Service in China
In 1844, he was appointed consul at Fuchow in China, where, after a short official stay at Amoy, he performed the functions, as he expressed it, " of everything from a lord chancellor to a sheriff's officer." Fuchow was one of the ports opened to trade by the Treaty of Nanking, and Alcock had to perform an entirely new role with regard to the Chinese authorities. In doing so, he earned a promotion to the consulate at Shanghai. He worked there until 1846 and made it a special part of his duties to superintend the established Chinese government and lay out the British settlement, which had developed into such an important feature of British commercial life in China.
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Famous quotes containing the words service and/or china:
“We too are ashes as we watch and hear
The psalm, the sorrow, and the simple praise
Of one whose promised thoughts of other days
Were such as ours, but now wholly destroyed,
The service record of his youth wiped out,
His dream dispersed by shot, must disappear.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“The awakening of the people of China to the possibilities under free government is the most significant, if not the most momentous, event of our generation.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)