The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2

This Paper, originally written for me in 1857, and published in Titan for July of that year, has not appeared in any collective edition of the author's works, British or American. It was his closing contribution to a series of three articles concerning Chinese affairs; prepared when our troubles with that Empire seemed to render war imminent. The first two were given in Titan for February and April, 1857, and then issued with additions in the form of a pamphlet which is now very scarce. It consisted of 152 pages thus arranged:—(1) Preliminary Note, i-iv; (2) Preface, pp. 3-68; (3) China (the two Titan papers), pp. 69-149; (4) Postscript, pp. 149-152.

In the posthumous supplementary volume (XVI.) of the collected works the third section was reprinted, but all the other matter was discarded—with a rather imperfect appreciation of the labour which the author had bestowed upon it, and his own estimate of the value of what he had condensed in this Series—as frequently expressed to me during its progress.

In the twelfth volume of the 'Riverside' Edition of De Quincey's works, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, U.S.A., the whole of the 152 pp. of the expanded China reprint are given, but not the final section here reproduced from Titan.

The Chinese questions stirred De Quincey profoundly, and roused all the 'John Bullism' of his nature. Two passages from the 'Preliminary Note' will show his object in throwing so much energy into this subject:—

NATIONAL MORALITY

'Its purpose1 is to diffuse amongst those of the middle classes, whose daily occupations leave them small leisure for direct personal inquiries, some sufficient materials for appreciating the justice of our British pretensions and attitude in our coming war with China. It is a question frequently raised amongst public journalists, whether we British are entitled to that exalted distinction which sometimes we claim for ourselves, and which sometimes is claimed on our behalf, by neutral observers on the national practice of morality. There is no call in this place for so large a discussion; but, most undoubtedly, in one feature of so grand a distinction, in one reasonable presumption for inferring a profounder national conscientiousness, as diffused among the British people, stands upon record, in the pages of history, this memorable fact, that always at the opening (and at intervals throughout the progress) of any war, there has been much and angry discussion amongst us British as to the equity of its origin, and the moral reasonableness of its objects. Whereas, on the Continent, no man ever heard of a question being raised, or a faction being embattled, upon any demur (great or small) as to the moral grounds of a war. To be able to face the trials of a war—that was its justification; and to win victories—that was its ratification for the conscience.'

CHINESE POLICY

'The dispute at Shanghai, in 1848, equally as regards the origin of that dispute, and as regards the Chinese mode of conducting it, will give the reader a key to the Chinese character and the Chinese policy. To begin by making the most arrogant resistance to the simplest demands of justice, to end by cringing in the lowliest fashion before the guns of a little war-brig, there we have, in a representative abstract, the Chinese system of law and gospel. The equities of the present war are briefly summed up in this one question: What is it that our brutal enemy wants from us? Is it some concession in a point of international law, or of commercial rights, or of local privilege, or of traditional usage, that the Chinese would exact? Nothing of the kind. It is simply a license, guaranteed by ourselves, to call us in all proclamations by scurrilous names; and secondly, with our own consent, to inflict upon us, in the face of universal China, one signal humiliation.... Us—the freemen of the earth by emphatic precedency—us, the leaders of civilisation, would this putrescent2 tribe of hole-and-corner assassins take upon themselves, not to force into entering by an ignoble gate [the reference here is to a previous passage concerning the low door by which Spanish fanaticism ordained that the Cagots (lepers) of the Pyrenees should enter the churches in a stooping attitude], but to exclude from it altogether, and for ever. Briefly, then, for this licensed scurrility, in the first place; and, in the second, for this foul indignity of a spiteful exclusion from a right four times secured by treaty, it is that the Chinese are facing the unhappy issues of war.'

The position and outcome of matters in those critical years may be recalled by a few lines from the annual summaries of The Times on the New Years' days of 1858 and 1859. These indicate that De Quincey was here a pretty fair exponent of the growing wrath of the English people.

