Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/51

Rh Amherst and his suite, and in attendance upon it were the East Indiaman General Hewitt and the brig Lyra. Quitting Spithead on February 8, 1816, the vessels arrived off the Lamma Islands on the 10th of July and found awaiting them there two of the East India Company's ships having on board Sir G. Staunton, who was to accompany the Embassy in the important position of interpreter, and other gentlemen who were to discharge various duties in connection with it. Two days subsequent to the meeting the squadron, now numbering five ships, dropped anchor in Hongkong Harbour. The occasion was the first on which the position had been brought into prominence by association with important events in the history of British relations with China, but the harbour had often been used previously by merchantmen trading on the China coast, and its advantages were well known though few at the time could have suspected the great destiny which was marked out for the island. Soon after the squadron's arrival news was brought to Lord Amherst that the Emperor was prepared to receive him. The sojourn at Hongkong was, therefore, cut short, and the vessels sailed on the 12th of July for the mouth of the White River in the Gulf of Pechili, which was reached on the 28th of July. The Ambassador was kept waiting on board his ship for some days pending the arrival of the Imperial Legate. When at length this functionary put in an appearance the mission landed at Tientsin, reaching that port on August 12th. At the very outset the question of the kotowkowtow [sic] was raised. The Chinese put the performance of the ceremony forward as an indispensable condition of an audience, and they had the effrontery to assert that in complying Lord Amherst would only be following the precedent set by Lord Macartney, who had conceded the point. A further argument used was that trade at Canton would suffer if the Ambassador persisted in his objection to the ceremony. Lord Amherst courteously but firmly declined to entertain the proposal for a moment. He understood the immense importance which attached to his maintaining an unyielding attitude, and steadily rejected all proposals made to him on the subject. At length, when the controversy had raged for three days, the Ambassador was aroused from his bed one morning to receive a message from the Emperor to the  effect that he must either perform the kotow or return to England. Lord Amherst's reply was an offer to perform the ceremony provided that he received a formal engagement on the part of the Emperor that any subject of his deputed to England should be ordered to perform the same ceremony to the British sovereign. The Chinese officials declined to entertain this compromise and they formally took their leave while the heads of the boats were turned down the river as if in preparation for a return. Whether this was done in order to test the firmness of the Ambassador, or in obedience to the Emperor's instructions was not made plain. But on the following morning the two Mandarins who acted as conductors of the Embassy stated that two officers of very high rank had been appointed to meet the Embassy at Tung Chow, 12 miles from the capital, to renew the negotiation as to ceremonial, and it was suggested that in the meantime a rehearsal of the ceremony should take place. The proposed rehearsal was declined, but the offer was made of a written promise to perform the ceremony before the Emperor on the terms already stated. The Mandarins seemed to be satisfied with this, and having obtained from the Ambassador the formal document gave orders for the journey to be continued to Peking. Four days subsequently the subject was re-opened by the Mandarins with the object of preparing the way for the reception of the delegates who were to give instruction in the ceremony. It was artfully suggested that the Ambassador might very well yield as "such report as he saw fit might be made to England." The notion that the home authorities should be deceived was promptly spurned, and with renewed emphasis a statement of the limits to which Lord Amherst was prepared to go was made. Some Mandarins who brought the message relative to the conference behaved very rudely in the presence of the mission. They treated the objections raised to the performance of the ceremony with insolent contempt. Their mental attitude is well illustrated by the remark of one of them, "that as there was only one sun in the firmament, so there was only one sovereign in the universe, the Emperor of the Heavenly Empire." The discussions continued until the mission reached the palace of Yuen-ming-Yuen at Peking on the evening of the 29th of August. Prostrate with the fatigues of a long journey, unnecessarily protracted in its final stage for some purpose not easy to define, Lord Amherst was about to retire to rest when he received a peremptory summons into the presence of the Emperor. The Ambassador was considerably taken aback by having so extraordinary a demand made upon him, and