CHALDICOTES.
Chaldicotes is a house of much more pretension than Framley Court.
Indeed, if one looks at the ancient marks about it, rather than
at those of the present day, it is a place of very considerable
pretension. There is an old forest, not altogether belonging to the
property, but attached to it, called the Chase of Chaldicotes. A
portion of this forest comes up close behind the mansion, and of
itself gives a character and celebrity to the place. The Chase of
Chaldicotes--the greater part of it, at least--is, as all the world
knows, Crown property, and now, in these utilitarian days, is to be
disforested. In former times it was a great forest, stretching half
across the country, almost as far as Silverbridge; and there are bits
of it, here and there, still to be seen at intervals throughout the
whole distance; but the larger remaining portion, consisting of aged
hollow oaks, centuries old, and wide-spreading withered beeches, stands
in the two parishes of Chaldicotes and Uffley. People still come from
afar to see the oaks of Chaldicotes, and to hear their feet rustle
among the thick autumn leaves. But they will soon come no longer. The
giants of past ages are to give way to wheat and turnips; a ruthless
Chancellor of the Exchequer, disregarding old associations and rural
beauty, requires money returns from the lands; and the Chase of
Chaldicotes is to vanish from the earth’s surface.
Some part of it, however, is the private property of Mr. Sowerby,
who hitherto, through all his pecuniary distresses, has managed to
save from the axe and the auction-mart that portion of his paternal
heritage. The house of Chaldicotes is a large stone building, probably
of the time of Charles the Second. It is approached on both fronts
by a heavy double flight of stone steps. In the front of the house
a long, solemn, straight avenue through a double row of lime-trees,
leads away to lodge-gates, which stand in the centre of the village
of Chaldicotes; but to the rear the windows open upon four different
vistas, which run down through the forest: four open green rides,
which all converge together at a large iron gateway, the barrier which
divides the private grounds from the Chase. The Sowerbys, for many
generations, have been rangers of the Chase of Chaldicotes, thus having
almost as wide an authority over the Crown forest as over their own.
But now all this is to cease, for the forest will be disforested.
It was nearly dark as Mark Robarts drove up through the avenue of
lime-trees to the hall-door; but it was easy to see that the house,
which was dead and silent as the grave through nine months of the
year, was now alive in all its parts. There were lights in many of the
windows, and a noise of voices came from the stables, and servants were
moving about, and dogs barked, and the dark gravel before the front
steps was cut up with many a coach-wheel.
“Oh, be that you, sir, Mr. Robarts?” said a groom, taking the parson’s
horse by the head, and touching his own hat. “I hope I see your
reverence well.”
“Quite well, Bob, thank you. All well at Chaldicotes?”
“Pretty bobbish, Mr. Robarts. Deal of life going on here now, sir. The
bishop and his lady came this morning.”
“Oh--ah--yes! I understood they were to be here. Any of the young
ladies?”
“One young lady. Miss Olivia, I think they call her, your reverence.”
“And how’s Mr. Sowerby?”
“Very well, your reverence. He, and Mr. Harold Smith, and Mr.
Fothergill--that’s the duke’s man of business, you know--is getting off
their horses now in the stable-yard there.”
“Home from hunting--eh, Bob?”
“Yes, sir, just home, this minute.” And then Mr. Robarts walked into
the house, his portmanteau following on a footboy’s shoulder.
It will be seen that our young vicar was very intimate at Chaldicotes;
so much so that the groom knew him, and talked to him about the people
in the house. Yes; he was intimate there: much more than he had given,
the Framley people to understand. Not that he had wilfully and overtly
deceived any one; not that he had ever spoken a false word about
Chaldicotes. But he had never boasted at home that he and Sowerby were
near allies. Neither had he told them there how often Mr. Sowerby
and Lord Lufton were together in London. Why trouble women with such
matters? Why annoy so excellent a woman as Lady Lufton?
And then Mr. Sowerby was one whose intimacy few young men would wish
to reject. He was fifty, and had lived, perhaps, not the most salutary
life; but he dressed young, and usually looked well. He was bald, with
a good forehead, and sparkling moist eyes. He was a clever man, and a
pleasant companion, and always good-humoured when it so suited him. He
was a gentleman, too, of high breeding and good birth, whose ancestors
had been known in that county--longer, the farmers around would boast,
than those of any other landowner in it, unless it be the Thornes
of Ullathorne, or perhaps the Greshams of Greshamsbury--much longer
than the De Courcys at Courcy Castle. As for the Duke of Omnium, he,
comparatively speaking, was a new man.
And then he was a member of Parliament, a friend of some men in power,
and of others who might be there; a man who could talk about the world
as one knowing the matter of which he talked. And moreover, whatever
might be his ways of life at other times, when in the presence of a
clergyman he rarely made himself offensive to clerical tastes. He
neither swore, nor brought his vices on the carpet, nor sneered at the
faith of the church. If he was no churchman himself, he at least knew
how to live with those who were.
How was it possible that such a one as our vicar should not relish
the intimacy of Mr. Sowerby? It might be very well, he would say to
himself, for a woman like Lady Lufton to turn up her nose at him--for
Lady Lufton, who spent ten months of the year at Framley Court, and
who during those ten months, and for the matter of that, during the
two months also which she spent in London, saw no one out of her own
set. Women did not understand such things, the vicar said to himself;
even his own wife--good, and nice, and sensible, and intelligent as she
was--even she did not understand that a man in the world must meet all
sorts of men; and that in these days it did not do for a clergyman to
be a hermit.
’Twas thus that Mark Robarts argued when he found himself called upon
to defend himself before the bar of his own conscience for going to
Chaldicotes and increasing his intimacy with Mr. Sowerby. He did know
that Mr. Sowerby was a dangerous man; he was aware that he was over
head and ears in debt, and that he had already entangled young Lord
Lufton in some pecuniary embarrassment; his conscience did tell him
that it would be well for him, as one of Christ’s soldiers, to look
out for companions of a different stamp. But nevertheless he went
to Chaldicotes, not satisfied with himself indeed, but repeating to
himself a great many arguments why he should be so satisfied.
He was shown into the drawing-room at once, and there he found Mrs.
Harold Smith, with Mrs. and Miss Proudie, and a lady whom he had never
before seen, and whose name he did not at first hear mentioned.
“Is that Mr. Robarts?” said Mrs. Harold Smith, getting up to greet him,
and screening her pretended ignorance under the veil of the darkness.
“And have you really driven over four-and-twenty miles of Barsetshire
roads on such a day as this to assist us in our little difficulties?
Well, we can promise you gratitude at any rate.”
And then the vicar shook hands with Mrs. Proudie, in that deferential
manner which is due from a vicar to his bishop’s wife; and Mrs.
Proudie returned the greeting with all that smiling condescension
which a bishop’s wife should show to a vicar. Miss Proudie was not
quite so civil. Had Mr. Robarts been still unmarried, she also could
have smiled sweetly; but she had been exercising smiles on clergymen
too long to waste them now on a married parish parson.
“And what are the difficulties, Mrs. Smith, in which I am to assist
you?”
“We have six or seven gentlemen here, Mr. Robarts, and they always go
out hunting before breakfast, and they never come back--I was going to
say--till after dinner. I wish it were so, for then we should not have
to wait for them.”
“Excepting Mr. Supplehouse, you know,” said the unknown lady, in a loud
voice.
“And he is generally shut up in the library, writing articles.”
“He’d be better employed if he were trying to break his neck like the
others,” said the unknown lady.
“Only he would never succeed,” said Mrs. Harold Smith. “But perhaps,
Mr. Robarts, you are as bad as the rest; perhaps you, too, will be
hunting to-morrow.”
“My dear Mrs. Smith!” said Mrs. Proudie, in a tone denoting slight
reproach, and modified horror.
“Oh! I forgot. No, of course, you won’t be hunting, Mr. Robarts; you’ll
only be wishing that you could.”
“Why can’t he?” said the lady with the loud voice.
“My dear Miss Dunstable! a clergyman hunt, while he is staying in the
same house with the bishop? Think of the proprieties!”
“Oh--ah! The bishop wouldn’t like it--wouldn’t he? Now, do tell me,
sir, what would the bishop do to you if you did hunt?”
“It would depend upon his mood at the time, madam,” said Mr. Robarts.
“If that were very stern, he might perhaps have me beheaded before the
palace gates.”
Mrs. Proudie drew herself up in her chair, showing that she did
not like the tone of the conversation; and Miss Proudie fixed her
eyes vehemently on her book, showing that Miss Dunstable and her
conversation were both beneath her notice.
“If these gentlemen do not mean to break their necks to-night,” said
Mrs. Harold Smith, “I wish they’d let us know it. It’s half-past six
already.”
And then Mr. Robarts gave them to understand that no such catastrophe
could be looked for that day, as Mr. Sowerby and the other sportsmen
were within the stable-yard when he entered the door.
“Then, ladies, we may as well dress,” said Mrs. Harold Smith. But as
she moved towards the door, it opened, and a short gentleman, with a
slow, quiet step, entered the room; but was not yet to be distinguished
through the dusk by the eyes of Mr. Robarts. “Oh! bishop, is that you?”
said Mrs. Smith. “Here is one of the luminaries of your diocese.” And
then the bishop, feeling through the dark, made his way up to the vicar
and shook him cordially by the hand. “He was delighted to meet Mr.
Robarts at Chaldicotes,” he said--“quite delighted. Was he not going
to preach on behalf of the Papuan Mission next Sunday? Ah! so he, the
bishop, had heard. It was a good work, an excellent work.” And then Dr.
Proudie expressed himself as much grieved that he could not remain at
Chaldicotes, and hear the sermon. It was plain that his bishop thought
no ill of him on account of his intimacy with Mr. Sowerby. But then he
felt in his own heart that he did not much regard his bishop’s opinion.
“Ah, Robarts, I’m delighted to see you,” said Mr. Sowerby, when they
met on the drawing-room rug before dinner. “You know Harold Smith?
Yes, of course you do. Well, who else is there? Oh! Supplehouse. Mr.
Supplehouse, allow me to introduce to you my friend Mr. Robarts. It is
he who will extract the five-pound note out of your pocket next Sunday
for these poor Papuans whom we are going to Christianize. That is,
if Harold Smith does not finish the work out of hand at his Saturday
lecture. And, Robarts, you have seen the bishop, of course:” this he
said in a whisper. “A fine thing to be a bishop, isn’t it? I wish I
had half your chance. But, my dear fellow, I’ve made such a mistake; I
haven’t got a bachelor parson for Miss Proudie. You must help me out,
and take her in to dinner.” And then the great gong sounded, and off
they went in pairs.
At dinner Mark found himself seated between Miss Proudie and the lady
whom he had heard named as Miss Dunstable. Of the former he was not
very fond, and, in spite of his host’s petition, was not inclined to
play bachelor parson for her benefit. With the other lady he would
willingly have chatted during the dinner, only that everybody else at
table seemed to be intent on doing the same thing. She was neither
young, nor beautiful, nor peculiarly ladylike; yet she seemed to enjoy
a popularity which must have excited the envy of Mr. Supplehouse, and
which certainly was not altogether to the taste of Mrs. Proudie--who,
however, fêted her as much as did the others. So that our clergyman
found himself unable to obtain more than an inconsiderable share of the
lady’s attention.
“Bishop,” said she, speaking across the table, “we have missed you so
all day! we have had no one on earth to say a word to us.”
“My dear Miss Dunstable, had I known that----But I really was engaged
on business of some importance.”
“I don’t believe in business of importance; do you, Mrs. Smith?”
“Do I not?” said Mrs. Smith. “If you were married to Mr. Harold Smith
for one week, you’d believe in it.”
“Should I, now? What a pity that I can’t have that chance of improving
my faith. But you are a man of business, also, Mr. Supplehouse; so they
tell me.” And she turned to her neighbour on her right hand.
“I cannot compare myself to Harold Smith,” said he. “But perhaps I may
equal the bishop.”
“What does a man do, now, when he sets himself down to business? How
does he set about it? What are his tools? A quire of blotting paper, I
suppose, to begin with?”
