trading on the Amur was restricted to a few merchants specially licensed at Peking.

Notwithstanding these precautions, the mandarins of those days, like those of more recent date, were at all times amenable to judicious bribery, and a reasonable payment sufficed to purchase a permit to enable goods to be sent out of the country in exchange for Russian gold. So the trade across the frontier gradually increased, and the Russians came to realise how much they had sacrificed by the treaty of 1689.

Whereupon Peter decided to send another embassy to China, in order that an attempt might be made to regain some of the ground which had been lost. The ambassador chosen was Captain Leon Ismaloff, who arrived at the Chinese capital in 1721, and was warmly received by the court. A house was placed at his disposal, and he was, with his party, made the guest of the emperor during his stay. After some friction on the subject of the kow tow, which Ismaloff refused to perform, an audience was arranged, and the Russian envoy was received in person by Kanghi, who took the Tsar's letter with his own hand, and agreed to allow one of Ismaloff's staff to remain in Peking as the permanent diplomatic agent of Russia. Ismaloff accordingly appointed his secretary De Lange "resident" at Peking, and returned to Moscow to report his reception, and the many expressions of friendship which Kanghi had expressed for the Tsar.

Thus direct diplomatic relations were created between Russia and China in the year 1721. But the Russian envoy had reckoned without the mandarins, who formed the Chinese court. Shortly after Ismaloff's departure, De Lange found himself practically a prisoner in his own house. All access to the emperor was denied him, and he remained little better than a hostage in the hands of the Chinese.

Meanwhile Peter, much gratified at the reports brought him by Ismaloff, decided to take immediate steps to strengthen the bonds of friendship between Kanghi and himself. He fitted out a large caravan, which he sent to

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China to open up a trade with the natives, and this in due course reached the Chinese frontier in 1722. On reaching Peking, however, a new condition of affairs was apparent. Kanghi lay dying. The mandarins refused to trouble themselves with commercial affairs; and the caravan was curtly dismissed without any opportunities being allowed for trade. Simultaneously, De Lange was expelled the city, and instructed to inform his master, that for the future any trade which might be transacted between the two countries could be carried on at the frontier; beyond which no Russian subjects would be permitted to come.

Finding himself thus rebuffed along the Chinese frontier, Peter determined to seek other means for obtaining those trading facilities so much desired in Eastern Asia; and he turned his attention to further Siberia, where it had become necessary to obtain a direct outlet to the Pacific, in order that communications might be maintained with the newly created province of Kamchatka. Accordingly a series of expeditions were arranged with the object of opening up the country and subjugating the natives lying between Russian Siberia and the sea. In 1727, Count Vladislavitch negotiated the treaty of Kiakhta, which decreed an everlasting friendship between Russia and China, and authorised the establishment of a permanent Russian mission at Peking, in which a number of students might be maintained for the purpose of studying the Chinese language.

In 1741, a considerable portion of Siberian territory in the neighbourhood of the Amur river was declared a portion of the Russian empire, without evoking any protest from the Chinese; and the ensuing half century was employed in surveying the extent of the new provinces and organising their military government.

In 1784, the American flag first reached China on the United States ship Empress, which sailed from Washington to Canton. This event did not, however, tend to bring about an immediate development of trade between the two countries.

The year 1786 saw the commencement of relations between America and China. In that In that year the government of the United States appointed Captain Shaw consul to China, and he sailed for Canton, where he took up his duties, greatly to the advantage of American trade.

Fifteen years later occurred the first relations between Annam and France. A number of Jesuit missionaries had found their way to the Far East in the train of the growing commerce with the West, and some of these had penetrated into Annam. This country was, in 1787, the scene of a rebellion which threatened to overthrow its ruler; and, acting on the suggestion of a missionary who had obtained his confidence, the king sent one of his trusted ministers to seek the aid of Louis XVI. in the re-establishment of his authority. Louis agreed to the request, and despatched a number of officers with a quantity of arms to the king's assistance, obtaining in return the cession of the peninsula of Tourane and the island of Pulo Condore, with the right of stationing consuls in any part of Annam. Thus was it that France obtained her first footing in the Indo-Chinese peninsula ; and though Louis failed to make immediate use of the opportunity afforded, owing to the outbreak of the French Revolution, the treaty signed at Versailles in 1787 was not forgotten.

