ABSTRACT
21st April, 1834, inaugurated a new chapter in British imperial history and extended the responsibilities of the Royal Navy. The termination of the East India Company's monopoly of the China trade on that date led at once to complicated diplomatic and commercial relations between the aloof Celestial Empire of the East and the aggressive, ambitious Britons of the nine-teenth century. China's adamant refusal of diplomatic recognition to all foreign states and her rigorously enforced law that foreign "ships of war must remain outside the river and must not enter to Bogue" made representatives of the Royal Navy unwelcome visitors along the Manchu's coast. England's almost continuous wars with France from 1793 to 1815 and her conflicts with Spain and the United States during parts of the same period made the Eastern seas a theatre of hostilities and greatly endangered the China trade.
