ON Feb. 22d, being the last Sabbath of my residence at Amoy, I attended the various missionary services, and was requested, at the close of the sermon at the American Mission chapel, to address a few words to the people in the court dialect. I informed them of the circumstances which caused me to return to my native land, and of the probable arrival of other missionaries in my place, concluding with the inquiry, whether the prospect of new laborers coming to re-enforce the missionary body afforded them pleasure. One of the teachers interpreted my parting words, with long comments, in the local dialect, to the people standing around, fifty of whom were soon collected about the pulpit, where they remained for another half hour, offering their farewell greetings and shaking hands. As they did not seem disposed to separate, the missionary who had been preaching proceeded to hold a dialogue with some of their number. Some of them hazarded illustrations of their own on the subjects which they had heard in the sermon. On being asked whether they would welcome among them any additional missionaries, and would rejoice at their arrival, they replied, "Yes." On being again asked why they wished missionaries to come among them, some said, "Because you love us;" others said, "Because you talk so kindly with us.¡± The missionary then reminded them of the consequences of slighting the message of the Gospel, and of the possibility of all the missionaries being removed from among them, as a punishment of their spiritual indifference. Another shaking of hands took place as I left the building, some of my more intimate acquaintances asking at what hour on the next morning I expected to take my departure, and expressing their wish to do me the honor of accompanying me a little distance on my way.

Accordingly, early the next morning six teachers and neighbors came to the house, waiting for my departure. They accompanied me to the loading place, where, on getting into my boat, I bade them adieu. They would, however, insist on hiring a boat, and rowing for two miles, a little astern of my boat, to the outer harbor, till we arrived alongside the man-of-war in which I was to embark. Here, as I ascended the gangway, my Chinese friends exchanged with me a last farewell by waving their hands, and were soon on their way back through the harbor to Amoy. Shortly after we were proceeding on the voyage to Hong Kong, and in a few hours were out of sight of localities, the remembrance of which will ever be endeared to my mind by the kind friendship of all the missionary brethren, and the incidents of my stay of more than six weeks.

During the first two days of our voyage we experienced light head winds, and on the third day we had a strong contrary breeze from the southeast. On the fourth day there sprung up a fresh breeze from the northeast, before which we sailed at a rapid rate. In the afternoon we were already off Pedra Branca, and finding that we were unable to reach the entrance among the islands before sunset, we were forced to heave to for the night, as there was no moon, the wind increasing to a gale. At daybreak on Friday, Feb. 27th, we found that we had drifted a few miles to the leeward of the island of Hong Kong. After an hour's beating to windward, we passed through the Limoon passage on the east, and soon came to anchor in Victoria harbor.

VISIT TO CANTON.
During the course of the following month of March I paid a visit to Canton, for the purpose of ascertaining the state of popular feeling, and the progress of the missionary work since my visit about eleven months previously. In the intervening period of time a few more missionaries had removed from Hong Kong to Canton. Among these was the Rev. Dr. Bridgman, a missionary of considerable experience, who had formerly resided for ten years at Canton. The Missionary Hospital had become more fully than ever identified with the missionary cause; and a few of the missionaries were assisted by Leang Afa in regularly holding a Sabbath service among the patients, of whom generally one hundred assembled for the purpose. All other public services, however, were now at an end, except at the missionaries' own residences.

The writer could have wished that, on his last visit to this populous city, he had been permitted to cherish a more favorable opinion of the spirit of the populace, and the extent of missionary openings at Canton. Candor, however, compels him to express how wide and marked is the difference between the friendly and peaceable demeanor of the people in the more northerly cities, and the arrogant turbulence of spirit which still forms the distinguishing characteristic of the Canton mob. He calls to mind the happy period of free and unrestrained intercourse which he held with all classes of native society in other parts of China, and the fair measure of personal respect which was there extended to missionary laborers, among rulers and people, among rich and poor, in the heart of crowded cities, and in the retirement of distant villages. And he can not avoid contrasting the enlarged measure of freedom possessed by foreigners in those other ports, with the narrow limits of a few streets in an inconsiderable suburb, within which foreigners are virtually imprisoned as a despised and insulted portion of the community at Canton.

