QUESTION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES. 195 as full liberty of worship, of legislation, of | looked. In the first place, it might not be commerce, and of navigation. In connection with this difficulty of the Principalities, it will be well also to observe, in relation to what will at a later stage of this narrative come before our notice, not only that the manner in which these provisions were to be carried out led subsequently to much angry controversy, as might have been anticipated from the very opposite views of Austria and the Porte on one hand, and of France and Russia on the other, but that the emperor of the French had very early declared to Lord Clarendon his strong conviction in favour of the union of the Principalities under a sovereign of their own choice. This is Lord Clarendon's report to Lord Palmerston of what passed in a conversation between them on the 6th of March; subsequent events have shown how just were the apprehensions, which were strongly felt by English statesmen and expressed at the time, of the injury to Turkey which was likely to result from the emperor's proposal: "The emperor said the great fault committed by the congress of Vienna was that the interests of the sovereigns were only consulted, while the interests of their subjects were wholly neglected; and that the present congress ought not to fall into a similar error. From all the information that reached him, the emperor said he was convinced that nothing would satisfy the people of Wallachia and Moldavia but the union of the Principalities under a foreign prince, who should nevertheless admit the suzerain power of Turkey, and that it would be disgraceful to England and France, if they had not the will or the power to establish a state of things in the Principalities that would be in accordance with the wishes of the people, and manifestly be an improvement upon the feeble attempt at reorganization that had been proposed at Constantinople. "I said that I was not prepared to deny that the plan which his majesty was desirous to adopt might be the best for the Principalities, and I thought it well worthy of consideration, but that there were serious difficulties in the way of its adoption, which could not be over easy to find a foreign prince fit for the difficult task he would have to perform, who would admit the suzerainty of the Porte, and he must be either of the Roman Catholic or the Greek religion. If the former, the Greek priests and the people of the Principalities would, from the first moment, be in bitter opposition to him, and, in order to sustain himself, he would have to rely upon Russian aid and influence. If he was of the Greek religion, all his sympathies would be with Russia, and I much feared that we should be establishing another kingdom not unlike Greece, but in a locality where the results would be still more disastrous to Europe. From a conversation which I had had with Count Buol, I had become aware that the objections of Austria to the union of the Principalities were insurmountable, and those of Aali Pasha (the Turkish plenipotentiary) were not less strong. Indeed, I said, Turkey would have a good right to complain, for she would well know, that the foreign prince so established would, within a few years, be able to throw off the suzerainty of the Sultan and become independent. The same system must also necessarily be established in Servia as in Moldavia and Wallachia; and it would be attended with the same consequences. "Turkey would thus be deprived of about six millions of her subjects, and her power and position in Europe would be at an end, and I did not see what answer could be given to the Sultan if he appealed to us as the defenders of the integrity of the Ottoman empire against such an act of spoliation. "The emperor said that at all events he wished the subject to be discussed by the conference." It was so discussed, and with the result which we have stated. But that result left a question open, which led afterwards to the very brink of an European war. With regard to the debate on the American difficulty Mr. Gladstone contended that wrong had been done to the American government. A cordial understanding with America had not been preserved, and the honour of this country had been compromised, but unless the house was prepared to displace the gov ernment, it ought not to weaken their hands. Votes of censure on the government should only be proposed by those who were able to give effect to the principle contained in those votes. Coming to the actual matter at issue, he asked whether wrong had not been done? "In the first place, he charged the government with practising concealment; in the second place, he maintained that the American government were deluded and misled. The law was knowingly broken by the agents of the British government. There was not one hair's-breadth of distinction between the position of Mr. Crampton and the position of the government. What the American government complained of was the employment of an agency within the United States, not only to give information, but to tempt, to induce by the offer of valuable considerations, the subjects of the United States to go beyond the United States for the purpose of enlisting. Mr. Crampton did not communicate this to the American government. He had not only been guilty of concealment, however, but he had broken the solemn promise that he would confine himself to communicate to the persons who addressed themselves to him the terms on which they would be received into the British service." Mr. Gladstone then went on to show the injustice of the charge against the American government, of having at first confined its complaints to the proceedings of unauthorized persons, and subsequently extended those complaints to the British minister and his subordinates. "Aiming, as I do, at a plain and intelligible statement, I must say the American government was deceived by the proceedings of the British government. I say we intentionally broke the law of the Union." After examining the cases of several recruiting agents, the speaker maintained that Mr. Crampton had been made a scapegoat. He and three consuls had been punished, yet, although the British government acquiesced in and indorsed the acts of its agents, it accepted with satisfaction its own acquittal. Mr. Gladstone thus concluded: "When I look back to the period when party combinations were strong in the house-when Sir Robert Peel was on those (the opposition) benches, and Lord John Russell on these, I thinkthough many mistakes and errors were committed on both sides-that, on the whole, the government of the country was honourably and efficiently carried on. I believe that the day for this country will be a happy day when party combinations shall be restored on such a footing. But this question, instead of being a party question, is a most remarkable illustration of the disorganized state of parties, and of the consequent impotency of the House of Commons to express a practical opinion with respect to the foreign policy of the country." It will be seen from the tone of the debates and from the persistency of the opposition that there were some doubts of the stability of the government in the disorganized state of parties, and at the beginning of the following year, 1857, serious occasion arose to call the foreign policy of the government in question, in consequence of the proclamation of hostilities against China. The conduct of the ministry had been censured by Lord Derby in the House of Lords, and he had moved a series of resolutions condemning their proceedings in regard to China, but though the speech in which they were introduced was received with applause, the resolutions were not agreed to. On the same evening, however, in the House of Commons Mr. Cobden moved, "That this house has heard with concern of the conflicts which have occurred between the British and Chinese authorities in the Canton river; and without expressing an opinion as to the extent to which the government of China may have afforded this country cause of complaint respecting the non-fulfilment of the treaty of 1842, this house considers that the papers which have been laid upon the table fail to establish satisfactory grounds for the violent measures resorted to at Canton in the late affair of the Arrow, and that a select committee be appointed to inquire into the state of our commercial relations with China." In the speech from the throne at the opening of parliament the following passage had occurred:" Acts of violence, insults to the THE WARS IN BURMAH AND IN PERSIA. British flag, and infraction of treaty rights committed by the local Chinese authorities at Canton, and a pertinacious refusal of redress, have rendered it necessary for her majesty's officers in China to have recourse to measures of force to obtain satisfaction." From this language it was evident that we had entered on what might prove to be another "little war," and though the tremendous conflict in the Crimea had dwindled minor contests to a point almost below public attention, there were already difficulties to contend with in Persia, while hostilities in Burmah had only recently been brought to a conclusion, and the memory of the Kaffir war, and Sir Harry Smith's difficulties in 1852, still lingered. The war in Burmah, which men like Cobden and Bright, as well as a good many who took less extreme views, declared had not been justified and might have been prevented by a less highhanded and a more reasonable policy, was caused by the breach on the part of the native government of a treaty made after the former chastisement of the Burmese by the Anglo-Indian government. This treaty provided that British rights and property should be respected, and it was alleged to have been broken by the sudden display of active animosity against our merchants at Rangoon and unwarrantable opposition to British vessels entering the port. Reparation was demanded, and a ship of war and three steamers were sent out to enforce it. This was granted so far as removing the Burmese governor of Rangoon, but he was replaced by a successor, who was equally insulting and offensive, and the British officer, Commodore Lambert, proclaimed a blockade. The answer to this was a fire directed upon our ships from the Burmese battery, which was thereupon silenced by our guns. The King of Ava, however, still refused to apologize, to compensate the merchants for their losses, or to permit the residence of a permanent British agent at Rangoon according to the terms of the treaty, which promised to respect British rights and property. The note of war was sounded, and troops from Bengal and Madras were sent under Major-general Godwin (a commander who had been engaged in the first Burmese war) to the mouth of the 197 Irrawadi, the river on which Rangoon stands. While waiting for the Madras contingent, the general stormed and captured Martaban. The taking of Rangoon was, however, a much more difficult task; for though the whole of the defences of the town on the river side were destroyed by the fire from our shipping, that fire was returned with deadly effect by the Burmese, and our troops on landing were met by a determined resistance, and the stockade, from which the enemy issued and shot down our men, was only forced after severe loss. The capture of Prome, and that of Pegu, which followed, served to some extent to redeem the credit of the British arms. In the latter case 1000 of our men drove out 4000 or 5000 of the Burmese who were strongly entrenched behind their ramparts, and who afterwards made a futile attempt to recover the city. The whole province of Pegu was then annexed to British India, and though we had some difficulty in suppressing the lawless bands of the Dacoits who under their chieftains joined in hostilities for the purpose of plundering both sides, the war with Burmah was virtually over, the King of Ava agreeing to the demands which had been made by the governorgeneral. The Persian difficulty had arisen out of a breach of the convention made in January, 1853, between the Persian government and Colonel Shiel, the British minister at the court of Teheran. The shah had agreed that Herat should remain in an independent position, and undertook not to send any troops thither except in the event of an invasion of the Herat territory by a foreign army, in which case any military force sent there by him should be withdrawn as soon as the foreign intruders retired. The agreement was, in fact, to refrain from undue interference in the internal affairs of Herat, except so far as interference had existed in the time of Yar Mohamed Khan, who had been a ruler of the province and had paid tribute to the shah as a token of nominal fealty. The Persian agent was to be recalled from Herat, and Great Britain was also to desist from interfering with the affairs of the place, while the British minister was to use all his influence to induce foreign powers to leave it in a state of independence. This in effect was not much less than an engagement on the part of Great Britain to maintain the independence of what was once the kingdom of the descendants of Tamerlane, in Afghanistan, and to keep intruders out of the old capital with its wet ditch and earthen rampart, its citadel and wall of sun-dried bricks, its dark narrow and pestilent streets, its mosques, baths, bazaars, and caravansaries, and its manufactories of gorgeous carpets and brilliant sword-blades. At that moment perhaps the most dangerous intruder was Persia, or it was thought to be so, since it was suspected that Russia might follow in her wake. For twenty years there had been a constant disposition on the part of Persia to endeavour to diminish British influence in Afghanistan, by treating our embassies with discourtesy or with positive insult, and after repeated remonstrances and an endeavour to hold Herat against the terms of a former treaty, the present convention had been secured only when it was made clearly known that if the shah kept possession of the Afghan capital he would have to fight Great Britain. If Russian influence had been behind him at that time it was probably inert during the progress of the Crimean war; but at all events the same tactics seem to have been resumed in 1856, and after a dispute with our representative at the court of Teheran about some apparently trivial matter which afterwards led to more serious misunderstandings, the terms of the agreement were broken, and by October in that year the Persians had again taken Herat, and were in conflict with our troops, who in the following month had seized the island of Karrack in the Persian Gulf; while our naval force, under Sir Henry Leek, had attacked and captured the fortified town of Bushire, which was thus declared to be a military post under British rule, and subject to martial law, the traffic in slaves being at once abolished. While these operations were being conducted in Persia, where it was doubtless necessary that we should uphold the terms of the treaty, intelligence came of proceedings at Canton, for which only a lame defence could be made on the part of the supporters of our government, while able and just men on both sides of politics joined in condemning them. "The lorcha Arrow" are words which have almost grown to the dignity of a historical reference. Lorcha appears to have been the name of a Portuguese settlement at Macao, at the mouth of the Canton river, and was applied to denote boats of a certain build and rig. The Arrow was one of these boats, and like some others from the same locality appears to have had an evil reputation with the Chinese authorities for piracy and smuggling. She had been built in China, was owned by a Chinaman, and had a Chinese crew; but the owners had at one time contrived to obtain such a register as under an act of the colonial legislature was granted to ships of a different class, or at all events of a more definite character, and thereby claimed to use the British flag and to claim protection under it. While this vessel was at Canton, a number of Chinese commanded by an officer in authority boarded her, pulled down the British flag and carried off the crew, refusing to listen to the remonstrances of the master, though they were supported by the British consul. It was an abrupt way of proceeding, no doubt, but it must be remembered that the vessel was known to be used in nefarious enterprises, and it transpired that though her papers were in the consulate, the registration under which she claimed immunity had expired more than a month before. Though the Chinese commissioners did not admit that any breach of national obligations had been committed, it appears that they were willing to make some reparations, and the form in which their assent was given was described by our consul, Mr. Parkes, as "very proper." Mr. Parkes had, in fact, demanded that the men who had been seized on board the Arrow should be at once returned, and based his demand on a supplementary treaty of 1843, one of the terms of which forbade the Chinese authorities to seize Chinamen who had offended, or were suspected of having offended against the laws, if these men were on board a British vessel. It only gave them a right to apply to the English for the surrender of the men. THE "LORCHA" ARROW-SIR JOHN BOWRING. The Chinese governor of Canton, to whom this demand was made, was named Yeh. He was a man of remarkable ability and intelligence, and was quite capable of maintaining the argument by which he justified what had been done. He contended that the Arrow was not an English vessel, but a Chinese pirate lorcha improperly hoisting the English flag for the purpose of evading the law, and not entitled to the protection of a treaty which made British vessels subject only to consular authority. There was so much of truth in this representation that not only had the former registry of the Arrow expired, but the British authorities, who had previously granted it, already knew enough of the character of the vessel to doubt whether the registration could legally be renewed. Unfortunately Mr. Parkes, thinking that the hesitation of Governor Yeh might be followed by some further difficulties, sent off to Hong Kong for the support and assistance of our plenipotentiary Sir John Bowring, who had himself formerly been consul at Canton. We have already heard of Sir John Bowring when he was associated with the leaders of the league for the repeal of the corn-laws, and helped to fight that battle in parliament and at public meetings. He had been a philosophical Radical, and once edited the Westminster Review; had travelled much, and possessed an extensive acquaintance of Asiatic as well as of European languages. With China and the Chinese language he was probably more familiar than any other public man of that time. His attainments therefore were considerable, though his learning was not profound. His public character was highly respectable; but he was not much of a politician, and was nothing of a statesman. It would appear that he was a man likely to be rather self-important, and he had moved amongst people who, because he had seen much, and learned much of which they were necessarily ignorant, showed him the kind of deference which was likely to give him a rather inflated opinion of his own authority. This was not mischievously apparent while he was engaged in writing and translating the numerous books in which he contributed largely to the study 199 of philology, or added to our knowledge of the countries with which he was familiar. Sir John-or as he continued to be called, Doctor-Bowring was an extraordinary man, not only (perhaps not so much) because of the extent and variety of his attainments, as because he had attained unusual knowledge with few of the regular means of instruction, and by the aid of what must be regarded as exceptional ability for rapidly acquiring information. He had an early aptitude for languages, and devoted himself not so much to studying them in the usual way as to "picking them up," and afterwards mastering their structure and relations. His father's family had for generations been engaged in the Devonshire wool trade, and he was born at Exeter, where he seems to have had what may be called a casual education, learning something of the classics from a Dissenting minister at Moreton Hampstead, mathematics of the master of the Presbyterian Charity School, and French from a refugee priest. These were all the regular masters he seems to have had; and at fifteen years of age he was placed in a merchant's office at Exeter, where he continued to improve himself in linguistic studies during his spare time. He had expressed a desire to become a preacher, influenced probably by the effect of the lectures of the accomplished Dr. Lant Carpenter, the well known Unitarian minister, whose chapel he attended; but his career lay in another direction, indicated by the facility with which it seems he could acquire any language by ordinary and occasional conversation with foreigners, and a reference to a few books. In providing these books the German, Portuguese, and Dutch merchants in Exeter contributed to his instruction by placing their libraries at his service. Italian he contrived to learn from the itinerant sellers and menders of barometers and other instruments. At eighteen Bowring was transferred to London, to a house of business engaged in providing supplies for the British troops during the Peninsular war; and in 1813 was sent to Spain and Portugal, where he moved from place to place in order to be in communication with the army, and took the opportunity of completing his know |