Changes & Chances
Chapter 9 A Sudden End
Just twenty-eight years after Company forces conquered Java in 1811, another expeditionary force attacked Chinese ports along the coast and lower Yangtze River. The First Opium War was another swift victory for the British. The issue at hand was the Chinese Emperor’s opposition to the Opium Trade. The EIC motivated only by greed did great harm to two nations. It forced the peasants of Bengal to cultivate opium at the expense of food crops, and it exported that opium to China, wrecking that nation’s economy, destroying millions of lives through drug addiction and besmirching the reputation of the West up until the present. The Company sold the opium to British and American adventurers with sleek ships that could outrun the Chinese government vessels. Two of the most successful drug runners were the respectable William Jardine and James Matheson, names still famous in Asian business. Not surprisingly, many Britons like Raffles and the missionaries soundly condemned the drug trade. In Britain both sides of the debate engaged in a hard-fought campaign of public propaganda and political lobbying throughout the nineteenth century.
On 29 August 1842 the Manchu government signed the humiliating Treaty of Nanking, ceding Hong Kong to the British and opening the ports of Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai for foreigners to reside and trade. Soon, other powers forced China to grant further concessions. Mission agencies, which had long held China in their sights, were now able to achieve the greatest single goal of nineteenth century Christian missions, to proclaim the gospel in the land of superlatives. It had the longest continuous civilisation, the biggest population and was the least evangelised country in the world. Within months the Ultra Ganges Mission closed down all its South East Asian stations and transferred the Anglo-Chinese College to Hong Kong. The US Episcopalian Mission (USEM) and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) also rapidly redeployed their missionaries from Batavia and other stations in South East Asia to mainland China.
The Medhursts stayed until 1843 to wind up the affairs of the mission and sell the land and chapel to the hastily convened ad hoc group of businessmen known as the British Protestant Community of Batavia (BPC), which elected a committee of five trustees. They borrowed the equivalent of 600 pounds sterling on very favourable terms from the factory of the Dutch Trading Company. They also took on responsibility to recruit a chaplain because the closest bishop, in Calcutta, was overextended
Just twenty-eight years after Company forces conquered Java in 1811, another expeditionary force attacked Chinese ports along the coast and lower Yangtze River. The First Opium War was another swift victory for the British. The issue at hand was the Chinese Emperor’s opposition to the Opium Trade. The EIC motivated only by greed did great harm to two nations. It forced the peasants of Bengal to cultivate opium at the expense of food crops, and it exported that opium to China, wrecking that nation’s economy, destroying millions of lives through drug addiction and besmirching the reputation of the West up until the present. The Company sold the opium to British and American adventurers with sleek ships that could outrun the Chinese government vessels. Two of the most successful drug runners were the respectable William Jardine and James Matheson, names still famous in Asian business. Not surprisingly, many Britons like Raffles and the missionaries soundly condemned the drug trade. In Britain both sides of the debate engaged in a hard-fought campaign of public propaganda and political lobbying throughout the nineteenth century.
On 29 August 1842 the Manchu government signed the humiliating Treaty of Nanking, ceding Hong Kong to the British and opening the ports of Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai for foreigners to reside and trade. Soon, other powers forced China to grant further concessions. Mission agencies, which had long held China in their sights, were now able to achieve the greatest single goal of nineteenth century Christian missions, to proclaim the gospel in the land of superlatives. It had the longest continuous civilisation, the biggest population and was the least evangelised country in the world. Within months the Ultra Ganges Mission closed down all its South East Asian stations and transferred the Anglo-Chinese College to Hong Kong. The US Episcopalian Mission (USEM) and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) also rapidly redeployed their missionaries from Batavia and other stations in South East Asia to mainland China.
The Medhursts stayed until 1843 to wind up the affairs of the mission and sell the land and chapel to the hastily convened ad hoc group of businessmen known as the British Protestant Community of Batavia (BPC), which elected a committee of five trustees. They borrowed the equivalent of 600 pounds sterling on very favourable terms from the factory of the Dutch Trading Company. They also took on responsibility to recruit a chaplain because the closest bishop, in Calcutta, was overextended
