China: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 4/Appendix
Appendix
Appendix
Note 1.—That was the view taken by the United States Government in a complication of a precisely analogous character which took place a month after Admiral Seymour's fruitless operation. The Chinese fired twice from their forts on American boats, killing one man. Two U. S. ships thereupon bombarded the forts, captured them, and destroyed their armament, consisting of 176 guns. The Viceroy treated this incident with marked nonchalance. He wrote to say that there was no subject of strife between the two countries, but that it would be advisable to furnish his people with some clear means of identifying the American flag. The U. S. Representative at once resumed friendly relations. He considered that the penalty inflicted was an ample punishment, and that there need not be any talk of apologies or guarantees.
Note 2.—The singular difficulty experienced by some Europeans in seeing any stand-point but their own is illustrated by a statement emanating from Mr. Consul Parkes. Writing two months after the first entry into Canton he said: "As yet there is no war with China, but simply at Canton, and that because the Commissioner chose to declare it." Now, what had happened was this. According to a previous letter from the same pen, "on the 23d and 24th of August the Admiral entered and dismantled various forts in the vicinity of Canton; on the 27th and 28th he fired slowly on the residence of the Commissioner;" and on the 28th the Commissioner, sitting under a storm of British shell, penned a proclamation calling on his nationals to "exterminate the English barbarians." Such was the sequence of events that seemed to Mr. Parkes to justify him in ascribing the existence of a state of war to the Commissioner's declaration!
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