“That depends, I should say, on his trade. A shoemaker begins by waxing
his thread.”
“And Mr. Harold Smith----?”
“By counting up his yesterday’s figures, generally, I should say;
or else by unrolling a ball of red tape. Well-docketed papers and
statistical facts are his forte.”
“And what does a bishop do? Can you tell me that?”
“He sends forth to his clergy either blessings or blowings-up,
according to the state of his digestive organs. But Mrs. Proudie can
explain all that to you with the greatest accuracy.”
“Can she, now? I understand what you mean, but I don’t believe a word
of it. The bishop manages his own affairs himself, quite as much as you
do, or Mr. Harold Smith.”
“I, Miss Dunstable?”
“Yes, you.”
“But I, unluckily, have not a wife to manage them for me.”
“Then you should not laugh at those who have, for you don’t know what
you may come to yourself, when you’re married.”
Mr. Supplehouse began to make a pretty speech, saying that he would
be delighted to incur any danger in that respect to which he might
be subjected by the companionship of Miss Dunstable. But before he
was half through it, she had turned her back upon him, and began a
conversation with Mark Robarts.
“Have you much work in your parish, Mr. Robarts?” she asked. Now, Mark
was not aware that she knew his name, or the fact of his having a
parish, and was rather surprised by the question. And he had not quite
liked the tone in which she had seemed to speak of the bishop and his
work. His desire for her further acquaintance was therefore somewhat
moderated, and he was not prepared to answer her question with much
zeal.
“All parish clergymen have plenty of work, if they choose to do it.”
“Ah, that is it; is it not, Mr. Robarts? If they choose to do it? A
great many do--many that I know, do; and see what a result they have.
But many neglect it--and see what a result _they_ have. I think it
ought to be the happiest life that a man can lead, that of a parish
clergyman, with a wife and family, and a sufficient income.”
“I think it is,” said Mark Robarts, asking himself whether the
contentment accruing to him from such blessings had made him satisfied
at all points. He had all these things of which Miss Dunstable spoke,
and yet he had told his wife, the other day, that he could not afford
to neglect the acquaintance of a rising politician like Harold Smith.
“What I find fault with is this,” continued Miss Dunstable, “that we
expect clergymen to do their duty, and don’t give them a sufficient
income--give them hardly any income at all. Is it not a scandal, that
an educated gentleman with a family should be made to work half his
life, and perhaps the whole, for a pittance of seventy pounds a year?”
Mark said that it was a scandal, and thought of Mr. Evan Jones and his
daughter;--and thought also of his own worth, and his own house, and
his own nine hundred a year.
“And yet you clergymen are so proud--aristocratic would be the genteel
word, I know--that you won’t take the money of common, ordinary poor
people. You must be paid from land and endowments, from tithe and
church property. You can’t bring yourself to work for what you earn, as
lawyers and doctors do. It is better that curates should starve than
undergo such ignominy as that.”
“It is a long subject, Miss Dunstable.”
“A very long one; and that means that I am not to say any more about
it.”
“I did not mean that exactly.”
“Oh! but you did though, Mr. Robarts. And I can take a hint of that
kind when I get it. You clergymen like to keep those long subjects
for your sermons, when no one can answer you. Now if I have a longing
heart’s desire for anything at all in this world, it is to be able to
get up into a pulpit, and preach a sermon.”
“You can’t conceive how soon that appetite would pall upon you, after
its first indulgence.”
“That would depend upon whether I could get people to listen to me.
It does not pall upon Mr. Spurgeon, I suppose.” Then her attention
was called away by some question from Mr. Sowerby, and Mark Robarts
found himself bound to address his conversation to Miss Proudie.
Miss Proudie, however, was not thankful, and gave him little but
monosyllables for his pains.
“Of course you know Harold Smith is going to give us a lecture about
these islanders,” Mr. Sowerby said to him, as they sat round the fire
over their wine after dinner. Mark said that he had been so informed,
and should be delighted to be one of the listeners.
“You are bound to do that, as he is going to listen to you the day
afterwards--or, at any rate, to pretend to do so, which is as much as
you will do for him. It’ll be a terrible bore--the lecture I mean, not
the sermon.” And he spoke very low into his friend’s ear. “Fancy having
to drive ten miles after dusk, and ten miles back, to hear Harold Smith
talk for two hours about Borneo! One must do it, you know.”
“I daresay it will be very interesting.”
“My dear fellow, you haven’t undergone so many of these things as I
have. But he’s right to do it. It’s his line of life; and when a man
begins a thing he ought to go on with it. Where’s Lufton all this time?”
“In Scotland, when I last heard from him; but he’s probably at Melton
now.”
“It’s deuced shabby of him, not hunting here in his own county. He
escapes all the bore of going to lectures, and giving feeds to the
neighbours; that’s why he treats us so. He has no idea of his duty, has
he?”
“Lady Lufton does all that, you know.”
“I wish I’d a Mrs. Sowerby _mère_ to do it for me. But then Lufton has
no constituents to look after--lucky dog! By-the-by, has he spoken to
you about selling that outlying bit of land of his in Oxfordshire? It
belongs to the Lufton property, and yet it doesn’t. In my mind it gives
more trouble than it’s worth.”
Lord Lufton had spoken to Mark about this sale, and had explained to
him that such a sacrifice was absolutely necessary, in consequence
of certain pecuniary transactions between him, Lord Lufton, and Mr.
Sowerby. But it was found impracticable to complete the business
without Lady Lufton’s knowledge, and her son had commissioned Mr.
Robarts not only to inform her ladyship, but to talk her over, and to
appease her wrath. This commission he had not yet attempted to execute,
and it was probable that this visit to Chaldicotes would not do much to
facilitate the business.
“They are the most magnificent islands under the sun,” said Harold
Smith to the bishop.
“Are they, indeed?” said the bishop, opening his eyes wide, and
assuming a look of intense interest.
“And the most intelligent people.”
“Dear me!” said the bishop.
“All they want is guidance, encouragement, instruction----”
“And Christianity,” suggested the bishop.
“And Christianity, of course,” said Mr. Smith, remembering that he
was speaking to a dignitary of the Church. It was well to humour such
people, Mr. Smith thought. But the Christianity was to be done in the
Sunday sermon, and was not part of his work.
“And how do you intend to begin with them?” asked Mr. Supplehouse, the
business of whose life it had been to suggest difficulties.
“Begin with them--oh--why--it’s very easy to begin with them. The
difficulty is to go on with them, after the money is all spent. We’ll
begin by explaining to them the benefits of civilization.”
“Capital plan!” said Mr. Supplehouse. “But how do you set about it,
Smith?”
“How do we set about it? How did we set about it with Australia and
America? It is very easy to criticize; but in such matters the great
thing is to put one’s shoulder to the wheel.”
“We sent our felons to Australia,” said Supplehouse, “and they began
the work for us. And as to America, we exterminated the people instead
of civilizing them.”
“We did not exterminate the inhabitants of India,” said Harold Smith,
angrily.
“Nor have we attempted to Christianize them, as the bishop so properly
wishes to do with your islanders.”
“Supplehouse, you are not fair,” said Mr. Sowerby, “neither to Harold
Smith nor to us;--you are making him rehearse his lecture, which is bad
for him; and making us hear the rehearsal, which is bad for us.”
“Supplehouse belongs to a clique which monopolizes the wisdom of
England,” said Harold Smith; “or, at any rate, thinks that it does. But
the worst of them is that they are given to talk leading articles.”
“Better that, than talk articles which are not leading,” said Mr.
Supplehouse. “Some first-class official men do that.”
“Shall I meet you at the duke’s next week, Mr. Robarts,” said the
bishop to him, soon after they had gone into the drawing-room.
Meet him at the duke’s!--the established enemy of Barsetshire mankind,
as Lady Lufton regarded his grace! No idea of going to the duke’s had
ever entered our hero’s mind; nor had he been aware that the duke was
about to entertain any one.
“No, my lord; I think not. Indeed, I have no acquaintance with his
grace.”
“Oh--ah! I did not know. Because Mr. Sowerby is going; and so are the
Harold Smiths, and, I think, Mr. Supplehouse. An excellent man is the
duke;--that is, as regards all the county interests,” added the bishop,
remembering that the moral character of his bachelor grace was not the
very best in the world.
And then his lordship began to ask some questions about the church
affairs of Framley, in which a little interest as to Framley Court was
also mixed up, when he was interrupted by a rather sharp voice, to
which he instantly attended.
“Bishop,” said the rather sharp voice; and the bishop trotted across
the room to the back of the sofa, on which his wife was sitting.
“Miss Dunstable thinks that she will be able to come to us for a couple
of days, after we leave the duke’s.”
“I shall be delighted above all things,” said the bishop, bowing low
to the dominant lady of the day. For be it known to all men, that Miss
Dunstable was the great heiress of that name.
“Mrs. Proudie is so very kind as to say that she will take me in, with
my poodle, parrot, and pet old woman.”
“I tell Miss Dunstable, that we shall have quite room for any of her
suite,” said Mrs. Proudie. “And that it will give us no trouble.”
“‘The labour we delight in physics pain,’” said the gallant bishop,
bowing low, and putting his hand upon his heart.
In the meantime, Mr. Fothergill had got hold of Mark Robarts. Mr.
Fothergill was a gentleman, and a magistrate of the county, but he
occupied the position of managing man on the Duke of Omnium’s estates.
He was not exactly his agent; that is to say, he did not receive his
rents; but he “managed” for him, saw people, went about the county,
wrote letters, supported the electioneering interest, did popularity
when it was too much trouble for the duke to do it himself, and was, in
fact, invaluable. People in West Barsetshire would often say that they
did not know what _on earth_ the duke would do, if it were not for Mr.
Fothergill. Indeed, Mr. Fothergill was useful to the duke.
“Mr. Robarts,” he said, “I am very happy to have the pleasure of
meeting you--very happy, indeed. I have often heard of you from our
friend Sowerby.”
Mark bowed, and said that he was delighted to have the honour of making
Mr. Fothergill’s acquaintance.
“I am commissioned by the Duke of Omnium,” continued Mr. Fothergill,
“to say how glad he will be if you will join his grace’s party at
Gatherum Castle, next week. The bishop will be there, and indeed nearly
the whole set who are here now. The duke would have written when he
heard that you were to be at Chaldicotes; but things were hardly quite
arranged then, so his grace has left it for me to tell you how happy he
will be to make your acquaintance in his own house. I have spoken to
Sowerby,” continued Mr. Fothergill, “and he very much hopes that you
will be able to join us.”
Mark felt that his face became red when this proposition was made to
him. The party in the county to which he properly belonged--he and his
wife, and all that made him happy and respectable--looked upon the Duke
of Omnium with horror and amazement; and now he had absolutely received
an invitation to the duke’s house! A proposition was made to him that
he should be numbered among the duke’s friends!
And though in one sense he was sorry that the proposition was made to
him, yet in another he was proud of it. It is not every young man, let
his profession be what it may, who can receive overtures of friendship
from dukes without some elation. Mark, too, had risen in the world,
as far as he had yet risen, by knowing great people; and he certainly
had an ambition to rise higher. I will not degrade him by calling him
a tuft-hunter; but he undoubtedly had a feeling that the paths most
pleasant for a clergyman’s feet were those which were trodden by the
great ones of the earth.
Nevertheless, at the moment he declined the duke’s invitation. He
was very much flattered, he said, but the duties of his parish would
require him to return direct from Chaldicotes to Framley.
“You need not give me an answer to-night, you know,” said Mr.
Fothergill. “Before the week is past, we will talk it over with Sowerby
and the bishop. It will be a thousand pities, Mr. Robarts, if you will
allow me to say so, that you should neglect such an opportunity of
knowing his grace.”
When Mark went to bed, his mind was still set against going to the
duke’s; but, nevertheless, he did feel that it was a pity that he
should not do so. After all, was it necessary that he should obey Lady
Lufton in all things?
The Chinese and the “Outer Barbarians.”
