Read The Nightingale Shore Murder Online
Authors: Rosemary Cook
The Nightingale Shore Murder (7 page)
The London Club to which Shore acted as Honorary Secretary had re-opened in January of that year with an eminent committee headed by the Duke of Portland. Advertising in The Guardian, it proclaimed itself ânon-political', and assured potential members that
âthe proprietary is entirely a fresh one, the late proprietors having nothing whatever to do with the Club; and the arrangements made between the Committee and the present proprietor are such as to justify the Committee in assuring members that the legal position of the Club may now be considered as perfectly satisfactory in all respects.'
With this ominous disclaimer, it is perhaps not surprising that, six months later, the club was still not able to provide any income to its Hon Secretary.
A Registrar of the Court was appointed to investigate the petition and the claims of the Respondent (Offley) and Petitioner (Anna Maria). The Court reconvened in front of Justice Sir Charles Parker Butt on 6
th
August to hear the Registrar's report, and to listen to Counsel for both parties. At the end of the hearing, the Court reached its decision:
â... that the interest of the Respondent in the sum of £1976.4s7d referred to in the said Report be wholly extinguished and that the said Settlement so far as regards the said sum be read as if the Respondent were now dead. And the Court further condemned the Respondent in the costs of and incidental to this application.'
Offley Shore had lost. In seeking to protect the money he had, he lost it down to the last seven pence, and incurred court costs as well. As far as his first marriage was concerned, he was dead.
One month later, in September 1889, Florence's mother finally put her first unhappy experience of marriage behind her. She re-married, in a much more conventional fashion than Offley, a military man seven years her junior: Joseph Henry Laye. At the time a Lieutenant Colonel, he would go on to command the First Battalion Scottish Rifles. Their wedding, in St Mary's Church in Harrogate, was much more of a family affair: one of the witnesses was the younger Offley Shore, Florence's brother, by then an army officer himself with the 18
th
Bengal Lancers. How Anna Maria obtained a licence to be re-married in church is another of the many Shore mysteries, however: at the time, and for more than another 100 years, the Church of England forbade re-marriage of divorced people in church while their spouse was still living.
Perhaps this turbulent family life gave Florence an unusual sense of self-sufficiency and resourcefulness. Maybe she would always have had a strong sense of adventure and curiosity. Or perhaps she just needed to get away. One way or another, after completing her education in Belgium, she set out on an extraordinary adventure for a young, unmarried Victorian woman â leaving England to work as a governess in China.
âWestern Dirt'
God and opium explained most of the Western interest in China in the 19
th
century. The desire to convert the Chinese to Christianity led to a massive influx of missionaries as soon as the borders were opened, under coercion, to foreigners. The desire to encourage, exploit and profit from the Chinese addiction to opium sent traders and merchants into the country, following in the footsteps of the massive East India Company. Other merchants traded in China's most popular commodities: tea, silk and porcelain. At the time that Florence went to China, there was also a community of British and other foreign diplomats and civil servants, as well as numerous individual Victorian travellers, exploring, collecting and writing about the âMysterious Continent' (or the âMiddle Kingdom', or the âFlowery Kingdom') for the benefit of the fascinated community at home.
This freedom to travel in China was still a relatively new state of affairs. In earlier centuries, the Romans had traded in Southern China, as had Moslem and Arab traders, Venetians and the Portuguese. The Jesuits were credited with having âopened' China in the 16
th
century. But in the middle of the 18
th
century, the Emperor had restricted foreign access to China to one port only â Canton â and trade and access were highly regulated. Access to the mainland of China was very limited; use of land for factories, offices and residences was confined to an area beside the Pearl River, outside the Canton city walls; no foreign women were allowed into the country; and an overseer kept tight control on all trade. This long period of exclusion allowed the Western world to build an idealised, romantic picture of China, based on the quality of its exported goods, and the tales of those merchants who managed to visit the very restricted areas open to them. Writing in 1935, E.V.G. Kiernan, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, described how the country was viewed prior to the turmoil that was to follow in the 19
th
century:
âThe charm of the Flowery Kingdom lies in its dreaming, through thirty centuries, in one mood, or one landscape of moods melting into one another with an incomparable harmony, as perfect as that of a Chinese painting on silk, or of the image called up in half a dozen phrases of a Chinese poem â clouds floating over the Gorges, the wild geese flying towards the South. Wherever the thick volumes of China's poetry are opened it is the same world, haunted always by the same voices, the same sentiments and familiarities, too poignant, too perfect, ever to be relinquished; a broad moon is climbing the autumn sky, peach-blossoms hang over antique gateways, cups of wine are warmed and books stand on the table to shorten solitary days; there are blue mountains and silken women, slow rivers with stone-arched bridges, the tears and dreams of separated friends, and in the distance the vaguer recesses of feeling that language cannot be forced to express.'
