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eigners under similar circumstances, he too would have incurred disgrace. No rule is more strictly observed, no tradition more honoured in the British service. Yet the conclusion formed with regard to the Chinese on that occasion was that the incident "eminently displayed their jealous and suspicious character."

Some patience is required in perusing this record, so monotonously uniform are the indications it furnishes. The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century were prolific of such indications. In 1802 an English force was thrown into Macao to protect the place on Portugal's behalf against the danger of a French attack; and although the Chinese made it perfectly clear that Macao had never been ceded to Portugal, being only rented to her, the same measure was adopted by Great Britain six years later. On this second occasion the Canton viceroy's remonstrance being disregarded, he stopped the trade and forbade the furnishing of provisions to any English ship. It is difficult to see how he could have done less. Yet an attack on Canton by the British seemed imminent at one moment of this complication, and was only averted by the vacillation of the Admiral. To effect military occupation of a portion of a friendly State's territory, and then to threaten an act of open warfare because the State's officials decline to admit the propriety of the occupation,—these are proceedings which would create some surprise were