cant threats, declared his intention of not allowing them to escape until they had complied with his demands, —

1. Of giving up all the opium in the receiving ships at Lintin and on the way to China; and,

2. Of signing a bond subjecting themselves, without appeal, to Chinese penal legislation, and to the punishment of death, in case of opium being found in their possession; and undertaking that the masters of all vessels arriving in China hereafter should sign a similar bond.

Captain Elliot, considering that the lives of upwards of 200 British subjects, many of them totally innocent of all participation in the opium trade, were at stake; that Lin had it completely in his power to extort the opium intrusted to individual merchants; and that, with a view to the settlement of any future demand for compensation, it was exceedingly desirable that the claim should be lodged in the British government for one clear and ascertained amount, took upon himself the responsibility of surrendering the whole amount, of 20,283 chests, to the commissioner, granting acknowledgments in the name of the British government for the quantities severally delivered up. He entered into an arrangement with the commissioner by which he and the other English were to be allowed to depart from Canton, when three fourths of the opium had been delivered up. This pledge, however, was broken by Lin under the most frivolous pretences, and the whole party detained in captivity for six weeks, during which period various attempts were made to enforce the signature of the bond, which were all steadily rejected. At length, the whole quantity having been delivered up, Lin expressed himself perfectly satisfied with Elliot's good faith, and he and his companions were released. They immediately repaired to Macao, where Captain Elliot issued a notice warning British subjects, after the recent acts of violence, from proceeding to Canton.

The negotiations respecting the signature of the proposed bond were continued; but the demand of subjecting the crews of all ships which should henceforward arrive in China to the penalty of death, upon the determination of the Chinese government that they had introduced opium, was firmly resisted. The following extracts from Captain Elliot's despatches will show the views by which he was actuated in rejecting any conditions involving the signing of a bond of consent to the trial and capital punishment of British subjects by Chinese officers, and will at the same time enable our readers to judge whether he was right in so doing:

"In investigation upon such subjects, the Chinese authorities would probably be guiltless of any deliberate intention to commit acts of juridical spoliation and murder; but it is plain that, in the present state of the intercourse, there would be excessive risk of such conse quences. It places, in fact, the lives, liberty, and property of the whole foreign community at the mercy of any reckless foreigners outside, and more immediately at the disposal of the Hong merchants, linguists, compradores, and their retainers."

And again,—

"The chief superintendent never pretends to deny the right of this government to make what laws it sees fit; so that no share of the responsibility, either of their principle or administration, should be cast upon the Queen's officers and subjects not parties to the one or the other.

"The liability of the Chinese officers to irreparable error, attended with sacrifice of inr ocent life, has recently been manifested in the violence committed upon the Spanish brig Bil baino, under the impression that she was the British vessel Virginia. This declaration has been repeated over and over again by the government; so that the high officers of the empire are deliberately sustaining shameful blunder by shameless falsehood, or the

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truth cannot reach them even upon subjects of this momentous nature. Either alternative affords irrefragable reason for resisting a bond of consent to the infliction of capital punishment by their forms of trial."

This appears to us quite conclusive. It must be borne in mind that the whole British community had come forward and offered to pledge their word, in the most solemn manner, never again to be concerned in the opium trade; and that the whole opium on the coast of China had been surrendered, to the entire satisfaction of the commissioner himself; so that the sole point on which the superintendent and the merchants stood out, and on which the negotiations for a peaceable renewal of the trade were broken off, was the signature of a bond of consent to the infliction of capital punishment by Chinese officers, on Chinese evidence, and by Chinese forms of trial. In the mean time an unfortunate event occurred, which, while it placed in the strongest light the impossibility of submitting to Chinese penal legislation, greatly aggravated the quarrel with the commissioner, and was the immediate cause, or at least pretext, of acts of hostile aggression on the part of the Chinese.

A party of English and American sailors going ashore from some ships anchored in Hong Kong Bay, an affray ensued, in which a Chinese of the name of Lin Weihee was killed. The Chinese, according to their invariable custom in such cases, immediately demanded that the murderer should be given up. Captain Elliot forthwith issued a notice offering 2001. reward to any one who would discover the man by whom the native was killed, and held a court, at which the Chinese authorities were invited to attend, for the purpose of trying the boatswain and certain seamen of one of the English ships, who were ascertained to have been concerned in the affray. It appeared on evidence that the death of Lin Weihee was accidental, and that his own relations had admitted at the time that such was the case; it appeared also that seamen of the American shipping were to all intents and purposes as deeply engaged in the riot as the English, and that it was impossible to say by whom the fatal blow had been struck. Under these circumstances the grand jury most properly ignored the bill.