This idyllic view of the country was not to last in the face of Western commercial imperatives, backed up by military muscle. By the end of the 18
th
century, there was a huge trade imbalance, with the West importing far more of China's silk, tea and porcelain goods than it exported its own goods to China. Lord McCartney was sent to the country at the end of the 18
th
century to try to arrange a trade agreement, and an exchange of ambassadors, but his mission failed. So did Lord Amherst in 1816, and Lord Napier in 1839 â he died before an agreement could be concluded. In that same year, the issue of the sale of opium to the Chinese finally came to a head.
The East India Company had had a monopoly on the trade from the 1770s. Indian farmers grew the opium, which the company sold to China. In spite of the Emperor's edicts against it, opium smoking increased relentlessly in China, fuelling demand for the product. The Emperor ordered opium smokers to be punished by the pillory and bamboo, later increasing the penalty to imprisonment, transportation and death. But still the demand for the addictive opium grew, and the trade was simply driven underground to become smuggling. The Chinese continued to oppose the trade and punish their people for using opium; the British continued to pursue the profits available from the huge Chinese market. A report published in England in 1880 described this period:
âBetween the eagerness of the Chinese for our Opium, and our greediness for their silver, the wicked traffic soon grew to great proportions. The East India Company continued to develop the trade until in 1838-9, we smuggled into China more than 35,000 chests of Opium.
This illicit trade was not carried on without frequent protests from the Chinese Government, which, in 1835, issued an edict, expressly mentioning by name nine of the principal Opium merchants, and insisting upon their expulsion from the country. As this was not done, a proclamation was issued in 1839 requiring that the Opium-receiving ships should be sent away, under penalty of hostile measures if the demand was not complied with. Commissioner Lin [Lin Tse-hsu, appointed to suppress the trade] was sent to Canton with authority to deal summarily with the matter. He demanded that the Opium on board the ships should be delivered to the Government to be destroyed, and a promise given never to bring any to Canton again on pain of death. “I, the Commissioner”, said Lin, “am sworn to remove utterly this root of misery, nor will I let the foreign vessels have any offshoot left for the root to bud forth again.” Finding his orders disregarded, he surrounded the foreign factory by sea and land, thus imprisoning two or three hundred British subjects, with the alternative before them of submission or death. Capt. Elliott, then Trade Superintendent, dared no longer hesitate, but handed over to the Chinese Commissioner more than 20,000 chests of Opium, valued at two millions sterling, which was publicly destroyed by mixing it with salt and lime. But still the Opium ships came and sought to land their cargoes, and in this state of things some outrages committed on both sides brought an open war.'
This was the first Opium War, started in 1839 and ending in 1842, by which time 15,000 British troops had overwhelmed the inferior and under-prepared Chinese forces. The Nanking Treaty, which ended the war, exacted a very heavy price from the Chinese, designed to humiliate the country as well as to facilitate trade with it. The Treaty forced the Chinese to open five ports, afterwards known as âtreaty ports', to Western ships: Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai. China was also forced to cede Hong Kong to the British, and to pay 21 million dollars in silver for the expenses of the war, the debts due to merchants for destroyed property, and the value of the opium which had been destroyed. Foreign traders and missionaries were to be exempt from punishment by Chinese law; and a limit was set on the taxation that could be imposed on imported goods. The 1880 account notes that:
âIt was of this war that Mr. Gladstone said, “A war more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated to cover this country with permanent disgrace, I do not know, and have not read of.”'
