250 Reform in China. 



but nearly impossible. The emperor's imperial ratification of this code 

 also immediately followed, framed in the customary verbiage of Chinese 

 magniloquence, and concluding with this threat : " Decidedly there will 

 not be the least clemency or forbearance shewn. Tremble at this ! In- 

 tensely are these commands given!" 



The lady of a Danish captain having some time previously accompa- 

 nied her husband to Canton, some new regulations on this subject were 

 also issued at the same time, expressly forbidding "all barbarian females" 

 and particularly including the English, from approaching that city, 

 whence, if they again dared to appear there, the offending party intro- 

 ducing them, was ordered " to be driven out with severity and for ever ! " 



In evidence that the whole of these proceedings were but parts of one 

 regular system of predetermined persecution, we may also mention, that 

 so long since as November 1830, Woo-Yay, the uncle of one of the chief 

 Hong merchants, was tried for his life, and ultimately threatened with 

 the torture, and sentenced to perpetual banishment, on a charge of 

 traitorous correspondence with the English, the sole proof of which con- 

 sisted in his having procured for one of them a sedan chair ! In May 

 last this aged and innocent man died in prison, of a broken heart, when 

 the ignominy heaped on him in life, was extended even to his remains, 

 which were delivered to his relatives for burial through a hole in the 

 wall, which has ever been considered the most indelible token of Chinese 

 disgrace. 



Aggravated as were all these circumstances of repeated insult on the 

 part of the local authorities, and supported as the select committee were 

 by the resolutions and remonstrances of the principal British merchants 

 resident at Canton, it created no slight surprise, that so early as the 10th 

 of June following, those gentlemen wholly rescinded their former order 

 for the suspension of the trade on the 1st of August, and thus destroyed 

 the last hope of obtaining redress from their decision and firmness. 

 Their reasons for adopting this course of proceeding, we must candidly 

 acknowledge, we cannot perfectly understand. Their own statement 

 admits, that they " have received no explanation for the acts of aggres- 

 sion committed, nor any security against their recurrence ;" and also, 

 " that until redress of grievances be granted, they see no prospect of 

 commerce being conducted with credit or security ; " and yet they 

 voluntarily yield up the Vantage ground which it was so manifest their 

 previous announcement had unquestionably obtained for them. What 

 private explanations, or what ulterior proceedings are to atone for this, 

 we know not, but the generally expressed dissatisfaction and astonish- 

 ment of the residents in China, at the select committee's apparently inex- 

 plicable conduct, we can most confidently vouch for. 



In exoneration of these seemingly vacillating proceedings, we are, 

 however, bound in justice to state, that if, as it very probably may prove, 

 they were inconsiderate in making their first declaration, they might be 

 unable to act otherwise than they subsequently did, without a confident 

 reliance, which they could not feel, on support from home. To proceed 

 with the business of the season, then became their first duty ; and when 

 they found that the foo-yuen could shelter himself under the emperor's 

 sanction, it then became a matter of infinitely greater importance, and at 

 once a national concern. The abilities and firmness of the present pre- 

 sident and committee, have certainly been proved under various former 

 difficulties, and we ought therefore not to censure too severely, what 