'The presence of the China force on the Indian Seas was especially fortunate. The demand for reinforcements at Calcutta (caused by the Indian Mutiny) was obviously more urgent than the necessity for punishing the insolence at Canton. At a more convenient season the necessary operations in China will be resumed, and in the meantime the blockading squadron has kept the offending population from despising the resentment of England. The interval which has elapsed has served to remove all reasonable doubt of the necessity of enforcing redress. Public opinion has not during the last twelvemonth become more tolerant of barbarian outrages. There is no reason to believe that the punishment of the provincial authorities will involve the cessation of intercourse with the remainder of the Chinese Empire.'

'The working of our treaties with China and Japan will be watched with curiosity both in and out of doors, and we can only hope that nothing will be done to blunt the edge of that masterly decision by which these two giants of Eastern tale have been felled to the earth, and reduced to the level and bearing of common humanity.'

The titles which follow are those which were given by De Quincey himself to the three Sections.—H.

HINTS TOWARDS AN APPRECIATION OF THE COMING WAR IN CHINA

Said before the opening of July, that same warning remark may happen to have a prophetic rank, and practically, a prophetic value, which two months later would tell for mere history, and history paid for by a painful experience.

The war which is now approaching wears in some respects the strangest features that have yet been heard of in old romance, or in prosaic history, for we are at war with the southernmost province of China—namely, Quantung, and pre-eminently with its chief city of Canton, but not with the other four commercial ports of China, nor; in fact, at present with China in general; and, again, we are at war with Yeh, the poisoning Governor of Canton, but (which is strangest of all) not with Yeh's master—the Tartar Emperor—locked up in a far-distant Peking.

