Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/286

Canton immediately in front of a British trader's dwelling, the governor ordered the Hong Merchants to expel the trader from Canton and his ship from the river within three days. The Hong Merchants thereupon addressed themselves to the foreign Chamber of Commerce, announcing the suspension of all commerce until the importer was driven out, threatening to pull down his house unless he went, and declaring that no buildings should thenceforth be leased to any foreigner who refused to sign a bond pledging himself to abstain from all traffic in opium. This intimation produced no effect. The Chamber simply signified its inability to control the acts of any individual, and expressed sympathy with one of the Hong Merchants who had been condemned to the pillory because he happened to have guaranteed the smuggler. Of course under such circumstances an European governor would have sent a body of constables or soldiers to arrest the guilty party. But throughout the whole of this complication the Chinese authorities showed singularly patient reluctance to resort to force against foreigners. What the Governor did was to order that the first native convicted of dealing in opium should be executed in full view of the foreign factories. He still relied on impressing the "oversea men" with a sense of the heinous consequences of their lawlessness. But the foreigners, instead of being awed by the spectacle, regarded it as an intoler-