Captain Elliot and the Founding of Hong Kong

by Captain Elliot

  He continued: ‘My health too is shaken heavily, and I have private distresses with which I will not trouble you, but they are sad to bear’.44 Bankhead was not happy, urging Elliot to reconsider his decision to go:

  it is absolutely necessary that this Legation should be accurately informed from time to time of what is going on in Texas – and, moreover, Lord Aberdeen particularly enjoins you to do so [stay] in his Instruction of 3 May.

  I take the liberty of adding that my opinion is fully supported by my French Colleagues and by the Mexican Government.

  I send this by HMS Persian, and I fervently hope that She may arrive in time to prevent your putting your plan into execution.45,46

  She did not. Elliot had left for New Orleans, from where he intended to go on to New York, nearly two weeks earlier. The Texas Convention voted on US Independence Day, 4 July, to reject independence and commit itself to annexation to the United States, to take formal effect in February 1846.

  It was in New York that Charles Elliot received a letter from Aberdeen concerning his role in the formulation of the proposal for the recognition of Texan independence and in its conditional acceptance by the Mexico. ‘Her Majesty’s Government’, said the Foreign Secretary, approved of ‘the energy and ability with which, in conjunction with M. de Saligny, you prosecuted this matter with the Government of Texas’; but that was not the main point of the communication.47 He continued:

  It might have been preferable, however, that you had not proceeded in person to Mexico; and at all events it would have been better if you had not proceeded thither secretly, or under a feigned name or character, inasmuch as the mystery which necessarily attended such secret expedition was liable to give rise to erroneous notions and false interpretations of our motives and intentions, especially on the part of the United States.

  Another rebuke from another Foreign Secretary; but Elliot was not as discomfited as he had been over China. His personal circumstances – poor health, dislike of his environment, family worries – gave him a different perspective on his professional activities. He knew that his duty in Texas was to work against the odds. Like Aberdeen, he had been fully aware that Texas’s independence was very unlikely to be able to survive the growing force of public opinion in favour of annexation. He also understood the importance for Britain of keeping the peace with the United States. Whether he thought through the consequences were his mission to be discovered is doubtful; if he did, he may well have concluded nevertheless that the attempt was worth the risk. It seems more likely that he had full confidence in his ability to maintain the necessary secrecy and did not think beyond that. His response to Aberdeen’s criticism, written shortly after receiving it and in the belief that he had made an important contribution to the cause of Texan independence, maintained that speed and secrecy had been essential to his mission if intervention by the United States was to be avoided. Elliot said he had believed, and still did, that there would have been some positive outcome since

  even if it failed the completion and subsequent publicity of the conditions recommended to Mexico by the Governments of Her Majesty and the King of the French could in no way prejudice the public interest but would on the contrary subserve them. The want of conclusive proof in the sight of the people of Texas and of this Country, of the dispositions and ulterior motives of Her Majesty’s Government had already furnished the advocates of Annexation with their most powerful means of sustaining it. I believed therefore that moderation on the part of Mexico, even at that late hour, and unequivocal evidence of the character and extent of the arrangement supported by Her Majesty’s and the French Governments would deprive Annexation of the chief pretext which had given it so much strength here.48

  If Elliot had indeed believed it, this rather contorted argument was at best wishful thinking, and the likelihood is that it was regarded as such by Aberdeen. Before concluding Elliot could not resist commenting on the coverage his mission had received in the American newspapers:

  I may at least observe that the mystery adverted to was no more than was necessary to conceal my destination. What has been said on this subject in the press of the United States is merely that kind of unscrupulous attack and misrepresentation to which persons are liable in the discharge of their public obligations, and in this particular case is no more than the natural consequence of a faithful attempt to perform my duty to my own Country, and I must give myself permission to add, no bad evidence of the extent to which the success of these proceedings has been felt to interfere with the easy accomplishment of bad and dangerous schemes.

  This, too, was unconvincing. His dismissive contention that a hostile press was a ‘par for the course’ inevitable consequence for a public servant seeking to do his duty was something which, in his more reflective moments, he probably did not believe himself; but its tone was an indication that he was prepared to meet Aberdeen’s rebuke forcefully.

  The Foreign Secretary did not wish to prolong the correspondence concerning Elliot’s Mexico mission and did not refer to the matter again. Elliot, though, had also found himself in the firing line shortly before, this time in connection with his relationship with the consul, William Kennedy. In March the previous year, 1844, Elliot had written to Aberdeen, privately and unofficially, alleging that Kennedy’s health

  not merely bodily, but I fear mental, has given way to the effects of strong drink … I ought to have mentioned to Your Lordship before this that I had no confidence in Mr Kennedy’s temperance or discretion.49

  Proposing that the Consul should be given leave of absence in England, Elliot was clear that he could not ‘consider Mr Kennedy to be in a sufficiently secure state of mind to fulfil his trust with uniform steadiness.’50

  Elliot wrote again to Aberdeen in May 1845, this time officially, complaining in strong terms about Kennedy’s conduct towards him. It had, Elliot said, been so improper as would have justified Elliot’s suspending him. Aberdeen was clearly annoyed. He was blunt in his criticism:

  I regret that you should have thought it your duty to make Charges so serious against Mr Kennedy without adducing any evidence in justification of them. I regret also the tone in which those Charges are made. You have, moreover, entirely misapprehended your own position and authority, in supposing that you have the power to suspend a person who has been appointed by The Queen to reside and act as Her Majesty’s Consul at Galveston.51

  He asked Elliot to provide evidence and detail for each of the allegations he had made. Elliot will have sent a response but, like the allegations themselves, it is not in the Foreign Office papers. It seems likely that the long-standing acrimony between Elliot and Kennedy, which found expression in Elliot’s complaints about Kennedy’s drink-related behaviour, was also fuelled by Kennedy’s encroaching on diplomatic business which was properly in the domain of the Chargé d’Affaires. Where the blame for that lay is an unanswered question; Kennedy had ideas above his station, but Elliot’s repeated absences from Texas left the consul as the senior British official there.

  Elliot’s absences and the Kennedy matters were finally put to rest by Aberdeen in letters to Elliot on consecutive days in September. Aberdeen expressed his regret that Elliot had let his irritation get the better of him in making the accusations against Kennedy, but he was willing to take in to account the poor state of Elliot’s health, and admitted that while the government would have preferred that he had stayed in Texas, it did not attribute any blame to him for not doing so.

  During the late summer of 1845 the Texas Convention and its committees were engaged in formulating proposals for the Constitution of the new US State of Texas. There were issues which prolonged the exercise, notably the question of what territory the State would actually cover. Elliot was in correspondence with Bankhead about his decision to leave Texas, explaining at greater length than before that while his health was a factor, he felt that he had done all he could towards the prevention of annexation or the mitigation of its consequences. Though Bankhead was of th
e same status, it is clear that he was greatly respected by Elliot, who was anxious to be well regarded by him. To Aberdeen, Elliot maintained his flow of reports on the current situation as he saw it. He described the American naval and military build-up in Texas, preparatory, as he had presciently observed to Bankhead, to what he was sure would become a war between the United States and Mexico. He was in no doubt who was responsible for the impending hostilities, informing the Foreign Secretary that he had been strengthened in the belief

  that the movement of the United States troops beyond the Sabine was made mainly to commit the Legislatures and people of the two Countries beyond all possibility of retraction. But beyond that motive, I cannot but think, that the advance of the American force, within the territory which the Government of Texas in the preliminary conditions sent on to Mexico palpably admitted to be subject to Negotiation and compromise, affords conclusive proof that the Government of the United States desired to provoke hostilities by Mexico; probably with the view to the sudden seizure of certain positions on the Coast of California.52,53

  His correspondence was not, of course, all official. From the Elliots’ temporary home at Rockaway, a summer holiday area on Long Island, New York, Charles had written to Emma in July with condolences on the death of their sister Harriet.54 There seems no evidence that they were close, but like Clara, Harriet had married a naval officer, Captain (later Admiral Sir) James Plumridge. In August there was happier news; Charles was able to send congratulations on the confinement of Emma’s daughter Nina, who the previous year had married her second cousin William, the third Earl Minto.55 She gave birth to a son, later to become the fourth Earl and Governor General of Canada.

  In October Elliot still clung to the hope that appropriate action by Mexico could prevent annexation, but by the end of 1845 none of the main players in the drama, on whatever side, was in any real doubt that annexation would take place. That certainty did not mean, so far as Britain at least was concerned, that diplomatic activity could be relaxed. When he wrote his two letters to Elliot in mid-September, Aberdeen had told the Chargé d’Affaires to await further instructions. Elliot replied somewhat defensively on 6 October saying that he had always intended to return to New Orleans if events so required. Aberdeen’s response this time allowed no further discussion:

  Until the final Annexation of Texas to the United States shall have taken place, Her Majesty’s Government consider it indispensable that you should be at your post at the Seat of Government in Texas, in order to maintain the Communications between the two Governments, and to keep Her Majesty’s Government regularly and authentically informed of all that takes place in Texas.

  I have therefore to desire that you will forthwith repair to your post, and that you will remain there until you receive orders from Her Majesty’s Government to leave it.56

  On his way back to Texas Elliot learned from Pakenham that the resolutions for annexation had been passed by both Houses of Congress and had been approved by the President. He arrived in New Orleans on 4 January. A few days later the matter of the mission to Mexico raised its head again, this time in the New York Herald. The newspaper had published on 22 December some outspoken criticism of Elliot, especially his venture’s attempted secrecy, in a letter by Polk’s Secretary of State James Buchanan to Donelson. Elliot’s conduct, Secretary Buchanan said, had excited feelings of indignation throughout the country. He continued:

