marching to the relief of Lucknow. The crews of the 'Shannon' and
'Pearl' are protecting other disturbed districts, and the marines
garrisoning Calcutta.... It cannot therefore be said that I have not
done Canning a good turn. I think, however, that there is a
disposition, both in Calcutta and in England, to underrate our needs
in China, and I am disposed to write to Canning a despatch which will
bring this point out.... If we take Canton by naval means alone, we
shall probably not be able to hold the city; in which case we shall
probably occasion a great deal of massacre and bloodshed, without
influencing in the slightest degree the Court of Pekin.

[Sidenote: Continued perplexities.]

_October 9th._--I do not think that the naval actions here have really
done anything towards solving our questions, and perhaps they may have
been injurious, in so far as they have enabled the Government and the
Press to take up the tone that we could settle our affairs without
troops. All these partial measures increase the confidence of the
Chinese in themselves, and confirm them in the opinion that we cannot
meet them on land. They have never denied our superiority by sea.

_October 13th._--No steamer from England yet. I have just despatched
letters to Canning, in the sense I have already explained to you....
General Ashburnham's position is a very cruel one,--at the head of a
whole lot of doctors and staff-officers of all kinds, without any
troops. The enormous amount of supplies sent out passes belief. Oceans
of porter, soda-water, wine of all sorts, and delicacies that I never
even heard of, for the hospitals. I am told, even tea and sugar, but
that may be a calumny. This is the reaction, after the economies
practised in the Crimea, and will be persevered in, I suppose, till
Parliament gets tired of paying, and then we shall have counteraction
the other way.

On the 16th of October the French ambassador reached Hong-kong, having been
delayed by the breaking down of an engine, which made it necessary for him
to stay at Singapore to refit. The relations of the two ambassadors, at
first somewhat distant and diplomatic, soon ripened into mutual feelings of
cordial regard.

[Sidenote: Arrival of Baron Gros.]

_October 18th._--The instructions brought by the last mail give me
much greater latitude of action; in fact, untie my hands altogether. I
hope I shall get Baron Gros to go with me; but if not, I shall go at
Canton alone. The Admiral is quite ready for the attempt, as soon as
his marines arrive.

[Sidenote: A sister's death.]

_October 30th._--How little was I prepared for the sad intelligence
brought to me by your last![8] How constantly we shall all feel the
absence of that good genius!--that Providence always on the watch to
soothe the wretched and to console the afflicted. I had never thought
of her early removal by death; and yet one ought to have done so, for
she complained much of suffering last year, and all who knew her well
must have felt that to make her complain her sufferings must have been
great. She is gone; and she will leave behind her a blank in many
existences.... Many years ago we were much together. She was then in
the full vigour of her faculties.... I had ample opportunity then of
appreciating the remarkable union of heart and head and soul which her
character presented. Many of her letters written in those days were of
rare excellence.... I feel for you.

_October 31st._--I shall hardly recognise Scotland without her, so
much did she, in her unobtrusive and quiet way, make herself the point
to which, in all difficulties and joys, one looked.... Poor Maxwell
has the satisfaction of knowing that all that was great and lovable in
her flourished under his protection and with his sympathy. Perhaps
that is the best consolation which a person bereaved as he is can
enjoy. It is not a consolation which will arrest his progress along
the path which she has trodden before, but it is one which will strew
it with flowers.... Already, when this letter reaches you, the green
weeds will have begun to creep over the new-made grave, and the crust
of habit to cover wounds which at first bled most freely. It is also a
soothing reflection that hers was a life of which death is rather the
crown than the close; so that it will not be in gloom, but in the soft
sunset light of memory that they who have been wont to walk with her,
and are now deprived of her companionship, will have henceforward to
tread their weary way. I see in that sunset light the days when we
were much together--when she used to call herself my wife. In those
days her nervous system was stronger than it was when you became
acquainted with her. Her soul spoke through more obedient organs.
Nothing could exceed the eloquence and beauty of her letters in those
days, when written under the influence of strong feeling. She is gone.
I do not expect ever to see her like again.

_November 1st._--Poor Balgonie, too. It is another loss; very sad,
though different in its character. When I saw him at Malta, I had not
a conception that he would last so long.... On _November 1st_ I am
reading your thoughts of _September 1st._ How far apart this proves us
to be!... I sympathise deeply in all those feelings.... To whatever
side one looks there is the sad blank effected by her removal; even in
my public interests, I cannot say how much, since I returned home, I
owed to her thoughtfulness and affection.... Cut off as we are here at
present from all immediate contact with home interests, it is
difficult to realise her removal and its consequences to the full. It
is a stunning blow from which one recovers gradually to a
consciousness of a great and undefined loss. God bless you!... and
grant that you may share her inexpressible comfort.

