CHAPTER VI
Recourse to Macao during the Anglo-Chinese War –
Captain Elliot’s Memorable Proclamation
Shortly before 1839 a series of incidents in Canton, with and without official connivance, were shaping events of far-reaching consequence. These events finally resolved themselves into the establishment of a British settlement at Hongkong and, as it proved in later years, practically sealed the fate of Macao as a trading port of the influence and importance to which it had attained.
Only a few years before the cession of Hongkong to the British, Macao was dragged into dispute between the Chinese officials at Canton and the British merchants there. As has been seen, British trade with China was originally and for a long time carried on mainly through the English East India Company. When the Company’s monopoly lapsed in 1834, certain demands were made on the British merchants in China, restrictions being placed, furthermore, on their movements. However, most of them continued trading in Canton, but they established their residences in Macao, where their families lived, the men-folk joining their wives and children after the trading season at Canton had closed each year.
The monopoly granted to the East India Company ceased to exist in China on the 21st April, 1834, by virtue of an Act of Parliament passed on the 28th August, 1833, whereby no restrictions were placed on British subjects trading with China. In the preamble to that Act44 it was stated furthermore that “whereas it is expedient, for the objects of trade and amicable intercourse with the dominions of the Emperor of China, that provision be made for the establishment of a British authority in the said dominions,” a Commission, consisting of three of His Majesty’s subjects, was appointed to superintend the trade of British subjects in China.
The Commission thus took the place of the Select Committee of the East India Company, and was, at first, composed of the Right Honourable Lord William John Napier, as Chief Superintendent, Mr. John Francis Davies, Second Superintendent, Sir George Best Robinson, Third Superintendent, and Mr. John Harvey Astell, Secretary to the Superintendents, Mr. John Robert Morrison, Chinese Secretary, Captain Charles Elliot, Master Attendant, Dr. Thomas R. Colledge, Surgeon, Mr. Anderson, Assistant Surgeon, and Mr. A. R. Johnston, Private Secretary to Lord Napier.
Lord Palmerston, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in his specific instructions to the Superintendents for the discharge of their duties, enjoined them “to abstain from and avoid all such conduct, language or demeanour, as might needlessly excite jealousy or distrust amongst the inhabitants of China, or the officers of the Chinese Government; or as might unnecessarily irritate the feelings, or revolt the opinions or prejudices of the Chinese people or Government; and that they do study by all practicable methods to maintain a good and friendly understanding, both with the officers, civil and military, and with the inhabitants of China, with whom they may be brought into intercourse or communication”. The Instructions concluded: “And we do require you constantly to bear in mind and to impress, as occasion may offer, upon Our subjects resident in, or resorting to, China, the duty of conforming to the laws and usages of the Chinese Empire, etc”.
Reaching Macao Lord Napier, by consent of the Governor of Macao, established in the Portuguese colony the Superintendency of British Trade in China. From Macao the Chief Superintendent endeavoured to get into touch with the Viceroy of Canton, with a view to acquainting the latter with the changes that had taken place in the status of British traders in China. The Canton officials created not a few difficulties on the ground that the Chief Superintendent’s letter did not bear the Chinese character for the word “petition”, as, according to the Chinese custom, hitherto observed, it was proper usage to address a business letter as a petition rather than as a diplomatic communication. Napier would not, and could not, share the Chinese view on this, as it appeared to him, petty question. But it was important enough from the viewpoint of the Chinese, who would insist on making it appear that the English were “a nation of barbarians” who should be made to respect and conform to Chinese requirements in the matter of the submission of official communications. Lord Napier, on the other hand, mindful of his own high office, and the dignity of his Sovereign, insisted on a footing of equality in the form of address.
As the divergent standpoints could not be reconciled, a deadlock was reached: neither party would yield to the other, each being strongly determined to keep his own “face” and to impress on the other party the power and dignity of his own Sovereign. Hence, when Napier went to Canton the personal interview which he sought with the Viceroy did not take place. In July and August, 1834, the Chinese issued Edicts, intended for the Superintendents, through the Hong Merchants, in conformity with the procedure they had followed in the past with the East India Company. Lord Napier took umbrage at this course and was determined to have matters put right, “to ensure the rights and protect the interests of the foreign merchants in China”. That was the substance of his despatch to his own Government.
About the third week in August, the Canton Government, in another edict, insisted on the retirement of the British Superintendent to Macao, and added that they would cut off the British trade altogether if the Superintendent refused to carry out the command of the edict. As might be expected, Lord Napier did not yield to the requirements of the Canton authorities, whereupon, on the Viceroy’s instructions, a proclamation was issued on the 2nd September, 1834, breaking off all intercourse with British subjects. This proclamation was not, however, put wholly into effect.