So relations between the British in China and its indigenous population were constantly under strain. In 1856, the Chinese seized a British-registered ship, the Arrow, owned by a Chinese resident of Hong Kong. The subsequent riots in Canton, attacks on missionaries and the murder of a British official, sparked more military and diplomatic action against China, which became known as the Second Opium War:
âIn 1858, another unjust war broke out, and the English, aided by the French, bombarded the million-peopled city of Canton. Field pieces, loaded with grape [shot] were planted at the end of long narrow streets crowded with innocent men, women and children, to mow them down like grass, til the gutters flowed with their blood. In one scene of carnage, the Times correspondent recorded that half an army of 10,000 men were in ten minutes destroyed by the sword, or forced into the broad river. The Morning Herald asserted that “a more horrible or revolting crime than this bombardment of Canton has never been committed in the worst ages of barbarian darkness”. 30,000 people were burnt out of house and home. And all this for an imaginary insult to our flag, for which ample satisfaction had been offered.'
The 1858 Treaty of Tientsin legalised the importation of opium, protected Christian missionaries, and opened new treaty ports, but did not end the conflict. Finally, with the city of Peking surrounded by the allied armies, in October 1860, the Chinese yielded. However, the Emperor escaped the siege, and some British prisoners were found to have been murdered, so the British burnt down the Emperor's Summer Palace in addition to demanding compensation. The 1860 Convention of Peking forced China to cede the Kowloon peninsula to Britain, and formally opened the whole of China to traders, travellers and missionaries.
The tragic impact of the opium trade on ordinary Chinese people was described by a Mrs Adams, who was in Nankin in the 1880s. She wrote in âWord and Work' about visiting a woman whose husband's opium addiction had destroyed the family:
âThe poor woman was in a death-like stupor, and, roused, complained of a great pain at the heart and a weary desire for sleep. My husband gave her a strong emetic, which soon produced the desired effect.
While watching the result of the treatment, the following story was told: “The husband of this poor woman had formerly held a lucrative and responsible position in a Mandarin Yamen, or court. While there he first tasted what the natives call âwestern dirt'. As long as he kept his situation his wife and family did not suffer, but he lost it as the Opium obtained more complete mastery over him. He could get no employment, though the taste grew daily. His poor wife did all she could to keep up appearances and provide for her family, by winding silk and weaving the satin, for which Naking is noted; portions of their house were let off till they had but one room left for themselves. At last the bitter cold winter set in, and the poor creature found herself without money, without food, and without clothes, for those which should have protected from the cold had long since been sold to buy the fatal drug, and yet the infatuated husband must have money to satisfy the cravings of appetite. At last, the poor wife, in a fit of desperation, determined to put an end to the struggle by taking her life; and thus, ignorant of God, ignorant of the future, she was very near the unseen world, when it pleased God to restore her, as the remedies used were blessed to her recovery. The husband came afterwards to hear the Gospel preached, and seemed very grateful.” This is but a picture of what is occurring in thousands of families in this city, and in myriads of families in this empire.'
Inevitably, such devastation in ordinary people's lives led to great bitterness against the British and in particular those who came to China with the express intention of âimproving' the people there. The Bishop of Victoria, Hong Kong, was quoted as saying:
“I have again and again been stopped, while preaching, with the question, âAre you an Englishman? Is not that the country that Opium comes from? Go back and stop it, and then we will talk about Christianity.”'
In spite of the conflict between the opium trade and the message of the missionaries, which led to hostility and sometimes violence against them, missionaries poured into China. In fact, a British war report quoted in the London Illustrated News in 1842 explicitly linked the two issues:
âOut of evil sometimes cometh good, and the opium trade, which is little understood in this country, may have been the means intended by Providence for introducing the gospel and altering the condition of that benighted country, for that such an event is sooner or later to take place, no Christian can doubt.'
There were already more than 30 Protestant missions in China when J. Hudson Taylor founded the China Inland Mission in 1864, bringing hundreds more missionaries into the country. At the time of Florence's visit to China, the Mission boasted more than 600 missionaries at work in the country. One was Miss Annie Taylor, who travelled through China to reach Tibet, having felt the call of God to the mission in that country. Her story was reproduced in
China's Millions
, the Mission's own publication, from reporting in the
North China Daily News
. Miss Taylor had been travelling for almost a year and was passing through Chung-king when the article was published under the title âA Lady's Adventure in Tibet'.
