Captain Elliot and the Founding of Hong Kong

by Captain Elliot

  Coming on top of news of the Convention of Chuanbi, what was portrayed by Gough as a failure to take Canton served to reinforce negative views of Charles Elliot’s conduct. Ironically, given his previously meticulous care to explain his actions, Elliot had not written to Palmerston after the Treaty to give his side of the story – an omission he later explicitly regretted.

  The Elliots – Charles, Clara and Freddy – left Macao on 20 August 1841. The official grounds for his recall, as set out in the Foreign Secretary’s letter of 21 April, gave Charles a clear indication of the kind of reception he could expect from his political masters in England. He was also aware of the adverse views of his cousins in India, Lord Auckland and Emily Eden. In reports and letters to Lord Minto, First Lord of the Admiralty and to other family and friends, they had over several months been emphatic in their criticism. Auckland complained mainly because of what he saw as the waste of the force he had assembled for campaigning in China; Emily, largely from a belief that Elliot had been far too conciliatory towards the Chinese. To what extent Emily was taking the lead in this from her brother, or vice versa, can only be guessed – but Charles himself (no doubt greatly irritated by her stance towards him) was clear. He commented later to Emma about the relationship that ‘Lord Minto means well but his meaning is not a very strong meaning, and poor Lord Auckland means Emily – and Emily means herself and nothing else but herself.’4

  In his February letter to Minto conveying his misgivings about the Convention of Chuanbi Auckland admitted that he did not know how gravely the situation would be viewed at home. He was certain, though, that there would be no enthusiasm for what Elliot was reported to have done – the most that could be hoped for was a grudging acceptance:

  You may make the worst of it, and I fear that there will be strong ground for discontent and displeasure. You may make the best of it, and it is possible that Hong Kong may become a valuable possession … I am very mad with it all. And if I seem to express myself too bitterly, tear my letter.5

  Emily too commented vigorously about China to her correspondents at home who included, as well as Charles Greville, her brother Robert and her widowed elder sister Eleanor, Countess of Buckinghamshire. To the countess, especially, Emily passed on regularly her reactions to reports from China, and in the early months of 1841 displayed mounting frustration. She wrote in January, after castigating Admiral George Elliot for having ‘made a shocking mess of China’, that

  Charles is now left sole Plenipotentiary, and if he can but keep to his own mind two days running is clever enough to do very well; but he is terribly vacillating. She [Clara] wishes very much that she was with him just now, and I can fancy she might be of use in keeping him up to the mark; but she cannot go during the present monsoon, and except for the pleasure of seeing Charles again, I think she will be very sorry to leave Calcutta.6,7

  In April Emily was berating Charles as ‘totally blind to his own folly … half the men in his position would be driven to some act of desperation’; and to her brother she complained vehemently:

  if the Opposition did not take advantage of C. Elliot’s first absurd peace, they may turn the Ministry out on finding it is no peace at all, and that, moreover, he has not left himself the means of carrying on a war. There never was such a man, if he were not a positive fool. I really think he would go mad when he looks back on all he has done this year. The last act of giving up Chusan, without waiting to see if the Emperor would ratify the treaty, is the crown of all his absurdity…. Everybody wonders what will be the next news … I don’t think my national pride was ever so much hurt.8,9

  With observations like these circulating socially among politicians and others close to government in London, Elliot’s reception on his return was unlikely to be wholly welcoming. Along with Palmerston’s dissatisfaction with Elliot’s record in China went an urgent desire to bring matters to a head and end the conflict decisively in Britain’s favour. Sir Henry Pottinger, Charles Elliot’s successor, was a soldier, a veteran of Sind, Baluchistan and the Third Maratha War in the service of the East India Company. He was also a diplomat, though one with a tendency to abrasiveness.10 Pottinger had arrived nearly two weeks before the Elliots left, on 9 August, with Rear Admiral Sir William Parker, who was replacing Bremer as the senior naval officer. With orders from the Foreign Secretary to remedy the mistakes perpetrated by Charles Elliot, Pottinger, Gough and Parker sailed north with a reinforced expeditionary force on 21 August. By early October the British had captured Xiamen and taken Dinghai on Zhoushan. Emily Eden would have been gratified; on hearing of the expedition’s departure northwards, she had, with her customary tendency to simplified overstatement, written to her sister the countess, exulting that ‘The General and all the Navy people seem to be in ecstasies at having somebody who will not stop all their fighting, and I should not be at all surprised if Sir H. Pottinger finished it all in six months, merely by making war in a common straightforward manner.’11

  In the same letter Emily reports on Clara Elliot’s ‘anger’ at the way her husband was being treated, though when she wrote thirteen days later to Lord Minto (now no longer First Lord of the Admiralty) she said she had heard that Clara

  was in a state of great exasperation, particularly against Lord A which is unjust but perhaps natural. But she is consoled by the idea that the instant Charles’s story is heard he will receive the title and pension which is his due. He seems to be of the same opinion and promises written and verbal explanations which cd have broken heavily on you if you had been in the way.12

