Imatges de pàgina
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remained the marines in reserve, and these were at once sent out to find traces of the missing sepoys. The marines had been lately armed with the new percussion gun, which rendered them to some extent independent of the weather. After some search they were attracted by the sound of firing to a spot where they found the sepoys* drawn up in square, and surrounded by a large number of Chinese, who at once broke and fled on the approach of the relieving force. This terminated the contests of an eventful day. On the resumption of somewhat similar demonstrations on the following morning, Sir Hugh Gough, instead of exhausting his men in a vain pursuit, sent a notification to the city authorities that, unless these hostile attempts were discontinued, he would reply to them by bombarding Canton. It is almost unnecessary to add that this threat proved sufficient; but when the stipulated ransom had been received the English forces were withdrawn, leaving Canton for a second time, as it was said, "a record of British magnanimity and forbearance."

Once more, therefore, a certain degree of tranquillity was attained in the south, and the people and merchants of Canton, relieved by the departure of Taoukwang's Commissioners from expressing a patriotism which they did not feel, turned from martial pursuits to the practice of commercial affairs, for which they were better suited. The foreign merchants were nothing loth to follow their example, although their well-founded doubts as to the sincerity of the Chinese protestations of good-will, and the remembrance of many unatoned-for outrages on the persons of their friends and

* The steadiness of this company of native infantry (37th Madras), deserves special record. Lieutenant Hadfield and Mr. Berkeley were the English officers. Out of sixty men one was killed, fourteen were severely wounded, and Mr. Berkeley received a bullet in the arm. During the retirement it had to form square three times, but, although their guns were useless, they never wavered in face of several thousands of assailants. "Many of the sepoys, after extracting the wet cartridge, very deliberately tore their pocket-handkerchiefs or lining from their turbans (the only dry thing about them), and bailing water with their hands into the barrel of their pieces, washed and dried them;" they were thus able to fire a few volleys. The conduct of this company reflected the highest credit on the sepoy army, and deserves to be remembered with the earlier and more memorable achievements of the soldiers of Madras.

A CAPITAL OFFENCE.

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countrymen, impressed the necessity of caution upon them, if the conviction of superiority left room no longer for any sense of insecurity. We may turn from the review of the local position to briefly consider the report of Taoukwang's Commissioners to their sovereign. They had been charged, in the most emphatic manner, to free the Empire from the presence of "the rebel barbarians," and their instructions left them no choice save to succeed in their mission, whether by force or by fraud mattered nothing to Taoukwang's conscience. The failure of their predecessors increased the incentive and the necessity for their faring better in the great enterprise entrusted to them; and, to do them justice, neither Yihshan nor any of his "rebel-quelling" colleagues, as they were termed, doubted for an instant their ability to bring the matter to a successful issue and to dispose of any number of the inferior races of the West. And now they had to tell a tale of failure and discomfiture. Within the space of a few short weeks their hopes of success were dashed to the ground, and they could not deny that all their measures had been in vain, and that they were no better than Lin and Keshen— only weak creatures for an arrogant potentate to lean upon in an hour of blindness and adversity.

For a Chinese officer to fail in any mission entrusted to him is a capital offence. In the case of Yihshan the offence was the greater because the peril was the more grave, and because his very nearness to the throne rendered success more of a personal obligation. Yet his memorial to the Emperor, describing the course of events and the position of affairs, was an unqualified confession of failure, and, although it naturally sought to place in the most favourable light everything Yihshan had done, there remained the undoubted facts that he had failed in his commission, and that he had come to terms with the English authorities. The one distinct misrepresentation of fact contained in this document was so characteristic of Chinese diplomacy, which aimed at preserving the dignity of the Empire much more than at promoting the material interests of the Chinese people, as to call for notice. The six million dollars paid in compensation for the losses inflicted on English merchants by Commissioner Lin's

VOL. II.

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destruction of the opium were represented as the private debts of the Hong merchants, and the contribution from the Imperial exchequer was stated to be a loan to these native traders, granted at their urgent petition, and on the promise of speedy repayment from "the consoo fund." Yihshan did not, of course, deny the greatness of his blundering, and prayed in the stereotyped form to be sent before the Board of Punishments for trial. The one fact that was revealed by the tone of this document was that with the barbarians there should be no permanent arrangement of amity, while Europeans could only see in it further proof of the untamed arrogance of the Chinese. The Canton convention was essentially a truce, not a treaty.

The operations before Canton had terminated about six weeks, and the trade had been resumed for half that period, when the arrival of Sir Henry Pottinger, as sole Plenipotentiary to the Court of Pekin, and of Sir William Parker to assume the command of the fleet, brought new characters on the scene, and signified that the English Government was resolved to accept no prevarication on the part of the Chinese, and also to bring the question of their relations to a speedy and satisfactory issue. Yet when the new representatives of English policy and power came, they found what purported to be a friendly relationship in existence, and, so far as it was possible to identify the situation at Canton with the Emperor's policy, that most of the objects of their mission had been attained before their arrival. There were not wanting many reasons to justify a certain scepticism as to the durability of the arrangement, but still for the time being there was peace at the spot of most immediate importance to the foreign trade.

Sir Henry Pottinger's principal object was to conclude a treaty with the Imperial Government. A commercial agreement for the conduct of trade at Canton could not be

Sir Henry Pottinger was an Anglo-Indian officer of long experience and distinguished service. He had travelled through Beloochistan with Christie, and he had been Political Resident with the Ameers of Scinde. He was afterwards Governor of Madras, and died in 1856. His younger brother was Eldred Pottinger, the heroic defender of Herat.

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