merchants at Canton became responsible to the local authorities for the behaviour of the English merchants, and to the latter for all debts due to them, had been so complicated by various oppressive laws, that at one time the East India Company had threatened to stop all business. Lord Amherst, however, accomplished nothing in the direction of reform. From the date of his landing at Tientsin, he was persistently told that unless he agreed to perform the kotow, he could not possibly be admitted to an audience. It was probably his equally persistent refusal to do so—a ceremonial which had been excused by Chʽien Lung in the case of Lord Macartney—that caused the Ministers to change their tactics, and to declare, on Lord Amherst's arrival at the Summer Palace, tired and wayworn, that the Emperor wished to see him immediately. Not only had the presents, of which he was the bearer, not arrived at the palace, but he and his suite, among whom were Sir George Stanton, Dr Morrison, and Sir John Davis, had not received the trunks containing their uniforms. It was therefore impossible for the ambassador to present himself before the Emperor, and he flatly refused to do so; whereupon he received orders to proceed at once to the sea-coast, and take himself off to his own country. A curious comment on this fiasco was made by Napoleon, who thought that the English
