they felt the ground under their feet too unstable to risk their existence by adopting a definite policy with regard to China. The Duke of Wellington personally adopted the views of the Chinese officials and did not shrink from applying them to the past, in condemning Lord Napier's action, or to the future in approving of Mr. Davis' proposed policy of inaction. As to the British public, it took the attitude of stolid apathy, caring nothing for these things, so long as the supply of tea and silk was forthcoming at the usual prices. Accordingly, when Mr. Davis, fearing lest he be left without any instructions, forwarded positive suggestions, they were, though good enough to be taken up and acted upon in subsequent years, quietly shelved for a good while by the Government.
Mr. Davis recommended (October 24 and 28, 1834) not to send out another cumbrous and expensive Embassy, but to appeal to the Emperor of China by means of a dispatch to be delivered by a small fleet at the mouth of the Peking River (Peiho), and, if such an appeal should fail, as he expected it would, to use then measures of coercion. Mr. Davis recommended this course on the ground that the Imperial Government of China sincerely desired to ameliorate the condition of British, merchants, but that the Cantonese Authorities, by their misrepresentations, kept the Emperor in the dark as to the real position of affairs. Mr. Davis, at the same time, stated that the Mandarins at Canton were anxious to keep the control of British merchants in the hands of the Hong Merchants, because this system enabled them to lighten their own responsibilities and to practise their heavy exactions on the trade with greater impunity.
In these views Mr. Davis was cordially supported by the whole British community of Canton and Macao, who forwarded (December 9, 1834) a petition signed by sixty-four British subjects and addressed to the King's Most Excellent Majesty in Council. Their unanimous opinion was that the long acquiescence in the arrogant assumption of superiority over the monarchs and people of other countries, claimed by the Emperor