The vexations he had endured at Canton had so seriously impaired Lord Napier’s poor health that he decided to return to Macao. Two days after his arrival he passed away and was accorded a funeral, with full military honours, in keeping with the dignity of his office. Napier’s remains were laid to rest in the English Cemetery at Macao, and, some time after, his body was exhumed and the remains removed to England.
After the death of Lord Napier, Mr. (later Sir) John Francis Davies was appointed Chief Superintendent of Trade, to be succeeded in turn by Sir G. B. Robinson. (Both these men later became Governors of Hongkong.) Meanwhile, changes of importance to Britons in China were taking place in England. With the return of Lord Palmerston to the Foreign Office, Captain Charles Elliot, R. N., became Palmerston’s appointee to the position of Chief Superintendent of British Trade in China. Lord Palmerston’s policy, which had been one of consideration and regard for the susceptibility of Chinese customs, practices, and usages, now took a different turn, and he instructed that “the Superintendent was to hold no communication with any but officers of the Chinese government, and that on no account should his written communications with the Chinese government assume the name of petitions“. As a result of this more positive policy, Captain Elliot succeeded, in April, 1837, in doing away with the old procedure in his communications with the Chinese officials.
The events referred to in the opening paragraph of this chapter had to do with the thorny question of the opium trade in China, and the irreconcilable differences between the Chinese authorities and the foreign merchants on the subject. No good purpose, it is felt, would be served by reviving now, after the lapse of over a hundred years, all the details of that unhappy controversy, which led eventually to what has been called the First Anglo-Chinese War. But we may touch on the salient stages of the controversy for a proper understanding of the important changes in Anglo-Chinese relations that resulted therefrom, culminating in the taking over of Hongkong by the British, and so on to the main purpose of this book: to tell of the Portuguese in Hongkong; their migration from Macao; their establishment in the “Isle of Fragrant Streams” and later in Kowloon as well; and their steady growth into a community of several thousand souls, forming an important part of the resident and commercial population of the British colony of Hongkong.
The Chinese Imperial Court at Peking aggravated matters when it enunciated a policy directed not only against the opium traffic but against foreign trade in general. That policy naturally invited opposition from those whose mercenary interests were seriously threatened.
The British decided to take strong action. They showed their resentment to the Chinese policy by seeking a suitable anchorage of their own for their shipping, where their merchant vessels could be under the protection of their own ships of war. Thus it was that they resorted to the waters which came to be known in time as the Harbour of Hongkong. The merchants came to realise, however, that commerce could not be driven from its old channels, and greatly to the disgust of the British officials the traders would be found with their ships stealing a march on one another in the reaches of the Canton River.
It was in the opium trade that the most serious difficulty arose between the British traders and the Chinese authorities. The volume of this trade had assumed such proportions that the Chinese considered controlling it or abolishing it altogether, more particularly when some of the merchants of Canton made Macao their home and place of trade after they were ordered out of Canton under instructions from the Emperor through High Commissioner Lin. This apparently arbitrary demand, one, as some asserted, “entirely opposed to international law,” had its origin in the dispute over the importing of opium into China by the foreigners. Among the Chinese officials, the advocates of total abolition of opium-trafficking won the day, and Lin, the Imperial Chinese High Commissioner at Canton, decided to enforce the opium prohibition law. Threatening application of the extreme penalties of the law, he called upon foreigners of all nations to surrender all the opium in their possession. The British Trade Superintendent himself expressed (to Lord Palmerston in a despatch) his “deep detestation of the disgrace and sin of this forced traffic”.
In a despatch to the Governor of Macao on the 22nd March, 1839, Captain Elliot asked for protection for British residents at Macao, because of rumours of an impending attack by Chinese mobs in the city. Three weeks later (on the 13th April), in another despatch, Elliot placed all British subjects, ships and property at Macao under Portuguese protection, offering to co-operate with the Portuguese in the “effectual defence of the colony and the harbour of Taipa, for equipment of vessels of coast-guards, and, if necessary, to reinforce and provision the colony, … the terms for any assistance mutually rendered to be adjusted by the respective Governments, and all British subjects at Macao to be placed under the Governor’s command, if desirable, to defend the rights of the Portuguese crown, and common life and property”.
There was an impression that Captain Elliot assumed a rather peremptory attitude in his representations to Governor Silveira Pinto of Macao. In justice to Elliot it should be stated that he was on the horns of a particularly difficult dilemma. The insistence of the Chinese demand on Elliot that all opium in the possession of his nationals must be surrendered, forced on him an action which he felt would be contrary to his instructions. However, he considered that compliance with the demand was the only course open to him, to safeguard British lives and property. On the other hand Elliot was persuaded that it would be contrary to the instructions of his Government to accede to the demand.
