PARKES KNEW THAT the privilege of being at the top table had a price: the uncomplaining copying of despatches and reports, the relentless study of Chinese, and the running of difficult errands. He was spending most of his time on the Queen, docked on the river at Nanjing, studying and working. Going on shore was unpleasant: the city was flooded and he would have to wade through water up to his shoulders to fulfil his tasks. He avoided falling down holes by sending a Chinese servant ahead of him and not treading in the places where the servant fell over. The swamps were breeding grounds for disease and he had his first bout of the dreaded ‘China fever’, experiencing a great deal of pain in his limbs and chest and had difficulty breathing. It was the kind of illness that carried people off and he was fortunate to get through it.

At the end of September, Parkes went to the island of Zhoushan, which had been captured the year before. The Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, had expected that Charles Elliot would choose this island over Hong Kong. He famously called Hong Kong, in a letter written in April 1841, ‘a barren island with hardly a house upon it’, and it was alleged that the Chinese had only given it up because it was so out of the way. Montgomery Martin, who visited in 1844, titled a book chapter, ‘Hong Kong: Its Position, Prospects, Character, and Utter Worthlessness in every point of view to England.’ Although the Treaty of Nanjing is seen as a catastrophe to the Chinese today, by the standards of the time, they actually got off lightly, losing a fairly small island that was unimportant to them.

Pottinger appointed Gutzlaff as Civil Magistrate in Zhoushan, and Parkes decided to stay with him, settling down to studying Chinese there and learning the business of managing such a place. He explained his decision to his sisters: