The Opium Wars: A Captivating Guide to the First and Second Opium War and Their Impact on the History of the United Kingdom and China by Captivating History

Author:Captivating History [History, Captivating]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7 – Conflict on the Horizon

Earl James Bruce Elgin by Felice Beato

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bruce,_8th_Earl_of_Elgin#/media/File:Felice_Beato_(British,_born_Italy_-_Portrait_of_Lord_Elgin,_Plenipotentiary_and_Ambassador,_Who_Signed_the_Treaty_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)

The first problem that sparked the Second Opium War occurred in October 1856 with the Arrow incident. A British ship named the Arrow had a troubling past. Built by the Chinese as a cargo ship, the Arrow was captured by pirates. Later, it was recaptured by the Chinese, who sold it to a merchant who worked for the British East India Company. The merchant used this connection to register the ship, making it officially British. However, he failed to purge the former crew, which included two pirates.

On the day of the incident, its Belfast captain, Thomas Kennedy, left his post to visit a friend, Captain John Leach. While Kennedy was chatting with Leach on another ship, two imperial junks approached the Arrow, which was docked at Canton, and started arresting its crew, who were all native Chinese. Once Kennedy managed to return to his ship, the Chinese officials refused to give him an explanation regarding the arrests but allowed him to keep two of his crew members as a skeleton crew. Kennedy was confused. To him, there was no logic in the actions of the Chinese officials. The Arrow was a cargo ship that transported rice, not opium, from Macau. It was later that he learned of the ship’s past as a pirate vessel. The Chinese claimed they believed the ship was again serving the pirates, as its British registration had lapsed.

Kennedy reported the seizure of his crew to Harry Parkes, the British consul in Canton, who immediately complained directly to the officials on board the imperial junks. He demanded all twelve members of the Arrow’s crew to be released, and he cited the Supplementary Treaty of 1843, which required the Chinese to ask the British consul for permission to arrest Chinese citizens who served on British vessels. The imperial officials still refused to release the crew, saying that at least one of its members was a pirate and that they needed the rest to testify his guilt or innocence. Parkes wouldn’t let the matter go. He was so demanding that one of the Chinese officials slapped him.

Humiliated, Parkes left the imperial junk and wrote a letter to Ye Mingchen, the imperial commissioner for foreign affairs and the viceroy of Guangxi and Guangdong provinces. But Ye was known for his brutality, which he used to crush the Taiping Rebellion in his two provinces. (Canton alone saw the execution of over 200 rebels and their families on more than one occasion when Ye was the governor of the city.) Ye replied that he could agree to release nine crewmen but that he had to keep the other three, claiming they were pirates. He also reminded Parkes that the Arrow was Chinese property since its British registration had expired, but in goodwill, he would send the nine crew members together with the letter.

After consulting with the governor of Hong Kong, Sir John Bowring, Parkes decided not to accept the nine

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