Page images
PDF
EPUB

The lives and property of the entire city population are at my mercy, and could be destroyed by me at any moment, that any event might impose upon me so sad a necessity. The prevention of any such necessity is entirely in the hands of your Excellency.

I have been constrained to move onward, proceeding from one step to a farther, by the pertinacity and discourtesy with which your Excellency has persisted in evading the just and simple claims advanced by us in the first instance.

It is now for your Excellency, by immediate consultation with me, to terminate a condition of things of which the present evil is not slight, but which, if not amended, can scarcely fail to be productive of the most serious calamities.

I have, &c.,

(Signed) M. SEYMOUR.

His Excellency Yeh, Imperial High

Commissioner, &c., &c., &c.

YEH, Imperial Commissioner, Governor-General of the Two Kwang Provinces, &c., &c., &c., makes communication.

I have this day received your Excellency's letter of the 30th October, and have acquainted myself with its contents.

The relations between your Excellency's country and the Chinese, ever since the commencement of commercial intercourse between them, have been none other than those of politeness; and when on the 8th instant twelve prisoners were seized on board the lorcha, having ascertained from the officer deputed to conduct the investigation, that nine of their number were innocent, I directed an officer, on the 10th instant, to put them on board their vessel again. Mr. Consul Parkes refused to receive them.

Early on the morning of the 22nd ultimo, I wrote to Mr. Consul Parkes, and at the same time forwarded to him twelve men, namely, Leangming-tae, and Leang-keen-foo, convicted on the inquiry I had instituted, and the witness Wooa-jin, together with the nine men previously tendered. But Mr. Consul Parkes would neither receive the twelve prisoners nor my letter.

The lorcha, it appears, was built by Loo-aching, a Chinese. She was not a foreign vessel at all, and her British flag had been purchased through the merchant Block, as was clearly established by the admission of the prisoner Wooa-jin, when under examination.

It was not known, at the time that my executive went to seize persons on board her, that the lorcha was a foreign vessel. She was anchored in the neighbourhood of the Dutch Folly; she was built by the Chinese Loo-a-ching.

As to the question of the flag it has been the invariable rule with lorchas of your Excellency's nation, to haul down their ensign when they drop anchor, and to hoist it again when they get under weigh.

When this lorcha was boarded, in order that the prisoners might be seized, it has been satisfactorily proved that no flag was flying. How, then, could a flag have been hauled down? Yet Consul Parkes, in one despatch after another, pretends that satisfaction is required for this insult offered to the flag.

There has been, in truth, no breach of Treaty committed; and, after so many years of peaceful understanding between our two nations, why, without cause, a military operation should be undertaken, I am utterly unable to explain.

In reference to the admission into the city I must observe that, in April, 1849, his Excellency

the Plenipotentiary Bonham issued a public notice, at the factories here, to the effect that he thereby prohibited foreigners from entering the city. The notice was inserted in the newspapers of the time, and will, I presume, have been read by your Excellency; add to this that the exclusion of foreigners from the city is by the unanimous vote of the whole population of Kwang-tung.

It may be supposed how little to their liking has been this storming of the forts and this destruction of their dwellings; and apprehensive, as I am, that evil may hence befall the officials and citizens of your Excellency's nation, I car suggest nothing better than a continued adherence to the policy of the Plenipotentiary Bonham, as the correct course to be pursued.

As to the consultation (proposed by your Excellency), I have already some days ago deputed Tcheang, Prefect of Luy-chow-foo.

I accordingly reply, availing myself of the occasion to wish your Excellency prosperity, &c.

A necessary communication, addressed to his Excellency Sir Michael Seymour, Naval Commander-in-Chief, &c.

Hien-fung, 6th year, 10th moon, 3rd day, 31st October, 1856.

[blocks in formation]

I am in receipt of your Excellency's reply of the 31st ultimo.

I must positively decline any further argument

on the merits of the case of the lorcha Arrow, I am perfectly satisfied of the facts as represented to your Excellency by Mr. Consul Parkes, and that the just demands of the Consul were not acceded to by your Excellency. The men who had been publicly seized on board the Arrow were not publicly restored to their vessel, as he had requested, nor was the required apology made for the violation of his jurisdiction by your executive.

The whole course and issue of the lengthy correspondence arising out of a matter which might in the first instance have been easily adjusted, have determined me, as I have already told you, to insist on behalf of the foreign representatives of the same right of access to the authorities within Canton as has been invariably conceded at the other ports; the exercise of this right being, in my belief, our sole security against recurrence of misunderstandings like the present, involving proceedings so distasteful to myself, and so disastrous to you.

Your Excellency's reply refers me to the notification of the British Plenipotentiary Bonham in 1849, prohibiting foreigners from entering Canton.

Now I must remind you, that although we have received serious matter of complaint against the Chinese Government, for breach of the promise given in 1847, to admit foreigners into Canton, at the end of the two years; my demand now made is in no way connected with the former negociations on the same subject, neither am I demanding the admission of any but the foreign officials, and this only for the simple and sufficient reason above assigned.

On my proposal to treat personally with your Excellency, you do me the honour to remark that you sent a prefect some days ago. I am compelled therefore to regard your Excellency's whole

letter as unsatisfactory in the extreme, and have only to add, that unless I immediately receive an explicit assurance of your assent to what I have proposed, I shall at once resume offensive operations.

The deliberateness, with which I have so far proceeded, should have convinced you of my reluctance to visit the short-comings of their authorities upon the inhabitants of Canton. The responsibility of what may now befall them rests on your Excellency; should you persist in your present line of policy, you leave me but one course to pursue, and you will learn, when it is too late, that we have power to execute what we undertake. Accept, &c.,

(Signed)

M. SEYMOUR.

His Excellency Yeh, Imperial High

Commissioner, &c., &c., &c.

YEH, Imperial Commissioner, Governor-General of the Two Kwang Provinces, &c., &c., makes a communication in reply.

I am in receipt of your Excellency's letter of the 2nd instant, and have acquainted myself with its contents.

In the case of the lorcha you say that, on the representation of Consul Parkes, I should have caused the men publicly seized on board that vessel, to have been publicly returned to her, and that it was incumbent on me to admit that their capture by my executive was a mistake. No foreign flag was seen by my executive at the time of the capture, and as in addition to this it was ascertained on the examination of the prisoners by the officer deputed to conduct it, that the lorcha was in no respect a foreign vessel, I maintain that there was no mistake committed. In

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »