Infringement of Treaty. the open connivance and collusion of the PROCLAMATION OF SIR H. POTTINGER. Her Britannic Majesty's Plenipotentiary, &c., trusts that the provisions of the Commercial Treaty will be found in practice mutually advantageous, beneficial, and just as regards the interests, the honour, and the future augmented prosperity of the Governments of the two mighty contracting empires and their subjects; and his Excellency most solemnly and urgently calls upon all subjects of the British Crown, individually and collectively, by their allegiance to their sovereign, by their duty to their country, by their own personal reputation, respect, and good name, and by the integrity and honesty which is due from them as men to the imperial rights of the Emperor of China, not only to strictly conform and act up to the 41 Earl of Shaftesbury, a legal opinion was taken by the East India Company on the question, 'Whether the legality of the manufacture and sale of opium by the East India Company, in the manner aforesaid, is in any way affected by the Supplemental Treaty entered into by Her Majesty with the Emperor of China in October 1843?” And, the opinion given by the law officers of the Crown * on this point was in these words:'We think, now that opium is made contraband by the law of China, and that its importation into China is made by Chinese law a capital crime, the continuance of the Company's practice of manufacturing and selling this opium in a form specially adapted to the Chinese trade, though not an actual and direct infringement of the Treaty, is yet at variance with its spirit and intention, and with the conduct due to the Chinese Government by that of Great Britain, as a friendly power, bound by a Treaty which implies that all smuggling into China will be discountenanced by Great Britain; and we think that if the practice in question were to be made the subject of expostulation by the Chinese Government, the British Government would be under an obligation to alter or modify the mode adopted by the East India Company of manufacturing opium, and to abstain from so manufacturing or preparing it as to involve a peculiar adaptation of the article to the Chinese This legal opinion, signed by Sir J. D. Harding, the Queen's Advocate-General, Sir R. Bethell, H.M. Attorney-General, Sir H. S. Keating, H.M. Solicitor-General, and Mr. Loftus Wigram, Standing Counsel for the East India Company, is given, not upon Lord Shaftesbury's question, but upon one prepared by the East India Company. His lordship's runs thus: Whether-having regard, also, to the supplemental treaty between Her Majesty and the Emperor of China, bearing date the 8th of October, 1843, which contains the following words: "A fair and regular tariff of duties and other dues having been established, it is hoped that the system of smuggling will entirely cease "-it is lawful for the East India Company to deal in such opium in the manner stated in the first question, with the full knowledge that it is so purchased at the abovementioned sales for the purpose of being smuggled into China in contravention of the laws of that empire, and so to cultivate and manufacture the same with a view principally to the China market, and to its being so purchased for such purposes as aforesaid, the Company with that view manufacturing the opium into that form which the Company consider best adapted to facilitate and promote that contraband trade.' contraband trade, as distinguished from other trades, and to adhere to this modification so long as opium is absolutely prohibited in China." said provisions of the Commercial Treaty, but to spurn, decry, and make known to the world any base, unprincipled, and traitorous overtures which they or their agents or employés may receive from, or which may be in any shape made to them, by any subject of China, whether officially connected with the Government or not, towards entering into any collusion or scheme for the purpose of evading, or acting in contravention of the said provisions of the Commercial Treaty. Her Britannic Majesty's Plenipotentiary, &c., will not allow himself to anticipate or suppose that the appeal which he now makes to all Her Majesty's subjects will be unheeded or overlooked by even a single individual; but at the same time it is his duty, in the responsible and unprecedented situation in which he has been placed by the course of events, to distinctly intimate that he is determined, by every means at his disposal, to see the provisions of the Commercial Treaty fulfilled by all who choose to engage in future in commerce with China; and that in any case where he may receive well-grounded representations from Her Majesty's consuls, or from the Chinese authorities, that such provisions of the Commercial Treaty have been evaded (or have been attempted to be so), he will adopt the most stringent and decided measures against the offending parties; and where his present powers may not fully authorise and sanction such measures as may seem to him fitting, he will respectfully trust that the legislature of Great Britain will hold him indemnified for adopting them in an emergency directly compromising the national honour, dignity, and good faith in the estimation of