Ch'ing Documents Abroad: From the Public Record Office in London

CH'ING DOCUMENTS ABROAD: FROM THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE IN LONDON DH i ? K. Basu Stevenson College University of California Santa Cruz Dr. David Pong has recently drawn our attention to the Impressive collection of Chinese-language materials at the Public Record Office (PRO) in London. Dr. Pong's catalogue will remain as an Indispensable guide to the "Kwangtung Provincial Archives" section of what is known as FO 682 Series at the PRO. However, this catalogue excludes the bulk of the material that exists on the pre-1842 period in the FO 682 Series Itself as well as in the FO 233 Series. It is a bit surprising that the pre-1842 materials have thus far eluded the attention of scholars working 1n the field, much less systematically explored. Unlike the Kwangtung Provincial Archives, which were removed to London from the British Legation In Peking during the winter of 1958, the FO 233 Series have been with the PRO for a long time. Lack of space on PRO shelves or perhaps lack of interest in them recently caused the transfer of the Series to the Land Registry Office. The latter, in turn, deposited them with Its out-of-town warehouse. Fortunately, most of the documents are still in excellent condition. Between the numbers 515-769 of FO 682 is inserted a brief history of the compilation of the Chinese-language records at the East India Company's Canton establishment. A "Committee of Translation" was appointed on June 6, 1817 to collect, collate and translate Chinese documents. Four "students of Chinese" were selected from among the Company's servants to form into the Committee. They were urged to collaborate with the native Chinese translators, but were duly cautioned against "the influence and fear of the government or of the Hong Merchants which gave a colour to their translation." The Committee submitted its first report in July, 1817 in which it expressed doubts as to the "authenticity" of the documents transmitted to the Company by the Hong Merchants. It noted that very few of the documents were in the original form, culled from kung-wen {/A ¦€) official correspondences and from their nien-tan (jjrfc \* ) enclosures. Copies were made out from the latter without the kuan-yin ( 1^L ¿p ) official seal of the government, the t'u-shu ({&'*') seal of the Co-hong and hua-ya ifcMj) personal attestation of the Hong Ilerchants—a standard procedure that should have been normally followed 1n transmitting copies. Howqua, the head of the Co-hong, allegedly kept the original documents while his scribes copied out duplicates that were handed over to the President of the East India Company's Select Committee. It was not unlikely, concluded the Translation Committee, that considerable interpolation or alteration occurred in this process to suit the Co-hong's vested interests. It recommended a change in the transmission system that would do away with the intermediary role of the Co-hong. Accordingly, the Select Committee petitioned the Viceroy, requesting him to transmit official papers to the Company directly. The Viceroy replied that it was not within his powers to change the age-old custom of dealing with the foreigners through the office of the Co-hong. It was then decided to put pressure on the Hong Merchants themselves 1n order to obtain duly signed and certified copies; after some vacillation, Howqua agreed. If the suspicion that there was substantial modification in the copies were correct, the Sino-Western relations prior to 1817 should be reexamined by comparing the copies with original documents that can be found in the standard Ch'ing sources. My hunch, however, is that except for a few phrases and paragraphs which the Hong Merchants thought would be objectionable to the British and/or could reveal their disguised role in securing specific edicts and injunctions, the copies faithfully correspond to the original. The Importance of the documents from the point of view of pre1842 Ch'ing history can hardly be overemphasized. As a collection of primary materials, covering the diverse aspects of Sino-British relations , they are remarkably comprehensive. In the FO 682 Series, there are close to one thousand loose, unbound letters in their original form...