Elliot continued to hope that some positive progress might stem from his scheme for Texas. Peace between Texas and Mexico, and Mexican recognition of Texan independence, would remove the insecurity that encouraged Texans to look to annexation by the United States as a solution. His covering note to Aberdeen of 5 February 1843, marked ‘Secret’, enclosed an extract from a private letter written some days before by Houston. The President had reported that ‘nine tenths of those who converse with me are in favour of the measure [annexation to the US] upon the ground that it will give us peace. Upon this point of our national existence I feel well satisfied that England has the power to rule!’27 Elliot and Houston were thus at one in their wish to see Britain intervene, but Aberdeen’s stance remained one of studied detachment. The Foreign Secretary’s view was clear, and his response to Elliot perhaps contained a hint of irritation that the Chargé d’Affaires had been making too much of the annexation question:
With regard to the project for the annexation of Texas to the United States, which has formed the subject of some of your recent communications to this Office, Her Majesty’s Government do not think it necessary to give you any instructions at the present moment on that subject, further than to desire that you will assure the President of the continued interest which the British Government takes in the prosperity and independence of the state of Texas.28
Aberdeen’s hands-off approach was reinforced shortly afterwards by the reports and views of Richard Pakenham, Elliot’s former opposite number in Mexico, who had recently returned home. Pakenham, a career diplomat, was relatively unconcerned about the possibility of annexation. He thought Texas would be annexed, either to Mexico or to the United States, but did not see any cause for British alarm. Houston’s private communication in May to Elliot, on the other hand, reflected considerable urgency. His language in describing the United States’ motives was uncompromising, even extreme, and he was unhappy that the US was unwilling to respond positively to an armistice proposed by Santa Anna:
The genius as well as the excitability of that people, united to a bold and generous daring, impel them to war. Their love of Dominion, and the extension of their territorial limits, also, is equal to that of Rome in the last ages of the commonwealth and the first of the Caesars.
The Continent of North America is regarded by the people of the United States as their birth-right – to be secured by policy, if they can, by force, if they must. Heretofore Texas has been looked upon as an appendage to the U.States…
…I regret that our friends in the U.States should have any uneasiness on the Subject of Santa Anna’s propositions. If we were to judge from the Newspapers, as well as from private correspondence which I receive, we might conclude there was danger of my being favourable to retrocession to Mexico; and as for the subject of Texas becoming a British Colony and abolition in Texas … I can neither sympathise with the distress of our friends, nor can I entertain commiseration for their ridiculous credulity.29
Elliot then forwarded to Aberdeen, marked ‘Secret’, a copy of Houston’s letter. Either the level of unspoken understanding between Elliot and Houston was very high indeed, or Elliot was being more than a little disingenuous when he assured the Foreign Secretary that while he was aware that contents of the letter were intended to be confidential to himself, ‘I am also persuaded that General Houston must have felt they would be made known to your Lordship’.30 For Elliot a particular sensitivity was slavery; Houston had referred to abolition in conversation as well as in his letter, indicating that some Texan as well as US newspapers had suggested that the British government had insisted on abolition as a condition of its mediating in the conflict with Mexico. Elliot reported that he had assured the President that the slavery question had not been mentioned to him in any communication from London.
By the spring of 1843 Charles Elliot was grudgingly familiar with his new posting, and his preoccupations became again as much personal as professional. He was waiting to be joined by Clara, who sailed from England on 15 April, the day on which he arrived back in Galveston from Washington-on-the-Brazos. He wrote hurriedly to Emma conveying concern and affection for his family and bemoaning his own fortunes, as he had done so often before:
I have only this moment landed from the Houston Steam Boat, after a wearisome journey to and from Washington and have just time to write these lines for the New Orleans Boat to say that I am well. Poor brave Clara; according to her last letter this was the very day of her departure from England and a bitter, bitter hour it must have been to her. She is coming to a wretched country in a wretched condition, but I know she will be glad to share my exile and I can only hope that it will not be for long. Thank my own dearest boys for me, for their nice letters. I have been a disappointed and a troubled man in life, but say to them, dearest Emy, that I should think myself repaid indeed, if the hope of contributing to my happiness should keep them steadily good.31
In early May Elliot departed for Havana to rendezvous with Clara, leaving his diplomatic duties in the willing hands of William Kennedy, for whom dealing with diplomatic correspondence was a welcome diversion from his consular responsibilities for trade and production returns. En route, at New Orleans, Elliot wrote to Aberdeen. Elation at the prospect of seeing Clara again no doubt influenced his mood to make what must have seemed to the Foreign Secretary rather a presumptuous request:
I use the freedom of this communication to mention to Your Lordship that I am troubled with an Ague contracted in a long and painful Service in hot Countries, and I should consider it a favor if Your Lordship would sanction my passing the months of July, August and September in the Mountains of Kentucky where I have been advised as there are Springs of great virtue for complaints of that kind. I have the less reluctance in proffering this request, as I can always be at my post within two weeks from that Situation, and be in the constant receipt of tidings from Texas of ten days or a fortnight’s date. It may also be added that Congress in Texas does not meet till December, and the Officers of the Texian Government usually disperse during the hot season.32
In the event, and in the absence of any reply from Aberdeen, Elliot did not go. Pressure of work kept him busy throughout the summer as Mexico’s fraught relationship with Texas continued to be the subject of frequent correspondence between himself, Percy Doyle (the new British Charge d’Affaires in Mexico), and Aberdeen. Despite any initial misgivings on the grounds that nothing less than immediate recognition of Texan independence would do, Houston decided to accept Santa Anna’s offer of an armistice and published a proclamation to that effect on 13 June. Later analyses of diplomatic exchanges during these months raised questions about real as opposed to apparent motives, tacit understandings behind formal communications, and leakage of information. Elliot was in the thick of it, interpreting Aberdeen’s instructions rather than following them to the letter, and losing no opportunity to express his support for Houston and his moderate policy towards Mexico. He also found himself having to explain to Aberdeen that he had not been the source of newspaper reports in Boston and New Orleans that Britain was seeking to impose abolition on Texas.
China was never far from his mind. On 6 June he wrote at length to Lord Minto.33 With the best of intentions, Clara had mentioned that she had commented to Minto on the absence of any reference to Charles in a recent parliamentary debate about China. Elliot was concerned lest there should be any suspicion of lobbying on his behalf; he did not wish to alienate any of his relatives, and with the possible exceptions of Emily Eden and Auckland, did not believe any of them bore him any ill will. Equally, he was not going to miss an opportunity to underline yet again the rightness of his actions in China, while maintaining – rather unconvincingly – that he was unmoved by criticism: ‘The truth is that whilst I am always glad of assent to the general character of my measures in China, come whence it may, the contrary does not disturb me for … I have done nothing and left nothing behind in China that the country has cause to regret.’ Pottinger, he asserte
d, had arrived in China to find systems already in place and impediments already removed, and with a sideswipe at the Foreign Office commented that ‘Chinese Mandarins were not the hardest to manage in China, and Pottinger seems to have managed those without tails to their heads with more skill and good fortune than myself.’34 Elliot could not resist making explicit mention of his alleged disobedience of Palmerston’s instructions, sardonically asking the rhetorical question
whether the nation would choose to give up Hong Kong at this time, for some more opened ports, and some more millions of dollars than have hitherto been safely opened, or punctually paid up … I do not find that orders were sent out (or at least acted upon) to undo what I had done.35
Consistent with the apparently ambivalent approach he was now taking to communications from London – passing on to the Texan government Aberdeen’s advice on the merits of nominal Mexican sovereignty over Texas while stressing to Doyle that only immediate acceptance of Texan independence would do. Using China as an example, he was emphatic that instructions had to be sensibly applied:
I believe I should have no difficulty in satisfying the reasonable part of the public that there was no obeying the letter of the instructions in our hands without totally breaking up the China trade, to the great advantage of the Court of China, and our own serious injury, and without rendering it impossible for the force to have subsisted on the Coast of China for six months. It was my part to remember what the instructions meant, as well as what they said.36
Clara’s arrival in Texas was a great comfort to him, but her full endorsement of the dissatisfaction Elliot felt with life there encouraged him to redouble his efforts to be sent somewhere else. Clara complained to Emma that ‘If Charles had committed murder, theft, or any other grave crime & been sent to Botany Bay, it is more than possible we should have found there a more desirable place of residence than Galveston.’37 In the same vein, Charles bemoaned their situation some weeks later, also in a letter to his sister: ‘No language can convey to you any adequate idea of the wretchedness of life in this raw country..’38 A specific request by Elliot to the Foreign Office on 4 August to be given a different posting because of ill health met with a negative response; Addington informed him that Aberdeen would however be willing to grant leave of absence for convalescence if he wanted it.39
Diplomatic activity on the future of Texas during the summer of 1843 took place in London and Washington DC as much as in Texas and Mexico. In July a meeting was held in London of prominent individuals from Texas and the United States to discuss abolition in Texas. Those present included Stephen P. Andrews, a Houston lawyer and fervent abolitionist. A report sent back to the US Secretary of State, Abel P. Upshur, set in train a series of alarmed repercussions which was to provoke the United States to action. The report was written from London by General Duff Green, a newspaper owner, industrialist, and close associate of President Tyler. Green was a strong supporter of the institution of slavery and was deeply suspicious of British motives. Andrews, he told Secretary Upshur, had been sent by the abolitionists in Texas to negotiate with the British government. Green said that he had learnt
from a source entitled to the fullest confidence … That he [Andrews] has seen Lord Aberdeen, and submitted his projet for the abolition of slavery in Texas; which is, that there shall be organised a company in England, who shall advance a sum sufficient to pay for the slaves now in Texas, and receive in payment Texas lands; that the sum thus advanced shall be paid over as an indemnity for the abolition of slavery; and I am authorised by the Texan minister [in London, Ashbel Smith] to say to you, that Lord Aberdeen has agreed that the British Government will guaranty the payment of interest on this loan, upon condition that the Texan Government will abolish slavery.40
