To Begin the World Over Again
Page 57
When the Dutch were drawn into war with Britain in 1780, they took part in the name of free trade, hoping to prevent British ships from obstructing Dutch commerce. They hoped too that victory over their most inveterate trade rival would undermine British dominance of maritime trade and provide a jump-start for their own flagging East Indian Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie—VOC). But though Britain was forced to sue for peace in 1783, the Dutch had hardly been victorious: Britain had captured important Dutch imperial possessions in India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia, and might even have taken the Cape Colony had not François Henri de la Motte’s well-timed treachery prevented it. As part of the peace settlement, the British had agreed to return the territories it conquered, but Britain had forced the Dutch to agree to crucial trade concessions. Henceforth, Britain was to have free navigation and free trade in Dutch Indonesia. Britain’s entrance with new force into the trade from Indonesia to China (a second source of opium), combined with increased competition from the newly viable British outpost at Penang on the Malaysian peninsula, rapidly ate into the margins of the VOC, helping push it further down the path to decline and preventing Dutch commerce from helping the mother country recover from the expenses incurred during the American War.19
The British decision not to attempt to conquer and occupy Indonesia was a conscious one, part of a political theory of empire that emphasized trade and naval power over costly territorial possessions. This was a sentiment that John Barrow could fully support, especially after the American Revolution, his experience in Brazil, and his consideration of Dutch Batavia. The city of approximately 150,000 was “neat and handsome” with straight streets laid out at right angles, each with a canal in the middle. Separate from the city on the north side of the bay was a citadel containing the Dutch government headquarters, a chapel, and the public offices of the colonial administration. The countryside surrounding the city was flat and so thickly covered with trees that only the cupola of the great church was visible from the bay. But though the city had a pleasant appearance, its location proved a major hazard for its European residents. The low, swampy terrain was a breeding ground for tropical diseases, and staggeringly high mortality rates cut an unending swath through the Dutch inhabitants. Barrow blamed the choice of Batavia for the colonial capital on “the predilection of the Dutch for a low swampy situation” such as they knew back home. Whatever the reason for the choice, the effects of the terrain and climate were monstrous. The Dutch authorities estimated that three-fifths of those who came out to Batavia died within a year. Those who survived their first year would still have a 10 per cent chance of perishing thereafter. The mortality for the Dutch army and navy was worse still, with the military hospital recording as many as 78,000 deaths in 62 years. Overall, it was believed that perhaps 4,000 Batavians succumbed each year. “Never,” Barrow disgustedly concluded, “were national prejudices and national taste so injudiciously misapplied, as in the attempt to assimilate those of Holland to the climate and the soil of Batavia.”20
What this meant, for Barrow and those of his line of thinking, was that territorial possessions in such far-flung, inhospitable locales were not worth the expense in money or men. Commerce was the key to wealth and power; land brought only costs. Barrow hoped that the example of Dutch Batavia would help remind Britain of this eternal truth:
It is to be hoped, that this consideration will always operate with the British government as sufficient reason for not attempting to wrest it [Indonesia] out of the hands of the Dutch. For as the shipping may at any time be taken out of the bay by a superior naval force, their possession of the town and garrison cannot be of material injury to the interests of Great Britain, provided we have a strong and active squadron in the Indian seas.21