China, and questions of Chinese policy--which only two years ago
were the battle-field of fierce political contention, the subject of
debates which menaced a Ministry with downfall, dissolved a Parliament,
violently agitated the whole community at home, and engaged the
controversies of the whole civilized world--seemed again to have been
delivered over to that neglect and oblivion with which remote countries
and their concerns are ordinarily regarded; but after the lull and the
slumber, come again the rousing and the excitement, and China occupies
anew the columns of the periodical press, and awakens fresh interest in
the public mind.
The startling events which have taken place on the _Tien-tsin_ river
in China--popularly, but erroneously, known by the name of the
Pei-Ho[1]--have re-kindled such an amount of attention and inquiry,
that we feel warranted in devoting some of our earliest pages to
the consideration of a topic involving our relations with a people
constituting more than one-third of the whole human family, and
commercial interests even now of vast extent, and likely to become in
their future development more important than those which connect us
with any other nation or region of the world. A brief recapitulation
of the events preceding this last manifestation of Chinese duplicity
will enable the reader to understand the character and objects of the
Chinese government in their dealings with other nations.
A series of successful military and naval operations led to the
treaties with China of 1842. The arts and appliances of modern
warfare--the civilization of a powerful western nation--were directed
against armies and defenses which represented the unimproved strategy
of the middle ages,[2] and against regions pacific in their social
organization, yet disordered, and even dislocated by internecine
dissensions, which the enfeebled imperial authority was wholly
incompetent to subdue or to control. The reigning dynasty was little
able to resist a shock so overwhelming to its stolid pride, and
so unexpected to its ignorant shortsightedness. Its hold upon the
people being rather that of traditional prestige than of physical
domination, the humiliation felt was all the more intolerable because
inflicted by those “barbarians,” who, according to Chinese estimate,
are beyond “heaven’s canopy.” It is currently believed in China
that our earlier intercourse with the “central land” had only been
allowed by the gracious and pitying condescension of the “son of
heaven” to supplications that China might be permitted, from her
abounding superfluities, to provide for the urgent necessities of the
“outer races,” which could not otherwise be supplied. “How,” said the
benevolent councillors of the Great Bright Dynasty, “how, without the
rhubarb of the Celestial dominions, can the diseases of the red-haired
races be cured? how can their existence be supported without our
fragrant tea? how can their persons be adorned, unless your sacred
Majesty will allow their traders to purchase and to convey to them our
beautiful silk? Think how far they come--how patiently they wait--how
humbly they supplicate for a single ray from the lustrous presence. Let
not their hearts be made disconsolate by being sent empty away.”
Even after the severe lessons which the Chinese received in the war,
and the sad exhibitions of their utter inability to offer any effectual
resistance to our forces, the reports made by Keying, the negotiator of
our first treaty, as to the proper manner of dealing with “barbarians,”
are equally amusing and characteristic. These reports were honoured
with the autograph approval of the emperor Taou-Kwang, written with
“the vermilion pencil,”[3] and were found at Canton among the papers
of Commissioner Yeh, to whom they had been sent for his guidance and
instruction. In the end they proved fatal to the venerable diplomatist;
for he having been sent down from the capital to Tien-tsin in order
to meet the foreign ambassadors, and there to give practical evidence
that he knew how to “manage and pacify” the Western barbarians, the
documents which proved his own earlier treacheries were produced; he
was put to open shame, and the poor old man, though a member of the
Imperial family, was condemned to be publicly executed: a sentence
which the emperor, in consideration for his high rank and extreme
age, commuted into a permission, or rather a mandate, that he should
commit suicide. Keying gratefully accepted this last favour from his
sovereign, and so terminated his long and most memorable career.
It is withal not the less true that these reports represent the
concentrated wisdom of the sages of China, and are fair and reasonable
commentaries upon the teachings of the ancient books in reference to
the proper mode of subduing or taming the “outside nations;” and as
they throw much light upon the course of the mandarins, and give us the
key by which their policy may be generally interpreted, some account of
them will be neither superfluous nor uninstructive.
After stating that the English “barbarians” had been “pacified” in
1842, and the American and French “barbarians” in 1844, Keying goes on
to report that it had been necessary to “shift ground,” and change the
measures by which they were to be “tethered.” “Of course,” he says,
they must be dealt with “justly,” and their “feelings consulted;” but
they cannot be restrained without “stratagems”--and thus he explains
his “stratagems.” Sometimes they must be “ordered” (to obey), and “no
reason given;” sometimes there must be “demonstrations” to disarm
their “restlessness” and “suspicions;” sometimes they must be placed
on a footing of “equality,” to make them “pleased” and “grateful;”
their “falsehoods must be blinked,” and their “facts” not too closely
examined. Being “born beyond” (heaven’s canopy), the barbarians “cannot
perfectly understand the administration of the Celestial dynasty,”
nor the promulgation of the “silken sounds” (imperial decrees) by
the “Great Council.” Keying excuses himself for having, in order “to
gain their good-will,” eaten and drunk with “the barbarians in their
residences and ships;” but he was most embarrassed by the consideration
shown by the barbarians towards “their women,”[4] whom they constantly
introduced; but he did not deem it becoming “to break out in rebuke,”
which would “not clear their barbarian dulness.” He urges, however, the
increasing necessity of “keeping them off, and shutting them out.” He
takes great credit for refusing the “barbarians’ gifts,” the receipt of
which might, he says, have exposed him to the penalties of the law. He
did accept some trifles; but, giving effect to the Confucian maxim of
“receiving little and returning much,” he gave the barbarians in return
“snuff-bottles, purses,” and a “copy of his insignificant portrait.”
He says the “barbarians” have “filched Chinese titles for their
rulers:” thus “assuming the airs of great authority,” which he
acknowledges to be “no concern of ours;” but they will not accept any
designation denoting dependency, nor adopt the lunar calendar, nor
acknowledge patents of royalty from the “son of heaven.” They are so
“uncivilized,” so “blindly ignorant” of propriety, that to require them
to recognize becoming “inferiority” and “superiority,” would “lead to
fierce altercation;” and after all, he recommends disregarding these
“minor details,” in order to carry out “an important policy.” He
presents to the “sacred intelligence” this hasty outline of the “rough
settlement of the barbarian business.”[5] On the general character of
the official papers seized in Yeh’s yamun, Mr. Wade reports:--
“The foreigner is represented as inferior in civilization,
unreasonable, crafty, violent, and in consequence dangerous. The
instructions of the court are accordingly to lecture him fraternally
or magisterially, and by this means it is hoped to keep in hand his
perpetual tendency to encroach and intrude. A stern tone is to be
adopted on occasion, but always with due regard to the avoidance of
an open rupture.”
There were grave omissions in Sir Henry Pottinger’s treaty of 1842.
It left the shipping and commercial relations of the British colony
of Hong Kong in a very unsatisfactory state, encumbering them with
regulations to which it was found impossible to give effect; and the
trade emancipated itself by its own irresistible energies to the common
advantage of China and Great Britain. The treaty contained no clause
declaring the British text to be the true reading, and the consequence
was, various and embarrassing interpretations of the intentions of the
negotiators; the Chinese naturally enough contending for the accuracy
of their version, while, quite as naturally, our merchants would abide
only by the English reading.[6] There is no condition providing for the
revision of the treaty, and it is only under “the most favoured nation”
clause, which concedes to us everything conceded to other powers, that
we have a claim to a revision; but we cannot demand such revision,
unless and until it is granted to the French or the Americans.
But the most fatal mistake of all was that which fixed on Canton as the
seat of our diplomatic relations with China. It removed our influence
from the capital to the remotest part of the empire--to a province
always looked upon with apprehension and distrust by the supreme
authorities at Peking, and among a population remarkable alike for
their unruly disposition and their intense and openly proclaimed hatred
to foreigners. It had been Keying’s calculation (and his assurances
were most welcome to the court) that the emperor would thus get rid
of all annoyance from Western “barbarians,” who would be kept in
order by the indomitable spirit of the Cantonese. No provision was
made for personal access to the high commissioner charged with the
conduct of “barbarian affairs,” still less for communication, even by
correspondence, with the capital. This was the first great triumph of
Chinese policy, and has been fertile in producing fruits of mischief
and misery.
Sir Henry Pottinger never visited Canton; he never examined the ground
on which he placed the future representatives of Great Britain; he
listened to the declarations of Keying, that the difficulties in the
way of a becoming reception there were then insuperable; that they
would be removed by time, which might render the turbulent Cantonese
population more reasonable; he relied on the assurance that everything
would be done to prepare the way for a happier state of things. No
doubt there were difficulties; but they were not invincible: they
ought, then and there, to have been surmounted. Pottinger little knew
with what a faithless element he had to deal, and little dreamed that
delay would be taken advantage of, not to lessen, but increase the
resistance; that it would be employed not to facilitate, but to thwart
our object--not to soothe, but to exasperate the people. Pottinger
deemed his treaty a bridge to aid--Keying meant it to be a barrier
to resist--our entrance into China. But Sir Henry, before his death,
acknowledged his error, and deeply lamented that his confidence had
been misplaced. Abundant evidence has since been furnished that the
treaty was signed, not with the purpose of honestly giving effect to
its conditions, but to get rid of the “barbarian” pressure, and to bide
the time, when the treaty obligations could be got rid of altogether.
Proofs were not wanting of this dishonest purpose, and, in consequence,
after some hesitation, it was deemed necessary by the British
Government to remind the Chinese that their obligation to admit her
Majesty’s subjects into Canton had not been fulfilled; and they were
advised that the Island of Chusan, which we held as a guarantee, would
not be surrendered until security was given for the compliance with the
treaty stipulation. A short delay was asked by the Chinese, and the
assurance, under the authority of the “vermilion pencil,” was renewed,
that arrangements would be made for our having access to the city.
Chusan was in consequence given up to the Chinese authorities; but no
steps were taken to prepare the “public mind” to receive us as friends
and allies within the walls of Canton. On the contrary, incendiary
placards, breathing the utmost enmity to foreigners, continued to be
promulgated and pasted on the walls. In 1847, Sir John Davis, naturally
impatient at Keying’s procrastination and subterfuges, determined to
capture the Bogue forts, to move with military forces upon Canton,
and to threaten the city into compliance with obligations so long
trifled with and disregarded. Keying asked for time, and entered into
a formal written engagement that the city should be opened in April,
1849. When the time was at hand, Sir George Bonham, who had succeeded
to the governorship of Hong Kong, sought an interview with Seu, who
had replaced Keying as imperial commissioner. Seu did not hesitate
to say that the ministers had been engaged in a common purpose of
deception--that the Chinese and British were both aware the gates
were not to be opened--that each had avoided the responsibility of
bringing the matter to issue, and had left it to their successors.
Seu said he would refer the question to the emperor. The emperor’s
reply was the stereotyped instruction to all mandarins, who have any
relations with foreigners: “Keep the barbarians at a distance if you
can--but above all things keep the peace.” Now, though we had a large
fleet at Hong Kong, the imperial commissioner had undoubtedly obtained
information, from some quarter or other, that the fleet would not be
employed hostilely, and that he might “resist the barbarian” without
compromising the public tranquillity. So he negatived the demands of
the British.
That our forbearance was a grievous mistake there can be little
hesitation in affirming. But the importance of the concession then
made was little understood, except by the Chinese, and to it may
be attributed the embarrassments which have since entangled our
negotiations with China. As the British Government determined to
leave the Canton question in a state of abeyance, Sir George Bonham
prohibited the Queen’s subjects from attempting to enter the city--a
prohibition which was taken immediate advantage of by the mandarins,
who proclaimed that our right to enter the city had been finally and
for ever withdrawn. By the orders of the emperor, who wrote to the high
commissioner that he had read “with tears of joy” the report, which
showed with what sagacity and courage he had, without the employment
of force, thwarted “the seditious demands of the barbarians,” six
triumphal arches were erected at the various entrances of the city of
Canton, to celebrate the wisdom and valour of the authorities; and the
names of all the distinguished Cantonese who had contributed to so
glorious a consummation were ordered to be inscribed upon the monuments
for immortal commemoration, while dignities and honours were showered
down upon the principal actors. A grand religious ceremonial, in which
all the high authorities took part, was also ordered to be celebrated
in the Temple of Potoo, which is dedicated to a foreign deified idol,
who is supposed to control the affairs of “Western barbarians.” These
triumphal arches--magnificently built of granite--were blown up by the
Allies after the capture of the city.