Green’s attempt to reinforce antagonism towards Britain found a receptive audience. If they had had any doubts, Secretary Upshur, former Vice President John C. Calhoun and President Tyler were now convinced that Britain’s overriding aims were the abolition of slavery in Texas and the prevention of further territorial expansion by the United States. The distinction in the official British Government line, that Britain wanted to see an end to slavery everywhere but had no wish actively to intervene to that end in any slave-holding country, was not one in which the Americans placed any trust. Green went further, believing that there was no altruism or philanthropy about Britain’s abolition policy, but that she sought the eradication of slavery to halt the growth in the United States’ economy. US commercial expansion, Green held, was adversely affecting British trade in the region, which had been weakened by the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies. In Britain, fuel was added to the fire when Aberdeen evaded a question in the House of Lords about abolition in Texas, maintaining that the ongoing negotiations between Mexico and Texas made it inappropriate for him to comment.41 At the same time as the parliamentary exchange, Upshur and Calhoun were corresponding over next moves, working up a plan – and each other – towards annexation by the United States. Responding to a letter from Upshur, Calhoun cast Britain firmly in the role of villain:
You do not, in my opinion, attach too much importance to the designs of Great Britain in Texas. That she is using all her diplomatick arts and influence to abolish slavery there, with the intention of abolishing it in the United States, there can no longer be a doubt…
That her object is power and monopoly, and abolition but the pretext, I hold to be not less clear. Her conduct affords the most conclusive proof. No nation, in ancient, or modern time, ever pursued dominion & commercial monopoly more perseveringly & vehemently than she has. She unites herself in the ambition of Rome and the avarice of Carthage.42
Unaware of these machinations, Charles Elliot was much encouraged to receive from Doyle a copy of the instructions sent to him by the Foreign Secretary following the July meeting of US and Texan abolitionists in London. Doyle was informed that Aberdeen had told a leading member of the meeting that
if the State of Texas should confer entire emancipation on all persons within its territory, and make that decision permanent and irrevocable, H.M. Govt. would not fail to press that circumstance upon the consideration of the Mexican Government as a strong additional reason for the acknowledgement by Mexico of the independence of Texas.43
Elliot felt that at last abolition was moving nearer centre stage, writing enthusiastically to both to Aberdeen and to Doyle. His euphoria was short lived. Despite the known view of the US Chargé d’Affaires in Texas, William S. Murphy, and of the US minister in London, Edward Everett, that the British position on abolition in Texas was no cause for concern, in the rumour-ridden climate of alleged plots and conspiracies Secretary Upshur, to his great satisfaction, was instructed by President Tyler to offer an annexation treaty to Texas.44
The offer was communicated by Upshur on 18 September to Isaac Van Zandt, the Texan Charge D’Affaires in Washington DC, and thence to President Houston. At this wholly unexpected development Van Zandt was taken aback, and Houston deeply troubled. Elliot too was surprised, and would have been greatly disappointed. Upshur had conveyed a sense of urgency, asking that Van Zandt seek a response from Texas in time for it to be considered at the next meeting of the US Congress. In a long letter reporting all this to Aberdeen, Elliot described how he had asked the President what he intended to do.
General Houston answered that Mr Van Zandt would be instructed to communicate verbally that it did not seem to the government of Texas to be convenient or necessary to entertain such proposals at all, till the Senate of the United States had manifested its readiness by resolution to treat with Texas, upon the subject of Annexation.45
Such a pause would give Houston one more chance to see if Britain would exert influence on Mexico finally to recognise Texan independence, and Elliot relayed the President’s insistence that
Her Majesty’s Government might rest assured that with the Independence of Texas recognised by Mexico, He would never consent to any treaty or any other project of
annexation to the United States, and he had a conviction that the people would sustain him in that determination. He had formerly been favorable to such a Combination. But the United States had rejected the proposals of the Country in its time of difficulty; neither was the subsequent conduct of that Government calculated to induce the Government and people of Texas in this mended state of things, to sacrifice their true and lasting advantage to the policy of party in that Country.46
For the remaining two months of 1843 there was little diplomatic activity on the annexation question as Texas awaited the United States’ reaction to Houston’s message. During November a relatively minor incident involving alleged disrespect to a British ensign caused the temporary suspension of diplomatic relations between Mexico and Britain. Half offering this difficulty as an excuse – he would probably have proceeded anyway – Elliot used the lull in annexation negotiations to write at length to Aberdeen about the navigability of the Rio Grande both for commercial purposes and in case, he implied, the stand-off with Mexico deteriorated into open conflict. Elliot was in his comfort zone dealing with this kind of issue, but he was aware that supplying unsolicited information and opinion in such detail to the Foreign Secretary at this juncture was a surprising and potentially irritating thing to do. He was therefore anxious to ensure that Aberdeen understood that he knew this, ‘Hoping Your Lordship will ascribe this intrusion to it’s true motive, that is, a desire to further the public Service’.47
Captain Elliot and the Founding of Hong Kong Page 22