Despite the pestilential reputation of Batavia, the embassy remained in the capital of the Dutch East Indies for several weeks, mixing with crowds of people from every corner of Asia. There were Arabs, Armenians, and Persian merchants, “always grave and intent on business,” traders from every port in India, local Javanese with their studied indifference to the press of humanity, Malays with their reputation for ferocity, and everywhere slaves, from Mozambique, Madagascar, Malabar, and every nation of the east. Here too, for the first time, were Chinese merchants and migrants, some in “long satin gowns and plaited tails reaching almost to their knees,” others dressed in “large umbrella hats, short jackets, and long wide trowsers,” traders and artisans of every stripe, but above all famed as gardeners. The Chinese community of Batavia, first established in the early fifteenth century, made a favorable impression on the men of the embassy. Compared to the Dutch, Barrow found the Chinese industrious, charitable, and sober, far and away the most admirable community in Batavia. If this was what they could expect from the people of China, their mission would surely succeed.22
The fleet finally quit the steamy, swampy coast of Java on March 17, 1793. They had all enjoyed the gracious hospitality of the aged Dutch governor and the members of his council, joining in with the fireworks, fairs, and feasting of the Prince of Orange’s birthday, but they had stayed too long. Thus far, the embassy and its crew had been spectacularly lucky not to lose a single man to the rigors of the journey or the danger and disease of their various ports of call. But now they left Indonesia short a man, stabbed in the back by a group of Malays while washing his linens in a stream. Others were laid low with typhus and dysentery acquired during their extended stay. There was nothing to do but minister to the sick as best they could and press on to China.23
The fleet next made landfall on May 24, at Turon Bay (modern Da Nang), on the coast of what is now Vietnam. The area was uncharted as far as the British were concerned, so the ships had to make their way blindly up the coast and into the sheltered harbor of the bay. Typhus and dysentery had spread rapidly among the crew, and fresh supplies were desperately needed, but a Portuguese merchant vessel informed the fleet that the entire area was convulsed by civil war. Vietnam was theoretically ruled by the Lê Dynasty (who were in turn nominally subordinate to the emperors of China), but since the seventeenth century real power had been in the hands of two warring dynasties—the Trinh at Hanoi and the Nguyen at Hué. In 1770, heavy taxes in Nguyen lands, used to fund wars against Siam, led to a peasant uprising against the Nguyen led by three brothers from the village of Tây Son. The Tây Son rebellion spread like wildfire, engulfing southern Vietnam, and tempting the Trinh into intervening to ensure the destruction of their hated Nguyen rivals. By 1776 Trinh forces had capture Hué and the Tây Son rebels had driven the last remaining Nguyen, Nguyen Anh, out of Saigon and into exile.24
Portuguese, Spanish, and French merchants and missionaries had been plying their respective trades in Southeast Asia since the seventeenth century, but thus far the British had shown only sporadic interest in the region. This, Barrow felt, was a grave mistake. The French had seen in the Tây Son revolt an opportunity to outflank the British by aiding the Nguyen dynasty of Annam against their rivals, sending Jean-Baptiste Chevalier from the French factory at Chandernagar in Bengal to Da Nang in 1777. War with Britain in both India and the Atlantic scuppered the plans temporarily, but with peace in 1783 and the re-formation of the Compagnie des Indes in 1785, the need for a recovery of French imperial interest in Asia was once more at the top of the geopolitical agenda. In 1787 attempts to secure French influence in Vietnam were renewed. Under the influence of Pierre Pigneau de Behaine, a French priest and leader of the Séminaires des Missions Étrangères, Nguyen Anh, nephew of the ruler of southern Vietnam, was sent to France for protection and to negotiate a military alliance with Louis XVI. The treaty signed at Versailles promised French military support and a substantial loan in return for granting the French the port and territory of Da Nang, the right to place French consulates along the coast, and, crucially, the right to demand Vietnamese troops and ships in the event that France went to war in India. The treaty collapsed with the French Revolution, but the danger such a move posed to British i
nterests was clear.