Another strange feature in this war is—the footing upon which our alliances stand. For allies, it seems, we are to have; nominal, as regards the costs of war, but real and virtual as regards its profits. The French, the Americans,3 and I believe the Belgians, have pushed forward (absolutely in post-haste advance of ourselves) their several diplomatic representatives, who are instructed duly to lodge their claims for equal shares of the benefits reaped by our British fighting, but with no power to contribute a single file towards the bloodshed of this war, nor a single guinea towards its money costs. Napoleon I., in a craze of childish spite towards this country, pleased himself with denying the modern heraldic bearings of Great Britain, and resuscitating the obsolete shield of our Plantagenets; he insisted that our true armorial ensigns were the leopards. But really the Third Napoleon is putting life and significance into his uncle's hint, and using us, as in Hindostan they use the cheeta or hunting-leopard, for rousing and running down his oriental game. It is true, that in certain desperate circumstances, when no opening remains for pacific negotiation, these French and American agents are empowered to send home for military succours. A worshipful prospect, when we throw back our eyes upon our own share in these warlike preparations, with all the advantages of an unparalleled marine. Six months have slipped away since Lord Clarendon, our Foreign Secretary, received, in Downing Street, Sir J. Bowring's and Admiral Seymour's reports of Yeh's atrocities. Six calendar months, not less, but more, by some days, have run past us since then; and though some considerable part of our large reinforcements must have reached their ground in April, and even the commander-in-chief (Sir John Ashburnham) by the middle of May, yet, I believe, that many of the gun-boats, on which mainly will rest the pursuit of Yeh's junks, if any remain unabsconded northwards, have actually not yet left our own shores. The war should naturally have run its course in one campaign. Assuredly it will, if confined within the limits of Yeh's command, even supposing that command to comprehend the two Quangs. Practically, then, it is a fantastic impossibility that any reversionary service to our British expedition, which is held out in prophetic vision as consecrating our French and American friends from all taint of mercenary selfishness, ever can be realised. I am not going to pursue this subject. But a brief application of it to a question at this moment (June 16) urgently appealing to public favour is natural and fair. Canvassers are now everywhere moving on behalf of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez. This canal proposes to call upon the subscribers for £9,000,000 sterling; the general belief is, that first and last it will call for £12,000,000 to £15,000,000. But at that price, or at any price, it is cheap; and ultimate failure is impossible. Why do I mention it? Everywhere there is a rumour that 'a narrow jealousy' in London is the bar which obstructs this canal speculation. There is, indeed, and already before the canal proposal there was, a plan in motion for a railway across the isthmus, which seems far enough from meeting the vast and growing necessities of the case. But be that as it may, with what right does any man in Europe, or America, impute narrowness of spirit, local jealousy, or selfishness, to England, when he calls to mind what sacrifices she is at this moment making for those very oriental interests which give to the ship canal its sole value—the men, the ships, the money spent, or to be spent, upon the Canton war, and then in fairness connects that expense (or the similar expense made by her in 1840-42) with the operative use to which, in those years, she applied all the diplomatic concessions extorted by her arms. The first word—a memorable word—which she uttered on proposing her terms in 1842, was, What I demand for myself, that let all Christendom enjoy. And since that era (i. e., for upwards of fourteen years) all Christendom, that did not fail in the requisite energy for improving the opportunities then first laid open, has enjoyed the very same advantages in Chinese ports as Great Britain; secondly, without having contributed anything whatever to the winning or the securing of these advantages; thirdly, on the pure volunteer intercession made by Britain on their behalf. The world has seen enough of violence and cruelties, the most bloody in the service of commercial jealousies, and nowhere more than in these oriental regions: witness the abominable acts of the Dutch at Amboyna, in Japan, and in Java, &c.; witness the bigoted