  Charles Elliot was of course aware that he had many critics and that some, taking their cue from Palmerston, were very highly placed; but he knew also that he had had some influential supporters. They included not only the elderly and respected Tory the Duke of Wellington, but also the Whig Prime Minister Melbourne, who was prepared to concede that the January 1841 Treaty had some merit. He had written in April to Lord John Russell, then Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, setting out his view:

  Palmerston is much dissatisfied with the Chinese treaty, particularly with the amount of indemnity and the time given for payment of it, and so am I. Palmerston is, or was, for disavowing Elliot and the treaty and for renewing the demands which he was instructed to make, but which it seems he never did make. I have grave doubts of this. The treaty as it stands saves our honour and produces all the necessary moral effect. To renew the war would keep the whole thing alive, which it is of the utmost importance to close. If we break a treaty clearly concluded by our Plenipotentiary the Chinese will be convinced that we never meant to observe that or any other treaty; and if we should obtain a larger compensation, which is uncertain, it certainly will not be so much larger as to pay for the increased expense to which we shall put ourselves.13

  The division of opinion among politicians about Elliot’s conduct was to some extent echoed in the trading community in Britain and in China. Most merchants were hostile. They saw the Plenipotentiary’s conduct towards the Chinese as weak and against their own interests, depriving them through the surrender of opium of an important source of revenue, and promising them compensation which the British government might not pay. An anonymous and less than accurate earlier letter to The Times reflected their exaggerated reaction:

  Here, Sir, is a state of things! English merchants ruined, British subjects made to fly, and perhaps all would have been destroyed but for the protection, not of Her Majesty’s ships, but of a benevolent Portuguese Governor…. What, Sir, is to be the amount of ruin our Government determines to bring upon our merchants and upon our disgraced country?14

  One notable exception to this antagonism was James Matheson, who understood and appreciated the lengths to which Elliot had gone to keep legitimate trade flowing. Though the Company was heavily involved in opium, the volume of Jardine Matheson’s other business, especially in tea, meant that it had more to lose than other, smaller, firms from the cessation of trade. By establishing warehousing and other facil
ities there the firm had also committed itself to Hong Kong. It had no wish to see British political criticism of Elliot lead to neglect or even abandonment of the settlement with which he was so closely associated. Aware of the continuing hostility towards Elliot of other merchants, notably Lancelot Dent, James Matheson wrote to his former partner, William Jardine, in London urging his support:

  Elliot is very much hurt at the extreme animosity with which some of our neighbours are persecuting him, by petition to the House of Commons &c…. [We should] … do all we can to defend him. For this purpose I authorise your paying liberally any lawyer or other qualified person who will defend him in the newspapers.15

  Though by modern standards their circulations were relatively small, the newspapers were an important influence on public opinion of events on the China coast and of Charles Elliot’s role in them. Two of the leading London-based titles, The Times and The Morning Post, were sharply critical of British management of affairs in China. The Times treated the subject in considerable detail and published correspondence from a range of interested parties. The language of The Morning Post could be strident; an article welcoming Elliot’s recall and Pottinger’s appointment was a vitriolic mixture of hyperbole and hindsight:

  Public opinion has prevailed, and ‘Charles Elliot, Esq., a Captain in the Royal Navy, Chief Superintendent of the Trade of British Subjects in China, and holding full Powers under the Great Seal of Great Britain and Ireland to execute the Office of her [sic] Majesty’s Commissioner, Procurator, and Plenipotentiary in China’ as the late functionary delighted to write his names, styles, and titles, is now plain Captain Charles Elliot. The incompetency of the late Chinese Plenipotentiary was more than a match for the Court and parliamentary influence of the Elliots, and the Government has been forced to recall him. Sorry are we that such a step was not taken when the circumstances attendant on the delivery of the opium to Commissioner Lin were first made known in England. The history of that bungled transaction ought to have satisfied the Government that Captain Elliot was totally disqualified to discharge with dignity and advantage to the country the duties of his high office…. We are, therefore, thankful to the Government for even now recalling Captain Elliot and replacing him by an officer so creditably known in India as Sir Henry Pottinger. With all John Chinaman’s craft and chicanery, he will yet find a match in plain, honest, John Bull.16

  As well as Chartist publications, which identified Charles Elliot with the evil of the opium trade, newspapers in the major centres of population outside London were similarly disapproving of the way in which British relations with China were being handled by the Plenipotentiary.17 Often relying on reports from Bombay, they echoed the concerns of the articles in the Indian (English language) press, which were heavily influenced by the British Indian government. The Times, from the time of its report in March 1840 that war had been declared on China, had in its coverage of Parliament and the conduct of ministers also been particularly scathing about the Foreign Secretary. An editorial in the same month contrasted him with Wellington:

  But how acts Lord Palmerston? His conduct is irritating, where the Duke of Wellington counsels conciliation, and his means of defence are feeble where the Duke advises that they should be formidable! Such is the essential difference between a great man and a man who is the reverse of great.18