The French, who had lost many of their Indian possessions during the American War, desperately needed new territories and new trading partners if they were to recover and once more compete with the British on equal footing. Even though the outbreak of the French Revolution once more disrupted their plans in Southeast Asia, there was no question that France would once more turn to Vietnam as the centerpiece for a new imperial strategy. A permanent presence in Da Nang would provide France a veritable Vietnamese Gibraltar, providing a stable base from which they could disrupt British trade with China and mount attacks on British India. The local ruler, even in the midst of a civil war, was able to build and arm 1,200 ships. When combined with the fleet the French had planned to build in Southeast Asia, France would have at its disposal a naval force capable of destroying British trade and “overawing our territorial possessions in the East.” But it was not too late to prevent this. As Barrow reported, the king showed signs of favor to the British, treating them to feasts and declaring all his ports open to British shipping without tariff. Now was the time to seize the initiative, to extend “the paws of the British Lion” and “grasp every point which may add to the security of what British valour and the industrious and adventurous spirit of the British nation have acquired and annexed to her original dominions.” This did not mean grabbing more territory. Barrow recognized that Britain already possessed “as many colonies as we can well maintain, and as much territory as is rendered useful to the state,” yet the danger a French presence in Southeast Asia presented to British commerce necessitated the acquisition of “places of convenience and accommodation for our shipping.” Lord Macartney, whose journal reveals a much greater preoccupation with military strategic matters, was fully in agreement.25
As Macartney may well have realized, his old enemy Warren Hastings, when Governor-General of India, had attempted to establish just such a British foothold in Vietnam. British merchants had made fitful efforts to add Vietnam to its burgeoning trade networks since the early seventeenth century, and the East India Company had even briefly established a factory in the north of the country, but it was the recognition of French inroads in Vietnam and the danger they posed to British commercial interests that spurred renewed interest in the 1770s. Like the French, Hastings realized that the civil war in Vietnam provided an opportunity to secure both land and trade agreements in return for British aid and intervention in the conflict. When two Nguyen officials fortuitously fell into Hastings’ hands in 1777, rescued by British country merchants trading at Da Nang, the moment seemed opportune for British intervention. The two dignitaries were thus returned to Vietnam with a British escort, but the mission was a disaster from the start, with one of the Nguyen dying en route and the other refusing to risk his life by going to shore. Eventually the British party came under fire from a rebel faction and were forced to beat a hasty retreat. A second attempt at intervention was mooted, but with war with France breaking out in India in 1778, it was impossible for Hastings to spare any further British troops for Vietnam.26
After the war, a British base in Southeast Asia became even more crucial, especially with renewed French interest in Vietnam, but the initiative had by then been seized by an audaciously enterprising country trader named Francis Light. While the East India Company held a monopoly on trade between the East Indies and Britain, the “country trade” between Asian territories was officially open to independent merchants like Francis Light, who oftentimes paved the way for later, larger-scale British commercial and imperial expansion. After establishing himself in trade in the region of the Malacaa Straits, Light had recognized the immense potential of a British outpost in Malaysia. Britain needed a base in Southeast Asia to check French and Dutch expansion and as a waypoint for British vessels trading between India and China. He had petitioned Warren Hastings for a Company outpost on the Malay Peninsula as early as 1771, and in 1786 accepted the Sultan of Kedah’s offer of the Island of Penang. Sultan Abdullah Mukarram Shah had come under pressure from his expansionist neighbors to the north, Siam and Burma, and thinking Light was an official representative of the British East India Company, offered the island in return for British aid against his neighbors. Unfortunately for the sultan, Light had no such authority, and when he requested the promised British aid, he was informed that none would be forthcoming. In 1791 the sultan attempted to recover Penang—which Light had since renamed Prince of Wales Island—but was defeated by Company forces. Penang, Britain’s first settlement in Southeast Asia, was to prove a wise investment, undermining Dutch trade and touching off centuries of British colonization in the region.