The time of my last visit was one of great popular excitement. The mob had shown a strong disposition to take the reins of authority into their own hands. The local government was in a state of paralysis. Ke-Ying's proclamation, extending to foreigners the right of entering the city, and admonishing the people that "all that the earth contained and the heavens covered should dwell together in friendship and amity," "without any line of demarcation," had thrown the whole population into a ferment of discontent and rebellion. Contrary placards of defiance were issued by the enraged people; and the palace and offices of the kwang-ckow foo, or "prefect," were burned by a mob, ostensibly for the maltreatment of some Chinese, but really as an ebullition of popular indignation against the framers of the recent edict. The mandarins were publicly insulted whenever they issued from their dwellings; and a general attack on the foreign factories was meditated by the rabble. The proclamations of the Chinese authorities were revoked; and public intimation was given by them that the will of the people should prevail, and the "Barba-rians" (such is the precise term of the proclamation!) should not be allowed to enter the city. A British war-steamer arrived and anchored off the foreign residences. The local military sympathized with the populace in their antipathy to foreigners, and could not be depended on for quelling the disturbances. Ke-Ying had sent elsewhere for military reinforcements, and, after a period of preparation, had at length assumed a decided tone of authority, and apprehended some of the ringleaders of the mob. Popular violence had thus for a time been suppressed, and the authority of Chinese law again predominated; but no foreigner could extend his walks with safety far from the foreign factories.

In the mean time the island of Chusan had been retained by the British, on the plea of this nonfulfillment of the conditions of peace at Canton, beyond the stipulated time, when the last sum of indemnity was paid in the month of February. Notwithstanding the interviews between the Chinese and British plenipotentiaries, the matter could not be adjusted amid the conflicting difficulties produced by the lawless violence of the Canton mob. On the one hand was represented the readiness of the British to cede Chusan, when the spirit of the treaty of Nanking should be fulfilled by the admission of British subjects into the city, ¡°withthout molestation or restriction." On the other hand, Ke-Ying, who had rendered himself personally responsible to the emperor for the punctual restoration of Chusan, strongly deprecated this retention of the island. He represented that it was the sure precursor of unmerited ruin to himself: was calculated to perpetuate, in the minds of the Chinese, a distrust of British integrity; and was, moreover, unnecessary for the preservation of the commercial facilities and privileges of foreigners. The local gentry and scholars ventured to suggest extreme measures against the faithless Barbarians; and the country-people, blindly supposing that they were as superior in strength as in numbers, endeavored to bring matters to a crisis, from the evil consequences of which they were able to retire to their own villages beyond the reach of British retaliation. The native merchants and shopkeepers, who had capital and property to lose, seemed alone to be devoid of sympathy with the belligerent populace, and to tremble for the consequences of a collision.

In the midst of these turmoils and anxieties, the bodily frame of Ke-Ying began rapidly to sink. Haemoptysis followed, and he suffered also from a cataract found on one eye. As the missionary physician applied the stethoscope to his breast, Ke-Ying remarked, ¡°I have a disease of my head, which no physician can cure." For a time he was incapacitated from business, and appeared to labor under mental aberration.
[Cbusan was ceded to the Chinese government by the British plenipo-tentiary in the following month of July]

Such signs of the insurrectionary state of the people will make it apparent to every mind that, in the event of another collision with China, the danger arises of a war, not, as in the last conflict, with her rulers, but with her people, the important consequences of which are removed beyond the limits of human foresight. The peaceful character of the people in other parts of China, and the generally perceptible desire of the Chinese authorities to preserve order and protect strangers, afford a guaranty for the continuance of pacific relations. Peace, however, may at any moment be disturbed by some local outrage at Canton, followed, on the part of the British government, by demands of reparation and indemnity, to which the Chinese government may be unable or unwilling, in the state of the popular mind, to concede.

Many are disposed to regard the anomalous state of affairs, which has been described, as a mark of decay, and the presage of ruin to the power of the present dynasty, if not to the stability of the empire itself. But it is important that such opinions should be modified by the reflection that insurrections and turmoils have been frequent in every reign, and that the populace at Canton have been for centuries in a continual state of partial rebellion. Amid these dangers from within, the safety of China depends on her avoiding perils from without. Her principal danger is that of another foreign collision, fomented alike by the blind arrogance of the anti-European party at Peking and the excited feelings of the mob at Canton. Her real interests lie in the adoption of a liberal policy toward "outward nations," in the accommodation of her government to the new emergency which has been created, and in the residence of foreign embassadors at Peking. Unless she thus remodel her system of policy, and abandon her isolated position among the kingdoms of the earth, she must remain stationary in knowledge, in arts, in power, in wealth, and in all the more substantial blessings of a progressive civilization.

