When the boat returned on board, and reported what had passed to the commodore, he immediately complained of it to the mandarine, who attended to see his ship supplied; but the mandarine coolly replied, that the boat ought not to have gone on shore, promising, however, that if the thieves could be found out, they should be punished; though it appeared plain enough, by his manner of answering, that he would never give himself any trouble in searching them out. However, a considerable time afterwards, when some Chinese boats were selling provisions to the Centurion, the person who had wrested the sword from the Chinese came with great eagerness to the commodore, to assure him that one of the principal thieves was then in a provision-boat alongside the ship; and the officer, who had been robbed, viewing the fellow on this report, and well remembering his face, orders were immediately given to seize him; and he was accordingly secured on board the ship, where strange discoveries were now made.
This thief, on his being apprehended, expressed so much fright in his countenance, that it was feared he would have died upon the spot; the mandarine too, who attended the ship, had visibly no small share of concern on the occasion. Indeed he had reason enough to be alarmed, since it was soon evinced that he had been privy to the whole robbery, for the commodore, declaring that he would not deliver up the thief, but would himself order him to be shot, the mandarine immediately put off the magisterial air with which be had at first pretended to demand him, and begged his release in the most abject manner; and the commodore appearing inflexible, there came on board, in less than two hours time, five or six of the neighbouring mandarines, who all joined in the same entreaty, and, with a view of facilitating their suit, offered a large sum of money for the fellow's liberty. Whilst they were thus soliciting, it was discovered that the mandarine, who was the most active amongst them, and who seemed to be most interested in the event, was the very gentleman who came to the officer just after the robbery, and who pretended to be so much displeased with the villainy of his countrymen. And, on further enquiry, it was found that he was the mandarine of the island; and that he had, by the authority of his office, ordered the peasants to commit that infamous action: And it seemed, as far as could be collected from the broken hints which were casually thrown out, that he and his brethren, who were all privy to the transaction, were terrified with the fear of being called before the tribunal at Canton, where the first article of their punishment would be the stripping them of all they were worth; though their judges (however fond of inflicting a chastisement so lucrative to themselves) were perhaps of as tainted a complexion as the delinquents. Mr Anson was not displeased to have caught the Chinese in this dilemma; and he entertained himself for some time with their perplexity, rejecting their money with scorn, appearing inexorable to their prayers, and giving out that the thief should certainly be shot; but as he then foresaw that he should be forced to take shelter in their ports a second time, when the influence he might hereby acquire over the magistrates would be of great service to him, he at length permitted himself to be persuaded, and, as a favour, released his prisoner, but not till the mandarine had collected and returned all that had been stolen from the officer, even to the minutest trifle.
But, notwithstanding this instance of the good intelligence between the magistrates and criminals, the strong inclination of the Chinese to lucre often prompts them to break through this awful confederacy, and puts them on defrauding the authority that protects them, of its proper quota of the pillage. For not long after the above-mentioned transaction, (the former mandarine attendant on the ship, being, in the mean time, relieved by another,) the commodore lost a top-mast from his stern, which, after the most diligent enquiry, could not be traced: As it was not his own, but had been borrowed at Macao to heave down by, and was not to be replaced in that part of the world, he was extremely desirous to recover it, and published a considerable reward to any who would bring it him again. There were suspicions from the first of its being stolen, which made him conclude a reward was the likeliest method of getting it back: Accordingly, soon after, the mandarine told him that some of his, the mandarine's people, had found the top-mast, desiring the commodore to send his boats to fetch it, which being done, the mandarine's people received the promised reward; but the commodore told the mandarine that he would make him a present besides for the care he had taken in directing it to be searched for, and, accordingly, Mr Anson gave a sum of money to his linguist, to be delivered to the mandarine; but the linguist knowing that the people had been paid, and ignorant that a further present had been promised, kept the money himself: However, the mandarine fully confiding in Mr Anson's word, and suspecting the linguist, took occasion one morning to admire the size of the Centurion's masts, and thence, on a pretended sudden recollection, he made a digression to the top-mast which had been lost, and asked Mr Anson if he had not got it again. Mr Anson presently perceived the bent of this conversation, and enquired of him if he had not received the money from the linguist, and finding he had not, he offered to pay it him upon the spot. But this the mandarine refused, having now somewhat more in view than the sum which had been detained; for the next day the linguist was seized, and was doubtless mulcted of all he had gotten in the commodore's service, which was supposed to be little less than two thousand dollars; he was, besides, so severely bastinadoed with the bamboo, that it was with difficulty he escaped with life; and when he was upbraided by the commodore (to whom he afterwards came begging) with his folly in risking all he had suffered for fifty dollars (the present intended for the mandarine,) he had no other excuse to make than the strong bias of his nation to dishonesty, replying, in his broken jargon, "Chinese man very great rogue truly, but have fashion, no can help."
It were endless to recount all the artifices, extortions, and frauds which were practised on the commodore and his people, by this interested race. The method of buying all things in China being by weight, the tricks made use of by the Chinese to increase the weight of the provision they sold to the Centurion, were almost incredible. One time a large quantity of fowls and ducks being bought for the ship's use, the greatest part of them presently died. This alarmed the people on board with the apprehensions that they had been killed by poison, but, on examination, it appeared that it was only owing to their being crammed with stones and gravel to increase their weight, the quantity thus forced into most of the ducks being found to amount to ten ounces in each. The hogs, too, which were bought ready killed of the Chinese butchers, had water injected into them for the same purpose; so that a carcass, hung up all night for the water to drain from it, hath lost above a stone of its weight; and when, to avoid this cheat, the hogs were bought alive, it was found that the Chinese gave them salt to increase their thirst, and having by this means excited them to drink great quantities of water, they then took measures to prevent them from discharging it again by urine, and sold the tortured animal in this inflated state. When the commodore first put to sea from Macao, they practised an artifice of another kind; for as the Chinese never object to the eating of any food that dies of itself, they took care; by some secret practices, that great part of his live sea-store should die in a short time after it was put on board, hoping to make a second profit of the dead carcasses, which they expected would be thrown overboard; and two-thirds of the hogs dying before the Centurion was out of sight of land, many of the Chinese boats followed her, only to pick up the carrion. These instances may serve as a specimen of the manners of this celebrated nation, which is often recommended to the rest of the world as a pattern of all kinds of laudable qualities.
The commodore, towards the end of September, having found out (as has been said) that those who had contracted, to supply him with sea-provisions and stores had deceived him, and that the viceroy had not sent to him according to his promise, saw it would be impossible for him to surmount the embarrassment he was under, without going himself to Canton and visiting the viceroy; and, therefore, on the 27th. of September, he sent a message to the mandarine who attended the Centurion, to inform him that he, the commodore, intended, on the 1st of October, to proceed in his boat to Canton, adding, that the day after he got there he should notify his arrival to the viceroy, and should desire him to fix a time for his audience; to which the mandarine returned no other answer, than that he would acquaint the viceroy with the commodore's intentions. In the mean time all things were prepared for this expedition; and the boat's crew in particular, which Mr Anson proposed to take with him, were cloathed in an uniform dress, resembling that of the watermen on the Thames; they were in number eighteen and a coxswain; they had scarlet jackets and blue silk; waistcoats, the whole trimmed with silver buttons, and with silver badges on their jackets and caps. As it was apprehended, and even asserted, that the payment of the customary duties for the Centurion and her prize would be demanded by the regency of Canton, and would be insisted on previous to the granting a permission for victualling the ship for her future voyage, the commodore, who was resolved never to establish so dishonourable a precedent, took all possible precaution to prevent the Chinese from facilitating the success of their unreasonable pretensions, by having him in their power at Canton; and, therefore, for the security of his ship, and the great treasure on board her, he appointed his first lieutenant, Mr Brett, to be captain of the Centurion under him, giving him proper instructions for his conduct; directing him, particularly, if he, the commodore, should be detained at Canton on account of the duties in dispute, to take out the men from the Centurion's prize, and to destroy her; and then to proceed down the river through the Bocca Tigris with the Centurion alone, and to remain without that entrance till he received further orders from Mr Anson.
These necessary steps being taken, which were not unknown to the Chinese, it should seem as if their deliberations were in some sort embarrassed thereby. It is reasonable to imagine, that they were in general very desirous of getting the duties to be paid them, not perhaps solely in consideration of the amount of those dues, but to keep up their reputation for address and subtlety, and to avoid the imputation of receding from claims on which they had already so frequently insisted: However, as they now foresaw that they had no other method of succeeding than by violence, and that even against this the commodore was prepared, they were at last disposed, I conceive, to let the affair drop, rather than entangle themselves in an hostile measure, which they found would only expose them to the risk of having the whole navigation of their port destroyed, without any certain prospect of gaining their favourite point.
However, though there is reason to imagine that these were their thoughts at that time, yet they could not depart at once from the evasive conduct to which they had hither to adhered. For when the commodore, on the morning of the 1st of October, was preparing to set out for Canton, his linguist came to him from the mandarine, who attended his ship, to tell him that a letter had been received from the viceroy of Canton, desiring the commodore to put off his going thither for two or three days: But in the afternoon of the same day another linguist came on board, who, with much seeming fright, told Mr Anson that the viceroy had expected him up that day, that the counsel was assembled, and the troops had been under arms to receive him; and that the viceroy was highly offended at the disappointment, and had sent the commodore's linguist to prison chained, supposing that the whole had been owing to the linguist's negligence. This plausible tale gave the commodore great concern, and made him apprehend that there was some treachery designed him, which he could not yet fathom; and though it afterwards appeared that the whole was a fiction, not one article of it having the least foundation, yet (for reasons best known to themselves) this falsehood was so well supported by the artifices of the Chinese merchants at Canton, that, three days afterwards, the commodore received a letter, signed by all the supercargoes of the English ships then at that place, expressing their great uneasiness at what had happened, and intimating their fears that some insult would be offered to his boat, if he came thither before the viceroy was fully satisfied about the mistake. To this letter Mr Anson replied, that he did not believe there had been any mistake, but was persuaded it was a forgery of the Chinese, to prevent his visiting the viceroy; that, therefore, he would certainly come up to Canton on the 13th of October, confident that the Chinese would not dare to offer him an insult, as well knowing it would be properly returned.
On the 13th of October, the commodore continuing firm, to his resolution, all the supercargoes of the English, Danish, and Swedish ships, came on board the Centurion, to accompany him to Canton, for which place he set out in his barge the same day, attended by his own boats, and by those of the trading ships, which, on this occasion, came to form his retinue; and, as he passed by Whampoa, where the European vessels lay, he was saluted by all of them but the French, and in the evening arrived safely at Canton.