oppressions, where and when soever they had power, of the colonising Portuguese and Spaniards. Tyranny and merciless severities for the ruin of commercial rivals have been no rarities for the last three and a half centuries in any region of the East. But first of all, from Great Britain in 1842 was heard the free, spontaneous proclamation—this was a rarity—unlimited access, with advantages the very same as her own, to a commerce which it was always imagined that she laboured to hedge round with repulsions, making it sacred to her own privileged use. A royal gift was this; but a gift which has not been received by Christendom in a corresponding spirit of liberal appreciation. One proof of that may be read in the invidious statement, supported by no facts or names, which I have just cited. Were this even true, a London merchant is not therefore a Londoner, or even a Briton. Germans, Swiss, Frenchmen, &c., are settled there as merchants, in crowds. No nation, however, is compromised by any act of her citizens acting as separate and uncountenanced individuals. So that, even if better established as a fact, this idle story would still be a calumny; and as a calumny it would merit little notice. Nevertheless, I have felt it prudent to give it a prominent station, as fitted peculiarly, by the dark shadows of its malice, pointed at our whole nation collectively, to call into more vivid relief the unexampled lustre of that royal munificence in England, which, by one article of a treaty, dictated at the point of her bayonets, threw open in an hour, to all nations, that Chinese commerce, never previously unsealed through countless generations of man.

Next, then, having endeavoured to place these preliminary points in their true light, I will anticipate the course by which the campaign would naturally be likely to travel, supposing no alien and mischievous disturbance at work for deranging it. Simply to want fighting allies would be no very menacing evil. We managed to do without them in our pretty extensive plan of warfare fifteen years ago; and there is no reason why we should find our difficulties now more intractable than then. I should imagine that the American Congress and the French Executive would look on uneasily, and with a sense of shame, at the prospect of sharing largely in commercial benefits which they had not earned, whilst the burdens of the day were falling exclusively upon the troops of our nation; but that is a consideration for their own feelings, and may happen to corrode their hearts and their sense of honour most profoundly at some future time, when it may have ceased to be remediable. If that were all, for us there would be no arrears of mortified sensibilities to apprehend. But what is ominous even in relation to ourselves from these professedly inert associates, these sleeping partners in our Chinese dealings, is, that their presence with no active functions argues a faith lurking somewhere in the possibility of talking the Chinese into reason. Such a chimera, still surviving the multiform experience we have had, augurs ruin to the total enterprise. It is not absolutely impossible that even Yeh, or any imbecile governor armed with the same obstinacy and brutal arrogance, might, under the terrors of an armament such as he will have to face, simulate a submission that was far from his thoughts. We ourselves found in the year 1846, when in fidelity to our engagements we gave back the important island of Chusan, which we had retained for four years, in fact until all the instalments of the ransom money had been paid, that a more negligent ear was turned to our complaints and remonstrances. The vile mob of Canton, long kept and indulged as so many trained bull-dogs, for the purpose of venting that insolence to Europeans which the mandarins could no longer utter personally without coming into collision with the treaty, became gradually unmanageable even by their masters. In 1847 Lord Palmerston, then Foreign Secretary, was reduced to the necessity of fulminating this passage against the executive government of the murdering city—'You' (Lord Palmerston was addressing Sir John Davis, at that time H. M. Plenipotentiary in China) 'will inform the Chinese authorities, in plain and distinct terms, that the British Government will not tolerate that a Chinese mob shall with impunity maltreat British subjects in China, whenever they get them into their power; and that if the Chinese authorities will not punish and prevent such outrages, the British Government will be obliged to take the matter into their own hands; and it will not be their fault if, in such case, the innocent are involved in the punishment sought to be inflicted on the guilty.'

