The Frenchman presently withdrew, the American, a consular official, resigned in 1856, and the Englishman, Mr. (afterwards Sir Thomas) Wade, a sensitive man, unable to endure the social boycott imposed on him, did likewise. Mr. H.N. Lay, Vice-Consul and Interpreter in the British Consulate at Shanghai, was then appointed to succeed Mr. Wade, and, as the two other Powers concerned did not appoint successors to their original nominees, he thereafter managed Chinese Customs business alone.
Such, briefly told, is the history of the service which Robert Hart joined as Deputy-Commissioner at Canton in 1859 at the suggestion of the Canton Viceroy, Laou Tsung Kwang--which he was to build up and in which he was to make his great name and reputation. From the first he did better than well. He set to work at once on a series of regulations for Custom House management. They were greatly needed--all the internal arrangements of the infant service were in a chaotic condition--and they were also greatly praised. The Viceroy himself was delighted. Here was his own young _protégé_, by his diligence, by his practical business capacity, by his unusual willingness to accept responsibility and by the promises of administrative ability he was giving, proving himself the very man to make the newly organized Customs a success. The Viceroy had chosen better than he knew.
Two years--from 1859 to 1861--Robert Hart spent in Canton setting affairs in order and working very hard in a hot, damp climate. Curiously enough he was never ill, though many men of far greater physical strength, of far tougher build, wilted in that steaming atmosphere; he himself was always too busy, I think, for symptoms and sickness.
During those years he had an unexpected meeting with an old friend. Word having been brought to him that a ship from Macao was expected to load teas at Komchuk--a place inland not open to trade--he started off with a posse of tidewaiters on the revenue cruiser _Cumfa_, to seize her. She was a shabby little vessel; her paint was scratched, her name almost obliterated. Almost, but not quite; he was able to make out the word _Shamrock_ at her bow, and on careful inquiry identified her as the very vessel on which he had travelled to England as a boy; but alas! a _Shamrock_ fallen on evil days, dilapidated by doubtful adventures in distant seas, and debased to the low company of smugglers.