It had indeed been long evident that it was the fixed purpose of the
Chinese authorities to escape from treaty obligations as soon as
they fancied that they were menaced by nothing more than a remote
and uncertain danger; the bow returned to its original bent as the
tightness of the string was relaxed. It was only while the pressure
of our presence was felt that any disposition was shown to respect
imperial engagements. The consuls of the United States and of France
had at first been received becomingly in Canton, by the viceroy; but,
in 1849, on the arrival of Consul Bowring, very subordinate mandarins
were appointed to visit him: the imperial commissioner altogether
refused any interview at any place. No official reception was therefore
given by the high mandarins to the British consular authorities,
who were utterly excluded from personal intercourse with them. The
stipulation of the treaty that the mandarins should, in conjunction
with the foreign authorities, assist in the arrangement of differences
between Chinese and British subjects, was absolutely a dead letter; and
the obligation on the part of the mandarins to aid officially in the
recovery of debts due to foreigners was utterly disregarded, when the
Chinese debtor was in a condition to bribe the native functionaries.
The alienation and repulsion which had become the system and the rule
of the Chinese authorities, had been productive of consequences most
detrimental to their amicable relations with foreigners. Personal
intercourse affords the greatest facilities for the arrangement of
difficulties; and, even had the correspondence with the mandarins
been of the most frank and friendly character, the settlement of all
questions would have been greatly aided by frequent interviews. But
these were always avoided, and often on pleas the most untenable:
sometimes it was said that the weight of administrative business
prevented the granting an audience--sometimes that the viceroy
was preparing to attack the rebels, and might be visiting the
interior--sometimes that an auspicious day must be waited for. Replies
were sometimes long delayed; sometimes never given; and it was seldom
that an answer was otherwise than evasive or unsatisfactory. There were
many occasions on which the cabinets of the treaty powers directed
their representatives to make communications, through the imperial
commissioner, to the court of Peking; but only one instance occurred of
any attention being paid to such communications: it was that connected
with our entrance into the city, and the imperial reply was such as
to encourage the viceroy in his perverse and perilous policy. The
impossibility of obtaining personal access to the imperial commissioner
was, in fact, not only a great grievance in itself, but it was the
cause of the non-redress of every other grievance. It is not in the
field of diplomatic controversy that European functionaries can have
any fair chance with those who, preserving all the forms of courtesy,
will deny facts, or invent falsehoods to suit the purposes of the
moment.
So great had been the disposition of the Chinese authorities to bring
back matters to their position anterior to the treaties of 1812,
that in Foochow Foo, the only other provincial city to which we
had a right of access, and in which a viceregal government exists,
the high authorities had refused all personal intercourse with the
representatives of Great Britain, though the consular offices are
established within the city walls. The superior officers of the great
provincial cities have the right of direct intercourse with the court
of Peking and with the emperor himself,--a right not possessed by any
of the functionaries in the ports of Shanghae, Ningpo, or Amoy, but
confined to those of Canton and Foochow, the one being the capital of
the province of Kwantung, the other of the province of Fookien. The
importance of our being in direct communication with those through
whom alone we can communicate with the ministers, or the sovereign,
at Peking, can hardly be over-estimated. Sir John Bowring visited
Foochow, in 1853, in a ship of war, and after much resistance from
the viceroy, was finally and officially received by him with every
mark of distinction; and the result of that friendly reception was the
amicable and satisfactory arrangement of every question--and there
were many--then pending between British and Chinese subjects in the
Fookien province. It is true that on more than one occasion the viceroy
of Canton offered to receive the British plenipotentiary, not in his
official yamun, but in a “packhouse” belonging to Howqua; and there
were those who held that Sir John Bowring should have been satisfied
with such condescension on the part of the Chinese commissioner.
It should be remembered that in all the treaties with foreigners,
the emperor has engaged that the same attentions shall be shown to
foreign functionaries which can be claimed and are invariably shown
to mandarins of similar rank. It was always a part of the policy of
the Chinese to maintain in the eyes of the people that superiority
of position which national pride and vanity had for ages rendered
habitual; and the recognition of the right of foreign authorities
to be elevated to the same height was one of the most important of
the treaty concessions. But it was a treaty concession, and ought
never to be allowed to become a dead letter. In our relations with
Oriental governments, the only security for the observance of treaty
engagements, is to be found in their rigid, but quiet and determined
enforcement. To be considerate as to what you exact, is the dictate
alike of prudence and of policy; but the attempt to disregard or
violate any formal treaty stipulation should be resisted at its very
earliest demonstration.
Whatever grounds of complaint the British authorities might have
against the Chinese, nothing was left undone to conciliate the good
opinion of the mandarins. In 1854 an application was made by Yeh to
this effect: he feared a rupture of the public peace, and feeling
himself too weak to protect Canton from the invasion of the rebels,
he asked for the assistance of the naval forces of the treaty powers.
Sir John Bowring accompanied the admiral and the British fleet to the
neighbourhood of that city, and in co-operation with the Americans,
took such effectual measures for its security, that the intended attack
was abandoned, and general tranquillity remained uninterrupted. This
intervention was gratefully acknowledged by the people of Canton; but
there is every reason to believe that the commissioner represented
our amicable intervention as an act of vassalage, and the assistance
rendered as having been in obedience to orders issued by imperial
authority. Notwithstanding this and many other evidences of friendly
sentiment and useful aid on our part, Yeh did not hesitate to represent
to the court that the rebels and Western “barbarians” were acting in
union, and he expressed his conviction that his policy would lead to
the extermination of both.
No one, in fact, who had attended to the progress of public events,
could be unaware of the insecure position of our relations with the
Chinese. Lord Palmerston said, in 1854:--
“So far from our proceedings in China having had a tendency to
disturb the peaceful relations between the British government and the
Chinese empire, and to lead to encroachments upon their territory, we
had, on the contrary, acted with the greatest forbearance. Ever since
the conclusion of the treaty of Nanking the conduct of the Chinese
authorities had been such as would have justified a rupture with
that government. They had violated the engagements into which they
had entered; and if any desire existed on the part of the British
government to proceed against them, abundant cause had existed,
almost since the termination of the last war. They had refused, on
divers pretences, to admit us to parts of Canton to which we ought
to have access, avoided their engagements with respect to the Hongs,
and nullified their stipulations in regard to the Tariff. In point of
fact, there was scarcely a single engagement they had not broken.”[7]
Wearied with so many evasions, difficulties and delays, the ministers
of the treaty powers, in 1854, determined to approach the capital, in
order to represent to the court the unsatisfactory state of foreign
relations with the imperial commissioner at Canton, and the necessity
of redressing the many grievances of which they had to complain, and
thus putting an end to a policy essentially unfriendly, which could not
but lead to a fatal crisis, and which imperilled alike the interests
of China and of all the nations who came into contact with her. It was
hoped that the strong and united representations of the three ministers
might alarm the emperor, or at all events obtain his serious attention
to the dangers with which he was menaced. The attempt failed.[8] It
could not but fail, through the incredible misrepresentations made
to the Chinese court by the commissioners who were sent down by the
emperor to meet the foreign envoys. As regards the outward forms of
courtesy, the latter had perhaps no special ground of complaint.
Tents were erected for their reception in the neighbourhood of the
Takoo forts; and they were invited to a repast, in which, it may be
worth notice, there was a display of ancient European steel knives
and forks, with handsome porcelain handles, apparently of the age
of Louis XIV. They were met on terms of equality, and the posts of
honour were graciously conceded to them. But the urbane manners of
the mandarins did not mislead the foreign ministers, who left them
with the declaration that they were insuring for their country days of
future sorrow. On the subject of their reports to the court of Peking,
Mr. Reed says: “They illustrate the habitual faithlessness of Chinese
officials.... They were certainly the most painful revelations of the
mendacity and treacherous habits of the high officials of this empire
ever given to the world. They cannot be read without contemptuous
resentment.”[9]
There was only one possible termination to a state of things so
obviously unsatisfactory, menacing, and untenable. Everything that
could be said or done, in the shape of friendly counsel, had been
exhausted. The American commissioner, Mr. M‘Lane, reports to his
government,[10] that on leaving China, he addressed to Keih,[11] the
governor of Kiangsoo, the following memorable warning:--
“Now, as my parting words, I say to you, if something is not done,
our relations will become bad, our amity be disturbed. I believe
that but for the officers of both governments there now might have
been a state of things that might have led to a war; but we have
exerted ourselves to prevent it.” [Governor Keih--“Yes.”] “I have
done well, and on the eve of my departure am most _disinterested_ in
what I say. I do not think it is in the power of either officers of
either government long to preserve the peace. If the emperor does not
listen, and appoint a commissioner to adjust the foreign relations,
so sure as there is a God in the heavens, amity cannot be preserved.
I say it in sincerity, as my parting words.”
The personal character of Yeh tended greatly to complicate every
international question. He represented the pride, presumption, and
ignorance of a high mandarin, without the restraints which fear of
imperial displeasure generally places upon Chinese functionaries.
He was the instrument, and for some time the successful instrument,
for carrying out the imperial policy as regarded foreign nations.
He had a great reputation for learning, had won the most eminent
literary grades, was a distinguished member of the highest college
(the Hanlin), and the guardian of the heir apparent--indeed, on
one occasion he called himself the fourth personage of the empire.
Moreover, his despatches were much admired for their perspicuity and
purity of language. He was strangely unacquainted with the geography,
institutions, and policy of remote nations, and even made his ignorance
a ground for self-congratulation. When questions of commercial interest
were brought before him, he treated them as altogether below his
notice, and on one occasion abruptly terminated a conversation by
saying, “You speak to me as if I were a merchant, and not a mandarin.”
He devoted himself to the study of necromancy, and relied on his
“fortunate star;” believing that the city of Canton was impregnable, he
made no serious arrangements for its defence.
What Ke-ying preached, Yeh-ming practised; but Ke was a man of a
gentle, Yeh of a ferocious nature; and the cautious cunning which often
marked the course of the one was wholly wanting to the other. Yeh,
armed as he was with powers of life and death, exercised them with a
recklessness of which there is no equal example in history. He turned
the execution-ground at Canton into a huge lake of blood; hundreds of
rebels were beheaded daily. When he was asked whether he had really
caused seventy thousand men to be decapitated, he boastingly replied
that the number exceeded a hundred thousand; and to an inquiry whether
he had inflicted upon women the horrible punishment called the cutting
into ten thousand pieces, he answered, “Ay! they were worse than the
men.”[12]
It was the affair of the _Arrow_ which brought about the inevitable
crisis. The question of Sir John Bowring’s action on that occasion was
entangled with the party politics of the day, and little more need now
be said than that the verdict of the country reversed the condemnatory
decision of the House of Commons. Certain it is that the very build
of a _lorcha_, so altogether unlike any Chinese junk in its external
appearance, ought to have led the local authorities in Canton to be
very cautious in their interference with her crew; and that the fact
of her papers being in the hands of the British consul, and not of the
Chinese custom-house, was _primâ facie_ evidence of her nationality.
