considerably? This is to me inexplicable. I shall address a letter on that subject, and institute inquiries.

The tariff of all the various nations as contained in the Treaty is the same. No modifications (in the regulations) are required. I am perfectly unable to enter fully in what you say, that British merchants are treated differently from all other foreign merchants. This is to me thoroughly incomprehensible. Whilst sending this reply I wish you much happiness, &c.

Heenfung, 1st year, 6th month, 20th day (July 18, 1851.)

CHINA.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SONS.

RETURN to an Address of the Honourable The House of Commons,
dated 6 March 1857;-for,

"COPIES of any MEMORIALS received by Viscount Palmerston, in 1847 and 1848, from the East India and China Association of Liverpool, together with the ANSWERS returned thereto."

- No. 1.

The Chairman of the Liverpool East India and China Association to Viscount Palmerston.--(Received October 12.)

My Lord,

Liverpool, 10 October 1846. As Chairman of the East India and China Association of Liverpool, I am requested to call your Lordship's most serious attention to the intelligence brought by the last China mail, whereby it appears that the lives and property of the British merchants resident in Canton, were, for several hours, on the evening of the 8th July last, placed in extreme jeopardy, from the violence of a mob assembled within the boundaries of the foreign factories.

This Association does not doubt that the subject has received your Lordship's usual prompt consideration; but, deeply interested as its members are in the China trade, they cannot refrain from expressing their alarm at the unprotected state of our commerce at Canton. As all the accounts admit the ill-feeling of the populace there against Her Majesty's subjects, and the utter want of power or inclination of the Chinese authorities to suppress these outbreaks of violence on the part of their own subjects, it is evident that the British merchants must look to their own Government solely for protection; and this Association would strongly urge on your Lordship's consideration the absolute necessity of a British naval force being, in future, always stationed close to the Canton factories, which would prove the most effectual means of preventing further disturbances.

Mr. Addington to the Chairman of the Liverpool East India and China

Association.

Sir, Foreign Office, 13 October 1846. I AM directed by Viscount Palmerston to acknowledge the receipt of the letter dated the 10th instant, signed by you on behalf of the Liverpool East India and China Association, referring to the late disturbances at Canton, and requesting that further protection may be afforded to Her Majesty's subjects residing at Canton, by the presence of a British naval force stationed near the factories at that place; and I am to state to you, in reply, that Her Majesty's Government have already taken such measures in this respect as will insure, so far as it is in their power, a full protection to the lives and properties of British subjects.

I am, &c. (signed)

H. U. Addington.

115.

A

No. 3.

No. 3.

The Chairman of the Liverpool East India and China Association to Viscount Palmerston.-(Received July 13.)

My Lord, Liverpool, 10 July 1847. On the 10th of October last I had the honour of addressing your Lordship on behalf of this Association, on the subject of disturbances which had taken place at Canton a short time previously, urging upon your Lordship's consideration the absolute necessity of a British naval force being in future always stationed off the Canton factories for the protection of Her Majesty's subjects; and in reply I was honoured with a communication, dated on the 13th of that month, stating that Her Majesty's Government had already taken such measures in that respect as would insure, so far as in their power, a full protection to the lives and properties of British subjects.

Had these precautionary measures been adopted, this Association is of opinion that the recent hostile proceedings on the part of Sir John Davis at Canton might have been avoided, and in any event the lives and property of Her Majesty's subjects would have been protected from the imminent risk to which both were exposed from an exasperated mob, for an interval of six hours which elapsed from the attack in the Bogue Forts being known at Canton until the arrival of Her Majesty's troops.

The occasional appearance only of an armed steamer at Canton, in the opinion of this body, is so far from creating the favourable impression which would result from the permanent presence of a vessel of war, that it tends rather to keep alive the exasperation of the populace, and seems calculated to invite acts of hostility in her absence. A protective force should never, therefore, in the opinion of this body, be withdrawn from Canton, especially since it has become evident that it is not any aggression on the part of the Chinese Government which we have to fear, but the sudden outbreaks of the lawless bands with which Canton abounds.

The late proceedings must have appeared to them an unprovoked attack in time of peace, and our immediate retirement a precipitate retreat, which, coupled with the further exposure of the weakness of their own Government, has rendered this irritation so strong that we fear it is but too probable an early mail may bring news of another serious outbreak.

