which devolved upon him, and that his death was hastened by the needless and vexatious detention and exposure to which he was subjected by the Chinese authorities. The governor reported to the emperor that the barbarian eye had been sent away, and the English ships had been driven out of the river.
On leaving Canton, Lord Napier, in a letter to the British residents, expressed "a hope that the day will yet arrive when I shall be placed in my proper position, by an authority which nothing can withstand." At the same time he wrote to Lord Palmerston, secretary for foreign affairs, that the viceroy had committed an outrage on the British crown which should be chastised, and he implored his lordship to force the Chinese to acknowledge his authority and the king's commission, stating that such a course would result in opening the ports. The American consul sent to the Department of State a report of the affair in detail. He regarded war between Great Britain and China as imminent, and suggested that it might be to the interest of the United States to become a party to the contest, at least to the extent of making demand, accompanied by the display of a naval force, for terms in every respect as advantageous as those England might obtain.[1] John Quincy Adams a few years later, in a public address, declared that the conduct of the Chinese authorities justified
- ↑ The official documents relating to Lord Napier's commission will be found in the British Blue Book, or Parliamentary papers, of the period. They are quite fully reproduced with all the details of the affair in 3 Chinese Repository, 143, 186, 235, 280, 324; 11 Ib. 25, 65. See, also, Williams's Hist. China, chap. iii.; 47 N. A. Review, 403; Consul Shillaber, September 25, 1834, Consular Archives.