In the choice of the two alternatives, implicitly relying on the old friendship existing between England and Portugal, Elliot might have felt he was not exceeding his powers in having recourse to the Governor of Macao. The Governor, A. A. Silveira Pinto, replied that he was in “a very peculiar position that imposed on him the bounden duty of observing a strict neutrality as long as he was not constrained by cogent reasons to adopt a different policy, or until there should be evidence of the peril apprehended, in which case the
generous facilities proffered would be freely availed of. ” The Governor renewed his assurance that,45 “as far as lay in his power, he would protect the lives and property of British subjects, with the sole exception of such as were concerned in the interdicted opium trade“.46
Storm-clouds were fast gathering. By order of the Canton Government a Chinese opium dealer was executed outside the British factory at Canton and another outside the walls of Macao. Then, acting on Elliot’s advice, the foreign traders surrendered to the Chinese authorities over 20,000 chests of opium (valued at $6,000,000) at Lintin. In an atmosphere of high tension, charged with all the elements for an explosion of Chinese feeling against the “red-headed devils,” the British traders left Canton and flocked into Macao for protection under the Portuguese flag. On the pretext that Macao had been harbouring British women and children, the Chinese issued a set of new regulations prohibiting the importation through Macao of British produce and manufactures.
The seriousness of the situation aroused the Government in England, as wealthy merchants and others there interested in trade with China gave earnest consideration to the critical state of affairs. These men succeeded in getting the ear of influential elements in Parliamentary circles and the consequence was that the whole tenor of Lord Palmerston’s Instructions was changed; he directed that a demand be made for reparations on the Chinese for past injuries and some security for the future. Commissioner Lin’s attitude did not show the least sign of appeasement; on the contrary, it was openly hostile. New demands were made and new conditions imposed on the British. Compliance with those demands would have been ultra vires as regards Elliot’s Instructions, just received. The conflict of two great civilisations was thus left to two men to settle locally.
The issues were many and varied. China was determined to resist all the attempts by foreign traders to intrude upon the age-old seclusion of the self-sufficient Chinese system. The Chinese could not, and would not, tolerate the attempts by self-seeking merchants – of all classes of society the lowest in the scale among the Chinese – and “barbarian” merchants at that, to dictate to the Chinese. The foreign merchants who had come to China, determined to drive a profitable trade, were not easily to be dissuaded from their purpose to make money quickly, cost what it might. It was the duty of Chinese officials to see to the extinction of the opium traffic, it is true, but many of them could not resist the temptation to obtain the perquisites which that valuable trade created! “Die-hards” in England were conducting a “wordy” war in recriminatory pamphlets suggesting the seizure by England of some convenient harbour for British trade ships on the coast of China, to take the place of Canton as the terminal port for British trade. A few voices- those of Gladstone and Macaulay among them- were raised against the iniquity of the suggestion, but a situation containing all the elements for a resort to arms between England and China was brought about. A great deal has been said and much been written regarding the opium traffic in China and the war which followed its phenomenal growth. Each writer has presented his personal opinions according to his bias. From the nature of the traffic and the opposition which it aroused in various circles it might be supposed that the missionaries were opposed to dealings in opium as a regularised traffic. It would therefore be interesting to see what the missionaries in China thought and said of the operations then about to begin in China. The views of one of them, living in China at the time, might be well worth quoting. Writing from Macao to his father his home town in America, and commenting on the British Expedition to China in a letter dated 20th August, 1840, Rev. S. Wells Williams stated:47
” … The whole expedition is an unjust one in my mind on account of the intimate connection its sending here had with the opium trade, but we shall find very few expeditions that have not had a good deal to find fault with in them. There is a way some have of saying that ‘it will all work well, and that good will come out of evil,’ which is only a sheer excuse for leaving themselves in indolence. For my part, I am far from being sure that this turn up is going to advance the cause of the Gospel half so much as we think it is. England has taken the opium trade upon herself nationally, and can that be a cause to bless? for the success of her arms here would extend that wicked traffic ten thousand times more than the Church is ready to extend her stakes here. The 50,000 chests now annually brought to China would rise to hundreds of thousands shortly, and only think of the destruction of it …”
As already pointed out, Elliot himself was strongly opposed to the opium trade. The difficulties of his position, added to his multifarious duties and responsibilities, already sufficiently harassing, were aggravated by circumstances beyond his control. He had publicly indicated his strong disapproval of the opium traffic, and with the British merchants he, therefore, stood in great disfavour. A history of the events in China published not long after their occurrence, seeking the good graces of those who benefited by the opium trade, left an entirely erroneous impression for later writers to quote. Elliot had, in point of facts, an extremely onerous task to perform in complying with instructions from London. One in a position to judge of Elliot’s real worth – not influenced by any direct interest in the trade and not a compatriot of Elliot’s – considered that “few foreign officials who have come to China have been superior in talent to Capt. Elliot, or better fitted than he to fulfil the important duties devolving upon him. He also had the advantage of having as interpreter and adviser John R. Morrison, Dr. Morrison’s son, a man whom it was impossible to know without loving, and who, born in the country and familiar with Chinese from childhood, was in some respects better qualified than his father to act in these capacities. He was a man whom I remember with a respect and love which I feel it hard to describe. He received me when I came to China with that kindness which never failed to leave an impression. Both he and Capt. Elliot recognized very clearly the ideas which the Chinese have on the subject of their unchallengeable supremacy over all other nations – ideas that appear to have grown up in the earliest period of their history and are to be found in all their writings. Indeed, it is hardly to be wondered at if they felt themselves vastly superior to the handful of foreigners who dwelt in the Canton factories, intent only on trade, which as you know is the lowest of the four categories into which the Chinese divide human professions and pursuits”.48