Since the brutal character of ex-Commissioner Yeh has been better
understood, even those most forward to censure Sir John Bowring, for
refusing to deliver over to that savage and sanguinary personage men
who at all events believed themselves to be entitled to the protection
of British authority,[13] cannot but have felt that they ought to
have been more indulgent to his hesitation. That he carried with
him the sympathy of the representatives of the treaty powers,--that
Yeh’s policy was condemned by his colleagues and by the people in
general,[14]--and that Yeh himself was finally degraded and disgraced
by his own sovereign for his proceedings, are matters of historical
record. Yeh, there is little doubt, would have been publicly executed,
had he returned to China, notwithstanding the efforts of his father,
who betook himself to Peking with a very large sum of money, hoping to
be able--but failing--to propitiate the court.[15]
The war was carried on by the Chinese according to their usual mode
of dealing with foreign nations.[16] They had no chance of success in
open combat, so they had recourse to the ordinary stratagems adopted by
uncivilized races. An “anti-barbarian committee” was formed among them,
under the auspices of the mandarins. They offered premiums from 100 up
to 100,000 ounces of silver for assassinations of “the barbarians,”
according to the gradation of rank, and similar graduated rewards for
the capture of vessels, for acts of incendiarism, for denouncing those
who sent provisions to Hong Kong. Intercourse was prohibited under pain
of death; and provision was promised to be made for the families of
those who might perish in any desperate enterprise against the “foreign
devils.” But so well was the government of Hong Kong served, that only
one of many attempts to injure the colony had any success. In this,
however, 360 persons of all nations were poisoned; but, happily, from
the excess of arsenic employed, which led to an immediate perception
of the danger, very few lost their lives. No less than 25,000 of the
inhabitants fled to the mainland in consequence of the menaces of
the mandarins; yet, though there were not 400 effective men in the
garrison, such was the efficiency of the naval department, so active
the police, and so well-disposed the mass of the Chinese population,
that scarcely any damage was inflicted on the colony.
Canton was taken on the 29th of December. The resistance was
ridiculous.[17] The walls were scaled by a handful of men, and Yeh,
who had concealed himself, was captured. Why British authority, which
would have been welcomed by the respectable part of the population,
was not established under military law, and the whole administration
of the public revenues taken into our hands, it is very difficult to
explain. But at the meeting in which the English and French ambassadors
informed the high Chinese authorities that the city had been captured
and was held by the allied forces, both the governor of Kwang-tung and
the Tartar general were allowed to be seated on the same elevation with
the foreign ambassadors, and above the positions occupied by the naval
and military commanders-in-chief who were left in charge of the city.
Subordinate to these, an hermaphrodite government was created, called
“the Allied Commissioners,” who were to be consulted on all occasions
by the mandarins charged to carry on the administration of public
affairs.
A grand opportunity was thus lost of exhibiting to the Cantonese the
benefits of a just and honest, however severe, administration: they
could not but have been struck with the difference between the humane
and equitable laws of foreigners, as contrasted with the corrupt and
cruel dealings of the mandarins. The _Elgin Papers_ throw little light
upon the atrocities which were perpetrated by the Chinese, long after
our possession of the city. The prisons continued to be scenes of
horrible tortures. It was thought necessary to destroy whole streets,
in order to convey terror into districts where assassinations of the
subjects of allied powers had taken place: all the eastern suburb of
the city was razed to the ground, and not a respectable inhabitant
was left amidst the desolation. There can be no doubt that Governor
Pehkwei considered himself invested with supreme authority over Chinese
subjects. He complains bitterly, in a despatch to Lord Elgin, of 31st
January, 1858, of Consul Parkes’ interference--of his “overbearing” and
unreasonably oppressive “conduct in disposing of Chinamen confined in
the gaols of Canton. I ask, whether Chinese officers would be tolerated
in their interference with British subjects confined in British gaols?”
Lord Elgin does not, in his reply, assert British jurisdiction over
the prisons in Canton; but says, Pehkwei will be required to release
all prisoners entitled to the benefits of the amnesty; and in another
despatch (p. 178), distinctly throws upon Pehkwei the responsibility of
preserving the public peace. This anomalous state of matters awakened
the attention of our Government at home: a despatch of Lord Malmesbury
(14th June, 1858), says: “It will be a disgrace to the allied powers
if they do not prevent such enormities as are practised in the prisons
of Canton.” ... The “British name must be relieved from the disgrace
and guilt of having connived at a state of things so monstrous and
revolting.” As to the mixed authority of native mandarins and allied
commissioners, Lord Malmesbury says: “It is wholly inefficient for
all objects of administration and policy, and should be replaced by
a military government acting under the rules of martial law.” He
recommended that the allies should take possession of the custom-house
revenues, and hold the balance after the payment of the local expenses.
It is much to be regretted that these measures were not adopted.
Undoubtedly, Lord Elgin exercised a sound discretion in not proceeding
to Peking until “a lesson” had been given to Yeh’s obstinacy. Had he
gone to the North it would have been deemed a confession that he had
been foiled in the South, and compelled to appeal to the emperor, in
order to relieve himself from the difficulties in which Yeh had placed
him; for Yeh--who had chosen to represent the English “barbarians” as
making common cause with the rebels, and in fact, being themselves in
a state of rebellion against imperial authority--gave the court the
assurance that, as he had been so successful in breaking up the native
insurrection, so he would not fail “to drive the foreign ‘barbarians’
into the sea.” In short, there could be little doubt, that had his
calculations proved correct, a hostile policy would have pursued us in
all the other parts of China, and our immense interests there have been
placed in jeopardy.
For some time the court ventured to dream that by Yeh’s indomitable
bravery China might be wholly rid of the presence of the intrusive
strangers.[18] It is known that the emperor was much displeased
with a mandarin, who, having lived in Canton, and being acquainted
with the power of the English, ventured to express doubts as to the
trustworthiness of Yeh’s representations that he could bridle and
extirpate the English barbarians;[19] and nothing less than the taking
the Takoo forts by the allied forces, and an advance upon the capital
(even after Yeh’s capture and humiliation) was likely to bring the
court of Peking to a sense of its own weakness, and the necessity of
listening to our representations and remonstrances.
Every effort had been made to obstruct the progress of the allied
ambassadors towards Peking; but they wisely determined not to delay
their voyage to the Gulf of Pecheli, and, on the 24th April, they
announced to the Chinese prime minister their arrival, at the mouth
of the Tien-tsin river. The usual evasions were brought into play;
and it was soon discovered that the commissioners sent down had no
sufficient powers. On the 18th May, therefore, after consultation with
the admirals, it was determined to “take the forts,” and to “proceed
pacifically up the river;” on the 19th, notice was given to the
Chinese, and on the 20th, the forts were in the hands of the Allies.
On the 29th, the ambassadors reached Tien-tsin. On the same day they
were advised that “the chief secretary of state,” and the president of
one of the imperial boards, were ordered to proceed without delay “to
investigate and despatch business.” After many discussions the Treaty
was signed on the 26th June.
The progress and the result of these negotiations only demonstrate
that where our policy has failed, and where it will always fail in
China, is in placing confidence in the Chinese. Our distrust must
be the groundwork: it is the only sound foundation of our security.
When the four ambassadors were at Tien-tsin, and had extorted from
the fears of the Chinese treaties more or less humiliating to Chinese
pride, according to the amount of pressure employed, it should have
been foreseen that on the removal of that pressure the Chinese mind
would resume its natural obstinacy. A treaty with China will always
be waste paper, unless some security is obtained for giving it due
effect. It is, therefore, greatly to be regretted that the ambassadors
should have left the most difficult of questions, one most wounding to
Chinese pride--the reception of foreign ministers at Peking, and the
initiation of their constant residence at court--to be settled by their
successors, who had neither the same high diplomatic position, nor the
same large naval and military forces at their disposal. It may, indeed,
be a question whether it was desirable to force upon the Chinese the
recognition of our right to have an ambassador permanently fixed at
the capital; but if we thought fit to insist on such recognition,
there should certainly have been no vacillation--no disposition shown
to surrender in any shape or on any terms the right which had been
conceded. We could not plead want of experience, for we had abundant
evidence of the determination of the Chinese to repudiate and deny
every concession, the enjoyment of which was either rediscussed or
deferred. We should have avoided, above all things, the transfer of the
Canton question to Peking. Our right to enter Canton was incontestable.
Shufflings and subterfuges on the part of the Chinese, hesitation and
an erroneous estimate of the importance of the question on the part of
the British Government and the British functionaries in China, led to
one delay after another, and ended by an absolute denial of our treaty
right, and an arming of the Chinese population to enforce that denial,
accompanied at the same time by a Chinese proclamation mendaciously
averring that we had withdrawn our claims. A similar course has been
pursued at Peking. The Chinese, who have no notion--what Oriental
has?--of privileges possessed and not exercised, saw in the willingness
to give way to their representations, not, as we might have supposed,
a consideration for their repugnancy, and a magnanimity in refraining
from the enjoyment of a privilege distasteful to them, but an
infirmity of purpose--a confession that we had asked for something
we did not want, and which they felt to be a degradation needlessly
and gratuitously imposed upon them. There is, in fact, neither safety
nor dignity in any course but the stern, steady persistence in the
assertion and enforcement of whatever conditions are the subject of
imperial engagements.
Lord Elgin returned to England, and Mr. Bruce was appointed his
successor. It was at first announced that he had been furnished with
ambassadorial powers, but as such powers would have entitled him to
demand a personal reception by the emperor, it was, on reconsideration,
very judiciously thought better to avoid a question which might lead to
great embarrassments, and he was accredited as Minister Plenipotentiary
to the Peking court. To our judgment it appears the instructions of
Lord Malmesbury were too peremptory as to the course Mr. Bruce was
to pursue; and if that course was to be insisted on, most inadequate
means were provided.[20] It is but another example of those in the
distance imagining they see more clearly than those who are near,
and assuming an acquaintance with local circumstances--subject every
hour to change--which, without the attributes of omnipresence and
omniscience, it is impossible they should possess. Whatever may have
been the views of the Cabinet at home, it is obvious that the forces
which accompanied Mr. Bruce were as superfluous for peace as they
were insufficient for war, and that he was placed in the embarrassing
dilemma either of disobeying his orders, or of incurring great risk
in the attempt to execute them. That the Admiral singularly overrated
his own force, and under-estimated that of the Chinese, admits now of
no controversy. But an indulgent judgment should be awarded to one so
personally brave and self-sacrificing, and who was entitled to confide
in the indomitable bravery of those he commanded; whose experience,
too, of the general character of Chinese warfare was not likely to
teach them prudence or caution.
The first and the most natural inquiry is, what is likely to be
the result of these disastrous events? If negotiations are wisely
conducted, the probability is that the emperor will throw the blame
on the local authorities, attribute to the misrepresentations which
have been made any approval he may have given to those who attacked
the Allies, and repudiate any intended complicity in the mismanagement
of foreign relations. For it has hitherto been the invariable policy
of the Chinese government to localize every quarrel, and to avoid any
general war. There is no scruple about sacrificing any mandarin whose
proceedings, though lauded and recompensed at first, have in the sequel
proved injudicious or injurious.
We cannot look forward, however, without apprehension--apprehension
not from the possible defeat of our arms--they will be too strong, too
efficient for defeat by any Chinese forces--but from their successful
advance and overthrow of all resistance. Nothing can arrest their
course to Peking, nor prevent the capture of that vast capital; but
its possession may prove our great embarrassment. If the emperor,
accompanied by his court, should retreat into Manchuria--if Peking be
deserted, as Canton was, by all that is respectable and opulent--the
Allies may find themselves amidst vacant streets, abandoned houses,
a wandering, a starving population, too poor to migrate with their
betters. Winter will come--the cruel, bitter winter of northern China;
the rivers will be frozen, communications cut off; and with no war-ship
in the Gulf of Pecheli, supplies must be inaccessible. Peking may even
prove another Moscow to its conquerors.
The condition of the French and Spanish expedition in Cochin China is
full of present instruction. They are acting against a miserable and
despised enemy. They have been for more than a year in possession of
Turon, the principal harbour of the country; but they have not ventured
to attack the adjacent capital. Disease has thinned their ranks;
victories have brought no results, but ever new disappointment: every
calculation of success having been thwarted by a patient but stubborn
“no surrender.” It is a resistance that cannot be reached by strength
of arms, nor dealt with by the cunning of diplomacy. May it serve as a
warning in that wider field upon which we are entering in China!