In 1791 Portugal made an effort to obtain a footing in Korea, but the missionary sent for this purpose failed to enter the country. In the same year the first cargo of American cotton was landed at Canton.

Meanwhile British relations with China had been progressing, and British trade had grown apace. The arrival of a small parcel of Indian opium at Canton in 1680 served to show its superiority over the native product. The consumption of opium in China was, even in those days, exceedingly great, and a large proportion of Southern China was devoted to poppy culture. But the Chinese method of expressing and preparing the drug was crude, and greatly inferior to that employed by the East India Company. No wonder then that the demand for Indian

LORD MACARTNEY'S MISSION

27

opium spread rapidly throughout the province of Kwangtung. In 1767 the import of Indian opium amounted to upwards of a thousand chests, averaging a value of £200 apiece, and the annual value of the opium traffic at Canton at this period exceeded that of all the other imports added together.

In the year 1792 William Pitt decided to take advantage of the trade development in China, and ordered the despatch of an envoy to Peking to seek an audience with the Emperor Keen Lung, and open up diplomatic relations between the two countries. The person chosen for this mission was Lord Macartney. He sailed from Portsmouth in September, provided with a number of costly presents, and the squadron which accompanied him comprised two of the finest vessels in the British Navy.

Lord Macartney arrived at the Peiho early in 1793, and was welcomed by the Viceroy of Pechili, who escorted him up the river to Tientsin. There, and everywhere along the route, he was received with every honour; and he was subsequently, after an attempt on the part of the mandarins to prevent the interview, received on two occasions by Keen Lung at his palace at Jehol near Peking, with marked distinction. On his return, Lord Macartney paid a visit to Canton, proceeding thence overland from Peking. The ambassador was considerably annoyed by the importunity of the crowds who viewed his progress, many of which assumed an attitude by no means friendly; but he reached the south in safety, and duly returned home to report his experiences.1

În marked contrast to the reception accorded to Lord Macartney was that rendered to the embassy sent by the Dutch East India Company to the Court of Keen Lung in 1796. The emissaries were subjected to a variety of indignities, and were treated with a marked want of consideration. The embassy produced little or no result, and did not recoup its cost, which was considerable.2

1 See An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, by Sir George Staunton, 1797.

2 Authentic Account of the Embassy of the Dutch East India Company in the years 1794 and 1795.

In 1797, the first American ship arrived in Japan without effecting very much; and the century closed without any Western nation having penetrated further than the threshold of the Far East.

The first step taken in the nineteenth century towards the extension of European interests in China was that of the French, who in 1802 sent a gunboat to Canton to protect the interests of merchants there. The crew was landed and the tricolor hoisted, but it was not allowed to remain; and, in response to the remonstrances of the mandarins, the gunboat was withdrawn.

In 1805, Alexander, who had ascended the Russian throne four years before, nominated Colonel Golovkin special envoy to Peking, charging him to negotiate for the right of Russian navigation on the Amur river. But the mission failed, and, after being received none too civilly, Golovkin returned to Moscow without having attained his aim. In 1807 arrived at Canton Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to reach Eastern Asia, and he was followed by several others in the same year.

The success which had attended Lord Macartney's mission in 1793 had served to stimulate British trade in China, and the prosperity of the merchants trading with that country had increased in a marked degree. The satisfactory commercial relations between the two countries led to Lord Liverpool deciding, in 1815, to despatch a second embassy to the Celestial Empire. Lord Amherst was the ambassador chosen, and he sailed on the 18th February, 1816, charged with the obtaining of a commercial treaty with China. On arriving at Tientsin, the British envoy met with a very different reception to what he had expected. The attitude of the Chinese towards foreigners had undergone a change since Lord Macartney's visit. Keen Lung had died, and Kiaking was an avowed opponent of the "outer barbarians." Something very like a squabble arose at Tientsin over the question of Lord Amherst's continued progress. The eternal kow tow was made the subject of a wrangle,