The Chinese, however, persisted in their demand of having a man given up to them; and, upon Captain Elliot's refusal, Lin marched down a body of troops to Macao, compelled the Portuguese governor by threats to expel the whole British community, took severe measures for cutting off all supplies of food and water from the British shipping, and, in a word, proceeded, de facto, to make war upon the British nation, by every means of aggression in his power. It is a mistake to talk of the war as now beginning, or to talk of this country as about to go to war with China; in point of fact, the Chinese went to war with us upon our refusal to give up a man to be executed without form of trial, in retaliation for the accidental homicide of a Chinese, and to sign bonds submitting ourselves to their penal legislation in all similar cases. If the British flag is not at this moment swept from the Chinese seas, and every British subject in China an inmate of a state prison, the reason must be sought in the weakness and not the want of will of the Chinese authorities. The attack on the Bilbaino shows that commis sioner Lin did consider himself, de facto, as at war with Britain, and hesitated at no measure of hostile aggression where he had the power. This vessel, a regular Spanish trader between Manilla and Macao, was attacked by armed government boats during the night, under the impression that she was the British ship Virginia. She was pillaged and set on fire, some of the crew massacred, others drowned in jumping overboard to escape, and the remainder carried off prisoners by the Chinese, by whom they have been

confined ever since in a loathsome dungeon, and compeiled, by threats of death, to sign a declaration that they are English, for the purpose of screening the mistake of the commissioner. As Captain Elliot well observes, “it is no mitigation of the insult upon Her Majesty's flag that the outrage intended for British subjects should have befallen the property and persons of other foreigners."

A similar outrage was perpetrated upon the British passage boat, Black Joke, in which a British merchant, Mr. Moss, was cruelly mutilated; but this we do not dwell on, as some doubt has been raised whether the attack was made by the sanction and under the orders of the imperial commissioner.

These outrageous and unwarrantable proceedings of the Chinese had clearly left no alternative on the part of the British government but war, or the most humiliating and abject submission which ever disgraced the annals of a civilised country. Subsequent events, however, hastened the crisis by bringing about a serious collision between Her Majesty's naval forces and those of the Celestial Empire. The history of these events exposes, in the clearest light, the utter faithlessness and insincerity of the Chinese autho

rities.

Commissioner Lin, finding himself disappointed in his expectation of reducing the English to unqualified submission by the stoppage of the trade and the expulsion of their families from Macao, and finding also that his violent measures had only served to give a fresh impetus to the opium trade, which was audaciously carried on in armed vessels all round the coasts of China, in contempt of the imperial edicts and authorities, seems for a time to have faltered in his resolution, and wished to escape by a compromise from the difficult position in which he had become involved by his intemperate and violent conduct: accordingly he voluntarily entered into an amicable arrangement with Captain Elliot for carrying on the trade outside the Bocca Tigris. By this arrangement he waived the disputed point of the bond, and virtually gave up the demand for a man in retaliation for Lin Weihee. This is important, as showing that the demands of the commissioner, which led directly to the rupture of amicable relations, were not considered even by himself as indispensable, and that the war between the two countries is attributable rather to the want of will than want of power of the Chinese authorities to settle the disputed points on fair and reasonable terms. Scarcely, however, was the ink dry in which this agreement was written when it was broken through, openly and shamelessly broken through, by the commissioner who had just signed it. The master of a British vessel, the Thomas Coutts, having most unwarrantably taken upon himself the responsibility of entering the Bocca Tigris, and signing the obnoxious bond, in defiance of the earnest request of the superintendent and the general feeling of the British community, Lin appears to have thought that the whole body of British merchants were about to abandon Elliot and surrender at discretion; accordingly he broke off his concluded arrangement, and sent a demand for the entrance of the whole British shipping upon the same terms as the Thomas Coutts, under menaces of destruction if they refused. The British, to their honour, unanimously refused to comply with this unwarrantable demand; and Captain Elliot, with Her Majesty's ships Volage and Hyacinth, proceeded to the Bogue, where the Chinese fleet of war junks was stationed, with a flag of truce to demand the reason of the arrangement being broken off.

The following extract from Captain Elliot's despatch gives the best account of what ensued:

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"The Chinese squadron, under the command of the admiral, broke ground, and stood out towards Her Majesty's ships, which were immediately got under weigh, and directed towards the approaching force. As soon as this proceeding was observed, the squadron anchored in good order, to the number of twenty-nine sail; and Her Majesty's ships were hove-to, whilst the accompanying paper was transmitted by the linguist to the admiral."

The paper was a request by Captain Smith of the Volage to the Chinese admiral to abandon his menacing attitude, and return with his fleet to his former anchorage. An answer was returned by the Chinese admiral to the following effect:

"At this moment all that I want is the murderous foreigner who killed Lin Wiehee. If Elliot will name a time in which the murderer shall be given up, the force shall be immediately drawn back to the Bogue; otherwise, by no means whatever will I accede."

