“The Foreign Office repeat the instructions they have already given the Inspector-General, to give effect to the arrangement for the purchase of foreign steamers with the utmost despatch. The orders to the various customhouses to get ready their quota were issued some time back; and these orders have been repeated, coupled with a caution against delay, as it is the Emperor’s particular wish that not a day should be lost. The Board understand that there are several classes of foreign steamers—the mail steamer, the merchant steamer, and the war steamer; that the first is very small, the second the reverse of handy, and that neither are available like the third for warlike purposes. They are further informed that the mail and merchant steamers are paddle-wheel steamers, while the war steamers are ‘secret wheel’ (screw) vessels. This is a point of great importance, to which they would draw the special attention of the Inspector-General. The money being now ready for transmission, there is no reason why there should be any, the slightest, delay.”
The despatch gives instructions upon other points, and concludes with again urging the Inspector-General to lose no time, closing with the words, “Hasten! hasten!!”
The Inspector-General, obliged by ill-health to return to England, was the better able to work out the desires of the Emperor’s Council, and put himself in communication with Her Majesty’s Government, with a view to obtain their necessary sanction before he could legally purchase a vessel or employ a British subject. He was, above all, desirous to insure the thorough respectability and good character of the European force destined to guide as well as aid the Chinese—at the same time, to take care that the help should be granted in a way to insure real progress at Pekin, and thus guard against a return to the old policy of exclusion as soon as the officials were relieved from the fears and difficulties of their present position—and to effect this in such a manner as should not supersede, but merely supplement, the action of the Chinese themselves. This maxim should ever be borne in mind in our dealings with China. To supersede the native authority, besides humiliating him, brings about no beneficial result.
Her Majesty’s Government met the proposals of the Inspector-General on behalf of the Emperor of China in an enlightened spirit, guarding themselves, however, carefully against any risk of being charged with intervention. Mr Lay offered the post of Commander-in-Chief of the European-Chinese naval force to Captain Sherard Osborn, C. B., which office, under the sanction of Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the Board of Admiralty, he gladly accepted. The necessary authority from Her Majesty in Council was issued, authorising the Inspector-General Horatio Lay and Captain Sherard Osborn to purchase such vessels and enter such British subjects as might be necessary, without an infringement of the Foreign Enlistment Act. With the permission of the Admiralty, Captain Osborn selected the following officers:—Captain Hugh Burgoyne, V.C., as second in command; Commander C. S. Forbes; Lieutenants Arthur Salwey, Noel Osborn, F. C. Vincent, H. M. Ommanney, Allen Young, and G. Morice; Mr Henry Collins in charge of the Paymaster’s and Storekeeper’s Departments; and Doctors John Elliot, F. Piercey, Fegan, and others, of the hospital arrangements. Officers of the highest stamp have been likewise selected from the mercantile marine, and no seamen or marines have been entered except such as could show years of good conduct.
It is, moreover, Mr Lay’s intention to enlist presently in this force the subjects of the other Treaty Powers, so as to render it a European Chinese force, in accordance with the principle successfully carried out in the customs administration.
As the funds arrived from China the vessels and stores were purchased. The Admiralty afforded the same facilities from our arsenals as would have been conceded to any other friendly Power. From the superabundant ships in our navy the Emperor of China was allowed to purchase the Mohawk, Africa, and Jasper, and they were re-named respectively the Pekin, China, and Amoy. There being no others available, and the private yards having been swept by the Federals of such vessels as could carry guns or serve for warlike purposes, it became necessary, in spite of the delay it would entail, to enter into contracts for the construction of three other vessels, which will be launched in March. The six vessels—three of them despatch-vessels fit to cope with the stormy seas of the Chinese seaboard, and the other three for river service—form as small a force as it is safe to begin with. It is intended that they shall carry about 40 guns, and be manned by 400 European officers and seamen, of the very best character. During the interval occupied in the building of some of the vessels and equipment of the others, there has been abundant occupation in arranging the details necessary for a sound organisation. A code of laws for the good order and comfort of all, based upon the customs of a European navy, has been compiled, so that Prince Kung’s seal may render it the future naval law of China. The scale of pay, rations, prize-money, and pensions for wounds, has been carefully considered, to meet the requirements of the special service. A signal-book has been adapted for intercommunication; and, strange as it may sound, even an ensign—green ground intersected by two yellow diagonal bands, and bearing the Imperial crest—had to be improvised, inasmuch as in China every armed native vessel flies her own colours according to the whim of her master,—an irregularity to which it is very necessary a stop should be put.
No one will deny that the task about to be undertaken is an arduous one; yet, after having carefully weighed all its difficulties, we cannot help feeling sanguine of a successful issue. A good maritime police is the secret of government in China. If the water-ways of China are in a state of security and order, peace will re-establish itself everywhere. The rivers, the seas, and lakes and canals, within the area of the Empire, cut it up into such sections that rebellion will be destroyed in detail, or rather starve, directly a strong executive is placed upon the Emperor’s waters. The Taepings and other banditti spread over the area they have devastated, by availing themselves of the extensive water-communication. The Government of Pekin, if it is wise, will pursue the same course in its measures of repression. The steam gunboat and the electric telegraph, by their very appearance in the disturbed districts, will re-assure those who have almost ceased to believe in any government, and frighten away the evildoers; whilst the fall of Nankin will break the neck of a scourge which is on its last legs. The fleets of piratical junks which now infest the coasts of China, and whose depredations are known only to the natives, will, we hope, disappear before the vigorous operations of a steam flotilla under the Imperial flag. These “vikings” of the East occupy every creek between Canton and the borders of Cochin-China; they have quite cut up the native trade of the whole seaboard, and occasionally pirate even European traders. It is mainly owing to these gentry that we have been unable as yet to establish relations and open a customhouse at Kiung-Chow in the island of Hainan, a point which we hope one day to see the centre of an enormous trade. Lastly, we see every reason to expect most important results from the information the officers of the European-Chinese flotilla will be able to gather of the interior of the Chinese Empire, and of the commercial advantages likely to flow therefrom. As employés, though merely temporarily so, of the Emperor, they will have access to every part of that vast county, and excite no fears or jealousy; their opportunities will be immense, and we have reason to believe that they will bear well in mind the duty they owe to their fellow-men of gathering and storing well every crumb of information, geographical and otherwise. What they may effect for the benefit of our commerce, we may estimate from the fruits that have already followed in the wake of their brethren of the navy of England who first penetrated to Shanghai in 1842, and to Hankow in 1858. There are cities as rich as the former, rivers as large as the Yang-tsze, and lakes equal to those of Canada, to be re-discovered. Those almost unknown provinces of the interior are not wastes profitable only to the geographical enthusiast, but countries equal to states of Europe, thickly dotted with cities, and densely populated, with a people second only to ourselves in commercial energy and respect for law and order. England for years has spent wealth, energy, and precious lives in opening China to Western influence and civilisation. To-day, her success is certain. The Government and people of China both ask us to aid them in their hour of trouble, and in return they will assuredly grant us that access and commercial freedom for which we have so long laboured and so often fought. The portals of ignorance and heathenism are opening. Shall we, who are in the vanguard of nations, hesitate? No—assuredly not! Our motto must ever be “Forward;” and will not all enlightened Christendom join us in wishing “God speed” to those about to put forth in this fresh enterprise to the land of Cathay?
CAXTONIANA:
A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON LIFE, LITERATURE, AND MANNERS.
By the Author of ‘The Caxton Family.’