  These are not confined to any party, but pervade the whole community. One of its good effects has been to render us, to a very great extent, a united people on the question of annexation. It is scarcely possible that his conduct can be approved by his government … Captain Elliott, in his efforts, has transcended all reasonable bounds. To assume the character of a secret negotiator of the government of Texas with Mexico, in a hostile spirit towards the United States, to conceal his agency in this matter, by pretending that he had left Galveston for Charleston, when his destination was Vera Cruz, and then to prevail upon Mexico to consent to the independence of Texas on condition that Texas should never annex herself to the United States – these acts, taken together, are at war with all the recent usages of diplomacy, and with the character of the British government, which is generally bold and frank, if not always just, in its policy towards foreign nations.57

  Elliot’s scheming would be thought ridiculous, Buchanan concluded,

  But what is far worse on his part, by obtaining the consent of Mexico to the independence of Texas, he has deprived that power of the only miserable pretext which it had for a war against the United States, whilst he has fomented among the Mexican people a spirit of hostility against us which may plunge that ill-fated country into such a war.58

  Precisely as Aberdeen had feared, this was a propaganda gift to the pro-annexationists. Despite Buchanan’s strictures, the annexation die was already cast, and the assertion that Elliot might be responsible for precipitating a war was without credibility. Elliot knew nevertheless that the letter could do his own reputation substantial damage, and was quick to explain himself to Aberdeen, writing at considerable length on 8 January. Buchanan’s censure, he implied, was essentially a case of sour grapes that he had succeeded with the Mexicans. His concealment had been necessary, and he had initially indeed been intending to travel to Charleston; but most of Elliot’s letter was taken up with the case, yet again, against annexation and – which is unlikely to have gained him much sympathy – with some highly critical and sweeping criticism of the American people and their institutions. He was careful to say that this was not his intention, but his reassurance was unconvincing:

  I know that there are as many reasonable and honest persons in the United States as in any other part of the world, proportionately to the population. But it is unhappily equally true that if there were many times more; the course of public events would not be materially altered, or there is a great preponderance of ignorance, prejudice, and rashness, not only in the body of the people, but in the councils of the Nation, sinking more and more palpably to a very low level, by the rapidly deteriorating operation of universal suffrage.59

  Elliot argued that this was all a consequence of a move from representative to pure democracy, which he alleged had been shown to be unstable and incompatible with true freedom. The fact was, however, that he had been stung into an intemperate overreaction. Anyone reading his letter who was not aware that it was not typical of his communications would have been seriously concerned. As it was, Aberdeen did not respond.

  The Government of the Republic of Texas was formally dissolved on 16 February 1846. In the early months of that year Charles Elliot was busy keeping the Foreign Secretary informed of military and political developments; correcting what he saw as inaccuracies and possible false impressions from earlier reports; and putting in place arrangements – mostly to do with British ships previously contracted to trade with the Republic – for dealing with the new authorities in Texas. His health was still poor, and shortly after dissolution he moved again from Galveston to New Orleans. On 3 April Aberdeen wrote to Elliot formally terminating his appointments as Chargé d’Affaires and Consul General with effect from the ending of the Republic, and instructing him to return to England as soon as convenient. Then, in another letter the same day, as if he had thought his first note rather peremptory, ‘With reference to my dispatch of this day’s date … I have much pleasure in acquainting you that Her Majesty’s Government have highly approved the zeal and intelligence with which, ever since your appointment, you have executed the duties committed to your charge.’60

  The stress and discomfort of the Texas years were now at an end. The Elliots arrived back in London on 16 June. From next door to his sister Emma’s house in Wilton Crescent, Charles wrote to the Foreign Secretary about his future. He was, as always, short of money: ‘Deprived of my post by circumstances in Your Lordship’s knowledge, I beg to express my readiness, and I hope I may add my earnest desire for early re-employment, for I have no fortune, and a large
family entirely dependent on me.’61

  Though hampered by ill health, Elliot’s motivation and intentions in Texas had been largely creditable. He had made mistakes, of which the execution of the Mexico mission was the most public, and his relationship with Kennedy had been problematic. He had nevertheless established a close working rapport with Presidents Jones and, especially, Houston and communicated constructively with the British Chargés d’Affaires in Mexico and the United States, and with his French counterpart. Whether or not the prevention of annexation was ever a realistic prospect, Elliot worked conscientiously to give the British aim of Texan independence the best chance of success that circumstances would allow. While he was aware of the need not to provoke the United States, that was a higher priority for Aberdeen and the British government than it was for him. For Elliot the containment of slavery – a first step towards its abolition in North America – was of equal or greater importance.

  From later in 1846 until 1848 the United States fought and won a controversial war with Mexico, one result of which was that Mexico relinquished its claim to Texas. In 1861, following the election of the abolitionist Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, Texas and initially six other southern slaveholding states, followed by a further four, broke away from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. The Union victory in the ensuing Civil War saw the passing in 1865 of the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, by which slavery in the United States was abolished.

  Charles Elliot’s request for early re-employment was successful. He was able to write in August to his friend the former Lord Howick, now third Earl Grey and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies: ‘I accept the Government of Bermuda very thankfully…an appointment which from many circumstances is peculiarly acceptable and agreeable to me.’62