 miles in twenty-four hours.... We are surrounded by curious boats about two feet wide, prevented from capsizing by _outriggers_--beams of wood _floating_ on the water on one side of them, and attached to them by poles of about eight feet in length. I believe these boats are wonderfully fast and safe.

[Sidenote: Ceylon.]

_Colombo.--Sunday, March 27th._--We came yesterday to this place. A drive of seventy-two miles through an almost uninterrupted grove of cocoa-nut trees, interspersed with bread-fruit, jack-fruit, and other foliage, with occasional gleams of the _Gloriosa superba_. The music of the ocean waves hissing and thundering on the sh.o.r.e accompanied us all our journey. The road was good and the coach tolerable, so it was pleasant enough. To-day the heat is very great; hardly bearable at church. All Sir H. Ward's family are on the hill--Newra Elyia--some 6,000 feet above the sea; this being the hottest season in Ceylon. My writing is not very good, for I cannot sit still for the heat. I am walking about the room in very light attire, taking up my pen from time to time to indite a few words.

_H.M.S. 'Furious.'--At Sea, April 9th._--Will this letter be delivered to you by the post or by the writer in person? _Chi sa?_... You will like to have a complete record of my experiences during my long absence. I am now again at sea, and I cannot say how this fact rejoices me. I was tired of Ceylon; and my longing to get home increases as the prospect of my doing so becomes more real. I was ill, too, at Ceylon. The heat was very great; and I was, I fear, somewhat imprudent. On the day after I despatched my last letter to you from Colombo, I started for Kandy, a pretty little countrytown seated in the centre of a circle of hills. I reached it at 5 P.M., time enough to walk about the very beautiful grounds of the 'Pavilion,' the Governor's residence. Next day, after seeing the shrine which contains the famous tooth of Buddha, I set off for the mountains, and reached a coffee estate of Baron Delmar's at about 6 P.M. We found ourselves in a fine cool climate, at about 3,000 feet above the sea. That night, however, I felt a shiver as I went to bed. I had a bad headache next morning, and when I arrived at Newra Elyia, the famous sanatarium, 6,000 feet above the sea, I was obliged to go to bed, and send for the doctor. I could not remain quiet, however, as the packet from England might be at Galle on the 3rd; so I had to hurry down on Friday from the mountain to Kandy and Colombo, where I arrived on Sat.u.r.day evening more dead than alive. Sir H. Ward's doctor declared me to be labouring under an attack of jungle fever.... I sent for the 'Furious,' which conveyed me from Colombo to Galle on Monday the 4th. Frederick did not arrive till the 6th; so all ended well. It was an unspeakable comfort to me to meet Frederick at last We had a day to talk over our affairs, as he did not proceed till the afternoon of the 7th.... I am pleased with Ceylon, notwithstanding my mishaps. For a tropical climate it is healthy and bearable; but we happened to be there at the very hottest season. At Newra Elyia it is really cold, and, at the height of the coffee estates, very tolerable to vegetate in.

The rapid homeward journey along a beaten route offered little of interest to write about, especially as he was likely to be the bearer of his own letter. On the 19th of May he reported to the Foreign Office his arrival in London.

[1] The text of the Article respecting opium is as follows:--'Opium will henceforth, pay thirty taels per picul import duty. The importer will sell it only at the port. It will be carried into the interior by Chinese only, and only as Chinese property; the Foreign trader will not be allowed to accompany it. The provisions of Article IX. of the Treaty of Tientsin, by which British subjects are authorised to proceed into the interior with pa.s.sports to trade, will not extend to it, nor will those of Article XXVIII. of the same Treaty, by which the transit-dues are regulated; the transit-dues on it will be arranged as the Chinese Government see fit; nor, in future revisions of the Tariff, is the rule of revision to be applied to opium as to other goods.'

[2] In an official despatch he describes it as 'a solitary rock of about 300 feet in height, picturesquely clothed with natural timber and ruined temples, around which are to be seen, at all hours of the day, groups of bonzes, in their grey and yellow robes, devoutly lounging, and conscientiously devoting themselves to the duty of doing absolutely nothing.'

