Canton.' In reality, the facts were briefly these. Some Chinese crown-lessees of Hongkong had legally purchased in Chinese territory and from Chinese officials a small clipper-built vessel (lorcha) which those officials had re-captured from Chinese pirates. The purchasers, residents of Hongkong, brought the vessel to the Colony, gave her the name Arrow, and in due form obtained for her (in October, 1855) a Colonial register under Ordinance No. 4 of 1855. As the original owners of the vessel (whose rights the Chinese officials had set aside) brought an action against the purchasers in the Supreme Court of Hongkong, the ownership of the vessel was judicially established. The Arrow was then employed in the legitimate coasting trade, open to British ships, and thus visited the port of Canton, flying the British flag, on 8th October, 1850. Although the renewal of her register happened to be several days over-due, that did not in law deprive her of her privileges as a British vessel. Nor did the Chinese Authorities know of it. The unceremonious arrest of her crew on the part of the Chinese Authorities on the charge of 'collusion with barbarians' and their refusal of Consul Parkes' demand that the men be surrendered to him for trial in the Consular Court (as required by the Treaty), constitute the indisputed facts of the case. The only point in which this violation of Treaty rights differed from numerous previous acts of the Cantonese Authorities was the fact that the arrest of the crew involved in this case a deliberate insult to the British flag.
To the Chinese merchants and shipowners residing in Hongkong, the point in dispute appeared to be the question whether their owning vessels, lawfully registered under a Hongkong Ordinance, made them liable to a charge of being in collusion with barbarians. The Admiral on the station, Sir Michael Seymour, rightly looked upon the case as an unprovoked insult to the British flag, such as demanded an immediate apology or redress. Sir John Bowring saw in this move of the insolent Viceroy a good opportunity for settling the question of official intercourse dear to himself and for securing the