This commanding tone was worthy of Lord Palmerston, and in harmony with his public acts in all cases where he has understood the ground which he occupied. Unhappily he did not understand the case of Canton. The British were admitted by each successive treaty, their right of entry was solemnly acknowledged by the emperor. Satisfied with this, Lord Palmerston said, 'Enough: the principle is secured; the mere details, locally intelligible no doubt, I do not pretend to understand. But all this will come in time. In time you will be admitted into Canton. And for the present rest satisfied with having your right admitted, if not as yet your persons.' Ay, but unfortunately nothing short of plenary admission to British flesh and blood ever will satisfy the organised ruffians of Canton, that they have not achieved a triumph over the British; which triumph, as a point still open to doubt amongst mischief-makers, they seek to strengthen by savage renewal as often as they find a British subject unprotected by armed guardians within their streets. In those streets murder walks undisguised. And the only measure for grappling with it is summarily to introduce the British resident, to prostrate all resistance, and to punish it by the gallows4 where it proceeds to acts of murder. It is sad consideration for those, either in England or China, who were nearly or indirectly connected with Canton (amongst whom must be counted the British Government), that beyond a doubt the murders of our countrymen, which occurred in that city, would have been intercepted by such a mastery over the local ruffians as could not be effected so long as the Treaty of Nanking was not carried into effect with respect to free entrance and residence of British subjects. As things stood, all that Sir J. Davis could do, in obedience to the directions from the Home Government, was to order a combined naval and military attack upon all the Chinese forts which belt the approaches to Canton. These were all captured; and the immense number of eight hundred and twenty-seven heavy guns were in a few hours made unserviceable, either by knocking off their trunnions, or by spiking them, or in both ways. The Imperial Commissioner, Keying, previously known so favourably to the English by his good sense and discretion, had on this occasion thought it his best policy to ignore Lord Palmerston's letter: a copy had been communicated to him; but he took not the least notice of it. If this were intended for insolence, it was signally punished within a few hours. It happened that on our English list of grievances there remained a shocking outrage offered to Colonel Chesney, a distinguished officer of the engineers,5 and which to a certainty would have terminated in his murder, but for the coming up at the critical moment of a Chinese in high authority. The villains concerned in this outrage were known, were arrested, and (according to an agreement with our plenipotentiary) were to be punished in our presence. But in contempt of all his engagements, and out of pure sycophantic concession to the Canton mob, Keying notified that we the injured party were to be excluded. In that case no punishment at all would have been inflicted. Luckily, our troops and our shipping had not yet dispersed. Sir J. Davis, therefore, wrote to Keying, openly taxing him with his breach of honour. 'I was going' [these were Sir John's words] 'to Hong-Kong to-morrow; but since you behave with evasion and bad faith, in not punishing the offenders in the presence of deputed officers, I shall keep the troops at Canton, and proceed to-morrow in the steamer to Foshan, where, if I meet with insult, I will burn the town.' Foshan is a town in the neighbourhood of Canton, and happened to be the scene of Colonel Chesney's ill usage. Now, upon this vigorous step, what followed? Hear Sir John:—'Towards midnight a satisfactory reply was received, and at five o'clock next morning three offenders were brought to the guard-house—a mandarin of high rank being present on the part of the Chinese, and deputed officers on the part of the British. The men were bambooed in succession by the Chinese officers of justice;' and at the close of the scene, the mandarin (upon a requisition from our side) explained to the mob who crowded about the barriers why the men were punished, and warned them that similar chastisement for similar offences awaited themselves. In one point only the example made was unsatisfactory: the men punished were not identified as the same who had assaulted Colonel Chesney. They might be criminals awaiting punishment for some other offence. With so shuffling a government as the Chinese, always moving through darkness, and on the principles of a crooked policy, no perfect satisfaction must ever be looked for. But still, what a bright contrast between this energy of men acquainted with the Chinese character, and the foolish imbecility of our own government in Downing Street, who are always attempting the plan of soothing and propitiating by concession those ignoble Orientals, in whose eyes all concession, great or small, through the whole scale of graduation, is interpreted as a distinct confession of weakness. Thus did all our governments: thus, above all others, did the East India Company for generations deal with the Chinese; and the first act of ours that ever won respect from China was Anson's broadsides, and the second was our refusal of the ko-tou. Thus did our Indian Government, in the early stages of their intercourse, deal with the Burmese. Thus did our government deal with the Japanese—an exaggerated copy of the Chinese. What they wanted with Japan was simply to do her a very kind and courteous service—namely, to return safe and sound to their native land seven Japanese who had been driven by hurricanes in continued succession into the Pacific, and had ultimately been saved from death by British sailors. Our wise government at home were well aware of the atrocious inhospitality practised systematically by these cruel islanders; and what course did they take to propitiate them? Good sense would have prescribed the course of arming the British vessel in so conspicuous a fashion as to inspire the wholesome respect of fear. Instead of which, our government actually drew the teeth of the particular vessel selected, by carefully withdrawing each individual gun. The Japanese cautiously sailed round her, ascertained her powerless condition, and instantly proceeded to force her away by every mode of insult; nor were the unfortunate Japanese ever restored to their country. Now, contrast with this endless tissue of imbecilities, practised through many generations by our blind and obstinate government (for such it really is in its modes of dealing with Asiatics), the instantaneous success of 'sharp practice' and resolute appeals to fear on the part of Sir John Davis. By midnight of the same day on which the British remonstrance had been lodged an answer is received; and this answer, in a perfect rapture of panic, concedes everything demanded; and by sunrise the next morning the whole affair has been finished. Two centuries, on our old East Indian system of negotiating with China, would not have arrived at the same point. Later in the very same year occurred another and more atrocious explosion of Canton ruffianism; and the instantaneous retribution which followed to the leading criminals, showed at once how great an advance had been made in winning respect for ourselves, and in extorting our rights, by this energetic mode of action. On Sunday, the 5th of December, six British subjects had gone out into the country on a pleasure excursion, some of whom unhappily carried pocket-pistols. They were attacked by a mob of the usual Canton character; one Chinese was killed and one wounded by pistol-shots; but of the six British, encompassed by a countless crowd, not one escaped: all six were murdered, and then thrown into the river. Immediately, and before the British had time to take any steps, the Chinese authorities were all in motion. The resolute conduct of Sir John Davis had put an end to the Chinese policy of shuffling, by making it no longer hopeful. It lost much more than it gained. And accordingly it was agreed, after a few days' debate, that the emperor's pleasure should not be taken, except upon the more doubtful cases. Four, about whose guilt no doubts existed, were immediately beheaded; and the others, after communicating with Peking, were punished in varying degrees—one or two capitally.