a sufficient fleet to enforce these just and proper claims. It is bard to say what Captain Elliot ought to have done under the circumstances. Had he carried out Lord Palmerston's instructions literally, had he adopted the unusual mode of communication enjoined upon him, and assumed the high-sounding title of the King's Officer, boldly insisting upon equality of official intercourse, be would have courted the fate and condemnation that fell on Lord Napier. Had he informed Lord Palmerston the thing was impossible without having recourse to arms, and advised him to adopt the only remaining alternative of retiring from Canton and establishing a British Colony on one of the beautiful islands in the neighbourhood, say Hongkong, he would probably have been dismissed with as little ceremony as Sir George Robinson.
What Captain Elliot actually did remains to be told. He commenced his duties with the determination not to protract the interruption of official communication between the Superintendents and the Cantonese Authorities by any demand of redress for the insults offered to the King and the country by the treatment accorded to Lord Napier, but to exhibit a conciliatory disposition, by respecting Chinese usages, and refraining from shocking the prejudices of the Chinese official mind. Accordingly, in his first communication to the Viceroy of Canton (December 14, 1836), he did not refer to the events connected with Lord Napier's death, but on the contrary explained that all he desired was 'to maintain and promote the good understanding which has so long and so happily subsisted.' This letter, written at Macao and delivered at Canton by the hands of two Agents of the East India Company (J. H. Astell and H. M. Clarke) and two British free traders (W. Jardine and L. Dent) to the Hong Merchants, was conveyed to the Governor of Canton as a humble petition of the barbarian headman Elliot. Looking to the tenor of this letter and to the form of its delivery, the Viceroy justly concluded that the old policy of the East India Company was to be resumed by the cowed barbarians.