Commissioner Lin’s position was no less difficult than Capt. Elliot’s. He was one of those who consistently condemned the introduction of opium into China and had repeatedly written against it in his despatches to Peking. In the view of the Court at the capital, Lin was considered to have presented the strongest indictment against opium and the most cogent grounds for its abolition, so much so that in the end the Emperor appointed him Commissioner for the Suppression of Opium. The same writer who had such a good word for Captain Elliot had this to say of Commissioner Lin: “I may observe that of all the Chinamen I have ever seen, Lin was decidedly the finest-looking and the most intelligent. He was indeed a very superior man, and if he had only been better informed he might have brought the difficult business entrusted to him to a more creditable issue than he did; but this his ignorance and the conceit that accompanies ignorance prevented. He was naturally much elated at his rank, and the absolute power entrusted to him led him to commit acts of rashness which recoiled upon himself. …. Lin did, however, write a letter to the Queen of England, and a singular document it was. It showed how fully be appreciated the perplexities of the situation he was in, and how helpless he felt to extricate himself from them. He implored the Queen to put a stop to the opium trade”. It was not his fault that the letter was never delivered!
While the negotiations were dragging along between Captain Elliot and Commissioner Lin, after the surrender of the opium and its destruction, and when there seemed, at times, to be a likelihood of an amicable arrangement being reached, unfortunate incidents involving sailors kept cropping up from time to time. The worst of these incidents resulted, from a drunken brawl, in the death of a Chinese. An account of this lamentable incident and the consequences arising therefrom was given by Dr. S. Wells Williams, then living at Macao, in a personal letter to his father. The relevant passages of that letter are as follows:
Macao, August 28, 1839.
“… all our English friends have been compelled by the proceedings of the Chinese authorities to leave Macao, and go on board the shipping in the anchorages, and at this time there is hardly a single Englishman in the place. The proximate causes of all this harshness flow from the law of the Chinese, which under all circumstances requires blood for blood … About a month ago some sailors were ashore near the anchorage,49 and getting drunk, made an attack upon this village nearby, and most inhumanly killed a man passing by. Captain Elliot held a court on board of the shipping, but was, after the most diligent search, unable to convict the murderer, though he sentenced several to imprisonment. The Chinese were, however, not so easily satisfied. After a while a demand is made by them for the murderer, and a threat that in case he is not given up they will proceed to extremities in order to force the surrender. Soon after this another edict was received, saying that in three days the servants should all be removed unless he was given up, their provisions stopped, and no communication allowed them. Upon this, Captain Elliot called a meeting of the British, and told them he never should give up a man who had not been proved guilty, and even if a man was convicted he was not to be executed by the Chinese. He therefore recommended them to deliberate, and some prepared to leave. After three days not a Chinese was allowed to come near their houses, and they were supplied with provisions through the Portuguese for about a week.50 The Commissioner, finding that the English were sustained in this manner, sent an edict to the Governor of Macao telling him that if he did not send the English away the town should be invested with troops. Upon this, those still remaining prepared to depart, and by Monday night, the 26th., not one was left; men, women and children all having to go, or be held as guilty, and in imminent danger of being seized by the Chinese as hostages for the murderer. Hundreds of people have thus been obliged to leave their business, forsake their homes, and go on board confined ships, their dwellings containing thousands of dollars of furniture, books, pictures, etc., all remaining at the mercy of those behind. These are some of the consequences resulting from a glass of grog, a thing that many would not deprive the sailor of, lest his comforts be reduced and his burdens increased. Oh when will people call things by their right names, and trace effects to their proper causes! What else will ensue we cannot tell; but all these things – bad as they are – shall work together for good …”51
The conflict between Chinese and foreign ideas as to the requirements of their respective laws was strikingly brought out in the passage of Dr. Williams’s letter where he set out the harshness of the Chinese view requiring under all circumstances “blood for blood”. This conflict emphasises the extreme difficulty of Elliot’s position at having to carry out, to the letter, his Instructons in “the duty of conforming to the laws and usages of the Chinese Empire“. It is unnecessary to go further than this to find, in these vital divergences, the principal reason, I believe, for the establishment of extraterritoriality (since relinquished) in China, so that foreign lives might be protected in a country in which a life was demanded for a life as in the case of the Chinese killed by sailors in circumstances which, under Western laws, would have been regarded as no worse than those of manslaughter.
