During the reign of Kea King, a second English embassy was sent to Peking, in 1816, to represent to the emperor the unsatisfactory position of the English merchants in China. The envoy, Lord Amherst, was met at the mouth of the Peiho and conducted to Yuen-ming-yuen or summer palace, where the emperor was residing. On his arrival he was officially warned that only on condition of his performing the Ko-t’ow would he be permitted to behold “the dragon countenance.” This of course was impossible, and he consequently left the palace without having slept a night under its roof.
CHINESE PEASANT, PEIHO DISTRICT.
Meanwhile the internal affairs of the country were even more disturbed than the foreign relations. A succession of rebellions broke out in the western and northern provinces and the sea-boards were ravaged by pirates. While these disturbing causes were in full play the emperor died, in 1820, and the throne devolved upon Tao Kuang, his second son. It was during the reign of Kea King that Protestant missionaries initiated a systematic attempt to convert the Chinese to Christianity; but the religious toleration of these people, which on the whole has been a marked feature in their civilization of all ages, had been sorely tried by the Catholics and but little progress was made. In another direction some of the early Protestant missionaries did great service to the world at large. They spent much of their time in grappling with the difficulties of the written language; and the publication of Dr. Morrison’s famous dictionary and the achievements of Dr. Legge were the culmination of these labors.
Under Tao Kuang both home and foreign affairs went from bad to worse. A secret league known as the Triad Society, which was first formed during the reign of Kang Hi, now assumed a formidable bearing, and in many parts of the country, notably in Honan, Kwang-hsi, and Formosa, insurrections broke out at its instigation. At the same time the mandarins continued to persecute the English merchants, and on the expiration of the East India Company’s monopoly in 1834 the English government sent Lord Napier to Canton to superintend the foreign trade at that port. Thwarted at every turn by the presumptuous obstinacy of the mandarins, Lord Napier’s health gave way under the constant vexations connected with his post, and he died at Macao after but a few months’ residence in China.
The opium trade was now the question of the hour, and at the urgent demand of Commissioner Lin, Captain Elliot, the superintendent of trade, agreed that all opium in the hands of English merchants should be given up to the authorities. On the 3rd of April, 1839, twenty thousand two hundred and eighty-three chests of opium were, in accordance with this agreement, handed over to the mandarins, who burnt them to ashes. This demand of Lin’s, though agreed to by the superintendent of trade, was considered so unreasonable by the English government that in the following year war was declared against China. The island of Chusan and the Bogue forts on the Canton river soon fell into the English hands, and Commissioner Lin’s successor sought to purchase peace by the cession of Hong Kong and the payment of an indemnity of $6,000,000. This convention was, however, repudiated by the Peking government, and it was not until Canton, Amoy, Ningpo, Shanghai, Chapoo and Chin-keang Foo had been taken by the British troops, that the emperor at last consented to come to terms, now of course far more onerous. By a treaty made by Sir Henry Pottinger in 1842 the cession of Hong Kong was supplemented by the opening of the four ports of Amoy, Foochow Foo, Ningpo, and Shanghai to foreign trade, and the indemnity of $6,000,000 was increased to $21,000,000.
Without noticing the other points at issue and the merits of the dispute concerning them, it is considered by the world at large that one of the blackest pages in the records of the history of civilization is that which tells of the forcing of the opium traffic upon the Chinese by Great Britain. The Chinese people were making most strenuous efforts to abolish the traffic in opium and the habit of its use, which had been introduced from India, and which was rapidly becoming the curse of the nation. But for commercial motives, in this Victorian age of civilization, England sent to force compliance with the demand of her merchants in China that the sale of the drug be legalized. The rapid spread of the use of opium among the hundreds of millions of Chinese, dating from this time, may be charged against England, in the long account which records the oppression and the shame of her dealings with whatever eastern nation she has played the game of war and colonization and annexation.
BATTLE OF CRICKETS.
Death put an end to Tao Kuang’s reign in 1850, and his fourth son, Hien Feng, assumed rule over the distracted empire which was bequeathed him by his father. There is a popular belief among the Chinese that two hundred years is the natural life of a dynasty. This is one of those traditions which are apt to bring about their own fulfilment, and in the beginning of the reign of Hien Feng the air was rife with rumors that an effort was to be made to restore the Ming dynasty to the throne. On such occasions there are always real or pretended scions of the required family forthcoming. And when the flames of rebellion broke out in Kwang-hsi a claimant suddenly appeared under the title of Teen-tih, “heavenly virtue,” to head the movement. But he had not the capacity required to play the necessary part, and the affair languished and would have died out altogether had not a leader named Hung Sew-tseuen arose, who combined all the qualities required in a leader of men, energy, enthusiasm, and religious bigotry.