EXCLUSION OF OPIUM BY IMPERIAL EDICTS.
Among the more prominent characters now moving in the grand drama of Chinese politics, there is no one who appears better adapted to arrest the progress of national decay than the pacific and enlightened Ke-Ying himself, who, from the secret perusal of the books of foreigners, has imbibed no inconsiderable knowledge of the religion of Christian lands.
There is another rock of danger, which may, in a no less degree, cause a wreck of the national resources, and, if such an expression be strictly applicable to a pagan people, of the national morals; and for the removal of this source of danger Britain is in a great measure responsible. The Chinese, as a government, have been, during the last half century, opposed to the introduction of opium into the country. Individual officers, for the sake of peace or bribes, have doubtless connived at the evil; but, as a government, they have prohibited, by distinct and explicit laws, the introduction of opium into the country, by that inalienable, inviolable right by which every independent government can exclude articles of contraband traffic. Consistently with the prohibited importation of opium from foreign lands, its growth has been interdicted in China itself, in six provinces of which it has, at various times, been clandestinely raised. The Chinese government have always had it in their power to exclude foreign opium, by the simple process of encouraging the growth of the poppy on their own soil. They have, however, pursued the opposite course¡ªno slight evidence that, amid all the instances of venal and corrupt connivance on the part of the subordinate officials in the maritime provinces, the moral evils greatly, if not principally, influenced the prohibition of opium by the imperial government. This opposition commenced in the reign of Kea-King, at the close of the last century, whose proclamation against opium, in 1796, preceded by several years, the date when the balance against China, between the export and import of the precious metals, added another item to the sum of apprehended evils, giving birth to the suspicion in the mind of foreigners, that the fear of Sycee "oozing out of the country" outweighed or supplanted all moral considerations in the exclusion of opium. But although it should be granted that financial considerations of this kind may have strengthened, or even originated, in many cases, the opposition of the high Chinese authorities to the importation of opium, it may fairly be asked whether the considerations of financial expediency and self-interest may not properly be admitted to strengthen and confirm a policy which, for its primary force, rests on the obligations of conscience and on the eternal principles of moral truth.

Equally untenable is the position of those who endeavor to palliate or defend the smuggling of opium into China on the plea that, if the government of a country enact prohibitory laws against any traffic, that government is bound to take effective measures to carry into execution the prohibition. Let, however, the armed smuggling-clippers, which have spread themselves over the whole length of the coast, proclaim the absurdity of such an argument, when addressed to a weak government like that of China, almost powerless in the arts of defense and war.

The opium-drain is severely felt in China. The more patriotic of the native scholars speak of the rapid decay of their cities from their ancient wealth and splendor as the consequence of the system. This subject is the great difficulty which will, sooner or later, embarrass the two governments. Let, then, the Christian legislators of Britain look to this evil, and boldly confront the danger. Opium is doubtless a profitable source of income to our Anglo-Indian government, which those who take a low view of the question may be unwilling to abandon. But let Indian revenues be collected from other sources than from a nation whose government we have humbled to the dust, and incapacitated for the rigorous enforcement of her tariff-laws. Britain bas incurred a heavy debt of responsibility in this matter; and unless the Christian course, which generosity and justice alike point out, be strictly followed, the page of history, which proclaims to future generations the twenty millions sterling consecrated on the altar of humanity to the cause of slave-emancipation, will lose all its splendor; yea, will be positively odious to the eye beside the counter-page which publishes our national avarice in reaping an annual revenue of two millions sterling from the proceeds of a contraband traffic on the shores of a weak and defenseless heathen empire. Britain has displayed her power, the giant's attribute. Let her also exhibit to the people and rulers of this pagan country the noble spectacle of a Christian government, superior to the arts of oppression, and actuated by a philanthropic regard to the best interests of mankind.

