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3 TraJe afterthe Company THE SUPERINTENDENT OF TRADE DURING THE TIME OF ITS operations, the Select Committee developed into the instrument of discipline for all British traders and the only effective channel of communication with the Canton authorities. British merchants, chafing under Company rules, had been successful lobbying for the abolition of its monopoly, now saw the opportunities of unlicensed trade opening before them, and had hopes of shaking off most of the fetters on commerce, unaware of the Company's failure of 1832 to open trading in other ports. Lord Napier (164) was sent out by the British Government to take over its functions as Superintendent of Trade; he arrived at Macao in July 1834 with his family, and as the opening move of an attempt to demonstrate his status, he moved to Canton, without waiting for the customary 'chops', to announce his appointment as head of a new commission, whose other members were two of the previous supercargoes ,]ohn Davis and Sir George Robinson. Among his retinue were Dr Colledge (see 94-6) as the 20 commission's physician, and for the briefest period Dr Morrison (141) - who soon succumbed to illhealth and pain and died at the start ofAugust - as its Chinese interpreter. The disappearance of the Company from the scene and the sale of its trading ships heralded a dramatic increase in the body of country traders, including those illicitly importing opium, and few were amenable to regulation. The established chain of command was broken. Among the traders, the commission could not attract the same general respect as the Company had, as it was not itself engaged in trading. There were no courts for the enforcement ofits restrictions. There was a vacuum in discipline and communication, which hostile Chinese authorities filled as sole arbiters and enforcers. Inspired by common interest, the traders founded a British Chamber of Commerce in an attempt to present a united front at Canton, electing James Matheson as its chairman and, until his death in March 1839, Richard Turner (93) as his deputy. Napier believed that the Viceroy would refuse to support the drafting of a commercial treaty unless persuaded by the threat offorce, and that the long-term answer to trading problems was to occupy Hong Kong, to set up British courts of law, and from there to engage in protected trading with rules that could be applied with consistency. London had warned him not to get embroiled in activities that 'might needlessly excite jealousy or distrust', and to ensure that the merchants obeyed both Chinese regulation and Chinese custom. These warnings conflicted with the further instruction that when he arrived in Canton, he was to write direct to the Viceroy announcing his arrival, which he did. Napier immediately found his mission at risk: he had arrived without seeking permission, and the regulations forbade foreigners from entering into direct correspondence with the Viceroy; the mandarins refused to recognize his position and froze British trade. Napier ordered two warships to force entry past the Bogue forts and sail to Canton, then was forced to leave for Macao, laid low with a raging fever, only to die there on 11 October. Davis, a later governor of Hong Kong (1844-8), removed the Commission to Macao and, disappointed by the months of inactivity that followed and considering that he would better serve the cause by pleading it in London, left for England. Captain Charles Elliot succeeded him as superintendent in December 1836. Matheson sailed home to lobby the politicians on behalf of his colleagues at Canton, taking the rest of the Napier family with him. The debate on the need for a permanent British trading base opened in London in earnest. British trading dipped sharply after 1834: the rapid increase of opium imports - almost doubling by 1838-9 - and the intolerable drain on 21 TRADE AFTER THE COMPANY China's reserves of silver to pay for them being the principal cause of decline. In the immediate runup to the first Opium War, the deterioration of relations between the mandarins and the traders is well exemplified by incidents in the lives of merchants and others who themselves, or members of whose families, lie in the Old Cemetery: James Innes (137), Robert Forbes (see 163), Sandwith Drinker (39), Senn van Basel (99), H.G.]. Reynvaan (see 106), Nathaniel Kinsman (112), Henry Bridges (108), James Daniell (see 97) and Vincent Stanton. THE INNES INCIDENT R.B. FORBES, YOUNGER BROTHER ofThomas Forbes (163), has left a detailed record...

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