These are some of the practical difficulties to the effective exercise of any check upon the proceedings of the Chinese authorities in criminal informations against Chinese subjects, and to devise a remedy may require more consideration than has probably yet been given to the subject.
From this review of our actual position at the most favourably situated of the northern ports, and the means by which it has been preserved from deterioration, and in many essential points materially improved, a correct inference may be drawn of the injurious consequences of any retrograde influence from Canton, direct or indirect.
[APPENDIX II.]
CONFIDENTIAL DESPATCH BY CONSUL ALCOCK TO SIR GEORGE BONHAM, JANUARY 13, 1852.
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's confidential despatch of the 17th ultimo, and although the departure of the Audax within three days of its receipt leaves me but little time for consideration or inquiry, I have devoted so much time and thought to the subject during the last five years that I venture to reply without delay.
On the general scope of coercive measures adapted to ensure success in any negotiations with the Chinese Government, and more especially on the blockade of the Grand Canal as a very cogent means, I have already in my confidential report of January 19, 1849, and subsequently in another of February 13, 1850, submitted the opinion I had formed after long and careful study of our position in China; and further inquiries and experience of the people we have to deal with have only served to confirm the views contained in those reports.
I took the responsibility of sending Mr Vice-Consul Robertson with the Espiègle to Nanking in the spring of 1848 with the strong conviction that at that particular season, with the tribute of grain uncollected and a thousand of these grain-junks actually under an embargo at Shanghai, any demonstration of force in the neighbourhood of the Grand Canal would command immediate attention, and the result went far to establish the accuracy of the conclusion. Circumstances since then have, however, altered both in a favourable and an adverse sense. Taokuang, with his humiliating experience of the superiority of our arms and his known and acknowledged desire to avoid any further collision during his reign, is no longer on the throne; and his young successor, untaught by the experience of his father, has given very unequivocal signs of disposition to enter upon a different policy. On the other hand, a protracted and serious insurrection in the southern provinces has drained his treasury, weakened his authority, and now threatens, unless he finds means by force or bribery to put the insurgents down, at no distant period to affect the stability of his throne. If the arrogance of youth in the new sovereign should therefore dispose him on the one side to venture on a crusade against Western Powers, his perilous position in regard to his own provinces cannot fail to impress upon him the prudence of at least temporising until a more convenient season. I am led to think, therefore, from all I can learn, that the two contrary forces will go far to neutralise each other, and that Hsienfêng, with all his hostile feeling, will be at the present moment as accessible to reason, from the peculiarly embarrassing position in which he is placed, if backed by coercive means, as was his predecessor at the conclusion of the war.
From this your Excellency will perceive that I deem the present time, from the political condition of China, more favourable than any later period may be for the success of coercive measures. As regards the season of the year to be selected, both in reference to the navigation of the Yangtze-kiang and the transmission of the grain tribute, the blockading should not be commenced later than April. During the summer the sun melts the snow on the mountains and sends down the freshets, swelling the river until it overflows its banks with great accession of violence to the current. When the fleet sailed up in July 1842 many of the soundings taken were over paddy-fields, and altogether out of the bed of the river, as the soundings and observations of the Espiègle clearly demonstrated. The tribute also begins to be sent up to Peking from some parts as early as April. A fleet of grain-junks were at the mouth of the canal when the Espiègle made her appearance at the end of March in 1848.
How far a blockade at the present time would have the desired effect—that is, if made effective before the month of May—is a question upon which I cannot feel any doubt. Much would of course depend upon the suddenness of the descent, and therefore upon the previous secrecy observed; much upon the available nature of the force employed. Besides two or three large-class vessels, I am strongly persuaded there should be at least two small steamers of light draught of water, and one or two brigs, which would be quite as effective against any force the Chinese could bring to bear, and far more manageable and serviceable, as well as less costly, than larger vessels. If the result aimed at were not very promptly attained, it might be necessary to retake Chinkiang-fu as a base of operations, and to detach two or three small-class vessels to watch the entrances of water-courses and canals nearer the mouth of the Yangtze-kiang, of which there are at least four, and through them junks with tribute might otherwise pass to the north and into the Grand Canal at some point above the Yangtze-kiang, and between it and the Yellow river. There is also a very free communication with all the lowland districts south of the Yangtze-kiang and the north above Nanking by means of the Seu ho, which runs from Soochow west into the Yangtze-kiang at Wu Hu and Taiping. But from this point northward there does not appear to be any good water communication leading to the Grand Canal without descending the Yangtze-kiang as far as Iching and Kwachow on the two mouths of the Grand Canal at its junction with the Yangtze-kiang below Nanking. These secured would therefore stop the main traffic by the Seu ho route to the north for the relief of Peking. My own impression is that if no warning were given, nor time allowed for previous preparation, our demands would be granted within one month of the commencement of the blockade. If from any unforeseen cause, however, the negotiations were protracted, and the Chinese Government had leisure to recover from its panic and adopt plans for obtaining tribute and grain by circuitous routes, it would be in that case that Chinkiang-fu might be required, together with a good watch on the various tributaries of the Yangtze-kiang below and eastward of Nanking already referred to; and perhaps on the coast towards the Yellow river and the Peiho two or three cruisers might be required to intercept junks sent by sea with tribute. Such in effect is the intention of the Chinese Government at the present moment, without any reference to us. The grain to be collected from the eight provinces, divided into upper and lower, consists of the common grain and of white rice, the latter for the consumption of the emperor and his Court, which it is intended shall be sent this season by sea from Shanghai,—a circumstance peculiarly favourable to the success of any blockading measures, since, as it would be necessary under any contingencies to cover Shanghai and our large interests there with an effective force, the same means would enable her Majesty's Government to lay an embargo on a large and especially important portion of the tribute already collected in the port. I do not imagine it would be contemplated to abandon Shanghai, and I am far from thinking it would be either necessary or expedient—though at Ningpo, Foochow, and perhaps Amoy, it might be considered well—to withdraw the few foreigners for a time. At Canton, no doubt, it would be imperative either to give adequate protection or to abandon the place. On this point I am scarcely called upon to offer an opinion. It probably does not enter into any plans contemplated to strike a blow at Canton, or to adopt any measure necessarily entailing bloodshed and heavy loss: were it otherwise, no doubt the fall of Canton and the humiliation of the Cantonese would in itself go far to read a salutary lesson throughout the empire, and especially at Peking, where there is reason to believe they look upon Canton and the Cantonese as affording the great barrier to our progress, from our inability to make any impression either upon the city or the people.
I do not, of course, presume to offer these suggestions on the general measures which might be found needful for the protection of British interests along the coast, and the distribution and economising of our forces while a blockade on the Yangtze-kiang was being effected, as better informed than your Excellency on such points, but merely refer to them incidentally as necessary parts of any plan for demanding redress by coercive measures at the mouth of the Grand Canal.