Stipulations of the Treatij. — Their ultimate Effect. 389 



foreign commerce, permits Chinese subjects to emigrate, 

 without any restrictions, to any part of the British colonies, 

 and to take service there ; assigns to Great Britain a portion 

 of the district of Kow-loang or Cow-loon on tlie mainland 

 opposite Hong-kong; and, finally, ordains that the original 

 treaty, and all the various additional articles, shall be pub- 

 lished by placard in every part of the Empire. Never be- 

 fore had the Middle Kingdom sustained such a humiliation. 

 True, during the rule of the former dynasty, Tao-Kwang 

 (Light of Reason), an end was put to a system that had en- 

 dured for a thousand years, but conditions such as those that 

 had been im2:)osed by the western nations in the treaties of 

 Tien-Tsin and Pekin, were altogether unheard of in the his- 

 tory of China, and afford convincing proof of its weakness and 

 approaching downfal, the more so, as the late Emperor Hien- 

 fung was a jealous upholder of the old Asiatic doctrines and 

 state craft. Only the utmost necessity and unceasing pres- 

 sure could have induced him to lower his arms before the 

 barbarians of the west, and to endure that an enem}^ should 

 have dictated conditions of peace in his own capital, hitherto 

 inaccessible to foreign nations. English, French, and Ameri- 

 can ships of war hold possession of the most imj)ortant forts 

 of China. In several provinces of the interior, a rebel em- 

 peror has set up his camp, while on the banks of the Amoor, 

 on the north of the Empire, Russia is building fortresses, and 

 acting as if she were quite at home in that region. But all 

 these phenomena, however divergent the interests, may at 