the Government of China, and in the eyes of all other nations. On the 6th of October, 1856, a Chinese vessel called a lorcha, and named, for European purposes, the Arrow,' was lying in the Canton river, manned by Chinese subjects, of whom one or more were known, or suspected to be, pirates. A foreigner had obtained from Sir John Bowring's Government at Hong Kong, one of the registers above alluded to, for the purposes therein specified, the said register having been granted for a year. Whether that register was a legal instrument in the hands of Englishman or foreigner, we will not stop to question; Lord Lyndhurst, in the House of Peers, and other eminent lawyers in the House of Commons, said that it was not. The Chinese do not appear to have disputed that; nor whether it conveyed authority for the English flag to cover the goods which the said lorcha was employed to smuggle; but anxious to avoid all disputes with us, they waited till eleven or twelve days after the date on which its immunity expired, and then sent their policemen to apprehend the culprits. It has been asserted that there was an English flag on board the vessel; possibly or probably there was; but we have the strongest evidence, short of that given legally upon oath, that none was flying, nor was there any person on board the lorcha but Chinese subjects. In the course of the day this arrest became known to Consul Parkes, at the British Factory, who demanded the Chinese culprit and subjects to be given up to him. After some very reasonable, or to put it on the very lowest terms, plausible remonstrance, pointing out the Chinese view of the lawful bearing of the matter, Mr. Parkes' request was complied with, the Chinese were hu miliated The recent Attack on Canton. 43 miliated for their act, and the vice-regal Commissioner Yeh conformed to the dictation of an English agent, not of the highest diplomatic rank. It would have been well had this been sufficient; but Anglo-Chinese diplomacy demanded more; even that the commissioner, as representing his emperor, should apologise to as much of the majesty of our sovereign and nation as was impersonated in its consul. The refusal of this demand led to an attack upon Canton, which was retaliated by the destruction of our factories. Then followed on blockade, attacks, and the incidents of scarcity of food, and loss of life by war. A few of our smallest men-of-war, with some ships' boats, gained a glorious victory over the Chinese fleet of junks, armed with 900 guns, and manned by 9,000 men. We read of the boldness of our approach, and glowing eulogia upon the valour of our officers and men, and then felt some consolation in the thought that, with such a terrific enemy to assail, our whole loss amounted but to 84 killed and wounded; and that the foe, who had opposed to us the formidable resistance that was described, had inflicted less than at the rate of one wound with every ten cannons, throwing musketry and small arms out of all account. Neither on that occasion, nor in the more recent attack upon their million-peopled city, have the Chinese shown themselves to have the slightest knowledge of the art of war; and if they should have been superior in diplomacy, or happened to have justice on their side, the arguments of artillery and the conclusions often, but not always arrived at, à coté des gros battalions, have hitherto been entirely in our favour. Meanwhile, the talented correspondent of the Times' informs us that our trade is impeded, our establishments at other ports in danger, and that the result of all our wars and negociations is, that we succeeded, in 1854, in forcing upon the Chinese 24,000,000 dollars' worth of opium, and only obtained sale for 4,000,000 dollars' worth of British manufactures, although that gentleman states, that if they were not impoverished by the opium traffic, they are willing to take from us, in profitable commerce, any amount of goods we can export. All this was submitted to the consideration of our legislators, statesmen, and merchants, just at the very moment of that great monetary crisis which closed our factories, and threw our workmen out of employment, to the alternatives of starvation, beggary, or parish charity. When our commerce was paralysed, we were employing a navy to prevent our merchant ships from trading with Canton; when we were calling for reduction of our taxes, we were equipping an army to destroy the people who were waiting to buy our goods; and it is a remarkable event, in these remarkably eventful days, that when the first detachment of that army destined for the second opium war reached the intermediate port between the British and 6 Chinese Chinese empires, it was met by an urgent call to hasten and defend our yet unmassacred countrymen, women, and children, and to save the endangered supremacy of England, on the fields of those districts where the accursed opium is produced. We will not presume to link acts upon earth to the councils of heaven, nor dogmatically to pronounce upon cause and effect; but we believe that we may go so far as to say, that if these things are not indicative of a retributory connexion, they are at least very like it. We speak as to wise men, judge ye for yourselves. As Lord