Britain Abroad

_{British ships destroy Chinese war junks in the first Opium War. © Getty Images}

The foreign news was dominated by wars in distant lands in 1841.

The war with China was referred to, for convenience, as the Opium War but as observers of the international scene knew, opium was a pretext.

What was really at stake was the opening up of China for trade after the Chinese empire had shown a marked disinclination to import foreign goods or to welcome foreign traders. The war’s squalid beginnings were in the Chinese government’s seizing all the opium held by British merchants in Canton; and drunken British sailors killing a Chinese villager. An expedition under Sir Hugh Gough captured Canton on 24 May 1841.

Of far more uncertain outcome was the Afghan war that had started over the threat posed to British India by Russian activity in the region. A force had captured Kabul in 1839 but the opportunity for a fast withdrawal the following year had not been taken.

British control collapsed under the weight of rebellion and shifting tribal loyalties; in November a senior British official, Sir Alexander Burnes, was murdered by a mob in Kabul. The supply line for British forces was overstretched and at the beginning of December 1841, the garrison was almost starving.

There were three options now: to seize the citadel and hold out until relief came in the spring; for the army to fight its way back to India; or to retreat with all the inhabitants of the garrison. The British envoy Sir William Macnaghten attempted to deal with the rebels, resulting in his being summoned to an exposed plain outside Kabul and shot. His body was hacked to pieces and his limbs paraded in triumph.

Preparations were made to for the garrison to take the fatal third option. In the summer, London hosted the Straits Convention between Britain, Russia, Prussia, France, Austria and Turkey over passage through the Dardanelles. The Straits were to be closed to all foreign warships while Turkey was at peace; it was hoped this would maintain security for Turkey and reduce tension over the vexed ‘Straits Question.’ In New Zealand, settlers had been taking it upon themselves to trade in land and even appoint their own magistrates.

The British Foreign Office felt this process needed to be controlled. The country had been progressively coming under the British by 1841; naval officer William Hobson had taken North Island for the Crown by treaty with the Maori chiefs and the South Island by the right of discovery.

New Zealand was finally established as a separate colony on 3 May 1841 with Hobson as its first Governor-General.