The historic peacock cap feather of Ye Mingchen

The historic peacock cap feather of Ye Mingchen, governor of Guangdong during the early stages of the 2nd Anglo-Chinese war (the 2nd Opium War), taken as a trophy by Captain (later First Sea Lord) Astley Cooper-Key, following Ye's capture in January 1858.

Ye Mingchen was the Chinese governor of Canton who devoted himself to resisting British mercantile and naval aggression, and in so doing became the focus of their ire and a target for retribution by British Consul Harry Parkes. Captain Cooper-Key was the talented officer who accompanied Parkes in his search for the Governor, and who personally caught and restrained him after the Consul had been deceived by a decoy.

In 1856 Guangdong (Canton) was one of five Chinese ports through which, under the terms of the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, the British were allowed limited commercial access to China. Signed against the background of British aggression and their iniquitous trade in opium, the term of the treaty were ongoing source of offence to the Chinese. For their part the British were dissatisfied with the limited nature of the concessions that had been made to them, and a pretext for further violence was soon found in the 'Arrow Incident' of 1856, in which a vessel with a spurious claim to British registration was seized by the Chinese. The initial focus for hostilities was Canton, which the British approached from their base in Hong Kong. Here they were opposed by Ye Mingchen. In December 1857 a concerted effort to take the city by a combined force of British and French sailors and soldiers met with success.

Captain Cooper-Key of H.M.S. Sans Pareil went ashore to command part of the naval brigade in the assault. His men, though initially delayed, scaled the 30 foot high walls under fire, and later accompanied Admiral Sir Michael Seymour on a circuit of the ramparts, disabling the Chinese guns. The capture of their adversary Ye Mingchen was a priority for the British, and Cooper-Key, with 100 men, accompanied the British Consul Harry Parkes on a hunt through the labyrinthine streets. Arriving at a palace, Parkes initially accepted the surrender of a man claiming to be Ye, before Cooper-Key found the real governor attempting to escape, and personally apprehended him with the assistance of his Coxwain. The feather was preserved in his family with a note indicating that it had been taken from Mingchen's own cap.

References:

Vice Admiral P. H. Colomb, 'Memoirs of Admiral the Right Honbl Sir Astley Cooper Key'

Hanes and Sanello, 'The Opium Wars, The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another'