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HE expulsion of Lord Napier and the indignities deliberately heaped upon him (in 1834) were but the premonitory symptoms of a thunderstorm of Chinese Imperial, official and popular wrath, which was to burst over the heads of the British community at Canton five years later (in 1839). For the present, this precursory brief disturbance of the peace was succeeded by a temporary lull. During this interval, however, internal dissensions sprang up among all the parties concerned, in the British Cabinet, among the Superintendents who succeeded Lord Napier, among the British merchants and among the Chinese.

Mr. J. F. Davis (later on better known as Sir John Davis, Sinologue and Governor of Hongkong) succeeded to the post of Chief Superintendent of British trade in China (October 12, 1834), Sir George B. Robinson acting as Second and Mr. J. H. Astell as Third Superintendent. When announcing to Lord Palmerston the changes that had taken place, Mr. Davis declared that an unbecoming and premature act of submission to the Chinese Authorities would not only prove fruitless but mischievous, and that therefore 'absolute silence and quiescence' seemed to him the most eligible policy to pursue, until receipt of instructions from the Cabinet.

But the British Cabinet was not in a position, for years to come, to form any definite policy with regard to China. Lord Palmerston was temporarily (November 14, 1834, to April 10, 1835) out of office and when the Whig leaders resumed the reins of the Government (April 10, 1835, to September 16, 1841),