[Sidenote: Visit to Macao.]

_November 8th._--I have been absent for four days on a tour.... I
liked Macao, because there is some appearance about it of a history,
--convents and churches, the garden of Camoens, &c. The Portuguese have
been in China about three hundred years. Hong-kong was a barren rock
fifteen years ago. Macao is Catholic, Hong-kong Protestant. So these
causes combined give the former a wonderful superiority in all that is
antique and monumental.

_November 14th._--I have received your letters to September 24th....
The Government approve entirely of my move to Calcutta, and Lord
Clarendon writes very cordially on the subject.

_November 15th._--I have seen the Russian Plenipotentiary.... He has
been at Kiachta and the mouth of the Peiho, asking for admission to
Pekin, and got considerably snubbed at both places, as I should have
been if I had gone there. It will devolve on me, I apprehend, to
administer the return, which is not, I think, a bad arrangement for
British prestige in the East.

[Sidenote: Beginning of serious work.]

_Steamer 'Ava,' Hong-kong.--November 17th._--My serious work is about
to begin. I must draw up a challenge for Yeh, which is a delicate
matter. Gros showed me a _projet de note_ when I called on him some
days ago. It is very long, and very well written. The fact is, that he
has a much better case of quarrel than we; at least one that lends
itself much better to rhetoric. An opium-ship came in from Calcutta
yesterday. It brought me nothing from Canning. It is clear, however,
that things are getting better with him. I think it probable that my
despatch anticipating a favourable turn of affairs there, and founding
on that anticipation a demand for reinforcements, will reach England
at the very time when the news from India justifying that anticipation
will be received.... The Government and public in England would not
believe there was any danger in India for a long time, and
consequently allowed the season for precautionary measures to pass by,
and then made up for their apathy by the most exaggerated
apprehensions. My mind has been more tranquil, for it has not
presented these phases. As soon as I heard of Canning's difficulties,
I determined to do what I could for him; but it never occurred to me
that we were to act as if the game was up with us in the East.

[Sidenote: How to govern a democracy.]

The secret of governing a democracy is understood by men in power at
present. Never interfere to check an evil until it has attained such
proportions that all the world see plainly the necessities of the
case. You will then get any amount of moral and material support that
you require; but if you interfere at an earlier period, you will get
neither thanks nor assistance! I am not at all sure but that the time
is approaching when foresight will be a positive disqualification in a
statesman. But to return to our own matters. The Government and public
are thinking of nothing but India at present. It does not however
follow, that quite as strong a feeling might not be got up for China
in a few months. If we met with anything like disaster here, that
would certainly be the case.

[Sidenote: Description of Hong-kong.]

_Head-Quarters House, Hong-kong.--November 22nd._--I wish you could
take wings and join me here, if it were even for a few hours. We
should first wander through these spacious apartments. We should then
stroll out on the verandah, or along the path of the little terrace
garden which General Ashburnham has surrounded with a defensive wall,
and from thence I should point out to you the harbour, bright as a
flower-bed with the flags of many nations, the jutting promontory of
Kowloon, and the barrier of bleak and jagged hills that bounds the
prospect. A little later, when the sun began to sink, and the long
shadows to fall from the mountain's side, we should set forth for a
walk along a level pathway of about a quarter of a mile long, which is
cut in its flank, and connects with this garden, and from thence we
should watch this same circle of hills, now turned into a garland, and
glowing in the sunset lights, crimson and purple, and blue and green,
and colours for which a name has not yet been found, as they
successively lit upon them. Perhaps we should be tempted to wait (and
it would not be long to wait, for the night follows in these regions
very closely on the heels of day), until, on these self-same hills,
then gloomy and dark and sullen, tens of thousands of bright and
silent stars were looking down calmly from heaven.

_Macao.--December 2nd._--Baron Gros and I have been settling our plans
of proceeding, which we are conducting with a most cordial
_entente_.... As he is well versed in all the forms and usages of
diplomacy, he is very useful to me in such points.... I have been
living here in the house of Mr. Dent, one of the merchant princes of
China. He is very obliging, and I have remained at his request a day
longer than I intended. I return, however, to-day. I like Macao with
its air of antiquity, in some respects almost of decadence. It is more
interesting than Hong-kong, which has only existed fifteen years, and
is as go-a-head and upstart and staring as 'one of our cities,' as my
American friend informed me a few days ago.

_Hong-kong.--December 5th._--When I went out to walk with Oliphant, I
was informed by a person I met in a very public walk just out of the
town, that a man had been robbed very near where we were. I met the
person immediately afterwards. He was rather a _mesquin_-looking
Portuguese, and he said that three Chinamen had rushed upon him,
knocked him down, thrown a quantity of sand into his eyes, and carried
off his watch. This sort of affair is not uncommon. I have bought a
revolver, and am beginning to practise pistol-shooting.

[Sidenote: Preparation for action.]

_December 9th._--Baron Gros came here on Monday. We have been busy,
and all our plans are settled. I sent up this evening to the Admiral
my letter to Yeh, which is to be delivered on Saturday the 12th. He is
to have ten days to think over it, and if at the end of that time he
does not give in, the city will be taken. We are in for it now. I have
hardly alluded in my ultimatum to that wretched question of the
'Arrow,' which is a scandal to us, and is so considered, I have reason
to know, by all except the few who are personally compromised. I have
made as strong a case as I can on general grounds against Yeh, and my
demands are most moderate. If he refuses to accede to them, which he
probably will, this will, I hope, put us in the right when we proceed
to extreme measures. The diplomatic position is excellent. The Russian
has had a rebuff at the mouth of the Peiho; the American at the hands
of Yeh. The Frenchman gives us a most valuable moral support by saying
that he too has a sufficient ground of quarrel with Yeh. We stand
towering above all, using calm and dignified language, moderate in our
demands, but resolute in enforcing them. If such had been our attitude
from the beginning of this controversy it would have been well.
However, we cannot look back; we must do for the best, and trust in
Providence to carry us through our difficulties.


[1] One of his Fifeshire neighbours.

[2] The Governor of the island.

[3] His brother, then Consul-general of Egypt.

[4] His eldest son.

[5] His birthday, and also his father's.

[6] Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission, i. 55.

[7] Life of Lady Rachel Russell.

[8] The death of his elder sister, Lady Matilda Maxwell.




CHAPTER VIII.

FIRST MISSION TO CHINA. CANTON.

IMPROVED PROSPECTS--ADVANCE  ON CANTON--BOMBARDMENT AND  CAPTURE--JOINT
TRIBUNAL--MAINTENANCE OF ORDER--CANTON PRISONS--MOVE NORTHWARD--SWATOW--MR.
BURNS--FOOCHOW--NINGPO--CHU-SAN--POTOU--SHANGHAE--MISSIONARIES.


[Sidenote: Improved prospects.]

On the same day on which the ultimatum of the Envoys was delivered to Yeh,
i.e. on the 12th of December, 1857, the glad news reached Lord Elgin that
Lucknow had been relieved: the more welcome to him as carrying with it the
promise of speedy reinforcement to himself, and deliverance from a
situation of extreme difficulty and embarrassment. 'Few people,' he might
well say, 'had ever been in a position which required greater tact--four
Ambassadors, two Admirals, 'a General, and a Consul-general; and,
notwithstanding 'this luxuriance of colleagues, no sufficient force.'   And
what he felt most in the insufficiency of the force was not the irksomeness
of delay, still less any anxiety as to the success of his arms. 'My
greatest difficulty.' he wrote, 'arises from my fear that we shall be led
to 'attack Canton before we have all our force, and led 'therefore to
destroy, if there is any resistance, both life 'and property to a greater
extent than would otherwise 'be necessary.' The prospects of immediate
reinforcements from India diminished his fears on this score, and sent him
forward with a better hope of bringing the painful situation to a speedy
and easy close.

[Sidenote: Changed quarters.]

_H.M.S. 'Furious,' Canton River.--December 17th.--_You see from my
date that I am again in a new lodging. It promises to be, I think,
more agreeable than any of our previous marine residences. We have
paddles instead of a screw. Then the captain has not only given up to
me all the stern accommodation, but he has also done everything in his
power to make the place comfortable.... He is the Sherard Osborn of
Arctic regions notoriety. I am on my way to join Gros, in order to
decide on our future course of action. I mentioned yesterday that
Honan was occupied, and that I had received a letter from Yeh, which
must, I suppose, be considered a refusal. This was the fair side of
the medal. The reverse was an ugly quarrel up the river, which ended
in the loss of the lives of some sailors and the destruction of a
village,--a quarrel for which our people were, I suspect, to some
extent responsible. I fear that, under cover of the blockade
instituted by the Admiral, great abuses have taken place.... It makes
one very indignant, but unfortunately it is very difficult to bring
the matter home to the culprits. All this, however, makes it most
important to bring the situation to a close as soon as possible. It is
clear that there will be no peace till the two parties fight it out.
The Chinese do not want to fight, but they will not accept the
position relatively to the strangers under which alone strangers will
consent to live with them, till the strength of the two parties has
been tested by fighting. The English do want to fight.