  To the extent that criticism was levelled at Palmerston and other members of the government, hostility towards Charles Elliot was mitigated. For The Times, as for many subsequent commentators, the issue was as much about the government’s handling of Elliot as Elliot’s handling of China. To the questions whether Palmerston had issued clear and practicable instructions; whether Elliot had disobeyed them; and whether if he had disobeyed them it was reasonable to have done so, Charles Elliot himself had robust answers. Aware that Melbourne’s Whig administration had now been replaced by the Tories under Peel, he wrote to Emma on the voyage home, from Malta, in resolute terms:

  If I had found the late Government in power and strong I should have answered their [imputation] of misconduct in my respect with an immediate appeal to the public. But I remember me that they are knowing dogs in the art of knocking down their own best friends and I will not take a leaf out of their books and help their enemies, under existing circumstances. I propose, therefore, to send Lord Palmerston in a private way a sketch of that imposture of his sorry heedlessness which might be put forward, if I had not something more of discretion and sound feeling than he has manifested towards me.

  My country and my family, dear Emy, have no cause to be ashamed of me. I have prevented more desperate mischief, as indeed more blunders, saved more millions, recovered more millions, undergone more and more danger and received worse treatment than any officer in the public employment. The government can neither give nor take from me the distinction I have made for myself and I promise you that the time is at hand when this will be fully felt.19

  Then, of his relationship with Palmerston:

  The truth is that I am mainly blamed for his ignorances and waywardnesses. The little he knows of the grave matters I have been dealing with, I taught him, and it is my just reward that I did not teach him more. He, Auckland and myself have all been learning, and it is no matter of wonderment that each should know more than the other in this ratio of our reason [closeness?] to the scene of action and more entire devotion to the matters in hand.20

  Earlier on the voyage Elliot had met up in Bombay with one of the prominent Parsee merchants who had trading operations in China, Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy. They did not have much time together, and after the Elliots had departed his host wrote to Charles:

  Strangers may not appreciate your labors, but I can assure you that the Trading Community of India will know and feel the relief you have afforded them. You were placed alone in China, unaided by any advisers and surrounded with the most serious and overwhelming difficulties, and I know not how sufficiently to express my admiration of your untiring zeal in the Public Service. Be assured you have my hearty good wishes, and I only hope the advisers of our Sovereign will confirm and approve of all your acts.21

  On the China coast meanwhile, Pottinger and his military commanders with their force of more than 2,500 men and thirteen warships, including the Nemesis and the 74s Blenheim and Wellesley, proceeded after occupying Xiamen and Zhoushan to capture Zhenhai and Ningbo. Leaving behind garrisons as it progressed, the expedition became depleted and bogged down. Further reinforcements arrived in due course and in August 1842, aboard the 74-gun flagship HMS Cornwallis, the British and Chinese signed the Treaty of Nanking. Among other things the Treaty opened four more ports (in addition to Canton) to the British for trade; established parity of status in official communication between the two countries; provided that the Chinese meet the expense of the war; and ceded ‘in perpetuity’ the island of Hong Kong to Britain.22 What Elliot had sought to achieve gradually by patient diplomacy backed up by the threat of arms, Pottinger had forcibly accomplished in twelve months. One long-term consequence was to be the maintenance by China, at the forefront of public consciousness into the twenty-first century, of the memory of its humiliation by western imperialists.

  On the voyage home from China Charles Elliot learned of his appointment as British Consul General in the Republic of Texas.

  Chapter Twelve

  Texas: Spain, Mexico and the United States

  In 1842 Texas had existed as an independent republic for just six years. From 1821, when Mexico achieved independence from Spain, it had been under Mexican control until 1836. Before that, for some three centuries, the dominant external influence had been Spain, whose military explorers were the first Europeans to settle the Caribbean, central America, the north of South America, and what is now the southern United States. In the period from 1519 to 1521 the Spanish under Hernan Cortes had overcome the central American Aztec empire, but to the extent that their aim was the exploitation of a vast new territory, in Texas and its hinterland the early conquistadores di
d not achieve much success. Expeditions during the 1520s, ’30s and ’40s did however cover many miles over many years, some of which were spent in captivity, and allowed the accumulation of much knowledge of the indigenous Indians and their way of life.1 They also enabled the Spanish to gain valuable information concerning the geography, climate and natural resources of the region. Progress then, and subsequently, was nevertheless slow, hampered by tenacious resistance from some of the Indian communities. Such opposition persuaded the Spanish from 1585 to adopt, successfully, a conciliatory approach, essentially gifts in return for non-aggression. Religion was a powerful influence in Spanish policymaking. The national aim, if not always locally adhered to in practice, had been articulated by King Felipe II: ‘Preaching the holy gospel is the principal purpose for which we order new discoveries and settlements to be made’.2

  Regulation by the Spanish crown of those appointed to govern and develop its overseas possessions was never wholly effective. An attempt to mitigate the harsh treatment of Indians had been included in the ‘New Laws’, issued by the Emperor Charles V in 1542 which had laid upon the Spanish crown courts in America the duty of ensuring that Indian interests were properly protected. They were required to investigate alleged cases of ill treatment and declared that: