NYE, Gideon.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Peking the Goal, - the Sole Hope of Peace. First edition of this valuable firsthand account of the First Opium War, given as a lecture to Canton's expatriate community by the old China hand Gideon Nye, one of the supercargos imprisoned in the foreign factories in 1839.Continuously resident in China from 1831 until his death, Nye (1812-1888) served as the American Vice-Consul at Canton for the last decade of his life. The title of his lecture reflects the importance foreign powers attached to winning diplomatic and political concessions in the treaty negotiations ending the Second Opium War. For Nye and other diplomats and traders, maintaining proper representation in Beijing, bricks-and-mortar legations replacing the old system of embassies sent northward from Canton, was a must for the successful conduct of free trade. "Peking was now the formal heart of the presences of the treaty powers. Its walls within walls came to host settled embassies - not the transient establishments of the past, but diplomacy set in stone, advertising its presence on gateways and flagstaffs; and with it came other presences, such as missionaries, and the foreign Customs. This was victory indeed: for the Europeans, something marvellous to reflect on" (Bickers). In the 1860s and 1870s, Canton was likewise transformed, the cramped factory quarter replaced with a spacious, heavily guarded European enclave.Following the text of the lecture is an appendix, the second half of which prints laudatory revie

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