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Representing "Great England" to Qing China in the Age of Free Trade Imperialism: The Circulation of a Tract by Charles Marjoribanks on the China Coast

Ting Man Tsao, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

The publication and distribution of religious and educational tracts in "foreign and pagan lands" was a global enterprise during the nineteenth century. The religious circles and the general public in Britain and the United States saw printed materials, written in different languages and even dialects, as a powerful tool to accomplish the Civilizing Mission not only by spreading the Word of God but also by introducing “Western” civilization to the colonized and yet-to-be colonized peoples around the world. Religious periodicals such as the Missionary Register regularly covered the activities of British and American tract societies, issuing glad tidings about Bible translation, fund raising, new publications, the numbers of tracts printed and distributed, and novel ways of circulation. What exuded from these reports was an unquestioned confidence in the power of print in reaching out to large numbers of “natives” efficiently.

British traders and missionaries also wrote and published enthusiastic reports about the use of the press on the China coast, particularly during the early nineteenth century. Such reports, however, can only be appreciated in the historical context of Anglo-Chinese relations. Before the conclusion of the Opium War in 1842, all foreigners, forbidden from setting foot on Chinese soil, were physically confined within a small designated area by the Canton River, called the Factories or Hongs. Operating within the Canton Trading System, private traders were subject to the Qing government’s prohibitive restrictions and the British East India Company’s British-China trade monopoly, the latter of which did not terminate until 1834. Protestant missionaries found their activities even more constricted in China, for proselytizing was illegal. They were therefore forced to do most of their work in overseas Chinese communities. As for direct commercial, religious, and social contact with the masses of people living in the vast areas north of Canton, no European man could claim he had any—not even the most enterprising merchants and missionaries, the most lawless opium traffickers on the southern coast of China.
It was against this backdrop of a potentially boundless but hopelessly inaccessible China that the commercial and religious communities hailed the press as the best, if not the sole, tool that a limited, a very limited, number of European missionaries could use to reach out to large sections of the Chinese populace. Robert Morrison and Charles Gutzlaff, both renowned for their Chinese proficiency, were the most enthusiastic missionaries using print to promote “Christianity, Morals, and Useful Knowledge” in the Celestial Empire. Financially supported by British missionary and tract societies, the East India Company, and influential patrons, Morrison established the first overseas station for the China mission in Malacca (Melaka), called the Anglo-Chinese College, which boasted among other resources a Chinese press. Morrison could not overemphasize the importance of print in the “aggressive preaching of the Gospel”:
To a reading people the press is, to say the least, as efficient a method of conveying Christian knowledge as the system of oral lecture. And in many parts of the world it is more easily employed. A few living teachers aided by the press can convey knowledge as widely as many times the number of living teachers without it. (qtd. in Broomhall 178)
Through the College, Morrison poured out thousands of copies of books and tracts including installments of the Chinese Bible translated by him, and engaged several missionaries and Chinese converts to distribute them. The most aggressive, and the most well-known, of these messengers of God was Gutzlaff, who ventured into the forbidden ports of China and other Asian nations with a shipload of books and tracts (Broomhall 194-95). Morrison gladly reported to his patrons that Gutzlaff “found at the different ports where he touched on the coast of China, as high up as the eastern end of the great wall, a knowledge of the Christian books and tracts which had been printed and issued from Malacca”(R. Morrison, “To the Tract Society” 460). “The press,” Morrison observed, “ is now looked to by many to effect great change here [in China]” (R. Morrison, “To Thomas Fisher.” 488).

Representing "Great England" to Qing China in the Age of Free Trade Imperialism: The Circulation of a Tract by Charles Marjoribanks on the China Coast

Ting Man Tsao, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

Could the distribution of printed matter really help “a few living teachers” to cause “great change” among the “reading people” in China? A look at one of the most publicized tracts circulated by Gutzlaff, a “Brief Account of the English Character,” may suggest some answer. Written by Charles Marjoribanks, President of the East India Company’s Select Committee in Canton, this tract was, unlike most others Gutzlaff took to China, secular in nature. Compared with other top Company “servants” heading the China Factory, Marjoribanks was unconventional, departing from the “submissive” China policy of the Company, which avoided, as much as possible, any actions that might upset the Qing government in order to maintain the status quo, namely its domination over the British China trade in general and the increasingly lucrative opium trade in particular. After several clashes with the Qing authorities during his presidency, Marjoribanks observes in the headnote of his tract that the Qing officers had greatly influenced “[t]he public mind in China” with “Low Placards traducing the foreign character,” and that when these officials found that “they have no longer the power of misrepresentation in their own hand” they might be “induced hereafter to abstain from proceedings so injurious to our character and interests.”
It was to produce “some counteracting influence,” to correctly represent “[t]he object and endeavour of the English in China,” that Marjoribanks penned the tract in English in 1831 “with the view of circulating it through China” (Ship Amherst 4). Supportive of the Anglo-Chinese College both officially and personally, he asked Morrison to translate the pamphlet into classical Chinese and print hundreds of copies at Malacca (R. Morrison “To Charles Marjoribanks” 448; London Missionary Society 20). He engaged Gutzlaff and Hugh Hamilton Lindsay, an ambitious East India Company supercargo, to make a secret voyage to China’s coastal waters—the first of its kind at the time—so as to “ascertain how far the northern ports of the Chinese empire may be gradually opened to British commerce, which would be most eligible, and to what extent the disposition of the natives and the local government would be favourable to it” (Ship Amherst 3). Marjoribanks instructed the two adventurers to load a ship with English products for sale as well as cases of his tract for distribution. In the following year, however, when Gutzlaff and Lindsay were ready to set sail, Marjoribanks had to leave office (and Canton) for unexpected health reasons. His successor, John Davis, immediately steered the Company’s Canton Factory back to its conservative China policy and ordered Lindsay to deliver up all copies of Marjoribanks’s pamphlet and refrain from circulating them in China, because “the dispersion of [such a paper] by Europeans themselves on the coast” was impolitic and improper (Ship Amherst 5). Gutzlaff, who was not directly under Davis’s command, did not listen; nor did the overzealous Lindsay. As a result, five hundred copies of Marjoribanks’s tract as well as cases of other printed materials written by Gutzlaff were smuggled into China (Ship Amherst 4).
Marjoribanks’s tract, whose original English manuscript is transcribed below, provides a rare glimpse into the “character” of “free-born” Englishmen in China, informed by the ambivalence of early Victorian “imperialism of free trade.” Subject to the Qing government’s “ill treatment” as “ a barbarian,” Marjoribanks naturally devotes large sections of his tract to articulating a powerful England as an empire of seas, of which its countrymen are proud, and for which the Chinese, despite their own immense empire, should show due respect. The English, as the author proudly states, traverse the high seas “in safety and with facility” to trade with China, and have “valuable possessions,” “large territories,” “numerous islands” and “prosperous settlements” spread all over the world. Nevertheless, an empire of free trade cannot be represented by an awe-inspiring rhetoric of imperial might alone; it also needs to make gestures of goodwill because free trade depends, at least theoretically, on a high degree of mutual trust and reciprocity between the parties involved. Therefore, Marjoribanks mingles his language of national prowess with—albeit unconvincingly—assurances that England possesses “so great an Empire” that its government “has no Thirst for Conquest,” and that “[t]he object and endeavour of the English in China, have always been to carry on a pacific and amicable intercourse.”
Tellingly, Marjoribanks couches his complaints about the Canton Trading System in terms of Qing paternalism, criticized by Europeans as “tyrannical.” He speaks respectfully of “[t]he benevolent disposition of the Great Emperor of China,” which “has induced him to state his desire to treat remote foreigners, with indulgence, and consideration,” and attributes all the “oppressions” and “exactions” suffered by the foreign traders solely to “subordinate officers of his Government.” Marjoribanks’s adoption of the Chinese voice, however, is on a mimicry level. A proud Englishman, the author cannot help criticizing Sinocentrism severely: “Ignorant men have sometimes foolishly taught, that all that is good is centred in China, but that the rest of the Earth is worthless. How vain and childish is the man who reasons thus.” Always mindful of their “national name or honour,” the English are “very jealous of insult, and ever ready to avenge oppression and injustice,” warns Marjoribanks.
An ambivalent expression of national power and goodwill, respect and admonition, the tract nonetheless helped Gutzlaff and Lindsay narrate, for the first time in English bibliography of China, an “interactive” or “reciprocal” relationship with the Chinese people, showing to the reading publics that the “natives” were indeed “friendly” to European strangers and “favourable” to British commerce. Distributing copies of the pamphlet among “curious” crowds gathering around them, the European travelers regarded the “enthusiastic” acceptance of the paper as a token of the Chinese people’s “friendliness.” In his extremely popular Journal of Three Voyages along the Coast of China, Gutzlaff writes about an encounter at Chin-hae (Qinghai), “Highly delighted with the hospitable reception we experienced, we attributed it to the influence which the perusal of our little tract had had upon the natives. Crowds of people were collected at the beach to give us a kind farewell, whilst mandarins of all ranks vied with each other in their expressions of friendship” (190).

Representing "Great England" to Qing China in the Age of Free Trade Imperialism: The Circulation of a Tract by Charles Marjoribanks on the China Coast

Ting Man Tsao, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

Most mandarins whom Gutzlaff and Lindsay encountered in other provinces, however, did not welcome them with “expressions of friendship.” Instead, they took measures to drive the European intruders away, reiterating that foreign commerce was prohibited in ports other than Canton. In those places, Gutzlaff and Lindsay found the distribution of Marjoribanks’s tract even more useful. Not only did it facilitate “friendly” interactions with the common people, but it actually helped accomplish their mission by showing that these “natives”—unlike the “unfriendly” mandarins—were receptive to free trade. For example, in accounting for a prolonged confrontation with the local government in the Fokien (Fujian) province, Lindsay is pleased to state that the local villagers, who embraced Marjoribanks’s pamphlet, dared defy their government and tell him that “our mandarins are rogues, but . . . ‘the people’ are your friends” (Ship Amherst 37). In his official “Report of Proceedings on a Voyage to the Northern Ports of China” (which was later commercially republished), Lindsay even annexes the villagers’ written response to the tract “as a pleasing testimony of the effect produced by the distribution of our books, particularly the Ying-kwo [the one on England], the fame of which has spread greatly” (Ship Amherst 36).
We, the inhabitants of this village, have never yet seen you foreigner, (foreigners, not barbarians.) All people crowd on board your ship to behold you, and a tablet is hung therein, stating that there is a physician for the assistance of mankind: there are also tracts against gambling, and other writings, besides a treatise on your country, with odes and books; all which make manifest your friendly, kind, and virtuous hearts. This is highly praiseworthy; but as our language differs, difficulties will attend our intercourse. The civil and military mandarins of the Fokien province, together with their soldiers and satellites, are unprincipled in their disposition. If you wish to trade here, wait upon his Excellency the Foo-yuen; prostrate yourselves, and ask permission. If he complies, you may then do so; but if he refuses, then go to the districts of Loo and Kang, and there trade; for in that place there is neither a despot nor a master. When you have fully understood this, burn the paper. (Ship Amherst 37)
If Gutzlaff and Lindsay’s description of the power of Marjoribanks’s tract amongst the Chinese people sounds too optimistic to be true, it probably is. Living at a time when laissez faire was the rule of the day, contemporary reviewers of Gutzlaff and Lindsay’s travel accounts, however, were more credulous, applauding their voyage as a breakthrough in proving that, contrary to the received wisdom, the Chinese people—who could be efficiently “befriended” by “[a] few living teachers aided by the press”—were open to European commerce and Christianity. Immensely popular when they were published and reprinted from 1832 to 1834, Gutzlaff and Lindsay’s books created nothing short of a “free-trade mania,” a China craze among the British reading public, giving a death blow to the East India Company’s age-old China-trade monopoly (Tsao, Representing China 50-54; Tsao, “Uneven Distribution”).
The impact of Marjoribanks’s tract on the imperial frontier, the “contact zone” between cultures and powers, was of course a lot more limited, and a lot more complicated, than Gutzlaff and Lindsay, obsessed with the “opening” of China, would lead their reader to believe. Recovered from the Qing imperial archive, the story of the Yangs, who were given the pamphlet, throws into question the celebrated power of the printed page, the “Western” book, in Chinese society. Having been caught “trading [their] fish for [the barbarians’] rice” and “possessing a barbarian book,” the Yangs, a fisherman’s family, were reported in a memorial to the throne by Wei Yuanlang, Viceroy of the Min and Zhe Provinces and Military Governor of Fujian (Wei 111). This memorial and Emperor Daoguang’s corresponding edict contain some revealing information about the circulation and reception of the pamphlet on the “English character” in Qing China.
First, the Yangs claimed that they did not understand the people on board the barbarian ship because of linguistic barriers (Wei 111). This shows that Gutzlaff—despite his well-known fluency in Chinese dialects and despite his deliberate Fujian-sailor look—probably encountered difficulty in orally communicating with the coastal people who spoke dozens of regional, not necessarily mutually intelligible, dialects. Seen in this light, Marjoribanks’s tract, a nonverbal medium, was, in many cases, the one and only means of communication to which Gutzlaff and Lindsay resorted in order to “befriend” the “curious” crowds gathering around them.