[Sidenote: Yeh's reply.]

_December 18th._--This does not promise to be a lively sojourn. We are
anchored at present at a point where the river forks into the Whampoa
and Blenheim reaches. We have the Blenheim reach, and my suite wish me
to go up it to the Macao Fort, from which they think they would have a
good view of what goes on when the city is attacked. I wish, however,
to be with Gros, and he will go up the Whampoa reach as far as his
great lumbering ship will go. Meanwhile we are here confined to our
ships, as it would not of course do for me to go on shore to be
caught. Poor Yeh would think me worth having at present. What will he
do? His answer is very weak, and reads as if the writer was at his
wits' end; but with that sort of stupid Chinese policy which consists
in never yielding anything, he exposes himself to the worst
consequences without making any preparations (so far as we can see)
for resistance. Among other things in his letter he quotes a long
extract from a Hong-kong paper describing Sir G. Bonham's investiture
as K.C.B., and advises me to imitate him for my own interest, rather
than Sir J. Davis, who was recalled. Davis, says Yeh, insisted on
getting into the city, and Bonham gave up this demand. Hence his
advice to me. All through the letter is sheer twaddle.

[Sidenote: Advance on Canton.]

_December 22nd._--On the afternoon of the 20th, I got into a gunboat
with Commodore Elliot, and went a short way up towards the barrier
forts, which were last winter destroyed by the Americans. When we
reached this point, all was so quiet that we determined to go on, and
we actually steamed past the city of Canton, along the whole front,
within pistol-shot of the town. A line of English men-of-war are now
anchored there in front of the town. I never felt so ashamed of myself
in my life, and Elliot remarked that the trip seemed to have made me
sad. There we were, accumulating the means of destruction under the
very eyes, and within the reach, of a population of about 1,000,000
people, against whom these means of destruction were to be employed!
'Yes,' I said to Elliot, 'I am sad, because when I look at that town,
I feel that I am earning for myself a place in the Litany, immediately
after "plague, pestilence, and famine."' I believe however that, as
far as I am concerned, it was impossible for me to do otherwise than
as I have done. I could not have abandoned the demand to enter the
city after what happened last winter, without compromising our
position in China altogether, and opening the way to calamities even
greater than those now before us. I made my demands on Yeh as moderate
as I could, so as to give him a chance of accepting; although, if he
had accepted, I knew that I should have brought on my head the
imprecations both of the navy and army and of the civilians, the time
being given by the missionaries and the women. And now Yeh having
refused, I shall do whatever I can possibly do to secure the adoption
of plans of attack, &c., which will lead to the least destruction of
life and property.... The weather is charming; the thermometer about
60 deg. in the shade in the morning; the sun powerful, and the atmosphere
beautifully clear. When we steamed up to Canton, and saw the rich
alluvial banks covered with the luxuriant evidences of unrivalled
industry and natural fertility combined; beyond them, barren uplands,
sprinkled with a soil of a reddish tint, which gave them the
appearance of heather slopes in the Highlands; and beyond these again,
the white cloud mountain range, standing out bold and blue in the
clear sunshine,--I thought bitterly of those who, for the most selfish
objects, are trampling under foot this ancient civilisation.

[Sidenote: Summons to Yeh.]

