Page:Europe in China.djvu/83

Rh the Chinese Authorities and secretly professed themselves as their allies against the British. Latterly, when the Chinese Government, and even some of the British merchants, openly disowned and defied the authority and jurisdiction of the British Superintendents, the Macao Governor had the hardihood of declining to recognize His Majesty's Commission, going even so far as to omit returning answers to their letters. After making strong representations on this subject to the Government of Portugal and causing proper instructions to be sent from Lisbon to the Governor of Macao, Lord Palmerston now (December 6, 1836) informed Captain Elliot that measures had been taken to recall the Governor of Macao to a proper sense of the respect which is due to Officers acting under His Majesty's Commission, and that orders had been issued for a ship of war to be stationed in Chinese waters with special instructions to watch over the interests of British subjects at Macao.

The firm attitude thus assumed towards the Government of Macao, Lord Palmerston desired also to apply to the regulation of Captain Elliot's relations with the Cantonese Authorities, In direct opposition to the Duke of Wellington's Memorandum, Lord Palmerston repeatedly (July 22, 1836, and June 12, 1837) instructed Captain Elliot to decline every proposition to revive official communication through the customary channel of the Hong Merchants, to communicate with none but Officers of the Chinese Government, under no circumstances to give his written communications with the Chinese Government the name of petitions, and to insist upon his right, as an Officer commissioned by the King of England, to correspond on terms of equality with Officers commissioned by any other sovereign in the world. 'It might be very suitable,' wrote Lord Palmerston, 'for the servants of the East India Company, themselves an association of merchants, to communicate with the Authorities of China through the Merchants of the Hong, but the Superintendents are Officers of the King, and as such can properly communicate with none but Officers of the Chinese Government.' 5