Representing "Great England" to Qing China in the Age of Free Trade Imperialism: The Circulation of a Tract by Charles Marjoribanks on the China Coast

Ting Man Tsao, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

Crucial as Marjoribanks’s pamphlet was in helping Gutzlaff and Lindsay narrate a “reciprocal” relationship with the Chinese, the second remark in the imperial correspondence suggests that print could not always supplant, as Morrison wished, oral lecture as an efficient method to “convey knowledge” to great numbers of people. The Yangs, according to Wei’s memorial, were “completely illiterate” and therefore ignorant about “what book it was” that they were given (Wei 111). Given the facts that the areas that Gutzlaff and Lindsay passed were mainly fishing villages by the coast, and that the literacy rate there was very low, the tract, most likely, fell into the hands of illiterate fishermen and laborers, who probably valued it only as something that was normally beyond their means, something that they had not yet possessed. This may help explain why “the fame of [the pamphlet on England] spread like wildfire” among the coastal people, who flocked to the European strangers and “entreated for a copy” (Ship Amherst 51).
If, however, Marjoribanks’s pamphlet had indeed reached the Chinese intelligentsia, the “reading people” as Marjoribanks and Morrison had wished, could it then serve as a “friendly” but awe-inspiring introduction to the “English character”? Informed by the Qing court’s etiquette and politics, imperial correspondence can hardly answer the question fully. According to my extensive though not exhaustive research thus far, provincial gazetteers, which represent more local, less official points of view, unfortunately do not contain any reference to the tract—except for brief accounts of the “barbarians’” incursion into the Wu Song River (Ying and Yu 818). As the extant and perhaps the only contemporary written response to Marjoribanks’s tract on the part of Qing China, documents in the imperial archive are therefore worth discussing.
As these historical records reveal, bound by a long tradition of “closed-door” policy, the Qing officials and Emperor Daoguang, who had perused the tract, were not impressed by its delineations of England’s “enterprise” and “magnitude”; they did not even bother to mention, let alone discuss, any of its “facts” about this nation. Nor did they appreciate the tract’s expressions of “friendship” and “respect” deliberately couched in the Qing style. Educated in the literary tradition that emphasized decorum, they instead thought that the pamphlet was—despite Morrison’s years of classical Chinese study—“sometimes faulty in style” and “often unidiomatic in diction and syntax” (Funi 112). It was thus considered a “Western book of absurdity.” In addition, the tract’s mixture of “barbarian” unorthodoxy and “the inland [Chinese] style” looked very suspicious to the Qing government, pointing to the possibility that there might be a larger illicit cooperation between the foreigners and some “treacherous [local] people” trying to profit by offering the former material assistance (Wei 111, [Daoguang] 250). Although Wei reassured the throne that the Yangs had done nothing worse than “failing to discard or destroy the barbarian book immediately when it was given them,” Emperor Daoguang was not appeased (Wei 111). He chastised Wei for allowing his subordinates to do a less than thorough investigation into the circulation of the “barbarian book.” “If the fisherman’s family were completely illiterate,” questioned Daoguang, “why were they given the barbarian book in the first place?” (250).
A “Brief Account of the English Character” is a rare historical document providing revealing insights into the intersections of imperialism, print culture, and cross-cultural representation and contact between “Great England” and Qing China during the early nineteenth century. To fully understand the historical implications of the document, one must situate it (and its translation) between the histories, cultures, languages, and archives of the two evolving empires. This intercultural reading thus challenges Victorian and colonial discourse studies scholars to further rethink the already-shifting linguistic and geographical boundaries of their scholarship. For it is somewhere along and beyond these disciplinary borders, somewhere between the hubs of empire and its peripheries “out there” (such as the northern coast of China in the 1830s), somewhere between English and other languages, that one can go beyond seeing European imperialisms merely as internally incoherent, ambivalent discourses to trace and historicize as much the reach as the limits of imperial power and representation. As this contextual introduction may show, such historical investigation relies heavily on transnational and translingual archival research, which in turn calls into question the overemphasis on the European literary canon in colonial discourse analysis (cf. Young 408-09).
Morrison’s Chinese translation of the tract titled , preserved in microfilm and recently reprinted in a Qing archival collection, is accessible to researchers ([Marjoribanks], Da Yingguo; [Marjoribanks], “Da Yingguo”). However, Marjoribanks’s English original, not meant for publication, was never located, let alone tapped, by scholars. My recent search has unearthed a hand-written copy of Marjoribanks’s manuscript in the East India Company’s China Factory Records deposited in the British Library ([Marjoribanks], “Brief Account”). The document consists of a headnote and ten body paragraphs, totaling 1,516 words. A sentence-by-sentence comparison reveals that Morrison’s translation manages to be faithful to this original paper. What follows is the transcribed text of Marjoribanks’s manuscript2 (original upper and lower cases and punctuation marks are preserved even when they appear idiosyncratic by modern usage).

