Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/71

Rh made for the sending out of European agents to the tea districts to buy teas direct from the growers—a remarkable innovation on the additional methods of transacting foreign business in China. As regards silk striking results were also manifested in the earliest returns of Shanghai trade. The shipments increased from 5,087 bales in 1844 to 18,158 bales in 1847. The value of the trade in 1847 was upwards of a million pounds.

While Shanghai was developing apace in the manner described, the new system was making more moderate progress at other ports. Consular representatives were appointed at an early date. Captain Balfour, as has been stated, was sent to Shanghai; Mr. G. T. Lay was appointed to Canton; Mr. Henry Gribble to Amoy, and Mr. Robert Thorn to Ningpo. The interpreters chosen for the ports in the order given were Mr. W. H. Medhurst, jun., Mr. Thomas Meadows, Lieut, (afterwards Sir) Thomas Wade, and Mr. Charles Sinclair. Mr. (afterwards Sir) Harry S. Parkes was at the time an assistant of the Rev. Charles Gutzlaff, who filled the post of Chinese Secretary. No appointment was made immediately to Foochow. It was not, indeed, until the latter part of 1844 that steps were taken to introduce the Consular system there. The duty was then entrusted to Mr. Lay, who as an experienced official was well equipped for what was realised would be a difficult and delicate work owing to the fact that the Emperor had only with the greatest reluctance allowed Foochow to be included in the list of Treaty ports. The anticipations of trouble were abundantly realised. Mr. Lay, on landing, found the officials indisposed to grant him a suitable place for residence, and he noticed symptoms of a disposition to slight his authority. At the outset he had to be content with a site in the insalubrious vicinity of the river suburb. But by tactful negotiations he was ultimately able to acquire the lease for resident purposes of a temple on an eminence known as Black Stone Hill, overlooking the city. This temple was beautifully situated amid pleasant groves and terraced gardens and it constituted in every way an agreeable contrast to the ill-placed building at first set apart for the Consulate. After the transfer a better feeling appears to have arisen for a time between the British and the Chinese officials. Of their own accord the Mandarins introduced into the contract for the execution of work at the temple to fit it for residential purposes a clause prohibiting work on Sunday, and in the same spirit before paying the Consul a visit, they sent to inquire whether it was a Sunday or not. The temple authorities also showed an agreeable disposition to make their tenants comfortable. Supplies of all sorts were forthcoming, and the Abbot himself, in the character of head gardener, might be seen every day busily superintending the requisite alterations and repairs. The Abbot, also, of an adjoining Taouist [sic] temple, with a remarkable absence of bigotry, for a small monthly sum willingly admitted one of the officers of the Consulate as a tenant of a portion of the sacred building. There was a temporary break in these pleasant relations towards the end of 1845, when a Consulate interpreter was attacked and pelted with stones as he was walking on the wall of the city near the Manchu quarter. A grave remonstrance was made to the authorities in consequence of the incident, and the threat was held out that if satisfaction was not granted a man-of-war would be called up to exact reparation. At the outlet the Mandarins were disposed to treat the matter lightly, but when they found that the Consul was in earnest they caused six Tartars to be arrested for the offence, and had three of them bambooed while the other three were treated to the degrading punishment of the cangue for a month. The novel and unprecedented event of a Manchu Tartar wearing the cangue, from which mode of punishment they had hitherto enjoyed a prescriptive immunity, and the humiliating announcement attached as usual to the wooden plank of the crime for which they were punished, and that, too, an assault committed on a newcomer and a stranger were doubly mortifying to the pride of this arrogant class of inhabitants, as they were also a subject of invidious exultation among the purely Chinese portion of the population.

At Amoy there were also difficulties associated with the introduction of the new régime. The troops remained in occupation of this port as well as of the island of Chusan, pending the payment of the indemnity. The British post was established on the island of Kulangsu, and the guns of their fort at the southern end dominated the