In all the excitement, Vietnam had been neglected by the British, and subsequent history would prove Barrow and Macartney’s fears about Vietnam correct. Though official French support for Nguyen Anh would evaporate during the French Revolution, Pigneau de Behaine would continue to press for French intervention in Vietnam, eventually cobbling together a private force of mercenaries, adventurers, and speculators who helped modernize the Nguyen army and fortifications. With French (and Chinese) backing, by 1802 Nguyen Anh succeeded in subduing his Tây Son rivals and unifying Veitnam as the first Nguyen Emperor Gia Long. French frustration at the lack of practical benefits, or even recognition, granted to them for their aid in the civil war would form a major part of the pretext for their eventual conquest of Vietnam in 1858.27
Barrow and Macartney both recognized that any threat to British commerce had to be met swiftly and forcefully. France, the perpetual enemy, had a larger population and more abundant resources. If it hoped to compete, to retain its rank in the “scale of nations,” Britain had to rely on foreign trade. Everything depended on commerce, “from Tyburn turnpike or from Hyde Park Corner to Whitechapel almost every house is a shop or warehouse . . . stored with articles of foreign growth. Any check, therefore, to our commercial prosperity, and to the preponderancy which we now enjoy in foreign trade, could not fail to be attended with the most injurious consequences to the country at large.” The most vital area for British commerce was the China trade. India received more attention, but in many ways it cost as much or more than it produced. The growing China trade, however, was already “the grand prop of the East India Company’s credit, and the only branch of their trade from which perhaps they may strictly be said to derive a real profit.” It was to expand this vital trade that the embassy had traveled so far.28
In the afternoon of June 19, 1793, three days after leaving Turon Bay, the fleet’s travel-worn eyes of the embassy and the fleet’s crew had their first sight of China on the northern horizon. The next day they anchored off the coast of Portuguese-controlled Macau, allowing a party led by Staunton to consult with the British merchant community. He received news that the emperor had been informed of the embassy and had responded with “great satisfaction,” going so far as to send commands to the ports of China to grant whatever assistance the British fleet might require. Most crucially, the embassy had been granted permission to proceed directly to Beijing, the Qing capital, rather than being obligated to enter China at Canton, the only port through which foreign trade and foreign contact were generally permitted. Not only would this drastically cut the travel time to the imperial court, but it would also allow the embassy to circumvent the obstructions of the Canton trading community, which was jealous of its monopoly over European trade and thus antagonistic toward the free trade agenda of the Macartney mission.29
With their goal now seemingly close at hand and the approbation of the emperor secured, the fleet hurried on through the Strait of Formosa, though “dark, heavy, rainy, moist, and stormy” weather entirely obscured the island of Taiwan from view, and into the Yellow Sea. The ban on foreign trade outside of Canton meant that the Yellow Sea was almost entirely unknown to Europeans. With its shallow seas, myriad islands, treacherous currents, and unpredictable weather, the Yellow Sea could prove perilous even for those well-accustomed to its dangers. For the unfamiliar British fleet, navigating the Ye
llow Sea, threading through the hundreds of coastal islands and the dozens of boats that issued forth from “creek and cove” to see the strange Western ships, it was akin to sailing blind. At Zhoushan near Ningbo and Shanghai, local pilots were taken on board to help guide them to Tianjin, the port of Beijing. The local officials were obviously well-informed about the embassy, and in a pattern that would be repeated at every stop along their journey, the Mandarins of the area made an official visit to Lord Macartney.30
By July 20, the fleet was approaching the Bohai Strait, the entrance to the Bohai Sea, Bohai Bay, and the mouth of the White River. From here the sea was too shallow—“the road is bad and dangerous” Macartney recorded—with unequal, rapidly shifting depths making the Lion a dangerous liability. The embassy transferred to the brigs and the Hindostan and sailed to the mouth of the White River, the gateway to Tianjin and Beijing, arriving on July 25. Here they met with two important Chinese officials, men who would be constant companions throughout their stay in China and real advocates for the embassy. Wang Wen-Hsiung, a soldier of Han Chinese origins who had risen steadily through the ranks after showing conspicuous bravery in campaigns in Burma and elsewhere, was the military commander at Tungchow. He was to share responsibility for the embassy with a civilian administrator, Ch’iao Jen-Chieh, an able bureaucrat from Shansi who had just been promoted from District Magistrate to Tao-t’ai of Tientsin in 1790, in which position he had distinguished himself in famine-relief efforts following the great floods of 1792. The two men were relatively senior administrators, though not the sort of officials with any real say in imperial decision-making. Nonetheless, they would prove cordial and supportive hosts throughout the embassy’s stay.31