to the proposed rectification of and deficiencies of the Tientsin Treaty. The Hongkong Chamber of Commerce, having received a similar invitation, resolved (July 16, 1867) to proceed by memorializing the Governor rather than Sir R. Alcock whom, at that time already, they knew to be as unfriendly to the interests of the Colony as Lord Elgin had been. A Committee, appointed by the Chamber, presented accordingly to Sir Richard a Memorial on the illegal transit duties and other exactions imposed by the Chinese Authorities, in contravention of the Treaty, on British goods en route in the interior of China. In addition to this public Memorial, the firm of Jardine, Matheson & Co. presented (December, 1869) a separate Memorial dealing very frankly with the regulations of the opium traffic and other grievances. When it became known, at the close of the year 1869, that the Chinese Authorities proposed to include in the revised Treaty Regulations a provision to the effect that native produce shipped from Hongkong to a Treaty port should not be protected by the clause which protected goods, sent inland from Treaty ports, against inland taxation, the Chamber of Commerce once more (January, 1870) memorialized H.M. Government, representing that this measure placed Hongkong at a great disadvantage compared with Chinese Treaty ports. However, the whole project of Treaty Revision had eventually to be dropped.
In spite of the hostile attitude which the Chinese Government during this period assumed towards the Colony, the Chinese Tartar General (Chang Shan), when visiting Hongkong (October 27, 1871) in one of the blockade cruizers (Ping-chau-hoi), accompanied by two Commissioners of Customs (E. C. Bowra and Viscomte d'Arnaux de Limoges) was most honourably received and most hospitably entertained, in the absence of the Governor, by the Lieutenant-Governor (W. Whitfield). For the first time a Chinese gun-vessel saluted, in due foreign style, the port, the British flag and the Vice-Admiral (Sir H. Kellett) and received the corresponding salutes in Hongkong.
In May, 1868, Sir Richard, who had no diplomatic connection with any other foreign power, received at the hands of
