But my own dearest Clara, I have never known her virtues and never felt how helpless I am without her till now that she has left me. She is an excellent woman in every sense of the word, and has displayed so much real tenderness, and so much wisdom during the desperate year I have passed, that at least it has had the one salutary effect of making me understand and love her better than I ever did.16
Whether Charles’s main purpose here was to unburden himself of the effects of his wife’s ‘waywardness and perverseness’, tempering his criticism with praise, or to stress the extent of his unhappiness at her departure but with the caveat that the marriage was not always plain sailing, it seems from this, and from Clara’s own letters, that she was a principled and loyal spouse. She also appears to have possessed considerable emotional strength, a quality on which – often subconsciously – he relied a great deal.
Clara’s fortitude would prove important to Charles for the rest of his life, for reasons now beginning to become apparent in London. In April 1840 Parliament was at last able to debate the China situation. In January the Queen’s Speech opening Parliament had acknowledged that ‘Events have happened in China which have occasioned an interruption of the commercial intercourse of my subjects with that country. I have given, and shall continue to give, the most serious attention to a matter so deeply affecting the interests of my subjects and the dignity of the Crown.’17 During February questions were asked in Parliament about the government’s intentions, and in March The Times announced that war had been declared on China.
The debate in the House of Commons, when it came, was vigorous and closely argued. It took place over three days, on a motion censuring the government for allowing the country to be brought to the brink of war. Sir James Graham, for the opposition, moved that:
It appears to this House, on consideration of the papers relating to China, presented to this House, by command of Her Majesty, that the interruption in our commercial and friendly intercourse with that country, and the hostilities which have since taken place, are mainly to be attributed to the want of foresight and precaution on the part of Her Majesty’s present advisers, in respect to our relations with China, and especially to their neglect to furnish the superintendent at Canton with powers and instructions to provide against the growing evils connected with the contraband traffic in opium, and adapted to the novel and difficult situation in which the superintendent was placed.18
Since his communications formed a significant part of the voluminous Correspondence Relating to China, now made available to the House, it was perhaps inevitable that Charles Elliot’s role should become a much discussed issue.19 On the whole, government and opposition members of both Houses were at this stage supportive of him, taking the view either that he had acquitted himself well, or that if there had been omissions they were the government’s fault. Graham’s speech, in which he reminded the House of China’s history, wealth and power and stressed the importance to Britain of not antagonising her, was followed by a robust contribution from Macaulay, who said the reason Elliot had not been invested with extra powers was that:
down to the month of May, 1838, the Foreign Secretary had very strong reasons to believe that it was in the contemplation of the government of China immediately to legalize the opium trade, which had undoubtedly been carried on in disobedience to the existing law…. The system under which that trade had been carried on was this – it had been prohibited by law, but connived at in practice.20
The moral dimension was a major preoccupation of the press. The Times continued to fulminate about ‘a lawless and accursed traffick, to be bolstered up by a flagitious and murderous war’.21 Unaware or unbelieving of Charles Elliot’s hostility to the opium trade, the Chartists, whose radical campaigning for political reform took in condemnation of imperialism in general and the opium trade in particular, referred in their publicity to ‘Mr Opium Elliot … gloating over the prospects of … bloodshed, famine … and multiform distress and misery.’22
In Parliament it was the 30-year-old future Prime Minister W.E. Gladstone who made the appeal to members’ consciences, in a detailed attack on Palmerston. In the catalogue of neglect of which he accused the Foreign Secretary Gladstone also pulled no punches in criticising Elliot’s actions. He made particular mention of his stance at the time of the blockade in March 1839, when Elliot had very publicly aligned himself with those who illegally traded in opium, but laid this behaviour at Palmerston’s door for failing, in effect, to keep the Chief Superintendent under control and for tacitly encouraging an aggressive attitude towards the Chinese. Justice, moreover, was on the Chinese side; whatever the intricacies of authority and procedure, they had banned the importation of opium and the British had failed to comply. Gladstone confronted the calls to redress insult to the flag:
We all know the animating effects which have been produced in the minds of British subjects on many critical occasions when that flag has been unfurled in the battlefield. But how comes it to pass that the sight of that flag always raises the spirit of Englishmen? It is because it has always been associated with the cause of justice, with opposition to oppression, with respect for national rights, with honourable commercial enterprise, but now, under the auspices of the noble Lord, that flag is hoisted to protect an infamous contraband traffic, and if it were never to be hoisted except as it is now hoisted on the coast of China, we should recoil from its sight with horror.23
The situation in which Britain now found itself in China, claimed Gladstone, was primarily the result of the Foreign Secretary’s omission over several years properly to address the problem, and in particular his failure to give Elliot adequate authority, as the Queen’s representative, to regulate the activities of British merchants. Gladstone did not propose that the country should pull back from war. It should never have been allowed to get into its present position. He did not know how long the war would last, ‘but this I can say, that a war more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated in its progress to cover this country with permanent disgrace, I do not know, and I have not read of’.24