Commissioner Lin’s unbending attitude in compelling the stoppage of all food supplies and servants reaching English homes at Macao was creating a difficulty threatening almost the very existence of the boycotted English. While the anti-British ban was in force, the Portuguese saw to it, without considering the risks they themselves ran, that their friends, the British, obtained the necessaries of life. So far as I have been able to ascertain, this friendly gesture has never been made clear in any published account of the events of this critical period, when intercourse between the British officials and the Canton Authorities was reaching the breaking point. The only exception was the brief reference by Wells Williams in the letter quoted above.
The discovery of this impartial statement in Dr. Williams’s letter, of the assistance given by the Portuguese in provisioning the homes of British residents in Macao, has given me much pleasure, providing an opportunity to lay stress on the aid which Macao so often has been in a position to render but which has not been always as graciously acknowledged. It must be borne in mind that Macao performed this deed of kindness despite having to risk the displeasure of a neighbouring authority definitely at loggerheads with the British and threatening dire consequences on the undefended colony of Macao if assistance to the British were not discontinued. It might be suggested that this point is being unduly laboured. I do not think so. Emphasis is used because the Portuguese have been unjustly accused of the grossly unfriendly act of expelling the British from Macao whereas, in reality, they acted in an entirely different manner, as has just been pointed out. Not only were the threatened homes of the British residents provisioned by the Portuguese, but to the credit of the Portuguese, it may be mentioned, the British ships which were at anchor off Macao were supplied with food by them. When the Chinese discovered that the Portuguese were furnishing supplies to the British they threatened to cut off all food supplies to the Portuguese within Macao itself.
Portuguese aid to the British community in their difficulties was not limited to supplying them with food. When intimidated Chinese domestic servants left the employ of all British residents, many Portuguese friends and acquaintances came forward with every good grace to help them. Eitel, in his Europe in China,52 does not convey the correct impression of the Portuguese readiness to please when he writes “British residents at Macao supplied the places of their Chinese servants with Portuguese”. The implication of Eitel’s version might easily be that there was a demeaning servility on the part of the Portuguese towards the British. There was no need for this. The sense of personal dignity of the Portuguese would have rendered them incapable of any action which would have had a derogatory reflection on the community as a whole.
In the end it was Captain Elliot who advised the departure of his nationals from Macao, so that should not continue to embarrass the Portuguese any further. They thereupon embarked on the British ships in the harbour. Some of the ships proceeded to the harbour of Hongkong but the majority left for Taipa Anchorage within Macao’s territorial waters. The British vessels which anchored at the Taipa Anchorage continued to be provisioned with foodstuffs by the people of Macao. Some of the women and children at Taipa Anchorage preferred the conveniences and comfort of their homes ashore to life on board ship; they, therefore, returned to Macao and took up residence in their former dwellings, upon which those who were living on board ship in Hongkong Harbour – there was no residential accommodation on shore at Hongkong in those days – also returned to their homes in Macao.
Dr. Williams, in his letter quoted above, mentioned that when the English left Macao for their ships they were abandoning their homes with all their furniture and personal belongings therein, at the risk of loss to themselves. No statement can be traced to show that, upon these British homes being reoccupied, any of the valuables of their owners had been taken away during their absence. This well illustrates how law and order were maintained by the police of Macao in the guarding of property that might otherwise have been plundered, just as, in other places and at other times, homes temporarily vacated have been thoroughly looted by lawless elements when police control was difficult to maintain in periods of crisis.
The account I have given of the various events narrated in the preceding pages would seem to some readers to conflict with Eitel’s version of the same events, appearing in his “history” of Hongkong.53 Eitel, who could never find anything favourable to the Macao Government or the Portuguese, seemed bent on painting as adverse a picture of the Portuguese as his imagination was capable of conjuring up. As an example of his method in attempting to disparage the Portuguese, I give below his account of the departure of the British community from Macao on the 26th August, 1839. Side by side with Eitel’s version of the event is presented that of a Portuguese writer, Mr. C. A. Montalto de Jesus. Intelligent, impartial readers will draw their own conclusions after reading the two accounts. For too long has Eitel held the field unchallenged, at the expense of Macao, which has always sought to maintain friendly relations with all within and without her borders.
