jurisdiction. It is possible, also, that there was, on the part of the Crown Lawyers and the Cabinet, no assumption of any positive right to establish a British Superintendent at Canton. Lord Palmerston specially enjoined upon Lord Napier, that 'in case of putting to hazard the existing opportunities of intercourse,' he was not to enter into any negotiations with the Chinese Authorities at all. These words, together with the subsequent condemnation of Lord Napier's action by the Duke of Wellington, who gave it as his opinion that Lord Napier ought to have been satisfied 'to keep the enjoyment of what we have got,' suggest the surmise that the British Cabinet did not mean forcibly to claim any right of stationing a British official at Canton or of exercising any extra-territorial jurisdiction over British subjects within the Dominions of the Emperor of China, but that their policy was merely to take the Chinese Government by surprise, to try it on, so to say, in Chinese fashion, to see how far the Chinese Authorities would yield; but, in case of failure, rather to be satisfied with what the Chinese were willing to concede, than to demand what could be obtained only by an appeal to force.
If such, however, was the intention of the British Cabinet, it was a kind of diplomacy unworthy of England, and moreover foolish, because such a continuation of the mistaken policy which the East India Company's Court of Directors had followed for two centuries, was, under the altered circumstances, impossible. A community of independent British free traders, knowing that Parliament had conceded to them the privilege of extra-territorial jurisdiction, was not likely to remain content with the enjoyment of what they had got, if that enjoyment was to be coupled with the continuance of the old regime, galling to personal and national self-respect.
Moreover, if such was the real policy of the British Government, it was unfair to Lord Napier to keep him in the dark. For he evidently had no notion of it, until perhaps at the very last moment, when he resolved to retreat from Canton. Possibly it was then that his eyes were opened to
