The rival house of Dent & Co. devoted their energies more especially to the China coast. Their fast steamers would start from Hongkong an hour after the arrival of the Indian and English mail, landing owners' despatches at the mouth of the Yangtze, whence they were run across country to Shanghai. To gain exclusive possession of a market or of a budget of news for ever so brief a period was the spur continuously applied to owners, officers, and men. How the public regarded these operations may be inferred from a note in Admiral Keppel's diary of 1843: "Anonymous opium-clipper arrived from Bombay with only owners' despatches. Beast."
All this of course presupposed a common ownership of ship and cargo, or great liberties, if not risks, taken with the property of other people. In the years before the war this common management of ship and cargo was a simple necessity, for opium had to be stored afloat and kept ready for sailing orders. The 20,000 chests surrendered in 1839 might have been all sent away to Manila or elsewhere had that course of procedure been determined on. Captain John Thacker, examined before the Parliamentary Committee of 1840, being asked what he would have done in case the Chinese had ordered away the opium, answered, "I would have sent mine away to the Malay Islands, to exchange it for betel-nut and pepper.... I had a ship at Canton that I could not get freighted with tea, and I intended to send her away with the opium." A kind of solidarity between ship and cargo was thus an essential of the trade at that time, and what originated in necessity was continued as a habit for many years after its economical justification had ceased.
The ambition of owning or controlling ships became a feature of the China trade, the smaller houses emulating the greater. It seemed as if the repute of a merchant lacked something of completeness until he had got one or more ships under his orders, and the first use the possession was put to was usually the attempt to enforce against all comers a quasi-monopoly either in merchandise or in news. To be able to despatch a vessel on some special mission, like Captain Thacker, had a fascination for the more enterprising of the merchants, which may perhaps be referred back to the circumstance that they were men still in the prime of life.
The passion was kept alive by the inducements offered by a series of events which crowded on each other between the years 1858 and 1861. Before that time the spread of rebellion, the prevalence of piracy, and the general state of unrest and distrust which prevailed among the Chinese commercial classes, threw them on the protection of foreign flags, and the demand for handy coasting craft was generously responded to by all maritime nations, but chiefly by the shipowners of Northern Europe. Such a mosquito fleet was perhaps never before seen as that which flew the flags of the Hanse Towns and of Scandinavia on the China coast between 1850 and 1860; and many a frugal family on the Elbe, the Weser, and the Baltic lived and throve out of the earnings of these admirably managed and well-equipped vessels. The vessels were mostly run on time-charters, which were exceedingly remunerative; for the standard of hire was adopted from a period of English extravagance, while the ships were run on a scale of economy—and efficiency—scarcely then dreamed of in England. A schooner of 150 tons register earning $1500 per month, which was a not uncommon rate, must have paid for herself in a year, for the dollar was then worth 5s. Yet the Chinese also made so much money by subletting their chartered tonnage that foreigners were tempted into the same business, without the same knowledge or assurance of loyal co-operation at the various ports traded with.
The habit of handling ships in this way, whether profitably or not, had the effect of facilitating the despatch of reconnoitring expeditions when openings occurred, and they did occur on a considerable scale within the period above mentioned. The year 1858 was an epoch in itself. It was the year of the treaty of Tientsin, which threw open three additional trading-ports on the coast, three within the Gulf of Pechili, and three on the Yangtze. Of the three northern ports, excepting Tientsin, very little was known to the mercantile community, and the selection of Têng-chow and Newchwang by the British plenipotentiary shows what a change has in the interval come over the relative intelligence of the Government and the merchants; for in those days, it would appear, the Government was as far in advance of the merchants in information about China as the merchants of a later period have been in advance of the Government. These unknown, almost unheard-of, ports excited much interest during the year that elapsed between the signing of the treaty and its ratification. Information about them from Chinese sources was therefore diligently sought after.
Within a couple of miles of the foreign settlement of Shanghai—and it was the same thing in the Ningpo river—compact tiers of large sea-going junks lay moored head and stern, side to side, forming a continuous platform, so that one could walk across their decks out into the middle of the river. Their masts, without yards or rigging, loomed like a dense thicket on the horizon. Of their numbers some idea may be formed when we remember that 1400 of them were found loaded at one time in 1848 with tribute rice. Of this enormous fleet of ships and their trade the foreign mercantile community of Shanghai was content to remain in virtual ignorance. They traded to the north, and were vaguely spoken of as "Shantung junks"—Shantung then standing for everything that was unknown north of the thirty-second parallel. The map of China conveyed about as much to the mercantile communities on the coast in those days as it did to the British public generally before the discussions of 1898. These junks carried large quantities of foreign manufactured goods and opium to the unknown regions at the back of the north wind, of which some of the doors were now being opened. How was one to take advantage of the opening, and be first in the field? Time must be taken by the forelock, and a certain amount of commercial exploration entered into in order to obtain data on which to base ulterior operations. Accordingly in the spring of 1859, a few months before the period fixed for the exchange of ratifications of the treaty, several mercantile firms equipped, with the utmost secrecy, trading expeditions to the Gulf of Pechili. Their first object was to discover what seaport would serve as the entrepot of Têngchow, since that city, though near enough to salt water to have been bombarded for a frolic by the Japanese navy in 1894, possessed no anchorage. The several sets of argonauts, among whom was the writer of this book, seeking for such an anchorage, found themselves, in the month of April, all together in the harbour of Yentai, which they misnamed Chefoo, a name that has become stereotyped. Obviously, then, that would be the new port, especially as the bay and the town showed all the signs of a considerable existing traffic. It was full forty miles from Têngchow, but there was no nearer anchorage. The foreign visitors began at once to cultivate relations with the native merchants, tentatively, like Nicodemus, making their real business by night, while the magnificent daylight was employed in various local explorations. These were full of fresh interest, the Shantung coast being the antithesis of the Yangtze delta; for there were found donkeys instead of boats, stony roads instead of canals, bare and barren mountains instead of soft green paddy- or cotton-fields, stone buildings, and a blue air that sparkled like champagne.
Our own particular movable base of operations was one smart English schooner, loaded with mixed merchandise, and commanded by a sea-dog who left a trail of vernacular in his wake. Soon, however, we were able to transfer our flag to a commodious houseboat, of a hybrid type suited to the sheltered and shallow waters of the Lower Yangtze, but not, strictly speaking, seaworthy. Next, a Hamburg barque came and acted as store-ship, releasing the English schooner for more active service. The master of that craft was also a character, full of intelligence, but rough, and the trail of tobacco juice was over all, with strange pungent odours in the cuddy.
Having thus inserted the thin end of the wedge, pegged out mentally the site of the future settlement, and trifles of that sort, the pioneers of commerce waited for the official announcement of the port being opened. Meantime there was the unknown Newchwang to be discovered, at the extreme north-east corner of the Gulf of Liaotung, and for this purpose the boat aforesaid presented a very tempting facility. The trip was accomplished, not without anxiety and detention on the way by stress of weather, and the British flag was shown in the Liao river, to the best of our knowledge, for the first time in May 1859. Many other ports and harbours in the gulf were visited during the summer and autumn. Weihai-wei became very familiar, not as a place of trade, which it never was, but as a convenient anchorage better sheltered than Chefoo. How blind were the pioneers to the destinies of these gulf ports and the gulf itself! How little did they dream of the scenes that peaceful harbour was to witness, the fortifications which were to follow, the Chinese navy making its last desperate stand there like rats caught in a trap; and finally, the British flag flying over the heights!
The treaty of course was not ratified, though the news of the repulse of the British plenipotentiary at Taku only reached the pioneers in the form of tenebrous Chinese rumours with an ominous thread of consistency running through their various contradictions. The most conclusive evidence, however, of the turn affairs had taken was the interference of the officials with the native merchants and people at Chefoo, whom they forbade intercourse with the foreigners, and made responsible for the presence of the foreign ships. The ships, therefore, had to move out of sight, and it was in this predicament that the harbour of Weihai-wei offered such a welcome refuge.
To put an end to the intolerable suspense in Chefoo the Hamburger was got under weigh and sailed to the westward. On approaching the mouth of the Peiho the situation at once revealed itself: not one English ship visible, but the Russian despatch-boat America, and one United States ship, with which news was exchanged, and from which the details of the Taku disaster were ascertained. This news, of course, knocked all the commercial adventures which had been set on foot in the gulf into "pie." Nothing remained but to wind them up with as little sacrifice as possible,—a process which was not completed till towards Christmas.