Captain Elliot sent back a reply stating his inability to discover the murderer, and once more warning the Chinese admiral to retire, or he should be compelled to fire upon him. Of this no notice was taken, where

upon

"Captain Smith informed me that he did not feel himself warranted in leaving this formidable flotilla at liberty to pass inside of him in the night, in order to carry into effect the menaces against the merchant vessels; and thinking that the retirement of Her Majesty's ships before a force moved out with the palpable intention to intimidate was not compatible with the honour of the flag, he should forthwith endeavour to constrain them to return to their former anchorage. Conscious that all had been done which was within my power to satisfy the just demands of the Chinese officers, and perceiving that the necessity had arrived for checking their hostile movements, I could only offer Captain Smith the expression of my concurrence in his own sentiments. At about noon, therefore, the signal was made to engage; and the ships, then lying hove-to on the extreme right of the Chinese force, bore away in a line a-head, and in close order, having the wind on the starboard-beam. In this way, and under easy sail, they ran down the Chinese line, pouring in a destructive fire. The lateral direction of the wind enabled the ships to perform the same evolution from the opposite extreme of the line, running up it again with their larboard broadsides bearing. The Chinese answered with their accustomed spirit, but the terrible effect of our fire was soon manifest. One war-junk blew up at about pistol-shot distance from this ship, three were sunk, and several others were obviously water-logged. It is an act of justice to a brave man to say that the admiral's conduct was worthy of his station. His junk was evidently better manned and armed than the other vessels; and after he had weighed, or more properly cut or slipped, he bore up and engaged Her Majesty's ships in handsome style, manifesting a resolution of behaviour honourably enhanced by the hopelessness of his efforts. In less than three quarters of an hour, however, he, and the remainder of the squadron, were retiring in great distress to their former anchorage; and as it was not Captain Smith's disposition to protract destructive hostilities, or, indeed, to do more than repel onward movements, he offered no obstruction to their retreat, but discontinued the fire and returned to Macao."

This completes the narrative of events up to the final crisis; the subsequent step of declaring the British trade at an end for ever may be looked upon as the formal declaration by the Chinese government of that war which, as we have seen, they have been actively prosecuting for some time before by every available means in their power.

We confidently appeal to those who have followed us throughout the preceding narrative, whether this war can, with any shadow of justice, be denounced as an "opium war," and whether it is not a war forced upon us by the unjustifiable aggressions of the Chinese government and their authorised agents. One point is perfectly clear; and that is, that no conceivable instructions from the government at home could have been of the slightest use in preventing the rupture. We say no conceivable instructions; for we will not for a moment imagine the case of a government so lost to all sense of honour, and so destitute of moral feeling, as to have sent out the only instructions which could have averted the catastrophe,

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mean instructions to imitate the dastardly conduct of the East India Company's factors, in giving up an innocent man to be butchered without even the form of a trial. It is clear that, if the Chinese admiral chose to sail out with his fleet in a hostile attitude, and insist upon having a British subject given up to him for execution, there was no alternative but war or submission. If, under these circumstances, we repelled force by force, are we to be considered as the aggressors, and are ministers to be blamed for involving the country in an unnecessary war? God forbid that, because the Chinese are beyond the pale of European civilisation, we should violate in our behaviour towards them the strictest rules of that law of nations which regulates the intercourse between European countries! God forbid that we should ever embark in a war of aggression against China, or seek to establish a Chinese empire by force or violence! But, on the other hand, away with the cant which says that, because the Chinese choose to put themselves beyond the pale of civilisation, they are to be exempted from its laws. Away with the cant which tells us to submit to injuries and insults from China which we should never dream of tolerating from France or Russia. Suppose Spain was, on the pretext of our carrying on an extensive contraband trade from Gibraltar, to seize our ambassador and all the British subjects at Madrid, and extort from them, by threats of death, an order on the merchants at Gibraltar to give up all the goods warehoused there for the Spanish market; suppose that, not content with this, she was to insist on all British ships coming to Spain signing a bond obliging them, in cases of accidental homicide, to give up one of their crew for execution, and, on their refusal, was to take steps for expelling all British subjects from the country; suppose, lastly, she was to send out an armed force to demand that an innocent British subject should be given up as a victim — what should we think of the morality of men who exclaimed against a war with Spain as an act of unjustifiable aggression? What should we think of the morality of a party who attempted to turn such a war into a handle for factious attack upon the government of the country, at the risk of inflicting a serious injury on the public service, and encouraging the enemy to make an obstinate and prolonged resistance? What should we think, in a word, of men who played the same game which the Tories have done in a precisely analogous case with regard to China?