Eitel’s Story54 “The night was spent in watching for an armed attack expected to be made simultaneously on all British houses by the Chinese soldiery. Nothing happened, however, and at noon on Monday, August 26, 1839, the second British exodus commenced. Men, women and children, with bag and baggage were hurried through the streets of Macao amidst terrible excitement of the whole population, expecting every moment a massacre by the Chinese soldiery. The refugees assembled on the Praya in the presence of Governor Pinto who had the whole of the Portuguese troops (some 400 Indian lascars and 500 Caffre slaves) under arms, and embarked hurriedly on board British ships, lorchas, schooners and boats of all descriptions, which immediately set sail for Hongkong harbour, a mournful procession, to seek refuge on board the ships at Hongkong”. |
Montalto’s Version55 “Lin now demanded the expulsion of the Britishers from Macao; and the mandate being disregarded, he menaced the colony. Amidst an infernal din of gongs and the yelling of a raving populace, Chinese troops in considerable number mustered at night round about the British quarters, close to the grotto of Camões, whence they were driven away by a detachment of the garrison led by Silveira Pinto himself. Elliot then proposed the withdrawal of the British community from Macao and this was resolved upon at a meeting. On the other hand, Silveira Pinto declared that, notwithstanding the ordeal, he would never press the British to leave the colony; and though sensible of the slender forces at his disposal to ward off an overwhelming Chinese onset, he promised, if they remained, to defend them to the last. But they preferred to leave for the Hongkong anchorage; and as they embarked, the garrison with Silveira Pinto in his military uniform stood by to prevent an apprehended Chinese attack.” |
Besides the exaggerated description by Eitel just quoted, there were other imaginative threads which he saw fit to draw from his fertile brain when writing his book. In one of these, which he attributed to Governo Pinto of Macao, he made “all the British refugees at Macao more or less felt that they had ceased to be welcome guests”.56 What evidence does Eitel furnish for this supposed feeling? None, so far as can be ascertained. There is evidence, however, which puts a very different complexion on the matter. I have pleasure in quoting from The Chinese Repository57 the following appreciation of Governor Silveira Pinto from a prominent Briton:
“James Matheson, Esq., one of the most enterprising, able and liberal members of the foreign community, and the founder of the British Press in China, having commenced the Canton Register in 1827, about to leave China after a residence of many years, gave Governor Pinto of Macao $ 5,000 (March 9, 1842) to be put to some permanent purpose of public benevolence, as a testimony of his grateful sense of the protection afforded him and others by the Macao Government.”
” … Com mui louvavel zelo fizeram os membros déssa camara uma subscripção, tomando por base umas $5,000, legadas pelo illustre negociante Jardine Matheson, no seu regresso a Europa, e conseguiram estabelecer uma pequena escola, composta de um director que ensinava o portuguez e o latim, de um professor de primeiras letras, e de um outro das linguas ingleza e franceza. Esta escola apezar de seu limitado pessoal e varios outros defeitos na sua organisação, tem sido mui util a juventude pobre de Macao, e chegou a ter mais de 300 alumnos.”
Rendered into English, the passage reads:
” … With praiseworthy zeal, the members of this Council (Senate) raised a subscription having for its initial payment a sum of some $5,000 gifted by the distinguished merchant Jardine Matheson59 on his retirement to Europe and succeeded in establishing a small school, consisting of one director who taught Portuguese and Latin, and of a teacher in elementary subjects, and of another for the English and French languages. This school, in spite of its limited personnel, and various other defects in its organisation, has been very useful to the poor youth of Macao, and reached an enrolment of over 300 scholars.”
Following the return of the British to Macao there was a period of suspense; intercourse between the British and Chinese officials became more and more strained from month to month. It was the prelude to the storm. In the latter part of the year 1839 there were clashes of arms on a small scale between British warships and Chinese forces. At the end of June, 1840, a strong British expeditionary force arrived in South China waters. The Chinese Government forthwith issued proclamations calling on all Chinese fishermen to send their wives and families to Canton while the authorities were engaged in exterminating the enemy!
Captain Elliot had found that battles and victories in South China, when, for instance, the Bocca Tigris forts were taken, in the previous year, were of little avail. The authorities at Canton never apprised the Court at Peking of the true state of affairs. The instructions Elliot received with the expeditionary force were to the effect that the war should be carried into the North.
On the 4th July, 1840, the storm broke. Under the command of Sir J. J. Gordon Bremer, an advance squadron of the expedition bombarded and took Tinghai in Chekiang Province, after which the British warships pushed further northward.
On the 9th August, 1840, the British Plenipotentiaries arrived off Taku, near Tientsin. High Commissioner Ke-shen was appointed to treat with the British “barbarians” and he brought into play all the subtleties of Oriental diplomacy. His instructions appeared to have been to persuade the British to return South, and after many discussions he succeeded in his object. The negotiations at Taku were transferred to Canton.
Macao was naturally much perturbed at the course of events. The presence of a considerable number of British men, women and children at Macao when hostilities between Great Britain and China were resumed gave cause for alarm to the Portuguese authorities, and as if they did not have sufficient matter for anxiety, incautious persons added to the worries of the officials by creating incidents at this time of crisis. One of these incidents took place in Macao and concerned the Rev. Vincent Stanton, an English missionary. He was, as a matter of fact, nor supposed to reside at Macao, and he might have avoided much unnecessary trouble if he had acted with sense and discretion.
