in a Treaty, which most Chinese now regarded as waste paper, but actually acknowledged by a subordinate Chinese official. It was indeed a great deviation from the practice hitherto adopted by Chinese officers. For instance, on November 23, 1844, it was accidentally discovered that officers of the San-on District Magistrate openly collected at Stanley, as they bad all along been accustomed to do, the annual fishing tax of 400 cash per boat for the privilege (granted to 150 junks) of fishing in Hongkong waters. This was merely one of many cases shewing that the San-on Magistrate still considered Hongkong to be part and parcel of the Chinese dominions and all further doubts on the subject were removed by a case (November 14, 1846) in which Chinese officers boldly arrested some Chinese-British subjects within the Colony and carried them off by force.
Meanwhile the complaints of the Canton merchants as to the utter insecurity of life and property in Canton and as to the striking want of sympathy and energy displayed on their behalf by Sir John Davis, made themselves heard in England and as usual stirred Lord Palmerston's spirit. Two sailors of a British ship at Canton, strolling into the city, had been frightfully illtreated by a Canton mob in October, 1846. Sir John, as usual, instead of claiming redress at the hands of the Cantonese Authorities, ordered the Consul to fine the captain for turning the two seamen loose upon the populace and thereby causing a disturbance. In a dispatch to Lord Palmerston he casually alluded to the case as one of no importance, asking for no powers at all to proceed in the matter, but in reply he received the following stunning instructions. 'I have to instruct you,' wrote Lord Palmerston (January 12, 1847), 'to demand the punishment of the parties guilty of this outrage, and you will moreover inform the Chinese Authorities, in plain and distinct terms, that the British Government will not tolerate that a Chinese mob shall with impunity maltreat British subjects whenever they get them into their power, and that, if the Chinese Authorities will not by the exercise of their own authority punish