How is the social edifice to be constructed out of crumbling ruins? To
overthrow the existing dynasty of China may be easy enough; indeed,
the difficulty, as with that of Turkey, is its maintenance and
preservation: its very feebleness cries to us for pity and mercy.
It may yet totter on for generations, if not harshly shaken; but if
it--fall--fall amidst its wrecked institutions--China, inviting as
it is to foreign ambition and the lust of conquest, may become the
battle-field of contending interests. Russia, moving steadily and
stealthily forward in its march of territorial aggression; France,
charged with what she fancies herself specially called upon to
represent--the missionary propagand, with the Catholic world behind
her; England, with those vast concerns which involve about one-ninth
of the imperial and Indian revenues, and an invested capital exceeding
forty millions sterling; and the United States, whose commerce may
be deemed about one-third of that of Great Britain, to say nothing
of Holland and Spain, who are not a little concerned, through their
eastern colonies, in the well-being of China;--will then be engaged in
a struggle for power, if not territory, the result of which cannot be
anticipated; indeed we scarcely venture to contemplate such portentous
complications.
No thoughtful man will deny the necessity of teaching the Chinese
that treaties must be respected, and perfidy punished. Duty and
interest alike require this at our hands; but this is but one of many
duties--one of many interests; and we would most emphatically say,
_Respice finem_--look beyond--look to the end. The destruction of
hundreds of thousands of Chinese, the ravaging of their great cities,
may fail to accomplish the object we have in view. They have been but
too much accustomed to such calamities, and their influences soon pass
away from a nation so reckless of life. But it may be possible to exact
penalties in a shape which will be more sensible to them, and more
beneficial to us: for example, the administration of their custom-house
revenues in Shanghae and Canton, and the payment out of these of all
the expenses of the war.
But is there nothing to hope from the Taiping movement? Nothing. It has
become little better than dacoity: its progress has been everywhere
marked by wreck and ruin; it destroys cities, but builds none; consumes
wealth, and produces none; supersedes one despotism by another more
crushing and grievous; subverts a rude religion by the introduction
of another full of the vilest frauds and the boldest blasphemies. It
has cast off none of the proud, insolent, and ignorant formulas of
imperial rule; but, claiming to be a divine revelation, exacts the same
homage and demands the same tribute from Western nations, to which the
government of Peking pretended in the days of its highest and most
widely recognized authority.
We cannot afford to overthrow the government of China. Bad as it is,
anarchy will track its downfall, and the few elements of order which
yet remain will be whelmed in a convulsive desolation.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Peiho, in Chinese, means a north or northern river, but no river
in particular. No Chinaman applies the word to the locality which now
bears the name on our charts. In Bristol, the Mersey would be deemed
entitled to the name of the Peiho; in London, the Humber, the Tyne, or
the Tweed.
[2] The matchlock is still used in China, where even the flint has
not been introduced. The late emperor, Taou-Kwang, had heard of
“improvements in musketry,” and specimens of “percussion locks” were
sent to Peking, but they were rejected; and the military examinations
to this hour consist of feats of individual strength, the exercise of
the bow and arrow, the spear and the shield. In the use of artillery
there have been some improvements. The Chinese have purchased cannon
for their fortifications and war-junks, both in Hong Kong and Macao,
and of late from the Russians, for their forts of Takoo.
[3] The emperor’s words are: “This was the only proper arrangement to
be made (for the settlement of the treaties). We understand the whole
question.” In 1854, when the foreign Ministers visited Tien-tsin,
the imperial orders were conveyed to the mandarins in the following
words:--“At your interview, you must snap short their deceit and
arrogance, and foil their malicious sophistry.” Another imperial decree
says:--“The barbarians study nothing but gain. Their hurrying backwards
and forwards only means [more] trade and [lower] tariffs. When a trifle
is granted on this score they naturally acquiesce and hold their
tongues.”
[4] Nothing is less intelligible to a high-bred mandarin than the
desire of foreign females to be introduced to him. At Hong Kong, when
English ladies were brought to see the ex-commissioner Yeh, he turned
away, and refused to look at them, and on their departure, expressed
his annoyance and disgust. He was invited at Calcutta to a ball given
by the Governor of Bengal. Inquiring what was meant, he was told by
his Chinese secretary, that a ball was a sport in which “men turned
themselves round, holding the waists and turning round the wives of
other men;” on which, he asked whether the invitation was meant for
an insult? There was an amusing scene at Canton, when Chinese ladies
were for the first time introduced to some of our British fair. The
Chinese kept for some minutes tremblingly in the distance, afraid to
approach, when one was heard to say to another, “They do not look so
_very_ barbarous, after all;” and they moved a little forward to meet
their guests; another whisper was heard, “Surely they have learnt how
to behave themselves. Is it not wonderful?” and a third voice replied,
“Yes! but you know they have been for some time in Canton!”
[5] _Elgin Papers_, p. 175.
[6] In the French treaty the discrepancies between the French and
Chinese text are yet more striking. The Chinese text places Chinese
subjects claimed by the authorities under conditions far less
favourable than those provided by the French version.
[7] _Debate_, July.
[8] In the _Elgin Papers_ many pages are occupied with the details of
the correspondence between the commissioners who came to the mouth of
the Tien-tsin river and the court of Peking, and which were found in
Yeh’s archives at Canton.
[9] Speech at Philadelphia, quoted in _North American Review_, No.
CLXXXV. p. 503.
[10] _American Papers_, p. 417: _Despatch_ dated 27th November, 1857.
[11] Keih was one of the most intelligent and honest of the high
mandarins of China. He was killed in an action with the rebels soon
after his last interview with the foreign ministers. He openly blamed
the perversity of Yeh, whom he hoped to succeed in the office of high
commissioner. Had his life been spared, and his counsels prevailed, he
would have initiated a policy of conciliation and amity.
[12] We give one of Yeh’s characteristic proclamations, issued during
the siege of Canton:--
“Yeh, governor-general of the two Kwang provinces, member of the
cabinet, and baron of the empire, hereby proclaims for the general
information:--
“These are the contumacious English barbarians, who are akin to dogs
and hogs, and like wolves and jackals in disposition, who make no
distinction in the human relations, and are destitute of propriety
or manners * * * * * who act as they list, have the tempers of wild
beasts, and go here and there in wild recklessness, regardless of human
rights or order.
“These are they who have presumed, like flocks of ravens issuing
from out their coverts, to cast contemptuous looks on celestial
awe-inspiring dignity, and seeing that our troops were unprepared,
suddenly have taken possession of our forts, and following the bent of
their lawless wickedness have burned the shops and dwellings of our
people. Gods and men are indignant, heaven and earth can no longer
endure them, and well will it be for your people if you unite in
particular, and with vigorous arm exterminate them altogether. Let
soldiers and gentry exhibit their loyalty, and with the braves, known
to be in every place, swear, as they exhibit a force and union like the
driving tempest, that they will revenge the honour of their country.
Let full obedience be given to his majesty’s rescript, and with firm
purpose and stout arm sweep them off without remainder, burning their
lairs, and exterminating their whole kith and kin.
“Then the memorial of your merit will be seen in the palace, while the
state stands secure in the greatness of its people, as in the golden
days of Shun, and the elements genially combine to produce plenty,
through the good rule universal in the land, as was seen in the halcyon
days of Tsin.
“The other nations of the West must all reverently obey our heavenly
dynasty, according to their laws and their administrators, for they
will be amerced in the same crimes (as the English) if they venture to
copy their conduct.
“Those native traitors who are serving these several tribes, by aiding
their purposes, must be strictly watched after and judged, the worst
of them by the extermination of their kindred, the lesser by the
destruction of their own families.
“Those who are employed as servants to any of the foreigners are
allowed twenty days to return to their own patrimonies, there to pursue
their several occupations. If they linger along in the hope of gain,
they will be treated and punished as traitors.
“Each one must tremblingly obey these orders without opposition.”
[13] The words of the treaty are: “If it shall be ascertained or
suspected that lawless natives of China, having committed crimes or
offences against their own government, have fled, a communication shall
be made to the proper English officer, in order that the said criminals
and offenders may be rigidly searched for, seized, and, on proof or
admission of their guilt, delivered up” to the Chinese authorities.
[14] A thoroughly well-informed American gentleman, then on the spot,
declares that the Cantonese prayed that some English ball might “make
hit the Viceroy; he all same devil,” they said. “Yeh had no supporters
among his own countrymen, except his immediate followers, natives of
other provinces, and having no local interest. He ruled simply by
terror, and all would have been glad to have seen him destroyed.”--_A
Foreigner’s Evidence on the China Question_, p. 14.
[15] Yeh died in Calcutta. So great was the quantity of gas emitted
by his body after death, that the leaden coffin burst twice. On its
arrival at Canton the Chinese would not allow the body to be brought
into the city.
[16] The following is the protest of the United States Commissioner,
addressed to High Commissioner Yeh:--
“_Legation of the U.S., Macao, Jan. 16, 1857._
“The undersigned Commissioner and Minister Plenipotentiary of the
United States of America in China is again compelled to address your
Excellency, demonstrating and protesting against the violation of
our treaty of amity, the laws of civilized nations, and the rules of
justifiable war.
“The United States Consul, who arrived from Hong Kong last evening,
has appeared before the undersigned in person, and represented that
a most diabolical deed has been perpetrated by Chinese subjects, who
had administered poison in the bread supplied to the public in that
colony and on board vessels in the harbour, to multitudes of men,
women, and children, without distinction of nation; that he himself
had partaken of the poison, from which he is still suffering, and that
other citizens of the United States are rendered dangerously ill by the
poisoned bread.
“The undersigned, as in duty bound, solemnly protests against this
unjustifiable mode of warfare. ‘The use of poison as a means of war
is prohibited by the unanimous concurrence of all the public jurists
of the present age. The custom of civilized nations has exempted the
persons of the sovereign and his family, the members of the civil
government, women and children, cultivators of the earth, artisans,
labourers, merchants, men of science and letters, and generally all
other public or private individuals engaged in the ordinary civil
pursuits of life, from the effects of military operations, unless
actually taken in arms, or guilty of some misconduct in violation of
the usages of war, by which they forfeit this immunity.’ Now, by the
manner in which the poison has been administered in Hong Kong, not
only the innocent women and children, and all artisans, labourers,
merchants, and men of science, belonging to the English nation, had
their lives exposed, but the citizens and subjects of other nations
who are on friendly relations with China. Americans, French, Russians,
Portuguese, and Spaniards have all received the deadly poison; and that
some may yet die, remains to be known.
“The undersigned, therefore, on behalf of the Government of the United
States, on the part of humanity, and (reverently) in the name of God,
protests against this most barbarous deed; and as on former occasions
when protesting against the offering of pecuniary rewards to perfidy
and assassination of foreigners, must hold the imperial government of
China responsible for all the consequences, both to individual and
national interests.
“His Excellency Yeh.” “PETER PARKER.”
[17] One man appeared during the Canton conflict who is entitled to
be mentioned with respect and honour--Wang, the Chinese admiral. He
was well acquainted with the power of the British; and on one occasion
had given evidence of great coolness and courage when accompanying
H.M.S. _Columbine_ on an expedition against the pirates. He did his
best to persuade Yeh from engaging in a quarrel which could not but be
disastrous to the Chinese, but he failed, as everybody failed. “You
may as well reason with a stone,” was the language of a deputation
that sought the British officials. Wang received peremptory orders
from Yeh to attack and destroy the British fleet in the Canton river.
He answered that it was impossible: that an encounter must be fatal to
the imperial war junks. The orders were renewed; and he said he would
do his best--as he did in the affair at Fashan, when considerable
damage was done to our boats, and many of our men lost their lives.
Wang’s junk was captured; and the imperial warrant, on yellow silk,
was found, recording a series of adventurous and valorous deeds; but
Wang was ordered to be decapitated by Yeh, because he had not beaten
the British. He fled, and was concealed for some time in a village
on the banks of the river. He applied to the Governor of Hong Kong,
asking to be allowed an asylum there, which was cordially offered; but
severe illness prevented his removal. Yeh afterwards repented of his
precipitation; recalled Wang to the public service; who stipulated that
he should not be employed against Western nations.
