Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/240

profound ignorance of their own oppressive and arbitrary conduct towards the Company's trade"? No page of history could be more comically consistent from first to last.

To establish an imperial court of appeal from the "capricious and despotic" local officials in Canton, another embassy was sent to Peking in 1816 under Lord Amherst. Its early experiences were a repetition of those of the Macartney mission in 1792,—courteous receptions and a seemingly friendly welcome. But Lord Macartney's coming had not been heralded by a series of events such as those reported to Peking from Canton on the eve of Lord Amherst's arrival. The Chinese Government had probably learned by 1816 that foreign intercourse as then conducted was quite inconsistent with the preservation of tranquillity, and there are also good reasons for believing that England's expansion in India alarmed and offended them, as she had just won victories in regions overrun twenty-four years previously by the troops of the Middle Kingdom. Nevertheless it is now certain not only that the Emperor (Kiaking) was quite willing to receive the British ambassador, but also that the hour of audience was actually fixed. Lord Amherst, however, considered that his dignity would be compromised if he acceded to the rapidity with which the Chinese officials sought to introduce him to the Palace. Highly inconvenient, if not wilfully unseeming, haste had been observed in