contingent, allowances of the Commission were also reduced at the same time, and the two Superintendents were given to understand that their appointments were only provisional and temporary. This was unfortunate, for it caused doubts, both among the British community and among the Chinese Authorities, as to the official status of the two Superintendents. Some years later Captain Elliot, with a view to control the conduct of lawless British subjects, carrying on (in daily conflict with Chinese revenue cruizers) a forced contraband trade between Lintin and Whampoa, established (April 18, 1838) a system of police regulations exclusively applicable to the crews of British-owned vessels under the British flag. Lord Palmerston, after keeping the Regulations submitted to him unnoticed for a whole year, wrote at last, on the day when the whole foreign community were already under rigorous confinement in consequence of those lawless doings, a dispatch in which he suddenly came forward with notions of international law which ought to have entirely vetoed the former mission of, and Privy Council instructions given to. Lord Napier. Lord Palmerston then (March 23, 1839) informed Captain Elliot that the Law Officers of the Crown were of opinion that the establishment of a system of ship's police at Whampoa, within the Dominions of the Emperor of China, would be an interference with the absolute right of sovereignty enjoyed by independent States, which could only be justified by positive treaty or by implied permission from usage. Accordingly Captain Elliot was instructed to obtain, first of all, the written approval of the Governor of Canton for those Regulations. By the time this curious dispatch reached Elliot, British trade had been driven out from Canton, thanks to Lord Palmerston's inaction.
But, whilst thus curtailing the powers and restricting the official standing and jurisdiction of the Commission, Lord Palmerston sought to uphold their position in other respects in relation to both the Macao and Canton Authorities.
It appeared to British observers that the Macao Governors had, ever since Lord Napier's arrival, played into the hands of
