The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 | Page 2

equally as regards the origin of that
dispute, and as regards the Chinese mode of conducting it, will give the
reader a key to the Chinese character and the Chinese policy. To begin
by making the most arrogant resistance to the simplest demands of
justice, to end by cringing in the lowliest fashion before the guns of a
little war-brig, there we have, in a representative abstract, the Chinese
system of law and gospel. The equities of the present war are briefly
summed up in this one question: What is it that our brutal enemy wants
from us? Is it some concession in a point of international law, or of
commercial rights, or of local privilege, or of traditional usage, that the
Chinese would exact? Nothing of the kind. It is simply a license,
guaranteed by ourselves, to call us in all proclamations by scurrilous
names; and secondly, with our own consent, to inflict upon us, in the
face of universal China, one signal humiliation.... Us--the freemen of
the earth by emphatic precedency--us, the leaders of civilisation, would
this putrescent[2] tribe of hole-and-corner assassins take upon
themselves, not to force into entering by an ignoble gate [the reference
here is to a previous passage concerning the low door by which Spanish
fanaticism ordained that the Cagots (lepers) of the Pyrenees should
enter the churches in a stooping attitude], but to exclude from it
altogether, and for ever. Briefly, then, for this licensed scurrility, in the
first place; and, in the second, for this foul indignity of a spiteful
exclusion from a right four times secured by treaty, it is that the
Chinese are facing the unhappy issues of war.'
[2] Putrescent. See the recorded opinions of Lord Amherst's suite upon
the personal cleanliness of the Chinese.
* * * * *
The position and outcome of matters in those critical years may be
recalled by a few lines from the annual summaries of The Times on the
New Years' days of 1858 and 1859. These indicate that DE QUINCEY
was here a pretty fair exponent of the growing wrath of the English
people.
[January 1, 1858.]

'The presence of the China force on the Indian Seas was especially
fortunate. The demand for reinforcements at Calcutta (caused by the
Indian Mutiny) was obviously more urgent than the necessity for
punishing the insolence at Canton. At a more convenient season the
necessary operations in China will be resumed, and in the meantime the
blockading squadron has kept the offending population from despising
the resentment of England. The interval which has elapsed has served
to remove all reasonable doubt of the necessity of enforcing redress.
Public opinion has not during the last twelvemonth become more
tolerant of barbarian outrages. There is no reason to believe that the
punishment of the provincial authorities will involve the cessation of
intercourse with the remainder of the Chinese Empire.'
* * * * *
[January 1, 1859.]
'The working of our treaties with China and Japan will be watched with
curiosity both in and out of doors, and we can only hope that nothing
will be done to blunt the edge of that masterly decision by which these
two giants of Eastern tale have been felled to the earth, and reduced to
the level and bearing of common humanity.'
* * * * *
The titles which follow are those which were given by DE QUINCEY
himself to the three Sections.--H.
HINTS TOWARDS AN APPRECIATION OF THE COMING WAR
IN CHINA.
Said before the opening of July, that same warning remark may happen
to have a prophetic rank, and practically, a prophetic value, which two
months later would tell for mere history, and history paid for by a
painful experience.
The war which is now approaching wears in some respects the strangest
features that have yet been heard of in old romance, or in prosaic

history, for we are at war with the southernmost province of
China--namely, Quantung, and pre-eminently with its chief city of
Canton, but not with the other four commercial ports of China, nor; in
fact, at present with China in general; and, again, we are at war with
Yeh, the poisoning Governor of Canton, but (which is strangest of all)
not with Yeh's master--the Tartar Emperor--locked up in a far-distant
Peking.
Another strange feature in this war is--the footing upon which our
alliances stand. For allies, it seems, we are to have; nominal, as regards
the costs of war, but real and virtual as regards its profits. The French,
the Americans,[3] and I believe the Belgians, have pushed forward
(absolutely in post-haste advance of ourselves) their several diplomatic
representatives, who are instructed duly to lodge their claims for equal
shares of the benefits reaped by our British fighting, but with no power
to contribute a