[2] On the British side, James Mackay (later the first Lord Inchcape) led the delegation assisted by Shanghai merchant Charles J. Dudgeon and Beijing legation secretary Henry Cockburn.
[3] The abolition of the likin tax system and recompense for its loss formed the main thrust of the sixteen article treaty and its three annexes.
Despite its importance as a source of revenue, forty years of abuse of the likin system by local powers rankled with both the Chinese and the foreign merchant community.
[4] Article XII of the treaty dealt with the contentious issue of extraterritoriality, whereby foreigners were exempted from the jurisdiction of the Chinese legal authorities.
At the instigation of Zhang Zhidong, the article, "without precedent in China's dealings with the west" affirmed:[5] "China having expressed a strong desire to reform her judicial system and to bring it into accord with that of the Western nations, Great Britain agrees to give every assistance to such reform, and she will also be prepared to relinquish her extra-territorial rights when she is satisfied that the state of the Chinese laws, the arrangement for their administration, and other considerations warrant her in so doing.