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It was Chinese policy to treat all foreigners similarly. As a result it concluded treaties with the other major trading nations, France and America, on broadly similar lines to that of Britain.
Much as China had been humiliated in the Treaty of Nankin, implementation did not completely satisfy the British. There were disputes as to whether the British merchants had the right to settle permanently within Canton, disputes over representation in Peking. Opium had not been legalized. In consequence, the British did not allow it through their treaty ports. Nevertheless, a flourishing trade in smuggled Indian opium still operated along the coast. Lord Palmerston, still Foreign Secretary in 1850, considered the whole settlement inadequate:
The time is fast coming when we shall be obliged to strike another blow in China...these half-civilsed governments such as those in China, Portugal and Spanish America, all require a dressing every eight or ten years to keep them in order.
Matters came to a head in 1856, when the Chinese arrested the crew of a suspected pirate ship, the Arrow. Lord Palmerston, after sixteen years as Foreign Secretary, and short spells as Home Secretary, had now become Prime Minister. He was now even more belligerent than at the time of the first Opium War. The British public loved his rhetoric:
As the Roman, in days of old, held himself free from indignity, when he could say Civis Romonus sum; so also, a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong.
The British consul at Canton and the Governor of Hong Kong mounted a naval attack on Canton, and captured the Chinese Governor-General's residence. In retaliation foreign factories outside the walled city were burned, and rewards were offered for the death or capture of the British. Palmerston now saw his opportunity to finish business with the Chinese. Another expeditionary force was assembled under Lord Elgin. Following the murder of one of their missionaries, the French joined the British.
Tea | By Roy Moxham
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