superiority of position which national pride and vanity had for ages rendered habitual; and the recognition of the right of foreign authorities to be elevated to the same height was one of the most important of the treaty concessions. But it was a treaty concession, and ought never to be allowed to become a dead letter. In our relations with Oriental governments, the only security for the observance of treaty engagements, is to be found in their rigid, but quiet and determined enforcement. To be considerate as to what you exact, is the dictate alike of prudence and of policy; but the attempt to disregard or violate any formal treaty stipulation should be resisted at its very earliest demonstration.
Whatever grounds of complaint the British authorities might have against the Chinese, nothing was left undone to conciliate the good opinion of the mandarins. In 1854 an application was made by Yeh to this effect: he feared a rupture of the public peace, and feeling himself too weak to protect Canton from the invasion of the rebels, he asked for the assistance of the naval forces of the treaty powers. Sir John Bowring accompanied the admiral and the British fleet to the neighbourhood of that city, and in co-operation with the Americans, took such effectual measures for its security, that the intended attack was abandoned, and general tranquillity remained uninterrupted. This intervention was gratefully acknowledged by the people of Canton; but there is every reason to believe that the commissioner represented our amicable intervention as an act of vassalage, and the assistance rendered as having been in obedience to orders issued by imperial authority. Notwithstanding this and many other evidences of friendly sentiment and useful aid on our part, Yeh did not hesitate to represent to the court that the rebels and Western "barbarians" were acting in union, and he expressed his conviction that his policy would lead to the extermination of both.
No one, in fact, who had attended to the progress of public events, could be unaware of the insecure position of our relations with the Chinese. Lord Palmerston said, in 1854:—
"So far from our proceedings in China having had a tendency to disturb the peaceful
relations between the British government and the Chinese empire, and to lead to
encroachments upon their territory, we had, on the contrary, acted with the greatest
forbearance. Ever since the conclusion of the treaty of Nanking the conduct of the
Chinese authorities had been such as would have justified a rupture with that government.
They had violated the engagements into which they had entered; and if any
desire existed on the part of the British government to proceed against them, abundant
cause had existed, almost since the termination of the last war. They had refused, on
divers pretences, to admit us to parts of Canton to which we ought to have access,
avoided their engagements with respect to the Hongs, and nullified their stipulations in
regard to the Tariff. In point of fact, there was scarcely a single engagement they had
not broken."[1]
Wearied with so many evasions, difficulties and delays, the ministers
of the treaty powers, in 1854, determined to approach the capital, in order
to represent to the court the unsatisfactory state of foreign relations with
the imperial commissioner at Canton, and the necessity of redressing the
- ↑ Debate, July.