[18] The influence of Yeh at Peking was considerably strengthened
by the support he received from Iliang, who obtained the credit of
persuading the United States Commissioner, Mr. Marshall, not to proceed
to the capital. Iliang, in one of his despatches to the emperor, says:
“Whatever the barbarian chief may insinuate against Yeh-ming-chen, it
is he whom they fear.”--_Elgin Papers_, p. 280.
[19] When in the former war Commissioner Keshen humbly represented to
the emperor Taou-Kwang, that it was impossible to resist the English,
he was ordered to be executed for his mendacity. His life was saved by
powerful friends at court.
[20] “Her Majesty’s Government are prepared to expect that all the
arts at which the Chinese are such adepts will be put in practice to
dissuade you from repairing to the capital, even for the purpose of
exchanging the ratifications of the treaty, but it will be your duty
firmly, but temperately, to resist any propositions to that effect, and
_to admit of no excuses_.
“The Admiral in command of H.M.’s naval forces in China, has been
directed to send up with you to the mouth of the Peiho a sufficient
naval force.
“_You will insist_ on your being received at Peking, and will refuse
to exchange ratifications at any other place.”--_Despatch of Lord
Malmesbury, 1st March, 1859._
Lovel the Widower.
CHAPTER I.
THE BACHELOR OF BEAK STREET.
[Illustration]
Who shall be the hero of this tale? Not I who write it. I am but the
Chorus of the Play. I make remarks on the conduct of the characters: I
narrate their simple story. There is love and marriage in it: there is
grief and disappointment: the scene is in the parlour, and the region
beneath the parlour. No: it may be the parlour and kitchen, in this
instance, are on the same level. There is no high life, unless, to be
sure, you call a baronet’s widow a lady in high life; and some ladies
may be, while some certainly are not. I don’t think there’s a villain
in the whole performance. There is an abominable selfish old woman,
certainly: an old highway robber; an old sponger on other people’s
kindness; an old haunter of Bath and Cheltenham boarding-houses (about
which how can I know anything, never having been in a boarding-house at
Bath or Cheltenham in my life?); an old swindler of tradesmen, tyrant
of servants, bully of the poor--who, to be sure, might do duty for a
villain, but she considers herself as virtuous a woman as ever was
born. The heroine is not faultless (ah! that will be a great relief
to some folks, for many writers’ good women are, you know, so _very_
insipid). The principal personage you may very likely think to be no
better than a muff. But is many a respectable man of our acquaintance
much better? and do muffs know that they are what they are, or, knowing
it, are they unhappy? Do girls decline to marry one if he is rich? Do
we refuse to dine with one? I listened to one at Church last Sunday,
with all the women crying and sobbing; and, oh, dear me! how finely
he preached! Don’t we give him great credit for wisdom and eloquence
in the House of Commons? Don’t we give him important commands in the
army? Can you, or can you not, point out one who has been made a
peer? Doesn’t your wife call one in the moment any of the children
are ill? Don’t we read his dear poems, or even novels? Yes; perhaps
even this one is read and written by--Well? _Quid rides?_ Do you mean
that I am painting a portrait which hangs before me every morning in
the looking-glass when I am shaving? _Après?_ Do you suppose that I
suppose that I have not infirmities like my neighbours? Am I weak? It
is notorious to all my friends there is a certain dish I can’t resist;
no, not if I have already eaten twice too much at dinner. So, dear
sir, or madam, have _you_ your weakness--_your_ irresistible dish
of temptation? (or if you don’t know it, your friends do). No, dear
friend, the chances are that you and I are not people of the highest
intellect, of the largest fortune, of the most ancient family, of
the most consummate virtue, of the most faultless beauty in face and
figure. We are no heroes nor angels; neither are we fiends from abodes
unmentionable, black assassins, treacherous Iagos, familiar with
stabbing and poison--murder our amusement, daggers our playthings,
arsenic our daily bread, lies our conversation, and forgery our common
handwriting. No, we are not monsters of crime, or angels walking the
earth--at least I know _one_ of us who isn’t, as can be shown any day
at home if the knife won’t cut or the mutton comes up raw. But we are
not altogether brutal and unkind, and a few folks like us. Our poetry
is not as good as Alfred Tennyson’s, but we can turn a couplet for
Miss Fanny’s album: our jokes are not always first-rate, but Mary
and her mother smile very kindly when papa tells his story or makes
his pun. We have many weaknesses, but we are not ruffians of crime.
No more was my friend Lovel. On the contrary, he was as harmless and
kindly a fellow as ever lived when I first knew him. At present, with
his changed position, he is, perhaps, rather _fine_ (and certainly I
am not asked to his _best_ dinner-parties as I used to be, where you
hardly see a commoner--but stay! I am advancing matters). At the time
when this story begins, I say, Lovel had his faults--which of us has
not? He had buried his wife, having notoriously been henpecked by her.
How many men and brethren are like him! He had a good fortune--I wish
I had as much--though I daresay many people are ten times as rich. He
was a good-looking fellow enough; though that depends, ladies, upon
whether you like a fair man or a dark one. He had a country house, but
it was only at Putney. In fact, he was in business in the city, and
being a hospitable man, and having three or four spare bed-rooms, some
of his friends were always welcome at Shrublands, especially after Mrs.
Lovel’s death, who liked me pretty well at the period of her early
marriage with my friend, but got to dislike me at last and to show me
the cold shoulder. That is a joint I never could like (though I have
known fellows who persist in dining off it year after year, who cling
hold of it, and refuse to be separated from it). I say, when Lovel’s
wife began to show me that she was tired of my company, I made myself
scarce: used to pretend to be engaged when Fred faintly asked me to
Shrublands; to accept his meek apologies, proposals to dine _en garçon_
at Greenwich, the club, and so forth; and never visit upon him my
wrath at his wife’s indifference--for after all, he had been my friend
at many a pinch: he never stinted at Hart’s or Lovegrove’s, and always
made a point of having the wine I liked, never mind what the price
was. As for his wife, there was, assuredly, no love lost between us--I
thought her a lean, scraggy, lackadaisical, egotistical, consequential,
insipid creature: and as for his mother-in-law, who stayed at Fred’s
as long and as often as her daughter would endure her, has anyone who
ever knew that notorious old Lady Baker at Bath, at Cheltenham, at
Brighton,--wherever trumps and frumps were found together; wherever
scandal was cackled; wherever fly-blown reputations were assembled, and
dowagers with damaged titles trod over each other for the pas;--who, I
say, ever had a good word for that old woman? What party was not bored
where she appeared? What tradesman was not done with whom she dealt?
I wish with all my heart I was about to narrate a story with a good
mother-in-law for a character; but then you know, my dear madam, all
good women in novels are insipid. This woman certainly was not. She was
not only not insipid, but exceedingly bad tasted. She had a foul, loud
tongue, a stupid head, a bad temper, an immense pride and arrogance,
an extravagant son, and very little money. Can I say much more of a
woman than this? Aha! my good Lady Baker! I was a _mauvais sujèt_,
was I?--I was leading Fred into smoking, drinking, and low bachelor
habits, was I? I, his old friend, who have borrowed money from him any
time these twenty years, was not fit company for you and your precious
daughter? Indeed! _I_ paid the money I borrowed from him like a man;
but did _you_ ever pay him, I should like to know? When Mrs. Lovel was
in the first column of _The Times_, _then_ Fred and I used to go off to
Greenwich and Blackwall, as I said; then his kind old heart was allowed
to feel for his friend; _then_ we could have the other bottle of
claret without the appearance of Bedford and the coffee, which in Mrs.
L.’s time used to be sent in to us before we could ring for a second
bottle, although she and Lady Baker had had three glasses each out of
the first. Three full glasses each, I give you my word! No, madam, it
was your turn to bully me once--now it is mine, and I use it. No, you
old Catamaran, though you pretend you never read novels, some of your
confounded good-natured friends will let you know of _this_ one. Here
you are, do you hear? Here you shall be shown up. And so I intend to
show up _other_ women and _other_ men who have offended me. Is one to
be subject to slights and scorn, and not have revenge? Kindnesses are
easily forgotten; but injuries!--what worthy man does not keep _those_
in mind?
[Illustration: I AM REFERRED TO CECILIA.]
Before entering upon the present narrative, may I take leave to
inform a candid public, that though it is all true, there is not a
word of truth in it; that though Lovel is alive and prosperous, and
you very likely have met him, yet I defy you to point him out; that
his wife (for he is Lovel the Widower no more) is not the lady you
imagine her to be, when you say (as you will persist in doing), “Oh,
that character is intended for Mrs. Thingamy, or was notoriously
drawn from Lady So-and-so.” No. You are utterly mistaken. Why, even
the advertising-puffers have almost given up that stale stratagem of
announcing “REVELATIONS FROM HIGH LIFE.--The _beau monde_ will be
startled at recognizing the portraits of some of its brilliant leaders
in Miss Wiggins’s forthcoming _Roman de Société_.” Or, “We suspect a
certain ducal house will be puzzled to guess how the pitiless author
of _May Fair Mysteries_ has become acquainted with (and exposed with
a fearless hand) _certain family secrets_ which were thought only to
be known to a few of the very highest members of the aristocracy.” No,
I say; these silly baits to catch an unsuspecting public shall not be
our arts. If you choose to occupy yourself with trying to ascertain if
a certain cap fits one amongst ever so many thousand heads, you _may_
possibly pop it on the right one: but the cap-maker will perish before
he tells you; unless, of course, he has some private pique to avenge,
or malice to wreak, upon some individual who can’t by any possibility
hit again;--_then_, indeed, he will come boldly forward and seize upon
his victim--(a bishop, say, or a woman without coarse, quarrelsome
male relatives, will be best)--and clap on him, or her, such a cap,
with such ears, that all the world shall laugh at the poor wretch,
shuddering, and blushing beet-root red, and whimpering deserved tears
of rage and vexation at being made the common butt of society. Besides,
I dine at Lovel’s still; his company and cuisine are amongst the best
in London. If they suspected I was taking them off, he and his wife
would leave off inviting me. Would any man of a generous disposition
lose such a valued friend for a joke, or be so foolish as to show him
up in a story? All persons with a decent knowledge of the world will at
once banish the thought, as not merely base, but absurd. I am invited
to his house one day next week: _vous concevez_ I can’t mention the
very day, for then he would find me out--and of course there would
be no more cards for his old friend. He would not like appearing, as
it must be owned he does in this memoir, as a man of not very strong
mind. He believes himself to be a most determined, resolute person.
He is quick in speech, wears a fierce beard, speaks with asperity to
his servants (who liken him to a--to that before-named sable or ermine
contrivance, in which ladies insert their hands in winter), and takes
his wife to task so smartly, that I believe she believes he believes
he is the master of the house. “Elizabeth, my love, he must mean A,
or B, or D,” I fancy I hear Lovel say; and she says, “Yes; oh! it is
certainly D--his very image!” “D to a T,” says Lovel (who is a neat
wit). _She_ may know that I mean to depict her husband in the above
unpretending lines: but she will never let me know of her knowledge
except by a little extra courtesy; except (may I make this pleasing
exception?) by a few more invitations; except by a look of those
unfathomable eyes (gracious goodness! to think she wore spectacles ever
so long, and put a lid over them as it were!), into which, when you
gaze sometimes, you may gaze so deep, and deep, and deep, that I defy
you to plumb half-way down into their mystery.
When I was a young man, I had lodgings in Beak Street, Regent Street
(I no more have lived in Beak Street than in Belgrave Square: but I
choose to say so, and no gentleman will be so rude as to contradict
another)--I had lodgings, I say, in Beak Street, Regent Street. Mrs.