_December 24th_.--My letter telling Yeh that I had handed the affair
over to the naval and military commanders, and Gros's to the same
effect, were sent to him to-day; also a joint letter from the
commanders, giving him forty-eight hours to deliver over the city, at
the expiry of which time, if he does not do so, it will be attacked. I
postponed the delivery of these letters till to-day, that the expiry
of the forty-eight hours might not fall on Christmas Day. Now I hear
that the commanders will not be ready till Monday, which the Calendar
tells me is 'the Massacre of the Innocents!' If we can take the city
without much massacre, I shall think the job a good one, because no
doubt the relations of the Cantonese with the foreign population were
very unsatisfactory, and a settlement was sooner or later inevitable.
But nothing could be more contemptible than the origin of our existing
quarrel. We moved this evening to the Barrier Forts, within about two
miles of Canton, and very near the place where the troops are to land
for the attack on the city. I have been taking walks on shore the last
two or three days on a little island called Dane's Island, formed of
barren hills, with little patches of soil between them and on their
flanks, cultivated in terraces by the industrious Chinese. The people
seemed very poor and miserable, suffering, I fear, from this horrid
war. The French Admiral sent on shore to Whampoa some casks of damaged
biscuit the other day, and there was such a rush for it, that some
people were, I believe, drowned. The head man came afterwards to the
officer, expressed much gratitude for the gift, but said that if it
was repeated, he begged notice might be given to him, that he might
make arrangements to prevent such disorder. The ships are surrounded
by boats filled chiefly by women, who pick up orange-peel and offal,
and everything that is thrown overboard. One of the gunboats got
ashore yesterday, within a stone's-throw of the town of Canton, and
the officer had the coolness to call on a crowd of Chinese, who were
on the quays, to pull her off, which they at once did! Fancy having to
fight such people!

_Christmas Day_.--Who would have thought, when we were spending that
cold snowy Christmas Day last year at Howick, that _this_ day would
find us separated by almost as great a distance as is possible on the
surface of our globe! and that I should be anchored, as I now am,
within two miles of a great city, doomed, I fear, to destruction, from
the folly of its own rulers and the vanity and levity of ours. We have
moved a little farther up the river this morning, and as we are, like
St. Paul, dropping an anchor from the stern, I have had over my head
for several hours the incessant dancing about and clanking of a
ponderous chain-cable, till my brains are nearly all shaken out of
their place.

_December 26th._--I have a second letter from Yeh, which is even more
twaddling than the first. They say that he is all day engaged in
sacrificing to an idol, which represents the God of Physic, and which
is so constructed that a stick in its hand traces figures on sand. In
the figures so traced he is supposed to read his fate.

Early on Monday the 28th the attack began; and Lord Elgin was reluctantly
compelled to witness what he had been reluctantly compelled to order--the
bombardment of an unresisting town. Happily the damage both to life and
property proved to be very much less serious than at the time he supposed
it to be.

[Sidenote: Bombardment.]

_December 28th, Noon._--We have been throwing shells, etc., into
Canton since 6 A.M., without almost any reply from the town. I hate
the whole thing so much, that I cannot trust myself to write about it.

_December 29th._--The mail was put off, and I add a line to say that I
hope the Canton affair is over, and well over.... When I say this
affair is over, perhaps I say too much. But the horrid bombardment has
ceased, and we are in occupation of Magazine Hill, at the upper part
of the city, within the walls.

[Sidenote: Capture of the city.]
[Sidenote: Looting.]

_H.M.S. 'Furious,' Canton River.--January 2nd, 1858._--The last week
has been a very eventful one: not one of unmixed satisfaction to me,
because of course there is a great deal that is painful about this
war, but on the whole the results have been successful. On Monday last
(the 28th) I was awakened at 6 A.M. by a cannon-shot, which was the
commencement of a bombardment of the city, which lasted for 27 hours.
As the fire of the shipping was either not returned at all, or
returned only by a very few shots, I confess that this proceeding gave
me great pain at the time. But I find that much less damage has been
done to the town than I expected, as the fire was confined to certain
spots. I am on the whole, therefore, disposed to think that the
measure proved to be a good one, as the terror which it has excited in
the minds of the Cantonese is more than in proportion to the injury
inflicted, and therefore it will have the effect, I trust, of
preventing any attempts on their part to dislodge or attack us, which
would entail very great calamities on themselves. At 10 A.M. on Monday
the troops landed at a point about two miles east of the city, and
marched up with very trifling resistance to Lin Fort, which they took,
the French entering first, to the great disgust of our people. Next
morning at 9 A.M., they advanced to the escalade of the city walls, and
proceeded, with again very slight opposition, to the Magazine Hill, on
which they hoisted the British and French flags. They then took Gough
fort with little trouble, and there they were by 3 P.M. established in
Canton. The poor stupid Chinese had placed some guns in position to
resist an attack from the opposite quarter--the quarter, viz. from
which Gough attacked the city; and some people suppose that if we had
advanced from that side we should have met with some resistance. My
own opinion is, that the resistance would have been no great matter in
any case, although, no doubt, if we had made the attempt in summer,
and with sailors only, as some proposed when I came here in July, we
should probably have met with disaster. As it is, my difficulty has
been to enforce the adoption of measures to keep our own people in
order, and to prevent the wretched Cantonese from being plundered and
bullied. This task is the more difficult from the very motley force
with which we have to work, composed, firstly, of French and English;
secondly, of sailors to a great extent--they being very imperfectly
manageable on shore; all, moreover, having, I fear, a very low
standard of morality in regard to stealing from the Chinese. There is
a word called 'loot,' which gives, unfortunately, a venial character
to what would, in common English, be styled robbery.... Add to this,
that there is no flogging in the French army, so that it is impossible
to punish men committing this class of offences.... On the other hand,
these incomprehensible Chinese, although they make no defence, do not
come forward to capitulate; and I am in mortal terror lest the French
Admiral, who is in the way of looking at these matters in a purely
professional light, should succeed in inducing our chiefs to engage
again in offensive operations, which would lead to an unnecessary
destruction of life and property. I proposed to Gros that we should
land on the first day of the year, and march up to Magazine Hill. He
consented, and the chiefs agreed, so we landed about 1 P.M. at a point
on the river bank immediately below the south-east angle of the city
wall, which is now our line of communication between the river and
Magazine Hill. As we landed, all the vessels in the river hoisted
English and French flags, and fired salutes. We walked up to the hill
along the top of the wall, which is a good wide road, and which was
all lined with troops and sailors, who presented arms and cheered as
we passed. We reached the summit at about three. The British quarter,
which is a sort of temple, stands on the highest point, the hill
falling pretty precipitously from it on all sides. The view is one of
the most extensive I ever saw. Towards the east and north barren hills
of considerable height, and much of the character of those we see from
Hong-kong. On the west, level lands cultivated in rice and otherwise.
Towards the south, the town lying still as a city of the dead. The
silence was quite painful, especially when we returned about
nightfall: but it is partly owing to the narrowness of the streets,
which prevents one from seeing the circulation of population which may
be going on within. We remained at the top of the hill till about
half-past five, during which time we blew up the Blue Jacket Fort and
Gough Fort, and got back to our ships about 8 P.M., having spent a
very memorable first of January, and made a very interesting
expedition; although I could not help feeling melancholy when I
thought that we were so ruthlessly destroying the prestige of a place
which had been, for so many centuries, intact and undefiled by the
stranger, and exercising our valour against so contemptible a foe.

_January 4th._--I have not given you as full a description as I ought
to have done of the views and ceremony of Friday, because I saw 'Our
own Correspondent' there, and I think I can count on that being well
done in the _Times_.... This day is a pour of rain, rather unusual for
the season.... Some of the Chinese authorities are beginning to show a
desire to treat, and some of the inhabitants are presenting petitions
to us to protect them against robbers, native and foreign.

[Sidenote: Capture of Yeh.]

_January 6th_.--Yesterday was a great day. The chiefs made a move
which was very judicious, I think, and which answered remarkably well.
They sent bodies of men at an early hour into the city from different
points, and succeeded in capturing Yeh, the Lieutenant-Governor of the
city, and the Tartar General, &c. This was done without a shot being
fired, and I believe the troops behaved very well, abstaining from
_loot_, &c. Altogether the thing was a complete success, and I give
them great credit for it. Yeh has been carried on board the
'Inflexible' steamer as a prisoner of war. He is an enormous man. I
can hardly speak to his appearance, as I only saw him for a moment as
he passed me in a chair on his way to his vessel. Morrison, who has
taken a sketch of him, speaks favourably of him; but it is the fashion
to abuse even his looks. The Lieutenant-General has been allowed to
depart, but the Lieutenant-Governor and Tartar General are still in
custody at head-quarters. At my suggestion a proposal was made to the
Lieutenant-Governor to-day to continue to govern the city under us;
but the stolidity of the Chinese is so great that there is no saying
what he may do. We have given him till to-morrow to determine whether
he will accept. My whole efforts have been directed to preserve the
Cantonese from the evils of a military occupation; but their stupid
apathetic arrogance makes it almost impossible to effect this object.
Yeh's tone when he was taken was to be rather bumptious. The Admiral
asked him about an old man of the name of Cooper, who was kidnapped.
At first he pretended that he knew nothing about him. When pressed he
said, 'Oh! he was a prisoner of war. I took him when I drove you away
from the city last winter. I took a great deal of trouble with him and
the other European prisoners, but I could not keep them alive. They
all died, and if you like I'll show you where I had them buried.'
Morrison says that when he saw him on board the 'Inflexible,' he was
very civil and _piano_. He takes it easy, eats and drinks well, &c. He
said to his captain, that if it was not an indiscreet question, he
would be glad to know whether it was likely that we should kill him.
The captain had no difficulty in re-assuring him on that point.

_January 8th_.--We had rather an important day's work yesterday. The
Lieutenant-Governor showed some symptoms of a willingness to govern on
our conditions. This gives some chance of our getting out of the
difficulties of our situation. You may imagine what it is to undertake
to govern some millions of people (the province contains upwards of
20,000,000), when we have _in all_ two or three people who understand
the language! I never had so difficult a matter to arrange.... Each
man has his own way of seeing things, and the real difficulties of the
question being enormous, and the mysteries of the Chinese character
almost unfathomable,... the problem is well nigh insoluble. However
yesterday we seemed to make some progress towards an understanding. We
walked up to the front along the wall as usual, and very hot it was;
but we returned through the town itself with the General and Admiral
and a large escort. I rode on a pony. It was a strange and sad sight.
The wretched-looking single-storied houses on either side of the
narrow streets almost all shut up, only a few people making their
appearance, and these for the most part wan and haggard, and here and
there places which the fire from our ships had destroyed, all
presented a very melancholy spectacle; and one could hardly help
asking one's self, with some disgust, whether it was worth while to
make all the row which we have been making, for the sake of getting
into this miserable place. However, I presume that the better part of
the population have either fled or hid themselves. I daresay if they
had returned, and the shops had been opened, the aspect of the town
would have been different.

[Sidenote: Establishment of a joint tribunal.]

_January 9th._--Yesterday I went up again to the front without Gros,
and pressed matters forward towards a solution. The result was, that
my plan of getting the Governor of the province to consent to return
to his Yamun and resume his functions, a board of our officers,
supported by a large body of troops, being appointed to inhabit his
Yamun with him, and to aid him in the maintenance of order,
prevailed.... To-day we went, Gros and I, in great procession to the
Governor's Yamun, to reinstate him in his office on the above
conditions. We were carried in chairs through the town, attended by a
large escort. The city seemed fuller of people than on the occasion of
my former visit, and they looked more cheerful.

_January 10th._--By a ludicrous mistake, no orders had been given to
release the Governor and Tartar General, so that, after waiting for
them for an hour, we heard that the sentry would not let them leave
the room in which they were confined. The consequence was that it was
getting late, and as I wished to get my escort out of the streets
before it was dark, we were obliged to hurry through the ceremony a
little. We began with a kind of squabble about seats; but after that
was over, I addressed the Governor in a pretty arrogant tone. I did so
out of kindness, as I now know what fools they are, and what
calamities they bring upon themselves, or rather on the wretched
people, by their pride and trickery. Gros followed, in a few words
endorsing what I had said. The Governor answered very satisfactorily.
I then rose, saying that we must depart, and that we wished him and
the Tartar General all sorts of felicity. They were good-natured-
looking men, the General being of great size. They conducted us to the
front door, where we ought to have found our chairs; but they had
disappeared, to the infinite wrath of Mr. Parkes.... I say the front
door; but in fact the house consisted of a series of one-storied
pavilions, placed one behind the other, and connected by a covered way
with trellis-work panels running through a sort of garden. We got at
last into the chairs, and hastened off to the city wall, which we
reached just as it was getting dark, having thus terminated about the
strangest day which has yet occurred in Chinese history,--the Governor
of this arrogant city of Canton accepting office at the hand of two
barbarian chiefs!

_Wednesday, January 13th._--You get the least agreeable picture of the
concerns in which I am engaged; because, as I write this record from
day to day, all my anxieties and their causes are narrated. On the
whole I think the last fortnight has been a very successful one. I
walked through the city to-day with the Admiral and an escort, and saw
evident signs of improvement in the streets. The people seemed to be
resuming their avocations, and the shops to be re-opening. My
'Tribunal' is working well. In short, I hope that the evils incident
to the capture of a city, and especially of a Chinese city, have been
in this instance very much mitigated. The season is very changing.
Three nights ago the thermometer did not fall below 72 deg., and last
night it fell to 40 deg.. There is a cold wind; and it was necessary to
walk briskly to-day to keep one's-self warm.

[Sidenote: Exodus.]

