by the officers of the Chinese Custom-house in order to avoid contravention.' Article XVII. 'Both (vessels from Hongkong of under 75 or 150 tons) one and the other, shall pay one mace per ton each time they shall enter port (at Canton). All that shall exceed 150 tons will be considered as large vessels coming from abroad and, following the new tariff, shall pay five mace per ton. As to Foochow, Amoy, Ningpo and Shanghai, as no coasting vessels enter those ports, it is useless to make any regulations with regard to them.' These two articles, says the Journal des Débats, 'coincide and link together with a degree of art which we could not but admire, if their consequences were not equally injurious to the coasting trade of all nations by excluding them, or nearly so, from the four ports so recently opened. In point of fact, according to the text of these articles, it becomes exceedingly ruinous to land at Hongkong merchandise destined for the Chinese continent. … Thanks to the drawing up of the Supplementary Treaty, freedom of commerce with the northern ports is become illusory, the privilege nominal.'
With reference, no doubt, to the foregoing statement of the Journal des Débats, which is, however, supported, as to the correctness of the translation here given, by statements which previously appeared in the Chinese Repository (March 1844), in the Friend of China (April 13, 1844) and subsequently (July 31, 1844) in the Commercial Guide, Sir Henry, later on (December 11, 1844), made the following remarks at a public entertainment given in his honour at the Merchant Tailors' Hall in London. 'A very erroneous impression went abroad through, I believe, some papers on the continent, that there had been some mistake committed in the (Supplementary) Treaty. That is quite incorrect. It arose from the necessity of my making public an abstract of the Treaty, while the Chinese published the whole, and a translation was made with many important omissions. Having been asked seriously whether there was any ground for the allegation that mistakes had been committed, I am happy to say that there was no cause whatever for alarm.'
