Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/303

, Staffordshire. His grandfather, John Parkes of Halesowen, was a clergyman of the church of England, and his father, Harry Parkes, an ironmaster of Walsall, who married a daughter of George Gitton, postmaster and printer, of Bridgnorth. Both parents died in 1832–3, and their three children, of whom Harry was the youngest, were brought up by their father's brother, a retired naval officer, at Birmingham. In 1838 Parkes entered King Edward's Grammar School, under Dr. James Prince Lee [q. v.]; his schoolfellows included J. B. Lightfoot and B. F. Westcott, both subsequently bishops of Durham. In 1841 Parkes was invited to join his two sisters in China, where they were already settled with their cousin, the wife of the Rev. Charles Gutzlaff, a well-known linguist and explorer, who was afterwards secretary to the British chief superintendent of trade in China. Arriving at Macao in October 1841, Parkes applied himself to the study of Chinese, and in May 1842 was received into the office of John Robert Morrison [see under ], secretary and first interpreter to Sir Henry Pottinger [q. v.], the British plenipotentiary at Hongkong. Hostilities had been intermittently carried on between China and England since Commissioner Lin had driven Captain Elliot and the British merchants out of Canton in 1839, after confiscating the opium stores. In 1842 Sir Henry Pottinger resolved to take decisive measures, and proceeded up the Yang-tsze-Kiang with the object of attacking Nanking. Parkes was attached to his suite, and sailed with him on 13 June 1842. During the voyage his knowledge of Chinese, slight as it then was, enabled him, although only a lad of fourteen, to be of service to the commissariat, and he was often sent ashore to forage for cattle and other provisions. He joined in various junk-captures, and was a spectator at Pottinger's side of the assault of Chinkiang (21 July). He managed also to be present at the negotiations for peace at Nanking, and witnessed the final signing of the treaty on 29 Aug. Throughout the expedition he had been thrown among the chiefs of the campaign, with whom his charm of manner and energy of character had ingratiated him, and he had gained an unusual experience of men and affairs.

From the autumn of 1842 to August 1843 he was stationed at Tinghai, the chief town of Chusan, studying Chinese under Gutzlaff, who acted as civil magistrate of the island during the British occupation. In September 1843 Parkes entered the British consulate at Canton, under Robert Thom [q. v.], in order to learn the routine of consular duties, and for the next nine months was variously employed either at Canton or as assistant to the Chinese secretary at Hongkong. In the latter capacity he attended Pottinger at the signing of the supplementary treaty at Hu-mun-chai on 8 Oct. 1843, and in January 1844 took delivery from the Chinese authorities of the instalment of 3,000,000 dollars then due for the war indemnity. Four months later he acted as interpreter at Pottinger's farewell interview with Kiying, the governor-general of Canton. In June 1844 he entered upon still more responsible duties on his appointment as interpreter to her majesty's consulate at Amoy. In those early days of British relations with China, a consul was confronted with much difficulty and even danger. He was at once diplomatic agent, magistrate, and the head of his nation at his port; his distance from his official chief at Hongkong, and the slowness of pre-telegraphic communications, compelled him sometimes, on his own responsibility, to take measures of serious consequence; and, since he seldom knew any Chinese, a vast amount of labour and responsibility fell upon his interpreter, who had to conduct all official intercourse, and draw up every letter and notification to the local authorities. Parkes, however, enjoyed work and responsibility, and thoroughly satisfied his first chief, Captain Gribble, and won the admiration of Mr. (afterwards Sir) Rutherford Alcock, who succeeded to the consulate at Amoy in November 1844. Beyond the ordinary but often harassing details of consular duty, Parkes's residence at Amoy was signalised by the successful accomplishment of a complicated negotiation by which a site for a new consulate was acquired at Amoy on the evacuation by the British troops of the island of Koolangsoo, where the consul had hitherto resided.

In March 1845 Alcock and Parkes were transferred as consul and interpreter to Foochow, where the presence of a Tartar garrison and a turbulent population added to the dangers and difficulties of the small foreign community. Parkes had visited Foochow in the previous year, during his convalescence from a severe attack of fever, and had then witnessed an unprovoked attack upon some officers of his ship. Similar outrages were not uncommon, and in October 1845 he was himself insulted and stoned by some Tartar soldiers. The prompt punishment of the assailants with bamboo and cangue was an earnest of the vigorous policy both of consul and interpreter. Another attack, with robbery, on British merchants, was fined to the amount of forty-six thousand dollars; and Parkes's ‘very efficient services’ in ar-