“The foreigner is represented as inferior in civilization, unreasonable, crafty, violent, and in consequence dangerous. The instructions of the court are accordingly to lecture him fraternally or magisterially, and by this means it is hoped to keep in hand his perpetual tendency to encroach and intrude. A stern tone is to be adopted on occasion, but always with due regard to the avoidance of an open rupture.” There were grave omissions in Sir Henry Pottinger’s treaty of 1842. It left the shipping and commercial relations of the British colony of Hong Kong in a very unsatisfactory state, encumbering them with regulations to which it was found impossible to give effect; and the trade emancipated itself by its own irresistible energies to the common advantage of China and Great Britain. The treaty contained no clause declaring the British text to be the true reading, and the consequence was, various and embarrassing interpretations of the intentions of the negotiators; the Chinese naturally enough contending for the accuracy of their version, while, quite as naturally, our merchants would abide only by the English reading.[6] There is no condition providing for the revision of the treaty, and it is only under “the most favoured nation” clause, which concedes to us everything conceded to other powers, that we have a claim to a revision; but we cannot demand such revision, unless and until it is granted to the French or the Americans. But the most fatal mistake of all was that which fixed on Canton as the seat of our diplomatic relations with China. It removed our influence from the capital to the remotest part of the empire--to a province always looked upon with apprehension and distrust by the supreme authorities at Peking, and among a population remarkable alike for their unruly disposition and their intense and openly proclaimed hatred to foreigners. It had been Keying’s calculation (and his assurances were most welcome to the court) that the emperor would thus get rid of all annoyance from Western “barbarians,” who would be kept in order by the indomitable spirit of the Cantonese. No provision was made for personal access to the high commissioner charged with the conduct of “barbarian affairs,” still less for communication, even by correspondence, with the capital. This was the first great triumph of Chinese policy, and has been fertile in producing fruits of mischief and misery.