It should be borne in mind that, after the outbreak of hostilities between the British and the Chinese, a list of rewards was issued by the Canton authorities for the capture, dead or alive, of Britons. The account of Stanton’s apprehension by the Chinese, reproduced below, is taken from yet another letter from Dr. Wells Williams to his father. The value of Williams’s letters lies in the fact that they were written by an impartial and reliable observer who was actually living in Macao during this period; they were obviously not intended for publication, and for this reason there is nothing in them that can be said to have been written with the object of pleasing or otherwise influencing interested parties. Wells Williams’s letter60 on the Stanton incident reads as follows:
August 20, 1840.
“About three weeks since, Mr. Stanton, one of our number, was seized by the Chinese while going alone very early to bathe beyond the walls of the town. He was carried to Canton in a rough manner, but, after undergoing an examination there before the Governor and other high officers, has been treated with kindness, supplied with a change of clothes, a servant and other conveniences, the officers considering him as a prisoner of war, not to be severely handled.
Capt. Smith, the senior officer on this station made a demand upon the Portuguese Governor of Macao for Stanton, inasmuch as Macao, being considered a neutral place for all parties, no English troops had been landed for the protection of the English residing here. The Governor demanded him of the Chinese, and the taoutai, or Intendant of the place, started for Canton to get Mr. S. from the Governor. However, instead of procuring his release, it is said the Governor was highly indignant with him for having allowed the English to remain in Macao, (as it appeared on Mr. Stanton’s examination that they were there), took away his button and sent him back to Macao post haste to order the Portuguese Governor to drive the English away from the settlement, telling him that he (Gov. Lin) was coming with thousands of troops to help him. Capt. Smith on hearing such an answer, waited for a day or two, but nothing being done by the Chinese that indicated an intention of delivering Mr. Stanton up, yesterday anchored two sloops and an armed steamer near the barrier which separates Macao from the Chinese territory and opened a fire upon the troops stationed there.
This barrier is a solid stone wall built across an isthmus, having a few houses on the Chinese side of it, but clear of everything on the Port side, except a large temple where several hundred Chinese soldiers were quartered. Nine war junks were anchored in the mud on the opposite of the barrier. As soon as the ships opened their fire, the barrier fort and the junks returned it, the latter keeping up a scattering fire with them for an hour. The ships were so far off that their shot did little execution, and the troops were landed beyond the barrier in Chinese territory about two hours after the firing had commenced.
The Chinese made little or no resistance, nothing like a line being formed, or a volley of musketry fired from their hundreds. As soon as the English troops landed they took possession of the barrier, as everyone had fled from it, and began to fire upon the troops in the temple. Many shots had been fired at the temple from the ships, but a projection in the hill and the building itself protected them, the balls passing overhead. As soon as the sepoys opened a fire of musketry upon the temple the scattering shot warned the soldiers there to get out of the way, while a discharge from their field piece silenced the junks. The Chinese soon left the place, and the English after setting fire to the buildings at the barrier went aboard ship again. The number killed among the Chinese is said to be five, but it is probable there are more, as many shots hit the junks, and the muskets of the sepoys were directed towards a number of Chinese.
“This morning Mr. Bridgman and I went to look at the temple. There were great numbers of natives thereabouts, looking at the damage – what little there was – and talking over such an unexpected event. Thousands of them covered the hills, witnessing the action, and many of them were not displeased to see their braggadocio troops routed. They walked over the ruins of the Barrier, where were now no more insulting soldiers; for to understand this feeling it should be mentioned that a body of soldiers is one of the greatest annoyances to a Chinese village that can infest it. Many of the soldiers fled into town, only to leave it again this morning for the country, and to-day there is not a soldier in the place. During the action no excitement or irritation was seen among the populace; they quietly looked on, and when the action was over, returned home to tell what they had seen. One spectator, unluckily wounded in the leg, came to-day to the hospital to be cured; the ball was cut out, and he will probably soon go home quite well.”
After negotiations Stanton was released from confinement at Canton by order of Commissioner Ke-shen on the 12th December, 1840, none the worse for the adventure.
As indicated earlier, it is not intended to recite fully in this book the events, already so well known and appearing in so many publications, connected with the first Anglo-Chinese War. The main results were the cession in perpetuity to the British of the Island of Hongkong; the leasing to them of a small strip of the mainland of Kowloon; the opening of five Treaty Ports in China to international trade; and the establishment of intercourse between Great Britain and China on a footing of complete equality.
Upon the completion of the peace negotiations, Charles Elliot issued his celebrated proclamation to the subjects of Her Britannic Majesty. The announcement was dated at Macao, 20th January, 1841, and appeared translated into Portuguese in a Macao newspaper, O Portuguez na China. Several historians have reproduced the essential features of Elliot’s Proclamation but have omitted, without explanation, the rest of the document. I find myself privileged to print a complete translation from the Portuguese version of this important statement:
“CIRCULAR
“Macao, 20th January, 1841.