[3] His reply to the Merchants' address contained the following pa.s.sage: 'Allow me to express the satisfaction which it gives me to find that you specify the benefits that are likely to accrue to the inhabitants of these countries themselves, as among the most important of the results to be expected from our recent treaties with China and j.a.pan.

On this head we have no doubt incurred very weighty responsibilities.

Uninvited, and by methods not always of the gentlest, we have broken down the barriers behind which these ancient nations sought to conceal from the world without the mysteries, perhaps also, in the case of China at least, the raps and rottenness of their waning civilisations.

Neither our own consciences nor the judgment of mankind will acquit us if, when we are asked to what use we have turned our opportunities, we can only say that we have filled our pockets from among the ruins which we have found or made.'

[4] Despatch of Jan. 22, 1859.

[5] As Minister at the Court of Pekin.

[6] In a parting letter he pointed out to the Admiral how desirable it was that the amba.s.sador who went to Pekin to exchange the ratifications of the Treaty should be supported by an imposing force, and suggested that with this view a sufficient fleet of gunboats should be concentrated at once at Shanghae.

CHAPTER XII.

SECOND MISSION TO CHINA. OUTWARD.

LORD ELGIN IN ENGLAND--ORIGIN OF SECOND MISSION TO CHINA--GLOOMY PROSPECTS --EGYPT--THE PYRAMIDS--THE SPHINX--Pa.s.sENGERS HOMEWARD BOUND--CEYLON-- SHIPWRECK--PENANG--SINGAPORE--SHANGHAE--MEETING WITH MR. BRUCE--TALIEN-- WHAN--SIR HOPE GRANT--PLANS FOR LANDING.

[Sidenote: Lord Elgin in England.]

When Lord Elgin returned, in 1854, from the Government of Canada, there were comparatively few persons in England who knew or cared anything about the great work which he had done in the colony. But his brilliant successes in the East attracted public interest, and gave currency to his reputation; and when he returned from China in the spring of 1859 he was received with every honour. Two great parliamentary chiefs, Lord Derby and Lord Grey, from opposite sides of the House of Lords, contended for the credit of having first introduced him into public life. Lord Palmerston, who was at the time engaged in forming a new Administration, again offered him a place in it, and he accepted the office of Postmaster-General. The students of Glasgow paid him the compliment of electing him as their Lord Rector; and the merchants of London showed their sense of what he had done for their commerce, first by the enthusiastic reception which they gave him at a dinner at the Mansion House, and afterwards by conferring upon him the freedom of their city.

Lord Elgin was not one of those men, if any such there be, who are indifferent to the appreciation of their fellows. He could, indeed, in a mock-cynical humour, write of what a man must do 'if he thinks it worth while to stand well with others:'[1] but in himself there was nothing of the cynic, and to stand well with others was to his genial nature a source of genuine and undisguised gratification. It was well said of him afterwards in reference to the honours paid to him at this period, that while he did not require the stimulus of praise, or even sympathy, to keep him to his work, but would have worked on for life, whether appreciated or overlooked, still 'he whose sympathies were always ready and warm enjoyed himself being understood and valued; and that welcome in the City was very cheering to him after his long experience of English indifference about Canada and what he had done there.'

He was not destined, however, to enjoy for long either the tranquil dignities of his new position or the comfortable sense of a work accomplished and completed. Fresh troubles broke out in the East; and, on the 26th of April, 1860, within less than a year after his arrival in England, he was again crossing the Channel on his way back to China.

[Sidenote: Origin of Second Mission to China.]

The Chinese Government, tractable enough under the present influence of a bold and determined spirit, had returned to its old ways when that pressure was removed. It had been agreed that the Treaty of Tien-tsin should be formally ratified within the year, that is, before the 26th of June, 1859; and, when the time approached, Mr. Bruce was commissioned to proceed to Pekin for the purpose of exchanging the ratifications. On arriving, however, at the mouth of the Peiho, he found the Taku forts, which guard the mouth of the river, fortified against him; and when the men-of-war which accompanied him went forward to remove the barriers that had been laid across the river, they were fired upon from the forts. As no such resistance had been expected, no provision had been made for overcoming it; and Mr. Bruce had no choice but to return to Shanghae, and report to the Government at home what had occurred.