A LIST OF PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES, WHO ARE EITHER NOW IN CHINA, OR HAVE BEEN IN CHINA WITHIN THE LAST TWO YEARS

NAME ARRIVAL DATE  STATION SOCIETY    GENERAL REMARKS

Rev. W. Medhurst 1817 Shanghai L. M. S. Formerly at Batavia.
Rev. K C. Bridgman, D.D. 1830 Canton. A.B.C.F.M. Editor of Chinese Repository.
Rev. David Abeel Amoy Formerly at Singapore and Bangkok.
S. Wells Williams 1833 Macao -Missionary Press removed to Canton.
Rev. Peter Parker, M.D. 1834 Canton Missionary Hospital.
Rev. W. Deane Hong Kong A.B.B.F.M. Formerly at Bangkok.
Rev. J. L. Shuck 1836 Canton
Rev. J. J. Roberts. 1837 Canton Supported by private or local funds,
Rev. J. Stronach    Amoy London Missionary Society Formerly at Singapore
Rt. Rev. W. J. Boone, D.D. Shanghai.Am.Ep.Ch. Formerly at Batavia and Amoy.
Rev. Elihu Doty Amoy A.B.C.F.M. Formerly at Singapore and Borneo.
Rev. E. Pohlman..... Amoy Formerly at Singapore and Borneo
W. Young.... Amoy L.M.S. Many years a Catechist at Batavia.
Rev. D. Ball, M.D. 1838 Canton A.B.C.F.M. Formerly at Singapore.
W. Lockhart, M.R.C.S.. 1838 Shanghai L.M.S. Missionary Hospital.
Rev. S. R. Brown 1839 Hong Kong An American Missionary, Principal of Morrison Education Society¡¯s School
Rev. J. Legge, D.D. Hong Kong L.M.S. Formerly at Mallaca.
B. Hobson, M.D. Hong Kong Missionary Hospital.
Rev. W. Milne Uncertain Formerly at Macao and Ningpo.
J. C. Hepburn. M.D.. 1811 Amoy A.G.A.B.
W.C.Cumming, M.D. 1842 Amoy Missionary Hospital: supported by private funds from America.
Rev. W. M. Lowrie Ningpo
D. J. MacGowan, M.D. 1843 Ningpo A.B.B.F.M. Missionary Hospital.
R.Cole. 1844 Ningpo A.G.A.B. Missionary Press.
D. B. McCartee, M.D. Ningpo
Rev. T.W. Way Ningpo
Rev. W. Gillespie 1844 Hong Kong L.M.S.
Rev. George Smith, M.A. C.M.S. Exploratory tour to the five sports
Rev. T. M'Clatchie, B.A. Shanghai
Rev. T. Devan, M.D. Canton A.B.B.F.M.
Rev. A. W. Loomis Chusan A.G.A.B.
Rev. M. S. Culbertson Ningbo
Rev. A. P. Happer, M.D. Macao
Rev. J. Lloyd Amoy
Rev. Hugh Browne 1846 Amoy
T. Bonney Canton A.B.C.F.M.
Rev. W. Wood.
Rev. It. Graham ?
Rev. R. Fairbrother Shanghai L.M.S.
Rev. E. Syle Shanghai American Episcopal Church
Rev. T. Hudson Ningbo E.B.M.S.
Rev. T. Jerrom Ningbo
A. Bettelheim, M.D. 1846 Loo Choo Islands [A converted Jew; supported by a missionary fund specially raised for Loo Choo]
D. Macey Hong Kong [Recently arrived from America as assistant in the Morrison Education Society¡¯s School]

Rev. G. Gutzlaff, Chinese Interpreter and Secretary to the British Government at Hong Kong, makes occasional Missionary tours in the neighborhood with some native preachers.

The initials
L. M. S. = London Missionary Society.
A. B. C. F. M. = American Board for Conduction Foreign Missions
A. B. B. F. M. = American Baptist Board for Conducting Foreign Missions.
Am. Ep. Ch. = American Episcopal Church
A. G. A. B. = American General Assembly¡¯s Board
C. M. S. = Church (of England) Missionary Society
E. B. M. S. = English Baptist Missionary Society.

A Narrative of an Exploratory Visit to each of the Consular Cities of China, and to the Islands of Hong Kong and Chusan, in Behalf of the Church Missionary Society, in the years 1844, 1845, 1846, by the Rev. George Smith, M.A., of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and Late Missionary in China

New York, Harper and Brothers Publishers, 52 Cliff Street, 1847

Scanned by Dr. Bill Brown Xiamen University MBA Center

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