Representing "Great England" to Qing China in the Age of Free Trade Imperialism: The Circulation of a Tract by Charles Marjoribanks on the China Coast

Ting Man Tsao, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

REVd CHAS GUTZLAFF
REVd CHAS GUTZLAFF

The English Character

October 30th, [1831]

We here record a brief view of the English character and policy which has been drawn up in the Chinese Language, to be made use of at a future period by being printed, should it be desirable. The public mind in China has been so much influenced by Low Placards traducing the foreign character that we are induced to believe some counteracting influence may prove most beneficial, and that when the officers of Government find they have no longer the power of misrepresentation in their own hand they may be induced hereafter to abstain from proceedings so injurious to our character and interests.
Brief Account of the English character.

The English people inhabit a Country at the distance of 16,000 miles from China, at least this space is passed over by Ships, from the necessity of their proceeding round the Southern promontory of the great continent of Africa. Some idea may be formed of the spirit and enterprise of a Nation, whose Vessels traverse so vast an ocean in safety and with facility. They frequently encounter severe tempests, but from the Skill of their officers and the bold and daring character of the Seamen, Ships are rarely lost. Pirates or enemies do not venture to attack them. They bring the manufactures and productions of remote Countries and receive in exchange those of China. By this means the Subjects, both of the Chinese and British Empires are enriched, industry is greatly encouraged, and men rendered happy and useful members of Society.
The English have traded for upwards of two hundred years with China, and from Sixty to Eighty vessels under the English Flag are frequently within twelve months in the Chinese waters. To how many tens of thousands of natives does not such a Commerce give useful employment.
The policy of the English Government, has often in China been most falsely represented, and it has been stated to be ambitious, and desirous of increase of territory. No assertion can be more distant from truth. The Dominions of England are already so large that the policy of its Government, is rather to diminish, than to enlarge them. Besides the Mother Country, it has several valuable possessions in Europe, it has large territories in North America and numerous islands in the West Indies. The Cape of Good Hope in Africa belongs to it, it has several prosperous settlements in Australia, numerous islands in Asia, are subject to its will, and the magnitude of its Indian Empire is so great, that it comprises upwards of a hundred millions of Subjects. The small settlements of Penang, Martaban, and Malacca, and Singapore are those most contiguous to China. The Government of so great an Empire has no Thirst for Conquest. The great object, and aim, is to preserve its subjects in a condition of happiness and tranquillity. But while most desirous of doing so, it is very jealous of insult, and ever ready to avenge oppression and injustice.

Representing "Great England" to Qing China in the Age of Free Trade Imperialism: The Circulation of a Tract by Charles Marjoribanks on the China Coast

Ting Man Tsao, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

The object and endeavour of the English in China, have always been to carry on a pacific and amicable intercourse, but their anxiety to do so has on several occasions been frustrated. The benevolent disposition of the Great Emperor of China has induced him to state his desire to treat remote foreigners, with indulgence, and consideration but the Imperial benevolence of mind has on several occasions in past years been opposed by subordinate officers of his Government. Foreigners trading at Canton, have been heavily taxed and oppressed, and Commerce has been greatly impeded by the exactions to which it has been exposed. Natives have repeatedly been heavily fined and punished, sometimes cruelly tortured, and put to death, for alleged treasonable connection, with the English, whose only object was to conduct a Commercial Intercourse in tranquillity, and to obey the Imperial Laws. In addition to the Government duties, large sums of money have been forced from Native Merchants, and bribes have been received by inferior officers. Both Natives and Foreigners have been subject to these oppressions. The Imperial ear is too remote that [not] even the echo of such things should be heard, for they are often done in darkness and silence, but the great and enlarged mind of the Emperor, can never appraise such acts on the part of his Servants.
Printed placards have even been affixed to the walls of Public Buildings traducing the foreign character, disseminating falsehood and encouraging low and degraded Natives to insult Strangers who resort to China; Affrays and Riots, have frequently in consequence taken place; the public peace has been disturbed, and Commercial Intercourse interrupted. How much are the Police Officers to blame, who do not put an end to such improper and unjust proceedings.
English Sailors are often rude in manner, but kind in disposition. They cannot bear insult, hence Riots take place, wounds are inflicted and death is sometimes the consequence. On board English Ships that resort to China, strict discipline is preserved, and the men are immediately punished if they commit violent acts towards Natives or others, but the discipline is of little avail, if low Natives are encouraged by Law Officers to insult and attack them. The Laws of England make no distinction of persons, and an Englishman is as severely punished for an act of violence towards a Chinese, as he is for one towards a fellow Country man.
The manners and Customs of all Nations are different; With just allowance made for such difference, why should not Chinese and Englishmen live together on terms of friendly cordiality. The commands of the Sovereign of England to his Subjects are, wherever they go in the World, to endeavour to maintain an amicable and pacific intercourse, with the people of the Country, but never to be forgetful of their national name or honour. When Chinese Subjects arrive in England, or in any other part of the English Dominions, they live under the protection of the Laws, which are equally administered to them with the Natives of the Country. Their wrongs and injuries are all equally addressed.
Instead then of being encouraged to acts of enmity, towards each other, why should not Chinese and English strive together, which should most excel in acts of beneficence and kindness. In many instances, Natives of China, who have been found shipwrecked on barren Islands in the middle of the boisterous ocean, have been saved by the Crews of English Vessels, unfortunate men who might otherwise have perished in want and misery. British Sailors have long been distinguished for such acts of humanity and are taught to glory in them, more than even in deeds of war. Yet these are the persons, whom the Natives of China, are sometimes told by designing men, to insult and despise. The people of China are highly intelligent, industrious, and prosperous, but they are not the only people in the World who are so. Ignorant men have sometimes foolishly taught, that all that is good is centred in China, but that the rest of the Earth is worthless. How vain and childish is the man who reasons thus. If he had visited other Countries he would have discovered, that Heaven, had in its bounty and mercy, bestowed manifold blessings, on many other regions of the Earth. In England, the people live in tranquillity, their persons and property are protected by the Laws, Their Religion inculcates peace upon Earth, and good will towards all men, they have arrived at a wonderful state of improvement in arts and science, and in the cultivation of all those means, which serve to civilize mankind. They are feared in times of war, and honoured in times of peace. There is no Country, with which it is more the interest of China to remain on terms of friendly intercourse than England. It carries on a great and lucrative commerce with this Empire, and the confines of its Indian Dominions, almost border upon those of China. One river which rises in the province of Yunan, flows through a portion of the British Territory.
It is much to the honor of Chinese Merchants, that they are strict and accurate in their Commercial Dealings, and in some instances have shewn acts of much liberality to Foreigners. The pride of a British Merchant is to be just and liberal in his Dealings. The high name and reputation of the English East India Company in China has long been established. The promise of its Servants is as good as money accurately weighed, and its faith pledged in any mercantile transaction, has never been broken. Let the people of China think profoundly upon these things, and not treat lightly persons of this stamp and character. Let the officers of Govt in accordance with the decrees of the benevolent Emperor of China, treat foreigners with the respect and consideration to which they are entitled. Then indeed will there be peace, union, and harmony between the Native and British Community in China.
A friend to China and to England, whose anxious desire is the happiness of his fellowmen, traces with a feeble pen this hasty and imperfect sketch.

Representing "Great England" to Qing China in the Age of Free Trade Imperialism: The Circulation of a Tract by Charles Marjoribanks on the China Coast

Ting Man Tsao, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

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