Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
effrontery to Her Majesty. This in turn would constitute a Chinese
provocation and serve as a perfect pretext and justification for war with
the Chinese.
Now I, the said Chief Superintendent
do hereby, in the name and
on the behalf of Her Britannic Majesty's Government, enjoin and
require all Her Majesty's subjects now present in Canton, forthwith
to make a surrender to me, for the service of Her Said Majesty's
Government, to be delivered over to the Government of China, of all
the opium belonging to them or British opium under my control
...
...
and I
do now, in the most full and unreserved manner, hold myself
responsible, for and on the behalf of Her Britannic Majesty's
Government, to all and each of Her Majesty's subjects surrendering
the said British-owned opium into my hands to be delivered over to
the Chinese government. (H. Chang 1964, 264-65)
...
On June 6 (the Opium Prohibition Day formerly celebrated annually in
Nationalist China), Commissioner Lin accepted the surrendered
opium and destroyed it. Elliot then reported this “outrage” to the
British government, and in the late 1839 he learned that a British
expeditionary force would be sent to China. In early 1840, Britain
declared war on China.
The expeditionary force did not arrive until June 1840, when British
warships took the fight right to the emperor's doorstep, anchoring
off the shore of Tianjin, Beijing's outlet to the sea. When Qishan, the
Manchu governor-general of the region, persuaded the British to
return south to Canton for talks without firing a shot, he was hand-
somely rewarded by the Qing government and appointed to deal
with the British. When the talks began, Qishan was aghast at British
demands for payment of an indemnity for the lost opium and perma-
nent cession of the island of Hong Kong, demands he knew Beijing
would never accept. Ultimately unable to placate the British any
further and unsuccessful at preventing a resumption of Sino-British
hostilities, Qishan was recalled in disgrace and exiled to northern
Manchuria.
Eventually a British naval force sailed up the Yangtze River to the city
of Nanjing and poised itself to bombard the city if a formal peace agree-
ment were not forthcoming. The thought of this was more than the Qing
government could bear, and in August 1841 the Treaty of Nanking was
concluded aboard a British ship anchored outside Nanjing. The treaty
provided for the formal cession of Hong Kong in perpetuity to the
British Crown, the opening of five other port cities along China's