Our earnest desire is to see the Pottinger treaty fully carried out, but the late movement will, we apprehend, have retarded rather than facilitated this object. All the important concessions made in consequence of the recent hostile demonstrations, were really embodied in the Treaty alluded to; but their practical enforcement is rendered more difficult from the increased rancour of the populace, and the weakening of the moral power of the mandarins over their own people, by which alone they rule.

As British subjects we would also wish to protest against the unjustifiable principle of an hostile aggression being made on a part of an empire far removed from the seat of government, in violation of solemn Treaties, without even the customary forms which the laws of nations recognise, and the feelings of humanity demand.

We cannot refrain on this occasion from expressing our regret that there has not been a more firm, consistent, and dignified policy pursued by Sir John Davis towards the Chinese during the last three years, and which has now resulted in an act of aggression as rash and injudicious as the former policy had been throughout weak and vacillating.

We further avail ourselves of this opportunity to draw your Lordship's particular attention to the proceedings of the Hong Kong Government during the same period, by which the once rapidly-increasing and promising trade at Hong Kong, instead of being fostered has been entirely driven away, and the buildings and improvements at Victoria, on which immense sums of money have been expended, have become valueless.

I am instructed, in conclusion, to urge upon your Lordship respectfully, but firmly (if in consideration only of the large amount of revenue yielded to the Crown by this important trade), that British subjects shall be no longer left to their own resources for the protection of their lives and property, but that a powerful

powerful war-steamer should in future always be stationed in the close vicinity of the British factories at Canton, and such measures be otherwise adopted as shall ensure a more respectful feeling in the minds of the Chinese towards the British nation.

Mr. Addington to the Chairman of the Liverpool East India and China

Sir,

Association.

Foreign Office, 14 July 1847.

I AM directed by Viscount Palmerston to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 10th instant, containing a representation on behalf of the East India and China Association of Liverpool, of which you are the chairman, respecting the late events at Canton.

Lord Palmerston directs me to state to you, in reply, that he is sorry to say that he is obliged to differ from almost all the opinions which you express in your letter on behalf of the Association.

With regard, indeed, to the course which Sir John Davis has pursued for the three years preceding the late transactions, Lord Palmerston considers that he is not called upon to express an opinion one way or the other. That course, whatever it may have been, was prescribed to him by his instructions from the Home Government, and Lord Palmerston must take for granted that he may infer, from Sir John Davis having continued in office, that he executed his instructions to the satisfaction of those who were at the time the responsible advisers of the Crown; and if the East India and China Association disapproved of that course, it would have been more practically useful for them to have stated their objections to it at the time, and to the proper quarter, than to have now conveyed to Lord Palmerston their retrospective censure of the conduct of a preceding Administration.

With regard, however, to the conduct of Sir John Davis during the last few months in pursuance of instructions from Lord Palmerston, or in accordance with what Sir John Davis conceived to be the spirit of those instructions, as applicable to the events of the moment, his Lordship has only to say, that the measures very properly, very promptly, and very successfully taken by Sir John Davis, were not "unjustifiable in principle;" were not "a violation of solemn Treaties;" were not adopted "without the customary forms which the laws of nations recognise, and the feelings of humanity demand; and that they were neither "rash" nor "injudicious." On the contrary, there is no principle of international law more established, and more justifiable, than that which authorises the resort to force in order to extort redress which negotiation has failed to obtain.

The measures carried into execution by Sir John Davis were not "a violation of solemn Treaties," but were employed to obtain the execution of solemn Treaties; and this the China Association, with a singular forgetfulness of their own assertions, and with a remarkable inconsistency of argument, virtually acknowledge, by the complaint which they make that "all the important concessions made in consequence of the recent hostile demonstrations were really embodied in the Treaty alluded to." If the demands which were made, and the concessions extorted, consisted of things which the Treaty stipulated, the British Government were justified in demanding them, and it was those who had refused or evaded those demands, and not those who made them, who were guilty of "a violation of solemn Treaties."

The Association complain that these measures, which they miscall "a hostile aggression," were directed against "a part of an empire far removed from the seat of Government;" but Lord Palmerston is at a loss to understand the particular force of this objection. The geographical position of Canton with respect to Pekin is a matter which neither Sir John Davis nor the British Government have any power to alter. The aggressions were on the part of the 115.

Chinese,