âMiss Taylor', the article stated admiringly, âin addition to the suffering inevitable in a country so bare of food and shelter as is Tibet, and in a climate where the strongest often succumb, had her existence further imperilled by the treachery of her Chinese servant, and was only saved on more than one occasion from being murdered by the interposition of the more chivalrous Tibetans. And then, nothing but the most undaunted resolution, coupled with a coolness and nerve as astonishing as it is admirable, saved her from perishing a victim to such cold and hunger as it seemed incredible a frail woman should have survived.'
The article went on to relate how Miss Taylor had first attempted to enter Tibet from the Indian side in 1887, but faced illness and near starvation â although she had money, no-one would sell food to an English woman. Two attempts were made to poison her, and for ten months, she did not see another European. Retreating to China, she lived near the border for a year, building relationships with Tibetans and eventually making the border crossing in a convoy with four servants and ten horses.
âOne of her first serious adventures,' the account continues with considerable under-statement, âwas being attacked by a band of brigands with white fur coats, leading each a spare horse. Two were killed, eight wounded, and five out of her horses killed, besides much property lost. But a Lama called out to the robbers, “They are women! All women!” so she was not pursued. Amongst Mongols and Tibetans it is esteemed a dreadful thing to strike a woman, so that all women go about unarmed, although every man carries weaponsâ¦
On the 28th of September, the party crossed the Yellow River, there very narrow and dangerous, on yak skins blown out, with hurdles laid upon them, and drawn by horses. These rafts are awash all the time, and the water was ice-cold. They then found themselves in the very large Golok district, peopled entirely by robbers. But the Goloks never rob within their own territory. Travellers in making contracts in Tibet always have to agree to pay for a yak, or horse, if it die, or get stolen on a journey, but not if it be stolen by the Goloks. Their chieftain is a woman, and laws are strictly observed in her domain, and no bribes taken.
The Goloks relate how five Russians came to travel through the country, and they themselves went out to attack them 500 strong, but could kill none, though 12 of themselves were killed. Then came one traveller alone with a tin box. They all wanted that tin box, and still continue to reproach one another that they did not take it, but their belief was that on opening it an army of soldiers would come out. They thought the same with regard to Miss Taylor's two cases of chest of drawers, besides many other fabulous tales about her.'
Annie Taylor did eventually reach her goal, Llassa, and it was there that her Chinese servant turned on her and she was saved by the intervention of the Tibetans. They provided an escort to take her out of the region â but her trials continued.
âFor three days they lost their road; they had no tent. That and every comfort had to be sold, her servant having taken everything he could from her before he left her. When, on the 24th of December, they found the road again, they just hid in the hills for the whole of Christmas Day for rest. During all this part of the journey her sufferings from the rarity of the air were very great: palpitations, gasping, inability to digest their barley food. Of even that they had so little. Noga [the treacherous servant] spread a report that Miss Taylor was travelling with a belt of gold and jewels around her waist. And she had to travel by night, finding the cold beyond what anyone could imagine who had not felt it. Tea froze as soon as poured out, and for three nights they were only too thankful to find refuge in a cave with just room for them to lie down, half suffocated by smoke, so as to obtain a little heat.
On 31st of December, they crossed the Drichu into the Lhassa district, but had to stop near Najuca, within three days' journey of Lhassa, owing to Noga having gone before, making a great merit of revealing that it was a foreigner coming.
A military chief arrived from Lhassa, very gorgeous in his clothing, and at first rough, then friendly, and indignant with the Chinaman's treachery. There was a sort of trial. And none who can should miss hearing from this heroic woman's own lips how she stood out for her dignity as an Englishwoman, till in the end she not only won respect from all, but convinced them of the truth of her story, thereby saving the lives of her two Tibetan servants, who the Chinaman had tried to make out were treacherously leading her into Tibet.
The Chiefs told her as far as they were concerned she could carry on to Lhassa, but they would lose their lives if she did, and they gave her an official and nine soldiers to protect her against the Chinaman, beside supplying her most pressing necessities. Everywhere she found the Tibetans express liking for the English. They had been especially struck by the prisoners in the Sikkim war being kept alive, well fed, and actually supplied with money to go home with. So that there seems a little fear, lest should there be another war the whole people would seek to be taken prisoners!
On the return journey, the horses, which in winter have to be fed with goats' flesh, tea, butter and cheese, suffered so from hunger they were always tumbling down, until Miss Taylor joined herself on to a yak caravan, and 200 yaks made a way for them through 20 feet of snow.'