Prior was the landlady’s name. She had seen better days--landladies
frequently have. Her husband--he could not be called the landlord,
for Mrs. P. was manager of the place,--had been, in happier times,
captain or lieutenant in the militia; then of Diss, in Norfolk, of
no profession; then of Norwich Castle, a prisoner for debt; then of
Southampton Buildings, London, law-writer; then of the Bom-Retiro
Cacadores, in the service of H. M. the Queen of Portugal, lieutenant
and paymaster; then of Melina Place, St. George’s Fields, &c.--I
forbear to give the particulars of an existence which a legal
biographer has traced step by step, and which has more than once been
the subject of judicial investigation by certain commissioners in
Lincoln’s-inn Fields. Well, Prior, at this time, swimming out of a
hundred shipwrecks, had clambered on to a lighter, as it were, and was
clerk to a coal-merchant, by the river-side. “You conceive, sir,” he
would say, “my employment is only temporary--the fortune of war, the
fortune of war!” He smattered words in not a few foreign languages.
His person was profusely scented with tobacco. Bearded individuals,
padding the muddy hoof in the neighbouring Regent Street, would call
sometimes of an evening, and ask for “the captain.” He was known at
many neighbouring billiard-tables, and, I imagine, not respected. You
will not see enough of Captain Prior to be very weary of him and his
coarse swagger, to be disgusted by his repeated requests for small
money-loans, or to deplore his loss, which you will please to suppose
has happened before the curtain of our present drama draws up. I think
two people in the world were sorry for him: his wife, who still loved
the memory of the handsome young man who had wooed and won her; his
daughter Elizabeth, whom for the last few months of his life, and up
to his fatal illness, he every evening conducted to what he called her
“academy.” You are right. Elizabeth is the principal character in this
story. When I knew her, a thin, freckled girl of fifteen, with a lean
frock, and hair of a reddish hue, she used to borrow my books, and play
on the First Floor’s piano, when he was from home--Slumley his name
was. He was editor of the _Swell_, a newspaper then published; author
of a great number of popular songs, a friend of several music-selling
houses; and it was by Mr. Slumley’s interest that Elizabeth was
received as a pupil at what the family called “the academy.”
Captain Prior then used to conduct his girl to the Academy, but she
often had to conduct him home again. Having to wait about the premises
for two, or three, or five hours sometimes, whilst Elizabeth was doing
her lessons, he would naturally desire to shelter himself from the cold
at some neighbouring house of entertainment. Every Friday, a prize of
a golden medal, nay, I believe sometimes of twenty-five silver medals,
was awarded to Miss Bellenden and other young ladies for their good
conduct and assiduity at this academy. Miss Bellenden gave her gold
medal to her mother, only keeping five shillings for herself, with
which the poor child bought gloves, shoes, and her humble articles of
millinery.
Once or twice the captain succeeded in intercepting that piece of gold,
and I daresay treated some of his whiskered friends, the clinking
trampers of the Quadrant pavement. He was a free-handed fellow when
he had anybody’s money in his pocket. It was owing to differences
regarding the settlement of accounts that he quarrelled with the
coal-merchant, his very last employer. Bessy, after yielding once or
twice to his importunity, and trying to believe his solemn promises
of repayment, had strength of mind to refuse her father the pound
which he would have taken. Her five shillings--her poor little slender
pocket-money, the representative of her charities and kindnesses to
the little brothers and sisters, of her little toilette ornaments,
nay necessities; of those well-mended gloves, of those oft-darned
stockings, of those poor boots, which had to walk many a weary mile
after midnight; of those little knicknacks, in the shape of brooch
or bracelet, with which the poor child adorned her homely robe or
sleeve--her poor five shillings, out of which Mary sometimes found a
pair of shoes, or Tommy a flannel jacket, and little Bill a coach and
horse--this wretched sum, this mite, which Bessy administered among
so many poor--I very much fear her father sometimes confiscated. I
charged the child with the fact, and she could not deny me. I vowed a
tremendous vow, that if ever I heard of her giving Prior money again,
I would quit the lodgings, and never give those children lolly-pop,
nor peg-top, nor sixpence; nor the pungent marmalade, nor the biting
gingerbread-nut, nor the theatre-characters, nor the paint-box to
illuminate the same; nor the discarded clothes, which became smaller
clothes upon the persons of little Tommy and little Bill, for whom Mrs.
Prior, and Bessy, and the little maid, cut, clipped, altered, ironed,
darned, mangled, with the greatest ingenuity. I say, considering
what had passed between me and the Priors--considering those money
transactions, and those clothes, and my kindness to the children--it
was rather hard that my jam-pots were poached, and my brandy-bottles
leaked. And then to frighten her brother with the story of the
inexorable creditor--oh, Mrs. Prior!--oh, fie, Mrs. P.!
So Bessy went to her school in a shabby shawl, a faded bonnet, and a
poor little lean dress flounced with the mud and dust of all weathers,
whereas there were some other young ladies, fellow-pupils of hers, who
laid out their gold medals to much greater advantage. Miss Delamere,
with her eighteen shillings a week (calling them “_silver medals_,”
was only my wit, you see), had twenty new bonnets, silk and satin
dresses for all seasons, feathers in abundance, swansdown muffs and
tippets, lovely pocket handkerchiefs and trinkets, and many and many
a half-crown mould of jelly, bottle of sherry, blanket, or what not,
for a poor fellow-pupil in distress; and as for Miss Montanville,
who had exactly the same sal--well, who had a scholarship of exactly
the same value, viz. about fifty pounds yearly--she kept an elegant
little cottage in the Regent’s Park, a brougham with a horse all over
brass harness, and a groom with a prodigious gold lace hat-band, who
was treated with frightful contumely at the neighbouring cab-stand:
an aunt or a mother, I don’t know which (I hope it was only an aunt),
always comfortably dressed, and who looked after Montanville: and
she herself had bracelets, brooches, and velvet pelisses of the very
richest description. But then Miss Montanville was a good economist.
_She_ was never known to help a poor friend in distress, or give a
fainting brother and sister a crust or a glass of wine. She allowed
ten shillings a week to her father, whose name was Boskinson, said to
be clerk to a chapel in Paddington; but she would never see him--no,
not when he was in hospital, where he was so ill; and though she
certainly lent Miss Wilder thirteen pounds, she had Wilder arrested
upon her promissory note for twenty-four, and sold up every stick of
Wilder’s furniture, so that the whole academy cried shame! Well, an
accident occurred to Miss Montanville, for which those may be sorry
who choose. On the evening of the 26th of December, Eighteen hundred
and something, when the conductors of the academy were giving their
grand annual Christmas Pant--I should say examination of the Academy
pupils before their numerous friends--Montanville, who happened to
be present, not in her brougham this time, but in an aërial chariot
of splendour drawn by doves, fell off a rainbow, and through the
roof of the Revolving Shrine of the Amaranthine Queen, thereby very
nearly damaging Bellenden, who was occupying the shrine, attired in a
light-blue spangled dress, waving a wand, and uttering some idiotic
verses composed for her by the Professor of Literature attached to the
academy. As for Montanville, let her go shrieking down that trap-door,
break her leg, be taken home, and never more be character of ours. She
never could speak. Her voice was as hoarse as a fishwoman’s. Can that
immense stout old box-keeper at the ---- theatre, who limps up to
ladies on the first tier, and offers that horrible footstool, which
everybody stumbles over, and makes a clumsy curtsey, and looks so
knowing and hard, as if she recognized an acquaintance in the splendid
lady who enters the box--can that old female be the once brilliant
Emily Montanville? I am told there are _no_ lady box-keepers in the
English theatres. This, I submit, is a proof of my consummate care
and artifice in rescuing from a prurient curiosity the individual
personages from whom the characters of the present story are taken.
Montanville is _not_ a box-opener. She _may_, under another name,
keep a trinket-shop in the Burlington Arcade, for what you know: but
this secret no torture shall induce me to divulge. Life has its rises
and its downfalls, and you have had yours, you hobbling old creature.
Montanville, indeed! Go thy ways! Here is a shilling for thee. (Thank
you, sir.) Take away that confounded footstool, and never let us see
thee more!
Now the fairy Amarantha was like a certain dear young lady of whom we
have read in early youth. Up to twelve o’clock, attired in sparkling
raiment, she leads the dance with the prince (Gradini, known as Grady
in his days of banishment at the T. R. Dublin). At supper, she takes
her place by the prince’s royal father (who is alive now, and still
reigns occasionally, so that we will not mention his revered name). She
makes believe to drink from the gilded pasteboard, and to eat of the
mighty pudding. She smiles as the good old irascible monarch knocks
the prime minister and the cooks about: she blazes in splendour: she
beams with a thousand jewels, in comparison with which the Koh-i-noor
is a wretched lustreless little pebble: she disappears in a chariot,
such as a Lord Mayor never rode in:--and at midnight, who is that young
woman tripping homeward through the wet streets in a battered bonnet, a
cotton shawl, and a lean frock fringed with the dreary winter flounces?
Our Cinderella is up early in the morning: she does no little portion
of the house-work: she dresses her sisters and brothers: she prepares
papa’s breakfast. On days when she has not to go to morning lessons
at her academy, she helps with the dinner. Heaven help us! She has
often brought mine when I have dined at home, and owns to having made
that famous mutton-broth when I had a cold. Foreigners come to the
house--professional gentlemen--to see Slumley on the first floor;
exiled captains of Spain and Portugal, companions of the warrior her
father. It is surprising how she has learned their accents, and has
picked up French and Italian, too. And she played the piano in Mr.
Slumley’s room sometimes, as I have said; but refrained from that
presently, and from visiting him altogether. I suspect he was not a man
of principle. His Paper used to make direful attacks upon individual
reputations; and you would find theatre and opera people most curiously
praised and assaulted in the _Swell_. I recollect meeting him, several
years after, in the lobby of the opera, in a very noisy frame of mind,
when he heard a certain lady’s carriage called, and cried out with
exceeding strong language, which need not be accurately reported, “Look
at that woman! Confound her! I made her, sir! Got her an engagement
when the family was starving, sir! Did you see her, sir! She wouldn’t
even look at me!” Nor indeed was Mr. S. at that moment a very agreeable
object to behold.
Then I remembered that there had been some quarrel with this man, when
we lodged in Beak Street together. If difficulty there was, it was
solved _ambulando_. He quitted the lodgings, leaving an excellent and
costly piano as security for a heavy bill which he owed to Mrs. Prior,
and the instrument was presently fetched away by the music-sellers, its
owners. But regarding Mr. S.’s valuable biography, let us speak very
gently. You see it is “an insult to literature” to say that there are
disreputable and dishonest persons who write in newspapers.
Nothing, dear friend, escapes your penetration: if a joke is made in
your company, you are down upon it instanter, and your smile rewards
the wag who amuses you: so you knew at once, whilst I was talking of
Elizabeth and her academy, that a theatre was meant, where the poor
child danced for a guinea, or five-and-twenty shillings per week.
Nay, she must have had not a little skill and merit to advance to the
quarter of a hundred; for she was not pretty at this time, only a
rough, tawny-haired filly of a girl, with great eyes. Dolphin, the
manager, did not think much of her, and she passed before him in his
regiment of Sea-nymphs, or Bayadères, or Fairies, or Mazurka maidens
(with their fluttering lances and little scarlet slyboots!) scarcely
more noticed than private Jones standing under arms in his company when
his Royal Highness the Field-marshal gallops by. There were no dramatic
triumphs for Miss Bellenden: no bouquets were flung at her feet: no
cunning Mephistopheles--the emissary of some philandering Faustus
outside--corrupted her duenna, or brought her caskets of diamonds. Had
there been any such admirer for Bellenden, Dolphin would not only not
have been shocked, but he would very likely have raised her salary. As
it was, though himself, I fear, a person of loose morals, he respected
better things. “That Bellenden’s a good hhonest gurl,” he said to the
present writer: “works hard: gives her money to her family: father a
shy old cove. Very good family, I hear they are!” and he passes on to
some other of the innumerable subjects which engage a manager.
Now, why should a poor lodging-house keeper make such a mighty secret
of having a daughter earning an honest guinea by dancing at a theatre?
Why persist in calling the theatre an academy? Why did Mrs. Prior speak
of it as such, to me who knew what the truth was, and to whom Elizabeth
herself made no mystery of her calling?