“To Her Britannic Majesty’s Subjects.
“Her Majesty’s Plenipotentiary has now to announce the conclusion of preliminary arrangements between the Imperial (Chinese) Commissioner and himself, involving the following conditions:-
“1. – The cession of the Island and Harbour of Hongkong to the British Crown. All just charges and duties to the Empire (of China) upon the commerce carried on there to be paid, as if the trade were conducted at Whampoa.
“2. – An indemnity to the British Government of Six millions of dollars, one million payable at once, and the remainder in equal annual instalments, ending in 1846.
“3. – Direct official intercourse between the two countries upon an equal footing.
“4.- The trade of the port of Canton to be opened within ten days after the Chinese New Year, and to be carried on at Whampoa, till further arrangements are practicable at the new settlement.
“Details remain matters of further negotiation.
“The Plenipotentiary avails himself of this earliest opportunity to declare that Her Majesty’s Government has not sought any exclusive privilege in China to the benefit alone of British merchants and ships, but he only complies with his duty of offering the protection of the British flag to all subjects, citizens and ships of Foreign Powers that resort to Her Majesty’s possession. Whether there shall be established any port or other facilities by the British Government rests on Her Majesty’s final decision.
“The Plenipotentiary now takes the liberty of offering a few general observations:
“The forgetting of past injuries, now happily ended, will naturally accompany the genuine sentiments of Her Majesty’s subjects. They will certainly bear in mind that no degree of change brought about solely by political factors alone can be effective for the permanent improvement of our condition unless it be methodically aided by a conciliatory treatment of the people and with due regard for their institutions and Government of the Province within which we are about to establish ourselves.
“It only remains for the Plenipotentiary to make a short observation regarding the zeal and discretion of the Commander of the Expedition to China and the exceptional ardour, patience and benignity that have characterised all the officers and troops at all points of occupation or where operations were carried on.
“He is fully persuaded that the British community will share with him his sentiment of abiding respect for His Excellency the Commander and all his forces, and he regrets that these sentiments have not been expressed in adequate terms.
“He cannot conclude without declaring that one of the reasons that rendered possible the settlement of the difficulties peacefully should be attributed to the scrupulous good faith of the most eminent person with whom negotiations are still pending.
(Signed) Charles Elliot,
Her Majesty’s Plenipotentiary in China.
A copy of the original in English not being obtainable, I am happy to think that it has fallen to my good fortune to rescue from oblivion Elliot’s Proclamation in an almost perfect state of preservation. No doubt it must suffer to some extent from being rendered, in the first instance, from English into Portuguese, and from the translated version back into English. But the text of the announcement has been scrupulously preserved, and as careful a translation has been made as is capable conveying Elliot’s lofty sentiments intact, without substantially impairing the beauty of the language. The Proclamation stands as an enduring record of Elliot’s high aims and his honesty of purpose. He was an official of rare worth to Britain during an exceedingly difficult period, when he conducted delicate negotiations on behalf of his country with great tact and discretion. The outcome of his diplomacy, oftentimes unsupported and unencouraged, has resulted, as events have proved, to the greatest benefit and advantage of the British Government and its subjects in China.
Having given a complete translation of Elliot’s Proclamation, it is fitting that I should do likewise with Ke-shen’s Edict, which, fortunately, is found also in the Portuguese language in the same issue of the newspaper O Portuguez na China. An English translation from the Portuguese version of Ke-shen’s Edict is given below:
“Ke-shen, one of the Principal Ministers of State, Supreme Imperial Commissioner, member of the Hereditary Nobility of the Second Rank, at present Governor of the Two Kwang Provinces, issues the following for the information of the Tung-chi, or Kuen-Ming-Fu of Macao:
“The English ‘barbarians’ have now obeyed orders and by an official document will restore Tinghae and Shaokiu (Chuenpee); they have petitioned, with the greatest importunity, for me to intercede on their behalf to the Emperor.
“Matters are now in a better state. Orders were once given to stop all British trade and to impede the supply of provisions to them; but the observance of these orders is not now exacted. For this purpose I have issued this order to the said Tung-chi, who shall obey the same.
“This is a special Order.”
In a short leading article, the Portuguese newspaper had not any very flattering remarks to offer on the outcome of the Elliot-Ke-shen negotiations, which have been referred to elsewhere as “The Chuenpi Convention”. The paper propounded the following question: “What becomes of Macao?” Although the leader writer could not predict the consequences to Macao of the cession of Hongkong to the British, we shall presently see how the British colony became to many sons of Macao the home of their adoption in the years that followed.
Their departure for Hongkong, their settlement there, and the signal success of their labours and those of their descendants in the British colony for fully one hundred years will be related in the next and succeeding chapters of the history of The Portuguese in Hongkong.