The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 | Page 7

Chinese) emperor, who (upon finding
himself in a dreadfully small minority) retired into his garden with his
daughter, and there hanged both himself and the lady. On no account
would he have decapitated either; since in that case the corpses, being
headless, would in Chinese estimation have been imperfect.
[5] 'Colonel Chesney:'--The same, I believe, whose name was at one
time so honourably known in connection with the Euphrates and its
steam navigation.
CONDUCT OF THE WAR.
Such is the condition of that guilty town, nearest of all Chinese towns
to Hong-Kong, and indissolubly connected with ourselves. From this
town it is that the insults to our flag, and the attempts at poisoning,
wholesale and retail, have collectively emanated; and all under the
original impulse of Yeh. Surely, in speculating on the conduct of the
war, either as probable or as reasonable, the old oracular sentence of
Cato the Elder and of the Roman senate (Delenda est Carthago) begins
to murmur in our ears--not in this stern form, but in some modification,
better suited to a merciful religion and to our western civilization. It is a
great neglect on the part of somebody, that we have no account of the
baker's trial at Hong-Kong. He was acquitted, it seems; but upon what
ground? Some journals told us that he represented Yeh as coercing him
into this vile attempt, through his natural affection for his family,
alleged to be in Yeh's power at Canton. Such a fact, if true, would
furnish some doubtful palliation of the baker's crime, and might have
weight allowed in the sentence; but surely it would place a most
dangerous power in the hands of Chinese grandees, if, through the
leverage of families within their grasp, and by official connivance on
our part, they could reach and govern a set of agents in Hong-Kong. No
sympathy with our horror of secret murders by poison, under the shelter
of household opportunities, must be counted on from the emperor, for
he has himself largely encouraged, rewarded, and decorated these
claims on his public bounty. The more necessary that such nests of

crime as Canton, and such suggestors of crime as Yeh, should be
thoroughly disarmed. This could be done, as regards the city, by three
changes:--First, by utterly destroying the walls and gates; secondly, by
admitting the British to the freest access, and placing their residence in
a special quarter, upon the securest footing; thirdly, and as one chief
means in that direction, by establishing a police on an English plan, and
to some extent English in its composition. As to the cost, it is evident
enough that the colonial head-quarters at Hong-Kong must in future
keep up a permanent military establishment; and since any danger
threatening this colony must be kindled and fed chiefly in Canton, why
not make this large city, sole focus as it is of all mischief to us, and not
a hundred miles distant from the little island, the main barrack of the
armed force?
Upon this world's tariff of international connections, what is China in
relation to Great Britain? Free is she, or not--free to dissolve her
connection with us? Secondly, what is Great Britain, when
commercially appraised, in relation to China? Is she of great value or
slight value to China? First, then, concerning China, viewed in its
connection with ourselves, this vast (but perhaps not proportionably
populous) country offers by accident the same unique advantage for
meeting a social hiatus in our British system that is offered by certain
southern regions in the American United States for meeting another
hiatus within the same British system. Without tea, without cotton,
Great Britain, no longer great, would collapse into a very anomalous
sort of second-rate power. Without cotton, the main bulwark of our
export commerce would depart. And without tea, our daily life would,
generally speaking, be as effectually-ruined as bees without a Flora. In
both of these cases it happens that the benefit which we receive is
unique; that is, not merely ranking foremost upon a scale of similar
benefits reaped from other lands--a largest contribution where others
might still be large--but standing alone, and in a solitude that we have
always reason to regard as alarming. So that, if Georgia, &c., withdrew
from Liverpool and Manchester her myriads of cotton bales, palsied
would be our commercial supremacy; and, if childish China should
refuse her tea (for as to her silk, that is of secondary importance), we
must all go supperless to bed: seriously speaking, the social life of

England would receive a deadly wound. It is certainly a phenomenon
without a parallel in the history of social man--that a great nation,
numbering twenty-five millions, after making an allowance on account
of those amongst the very poorest of the Irish who do not use