Page 260 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

246.
in mid-December but, just as the foreign residents prepared

to see the trade reopened, they received another jolt from

the Chinese authorities.

On December 12 local Mandarins brought a convicted

opium-dealer into Factory Square and sought to execute him

(by strangulation) 11directly under the American flag a thing

never before attempted & tried no doubt on purpose to insult

1
the foreigners-- 1 The foreign residents were shocked and out­
raged, not over the execution itself, but over the place chosen

for it. They felt this act to be an infringement on their

private domain. Later, the residents protested to the governor:

11Foreigners have now resided in Canton for more than 100 years,

& it has always been recognized & allowed that the ground be­

tween the factories & the river belonged to the houses rented
61
by them. 11 Upon seeing Chinese erecting the apparatus for

strangulation, Americans and English merchants and clerks

rushed out into the Square to prevent the execution. The

action had also attracted a great number of Chinese observers,

who, according to one American, "were evidently opposed to the

the "Ke-le-fat," or a British ship belonging to Capt. Crawford.
Innes finally corrected the mistake and the Hoppo absolved the
"Thomas Perkins" and its consignee William R. Talbot. Chinese
Repository, VII, 8 (December 1838), 438-41, 452.
61
Journal of R.B. Forbes, Dec. 18, 1838, Forbes Family
MSS. The residents' protest to the governor and his response are
in Chinese Repository, VII, 8 (December 1838), 447-49. The
governor claimed, "The ground, whether in the front or the rear
of the foreign factories, is all territory of the celestial em­
pire, & is merely granted by the great emperor, for motives of
extraordinary grace & clemency, as a temporary resting place for
all foreigners who have been permitted to engage in trade here."