The Commons debate, in which eighteen members spoke, some at great length, was ended for the opposition by the Conservative leader Sir Robert Peel, and for the Government by the Foreign Secretary. Peel refuted the Government line that with preparation for war so far advanced the motion was merely party-politicking, and chided ministers for making assertions about instances of Chinese behaviour – notably the alleged poisoning of the wells at Kowloon – without adequate evidence. He accused them of using such episodes to stir up popular support. ‘He knew how easy it was from the past experience of this country in similar circumstances to arouse the public indignation by the detail of individual outrages; but they ought to be perfectly satisfied of the evidence on which the allegations rested.’25 Far from being reprehensible, there were on the contrary several other examples of conduct by the Chinese authorities reported by Elliot which showed them to be moderate and reasonable, and Peel too reminded the House that it would be against Britain’s interests to antagonise China; if war were inevitable it should be undertaken with a view to normalising relations as soon as possible afterwards. The thrust of the opposition motion
was not … that the Government had not sufficient foresight to know what the Emperor of China was going to do, but that after the termination of the relation between China and the East India Company, which had continued for 200 years, and after an immense change, therefore, in the position of this country with respect to China, that Her Majesty’s Government sent a gentleman to China to represent the Crown of this country, without the powers...which it was their duty to have given him, without instructions which he was competent to receive, and without the moral influence of a naval force.26
Palmerston’s response, delivered in a tone less earnest and completely self-assured, was to hit the ball back into his opponents’ court. Criticising the Government was easy, he implied, but what would the opposition have done? If the Chinese wished to
buy opium and others wished to sell it to them, that free trade should not be impeded; it was not for Britain to assume the role of guardian of other countries’ morals. If the government had wanted to give the Chief Superintendent wide-ranging powers to control, among other things, the opium trade and opium traders, Parliament would have to have been consulted, and the members on the benches opposite would have been the first to reject such a proposal.
The Foreign Secretary was characteristically forthright and dismissive in his demolition of the opposition’s case, accusing some of their speakers, notably Gladstone, of not having properly read the papers. His defence of Elliot was fulsome:
All the Gentlemen who had spoken on the opposite side, with a few trifling exceptions, had, he was gratified to say, dwelt upon the conduct of Captain Elliot in terms more of approval than of criticism. He was happy to say this, for it was a principle which ought always to be kept in view in party contests, that whilst they struggled for power, which was an object of honourable ambition, and whilst they attacked each other with all the skill which they could command, the servants of the Crown performing important duties on foreign stations, in which duties they had no personal interest, should be unaffected by the proceedings of parties in that House. He was happy to say, that on that score he had no fault to find with the resolution, nor, save a few exceptions, with the speeches by which it was supported. He felt it due to Captain Elliot, whose zeal, courage and patience had been signally exhibited in these transactions, to clear up two points on which his conduct had been subject to criticism.27
The two points were that Elliot had encouraged the opium trade, and that he had tried to stop opium ships from being attacked, both of which Palmerston refuted by reference to the Correspondence. Graham’s attempt to have the last word for the opposition foundered when he announced that he intended ‘to follow the noble Lord through the various parts of his speech’, at which point weary Members decided enough was enough, and forced a division.28 The government prevailed with a majority of nine, 271 votes to 262.
With criticism of the government’s handling of affairs thus narrowly set aside, the Lords had their say nearly four weeks later, on 12 May. The case against was put by Earl Stanhope, who was highly critical of Elliot as well as of the government. His emphasis was on the opium trade – Chinese motivation for wanting to suppress it, the economic as well as the ethical dimension, and (as he saw them) British connivance at its continuation and Elliot’s dilatoriness in taking such action as he could to try to stop it. The debate was relatively short. Stanhope’s was the only attempt of any substance to address the issue, and it was countered forcefully by the Duke of Wellington and by the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. The Duke expressed great sympathy for Elliot: ‘he had never in his life seen on the part of the authorities in any country such language as had been written to Captain Elliot by the officers of the Chinese Government … he had never heard of a person filling a high station in another country being treated in such a manner as Captain Elliot had been treated by the authorities of the Chinese Government at Canton.’29
Melbourne’s contribution contained a brief description of the origin of opium trading from India, alluding to the ambivalent attitude of the Chinese authorities before and after 1796, when its importation had been decreed illegal. Of more immediate relevance were two specific points. The obligation of visitors to a foreign country to abide by the laws of their hosts was not in doubt, Melbourne said, but what was less clear was how far an official representative of those visitors should be responsible for enforcing compliance upon his compatriots. Secondly, there would have been no point at all in sending more specific instructions to the Chief Superintendent, since the situation on the ground would have changed entirely by the time they arrived.
