Adventurers, who could not command a lorcha, fitted up native boats, and hoisting some foreign flag, carried on like depredations in the estuaries and rivers. Others went so far as to open offices in the small towns for the sale of passes, which boats crossing from headland to headland were compelled to show, in order to escape from greater exactions when under way. Not a small part of the wrongs thus perpetrated were by natives attired in foreign habiliments and under foreign direction. Such was the fear entertained of foreigners, that a bold and unscrupulous man could do anything with impunity. Take the following occurrence as an illustration: At the mouth of the Ningpo river is a small village of salt makers, at which the salt commissioner stations a deputy. This officer, after having been cruelly beaten, was driven away by the Portuguese, who issued a proclamation authorizing their employés to collect the salt gabel in the name of the Portuguese consul!
It is proper to remark that the transition from the protective to the piratical character of the lorchas was owing in some measure to the fatuous procedure of the mandarins themselves toward a formidable body of pirates, whose submission they purchased by conferring ranks and emoluments on the chiefs, and by giving employment to the whole fleet, constituting them guardians of the coast. In transforming the wolves into shepherds, a change of occupation was not attended by a change of character. In their new capacity as legalized fleecers, they came into collision with those of Macao; and what they lost as convoyers, they aimed to gain as pirates.
A general massacre of the Portuguese at Ningpo, by the Cantonese pirates, served to mitigate the evil by calling the attention of the English and Portuguese authorities to the anarchy which drew much of its support from Hongkong and Macao. The Portuguese were subjected to greater restraint, and a greater degree of order was thereby secured.
It is not easy to estimate the evil effects upon China of the possession of Hongkong and of Macao by the Portuguese. They are like corroding ulcers in her side. Imagine Bermuda and Nassau just off Sandy Hook, with every conceivable facility for smuggling into the port of New York; suppose the contraband traffic to be fatal to the health and morals of our citizens, as well as prejudicial to our revenue, and then extraterritorial privilege giving immunity to many of the foreigners' misdeeds; and the difficult position of Chinese authorities will be partially appreciated.
It was in part a question of jurisdiction that led to the second war with England—the 'lorcha' war. But for the assumption, on the part of the British, that the Chinese were in a measure a subjugated people, or not in possession of full sovereignty, they could not have again invaded China with any show of reason.
On the breaking out of hostilities there was a general demand, on the part of all mercantile powers, for the entire and unrestricted opening of the Chinese empire to all foreigners. At that juncture we felt called upon to remonstrate against such injustice toward an unoffending country. In a series of articles, published in the North China Herald, we attempted to show that an unqualified compliance with the demands of chambers of commerce and the press would be inimical to foreign no less than to Chinese interests: 'With one voice Christian nations demand the entire opening of China, and an extension of commercial advantages, regardless of Chinese rights in the matter. I believe that these rights cannot be infringed with impunity. China, it is true, must succumb before a requisite force; but the real difficulties of the aggressors will only then commence. Let us consider the consequences of an unconditional compliance with the demands of foreigners. You shall see the horrid barbarities, which have devastated the coast, reënacted in the interior. You shall see the adventurers, who shoot down Chinamen with no more malice or compunction than they shoot a pheasant, go further and travel faster than consul, merchant, or missionary. Murder, robbery, rape, and the like, will be common wherever the arm of authority is unfelt. Up her far-reaching rivers, along her interminable network of canals, on the surface of her broad lakes, through her every navigable water-course, China will be infested by desperadoes from all lands, scattering misery in every valley and throughout the great plain. Then will follow the assassination of the peaceful traveller; massacres, foreign intervention, blockades and wars, and the lasting impediments to commerce and civilization which these disorders engender.'
We proposed, as a check to the evil, a system of passports, limiting the privilege of travel or residence beyond consular ports to responsible persons—to those who could give some guarantee that the privilege should not be abused. Lord Elgin and Baron Gros, the allied plenipotentiaries, accepted the plan, and proposed it to the imperial commissioners. It is said that the commissioners eagerly seized the proposition, as, after the capture of Tien-tsin by the allied forces, they saw that submission was inevitable, yet durst not propose to the emperor unconditional acquiescence with the conquerors' demands, and represented the proposed passport system as a condition which they had imposed upon the barbarians. Thus they were empowered to negotiate the treaty of Tien-tsin, which averted a battle between that port and Peking, which neither party felt itself quite ready to commence.
About a dozen additional ports, some in the heart of the empire, are now open to the foreigner, and extraterritoriality obtains throughout the vast region subject to the sway of the Son of Heaven—which, with other corresponding causes, seems to be effecting the dismemberment of that hoary empire. The regimen to which the oldest of nations is subjected, is fast placing it in the condition of the 'sick man' of the Bosphorus.
As an evidence of the aggressive character of the foreigner, and of the desire of rendering extraterritoriality a means of subjugation, examine the claims set up within the past few months by mercantile interests. China, having surrendered her right over criminals in her territory, has been further called on to submit to British consular investigation and adjudication with the assistance of two assessors (British merchants), in all cases of seizure and confiscation by her customs authorities, whenever hardship or injustice is alleged—the custom-house officers to be cited before the consul to receive his judgment in the case!
Again, there is a foreign as well as a native Shanghai. This settlement, or city of foreigners, adjacent to Shanghai proper, occupies a considerable space of territory, and is a place of great wealth. Its warehouses are palatial, it has beautiful public and private edifices, and is governed by a municipality chosen by property holders from among themselves. Its police, streets, piers, race-course, and all the appurtenances of a city, are admirably arranged. Nowhere, in the whole empire, is there so much security for life and property; hence natives, who can afford to hire, from foreigners, houses which have been erected on this conceded ground, are glad to do so; it has consequently become a place of resort for well-to-do natives, who thus become exempt from the extortion of the mandarins. Latterly the Chinese local authorities have undertaken to impose a tax upon these extraterritorial natives, which their foreign clients resist, although one of the reasons assigned by the mandarins, for the levying of taxes on their people residing in the foreign settlement, is an increase of expenditure consequent on the employment of the Anglo-Chinese flotilla.