CHAPTER VII.
Change of Policy.
1836 to 1838.
n June 1836 a marked change commenced in the policy of the British Cabinet. Previous to that time the Duke of Wellington's Memorandum of March 24, 1835, had, as above mentioned, suggested that the British Chief-Superintendent of Trade in China should not proceed to or reside at Canton, that he should not adopt high-sounding titles, that he should not depart from the accustomed mode of communication with the Chinese Government, that he should not assume a power hitherto unadmitted, but keep, by the support of a stout frigate, the enjoyment of what little had been got, and leave it to the future to decide whether any effort should be made at Peking or elsewhere to improve our relations with China, commercial as well as political. This quiescent line of policy initiated by the Duke and expounded in China, after Lord Napier's defeat, by Mr. Davis and Sir George Robinson, ended on June 7, 1836, for it was now to be substituted by Lord Palmerston's own diplomacy, hitherto restrained by the indolence of public opinion and by the divergent views of the Duke of Wellington.
The merchants at Canton, though disappointed in their expectation that the Government would take steps to obtain redress for the insulting treatment accorded to Lord Napier, soon had reason to perceive that a different policy was about to be inaugurated. When the firm of Jardine, Matheson & Co. introduced (September 20, 1835) the first merchant steamer Jardine to ply on the Canton River, Captain Elliot, then still under the sway of the quiescent policy, protested against such a proceeding as contrary to the laws and usages of China, and, under the orders of Sir George Robinson, placed an interdict
