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that history cannot determine whether the attitude of China on that occasion was due chiefly to a sense of unceremonious treatment or to a determination that her isolation should not be invaded. But the initial error was assuredly on England's side, and she accentuated it subsequently by paying no attention to China's intimation that a responsible authority should be constituted. The popular song which represented Hongkong as the ultima Thule of the habitable world, had not yet been heard in London music halls, but Canton was counted such a remote and such an uncivilised place that really things there might very well be left to take care of themselves.

During these thirty months of interregnum the British superintendent did not attempt to return to Canton. First he resided at Macao, and afterwards he found quarters on board a cutter at Lintin among the fleet of opium vessels now assembled there to the number of about forty. Sir George Robinson was the British representative who thus took up his abode among a squadron of smuggling ships. Their propinquity does not appear to have shocked his sense of propriety in any degree. On the contrary, he found the position so good that he recommended to his Government the purchase of a small vessel to serve as a quasi-consulate, quasi-legation. By remaining at Lintin the superintendent would be beyond the reach of the