_January 16th._--Though I was able to send off the last despatches
with something of a satisfactory report, we are by no means, I fear,
yet out of the wood. I took a long walk in the city of Canton
yesterday. I visited the West Gate, where I found a stream of people
moving outwards, and was told by the officer that this goes on from
morning to night. They say, when asked, that they are going out of
town to celebrate the New Year, but my belief is that they are flying
from us. The streets were full, and the people civil. Quantities of
eating stalls, but a large proportion of the shops still shut. As we
got near the wall in our own occupation, some people ran up to us
complaining that they had been robbed. We went into the houses and saw
clearly enough the signs of devastation. I have no doubt, from the
description, that the culprits were French sailors. If this goes on
one fortnight after we have captured the town, when is it to stop?...
It is very difficult to remedy.... Nothing could, I believe, be worse
than our own sailors, but they are now nearly all on board ship, and
we have the resource of the _Cat_.... All this is very sad, but I am
not yet quite at the end of my tether. If things do not mend within a
few days I shall startle my colleagues by proposing to abandon the
town altogether, giving reasons for it which will enable me to state
on paper all these points. No human power shall induce me to accept
the office of oppressor of the feeble.

[Sidenote: A sober population.]
[Sidenote: Maintenance of order.]

_January 20th._--I hinted at my ideas as to the evacuation of the
city, and it has had an excellent effect.... There is a notable
progress towards quiet in the city. Still, I fear the tide of
emigration is going on. Parkes is exerting himself with considerable
effect, and he is really very clever. There were a great many more
shops open in the streets yesterday than I had seen before.... What a
thing it is to have to deal with a sober population! I have wandered
about the streets of Canton for some seven or eight days since the
capture, and I have not seen one drunken man. In any Christian town we
should have had numbers of rows by this time arising out of
drunkenness, however cowed the population might have been. The
Tribunal convicted a Chinaman the other day for selling 'samshoo' to
the soldiers. I requested Parkes to hand him over to the Governor
Pehkwei for punishment. This was done, and the arrangement answered
admirably. The Governor was pleased, he presented himself before the
Chinese as the executor of our judgments, and at the same time we, to
a certain extent, seemed to be conceding to the Chinese the principle
of exterritoriality which we assert as against them.... I have no
'responsible ministers' here, though the presence of a colleague, and,
since military operations began, the position of the naval and
military Commanders-in-Chief, have required me to act with some
caution, in order to make the wheels of the machine work smoothly and
keep on the rails. For this reason it was that I suggested a few days
ago the plan of evacuation. The maintenance of order in a city under
martial law was, I felt, an affair rather for the Commander-in-Chief
than for me, therefore I was in a false position when I meddled with
it directly. But the question of remaining in the city or not was a
political one. By letting it be known that I had there my lines of
Torres Vedras, upon which I should fall back if necessary, I obtained
the influence I required for insuring, as far as possible, the
adoption of satisfactory arrangements within the city. I must add that
this evacuation plan was not intended by me to be a mere threat. I
have it clearly matured in my mind as a thing feasible, and which
would be under certain circumstances an advisable plan to adopt. In
taking Canton we had, as I understand it, two objects in view: the one
to prove that we could take it; the other to have in our hands
something to give up when we come to terms with the Emperor,--'a
material guarantee.' I believe that the capture of the city, followed
by the capture of Yeh, has settled the former point. Indeed, from all
that I hear, I infer that the capture of Yeh has had more effect on
the Chinese mind than the capture of the city. I believe, therefore,
that we might abandon the city without losing much if anything on this
head. No doubt we should lose on the second head; we should not have
Canton to give up when a treaty was concluded, if we had given it up
already. Even then however we might, by retaining the island of Honan,
the forts, &c., do a good deal towards providing a substitute; so that
you see my threat was made _bona fide_. I certainly should have
preferred the loss to which I have referred, to the continuance of a
state of things in which the Allied troops were plundering the
inhabitants.

_January 24th._--Baron Gros and I were conversing together yesterday
on affairs in this quarter, and among other things he told me that we
were both much reproached for our laxity, and that I was more blamed
on that account than he. I said to him: 'I can praise you on many
accounts, my dear Baron, but I cannot compliment you on being a
greater brute than I am.'

Whatever was the feeling of the British residents, and whatever excuses may
be made for it, the consistent humanity shown both in the taking and in the
occupation of the city did not fail to strike Mr. Reed, the Plenipotentiary
of the United States, who wrote to Lord Elgin: 'I cannot omit this
opportunity of most sincerely congratulating you on the success at Canton,
the great success of a bloodless victory, the merit of which, I am sure, is
mainly due to your Lordship's gentle and discreet counsels. My countrymen
will, I am sure, appreciate it.' 'This,' observes Lord Elgin, from the
representative of the United States, is gratifying both personally and