A few days before Mr. Jardine's departure from Canton, the entire foreign community entertained him at a dinner in the dining-room of the East India Company's Factory. About eighty persons of all nationalities, including India, were present, and they did not separate until several hours after midnight. It was an event frequently referred to afterwards amongst the residents, and to this day there are a few of us who still speak of it.
Mr. Jardine was succeeded in the management of the house by Mr. (the late Sir James) Matheson, who finally left China on March 10, 1842, after a residence of about fifteen years. He was a gentleman of great suavity of manner and the impersonation of benevolence. As the 'Chinese Repository,' in noting his departure from Macao, said: 'On his leaving the foreign community lost one of its most enterprising, able, and liberal members.'
On February 26, 1839, execution of a Chinese, said to be an opium-dealer, took place in front of the American Factory. The officers had chosen the hours of the afternoon when nearly all the foreigners were away in their daily walks or on the river. The man was tied up and strangled in a twinkling, and all had rapidly returned up Old China Street with the body. On landing from our boats we found the few who had not been away collected in the Square, and heard from them what had happened. The only public notice that could be taken of this affair was to discontinue the daily hoisting of the national flags before our doors; nor were they re-hoisted until March 22, 1842.
The appointment of a 'Kin-Chae', or Imperial Envoy, to Canton, for the express purpose of putting a stop to the opium trade, had now become known. This appointment--only made on an occasion calling for extreme measures--was conferred upon Lin-Tsih-Soo, and involved control not only over all the Canton authorities, but those of the southern and south-eastern provinces. His Excellency 'Lin' was the son of an independent gentleman of Tseuen-Chow in the province of Fuh-Keen who lived on the revenues of a porcelain manufactory, in which he himself had worked as a day labourer it was said.
The 'Kin-Chae' at length arrived at Canton on Sunday morning, at half-past eight o'clock of March 10. Two gentlemen and myself went on board of a small schooner lying off the Factories to witness his arrival. He was seated on board of a large official boat, with a few red- and blue-button Mandarins standing a little to the rear, so that we had an excellent view of him personally. He had a dignified air, rather a harsh or firm expression, was a large, corpulent man, with heavy black moustache and long beard, and appeared to be about sixty years of age. His own boat was followed by a great many others, on the sides of which, on a black ground, were painted in gold letters the rank of the principal occupants, while flags of various colours were displayed abaft. The crews were neatly dressed in new uniforms of red trimmed with white, and conical rattan hats of the same colours. These boats contained the principal officers of the city, civil and military, from the Viceroy to the Superintendent of the Salt Department. The walls of the 'Red Fort,' nearly opposite the Factories on the Honam shore, were lined with soldiers, as were those of the 'Dutch Folly,'[72] arrayed in bright new uniforms. Both shores of the river, every door and window, and every spot of standing ground, were thick with people. Everyone was observing the novel scene quietly and as curiously as ourselves. No other boat of any description was moving about; all were lying close to the shores, and a universal silence prevailed. Besides my companions and myself, not a 'foreign barbarian' was to be seen in the vast gathering.