Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/244

be obtained for moving up or down the river, and an extension of authority was given to the Hong Merchants. That Chinese officials should have derived from experience a conviction of the necessity for such measures is not surprising, but the system naturally proved painfully irksome to Europeans and Americans, who regarded the Chinese with open contempt and resented any exercise of authority by them.

Partly desirous of evading these restrictions and partly impelled by sanguine estimates formed in England, the East India Company made a final effort in 1832 to extend the tradal area beyond Canton. They fitted up a vessel "suitably" by loading her with miscellaneous goods, giving her a simulated character, and investing her officers with fictitious titles. "No device of ingenuity or enterprise was spared to dispose of the goods and to establish a traffic with the natives," writes Sir J. F. Davis. "These showed a very hospitable disposition towards the strangers; but all commerce was effectually prevented by the mandarins, except in one or two trivial instances. Some of the officers of government were civil and forbearing, and even accepted small presents; others less condescending were fairly bullied by the people in the Amherst, their junks boarded or their doors knocked down and their quarters invaded." The expedition proved a complete failure. Chinese officials, being under strict orders not to permit foreign commerce outside Canton, obeyed instruc-