into Canton a foreign Superintendent of British trade and accord to him an official status; no fault can be found with the Royal Instructions supplied to Lord Napier, except that these instructions associated with him, in the official superintendence of British trade in China, two former servants of the East India Company. Clearly it was the expectation of the Cabinet that Lord Napier should experience at the hands of the Cantonese Authorities a treatment different from that which the Chinese Government had, for two centuries, uniformly accorded to the Supercargoes of the East India Company, Mr. Catchpoole, the King's Minister or Consul, not excepted. The Cabinet desired the Chinese Government to dissociate, in mind, Lord Napier as the King's Officer from mere traders and therefore to accord to him the privilege of direct official intercourse. But at the same time the Cabinet associated him, in fact, with men who for years past had practically been the subordinates of the Hong Merchants. Mr. Plowden and Mr. Davis, though gentlemen of the highest character and refined culture, and best fitted in every respect to advise Lord Napier in his delicate mission, had in the eyes of the haughty Mandarins merely the status of peddling traders. It seems that all the lessons which the history of the East India Company's experiences in China had taught England, were entirely thrown away upon the British Cabinet Ministers, whose ignorance of the contempt in which Chinese officials hold all traders, however worthy or honoured, defeated the very object of the Royal Instructions.
But then, it would seem as if the Crown Lawyers who must have advised the Cabinet that the British Crown had an international right to plant Royal Superintendents at Canton, invested with political and judicial powers, and to do that without previous permission obtained from the Chinese Government, must have had rather peculiar notions of international law. It must be remembered, however, that the international law of those days held non-Christian States to be outside the comity of nations, and distinctly accorded to Christian communities, residing in non-Christian countries, the right of extra-territorial