The Prime Minister’s defence of Elliot’s conduct was emphatic. Stanhope, he said,
had made a most severe, bitter, and in many respects most unjustifiable attack on the gentleman to whom were committed the interests of this country in that quarter of the globe, and who had conducted himself throughout with the greatest coolness, ability, and judgement…. Considering the situation in which Captain Elliot was placed – considering the novelty of the circumstances with which he had to deal, and the dangers by which he was surrounded – he [Melbourne] was not prepared to say, that every act was precisely the best that could have been suggested, but at the same time he was very loth, at so great a distance and in ignorance of the circumstances, to pass any censure on him; on the contrary, so far as he could form a judgment, that officer appeared to have conducted himself with the greatest judgment, the greatest prudence, the greatest firmness, and the greatest resolution.30
Earl Stanhope had proposed that the Queen be petitioned to take such measures as were necessary to prevent further opium trading with China; an amendment that no action be taken was carried without a division. That Elliot emerged from the debates in Parliament with his reputation largely intact was in part the result of lobbying on his behalf by his friend Henry Taylor, at this time working closely with senior civil servants at the Colonial Office. He had assembled a digest of Elliot’s dispatches, to which he had added comment and argument, and ensured that it was seen by both Palmerston and the Duke of Wellington in time for the debates. Taylor later recalled that: ‘It was a successful effort … I wrote to my mother, 18 May 1840: “Charles Elliot has got nothing but credit on all hands, as far as I can hear; and my digest, that is, in point of fact, his own dispatches, have had all the effect I could have wished”.’31
On the China coast Elliot awaited the arrival of the expeditionary force. It would not have been lost on critics of the disproportionate influence, as they saw it, of the Minto Elliots that including Charles the three senior British officers now responsible for operations against China were all first cousins. The assembling and preparation of the fleet was within the remit of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord (Gilbert) Minto, elder son of Hugh Elliot’s brother Gilbert, the first Earl. The force’s formal commander-in-chief was the Governor General of India, Lord (George) Auckland, son of Hugh Elliot’s sister Eleanor. A fourth cousin, Auckland’s sister Emily (Eden), a much travelled artist and writer who was with her brother in India, had written in January to the First Lord:
I hope, Gilbert, you have taken care to send us out force enough to settle China in a short dashing manner. It must be a rapid business – because we must go home in March 1841 – and I suppose George will not stir till that business is done and he is made Marquess of Kwangfoo – then I am so afraid we sh[oul]d be thrilled for tea in our respectable old age.32
Emily did not court controversy, but she was not fazed by it; her usually gentle, sometimes barbed, and always perceptive wit was doubtless reinforced by her association with such contemporaries as Clerk to the Privy Council and diarist Charles Greville, with whom she corresponded and who was to some extent a kindred spirit in the directness with which he expressed his views.33 He had no time for Lord Minto:
For a long time this government has been embarrassed by having such a man as Minto among them, and in such an office as First Lord of the Admiralty, where there is enormous patronage and where the navy is the department most anxiously and jealously regarded by the country. He is in all respects incompetent … and he is besides a great and notorious jobber, and more than suspected of a want of political integrity.34
Highly placed members of the Elliot family were as vulnerable to criticism and personal invective as anyone else in public life, as Charles Elliot was acutely aware and as The Times had recently demonstrated: ‘are these the people’, it had demanded to know, ‘ – this tribe of Admiralty Elliots, from Lord Minto down – who can safely be trusted by the people of England with whatever is most dear to nations?’35
The early months of 1840, another period of relative quiet (though this time without the calming influence of Clara), gave Elliot space in which to marshal his thoughts and contemplate the longer term. Deciding that attack was the bes
t form of defence, and of course in ignorance at this stage of the support he had had in Parliament, he wrote to Emma – on 12 May, the date of the Lords debate – a robust justification of his actions. His letter contained the usual solicitous enquiries about the children, and equally customary descriptions of his own feelings. Even allowing for exaggeration and his fragile mental state, it sets out concisely how he saw his own record, betraying in the process an incipient bitterness:
Be under no fear. I shall be abused, and probably removed, but I can show that I have saved as terrible a commercial whirlwind as ever threatened British India … I am not speaking idly when I assure you that I have resolved to answer the government there [in London] if they do not do me full justice. I know I have the heart to talk the matter of my need out. And I know that I have that to say which will cover every body concerned except myself, with condign shame.
I foresaw all; warned the government over and over again, and when the storm burst I was enabled to turn it aside by incurring personal risks and personal responsibilities, which I might easily have avoided. The Government and the Country owe me deepest thanks … It will be wise and right to give me bare justice. I want no more from them. In my condition and temper of life (if I may use such an expression) praise cannot gratify me and ill-deserved censure shall not wound or subdue me.
No man has had a harder task to perform and never was a hard task so successfully worked out…. A huge improvement, dear Emy, in affairs of commercial crisis. And where is the praise? The British Government, or at least the British Indian Government, are neither more nor less than the Merchants of this day. They had greatly overproduced. They had utterly disregarded any consideration of honor or prudence and it was cast upon me to relieve them of their difficulty. That has been done; but frankly the anxiety, the incessant anxiety of my situation has been almost too much for me.
Captain Elliot and the Founding of Hong Kong Page 16