Elgin's instructions are that he is to obtain, by persuasion, of course, a legalisation of the opium trade, we will, before that desideratum is accomplished or defeated, point to another embarrassment in which our Indian and home authorities are involved. In 1833 the East India Company was deprived of its Charter, and commanded by Parliament to cease from trading. The Act is explicit, that all accounts were to be closed, all ships and warehouses sold; officers were appointed to see that this should be carried out in the course of two years, and no buildings or depôts were to be retained except for the purposes, not of trade, but of Government. Still the East India Company audaciously reserved their opium and salt monopolies!!! In 1843 this was ineffectually brought before the House of Commons by Lord Ashley, who, in 1857, as Earl of Shaftesbury, again agitated the subject in the House of Lords by laying on the table two questions to be submitted to the judges for decision. In a false confidence of their position, the Ministers of the Crown acceded to Lord Shaftesbury's proposal, but were soon warned by the Lord Chancellor that if the decision of the judges should be to pronounce the opium traffic and our breach of treaty with the Chinese illegal, the President of the Board of Control, the Chairman of the Court of Directors, the Governor-General of India, and every authority engaged in the illicit contraband, would be amenable to criminal indictment. A strong appeal was made to Lord Shaftesbury, whether it was his desire to produce such consequences, and whether, as it was his object to have a great constitutional question settled, he would not accept the legal opinion of the law officers of the Crown, which would determine the merits of the case without involving the embarrassment that might ensue upon the verdict of the judges. In the debate that took place the Noble Lord stated, that in framing his questions his object was to shut the Government up to all the difficulties of the case; but as he had not contemplated such results as the Lord Chancellor set forth, he would be content to withdraw his motion on condition that the opinion of the law officers should be obtained. The Lord Chancellor promised that a legal case should be prepared for the purpose; but mark how it was done! Lord Shaftesbury's questions were sent Have the Chinese insulted us? 45 sent to the President of the Board of Control, who transmitted them to the India House. There they were put into the hands of the solicitors of the East India Company, who drew an ex parte case with their own recital of alleged facts and assumptions, which ended by substituting two other questions for those propounded by Lord Shaftesbury. Objection was taken to such a case, and it went back for amendment. As the session of Parliament was drawing to a close, after months of delay the second edition of the Company's solicitors' work was produced, which differed little from the first except in being more closely and cautiously worded; with it was coupled a proposal that the standing counsel of the East India Company, who has no official status, should be joined with the law officers of the Crown in framing an opinion on questions upon which he must have been previously consulted by his employers. Notwithstanding a remonstrance, the case went forward as proposed, and the opinion of the law officers of the Crown, assisted by Mr. Loftus Wigram, the counsel of the implicated East India Company, gave their opinion upon the questions substituted for Lord Shaftesbury's, which opinion was laid upon the table of the House of Lords just a few days before Parliament was prorogued, and when no more business could be entertained. Thus was monopoly respited for a season, and we may presume with a hope that before Parliament should re-assemble the question of breach of treaty would be settled by the Chinese being forcibly persuaded to legalise the opium trade. So far as Lord Shaftesbury is concerned, the above extraordinary proceedings in the highest court of British legislature and honour are not so important as might at first be thought. His Lordship's avowed object was to know whether he was legally right or wrong in the views he had taken; and he solemnly pledged himself that if, by any possible construing of the technicalities of an Act of Parliament, a claim to monopoly of opium can be sustained by a British Company having no charter to trade, then he would introduce a Bill to render such monopoly illegal, and never cease to do so, session after session, if necessary, until so foul a privilege shall be exterminated. In his Lordship's high character we have full assurance that he will pursue his righteous object, and redeem the gage he has thrown down to war unto victory against one of the most formidable and detestable evils of our times, the reproach of Britain, the direst curse to more than one-third of the whole family of man. Our readers may reasonably ask, Is not 'Meliora' making out an ex parte case? and must not what so many say be true, that the Chinese have overwhelmed us with insults which we have borne only too patiently? We dare not have written these pages without being prepared for such a question. We would not have |