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been raised to as much as thirty pounds. To this pass had Yeh's frenzy brought the question; and the heads of Europeans treacherously seized and barbarously murdered were paraded throughout the villages of Kwantung in order to stimulate recruiting, and to raise national enthusiasm to a high pitch.

Although Sir Michael Seymour, after the burning of the greater portion of the foreign settlement, continued to hold the factory garden, and although, by means of his fleet, he was able to ensure the safety of the detachment left on shore, there was no longer any ground to question that the Chinese had succeeded for the moment in wearing out their opponent, and that a stronger expedition was needed from Europe before a definite result could be ensured. The Chinese also were never inactive, and their attempts to destroy the English war-vessels were so constant as to be productive of, at the least, continual alarm. There was almost daily apprehension of some desperate attempt to send fire-ships and rafts down the river, and stink-pots were constantly thrown from the city walls and forts, with the view of igniting the vessels at anchor. These incessant hostilities compelled the English admiral to sanction an attempt to destroy by fire the remaining suburbs between the city wall and the river, for it was here that the incendiaries found most shelter as well as the most convenient point for directing their efforts against the English fleet. The suburbs were accordingly destroyed by fire, but not without loss to the English. Then Sir Michael Seymour resolved to withdraw his small force from the land and the Dutch Folly fort, and to confine his line of defence to the broad stream of the river and the Macao fort opposite Honan. It had already become plain that with the small force at his disposal he had reached the limit of his power. Until fresh troops arrived from Europe there was, in short, no way of showing that Chinese endurance had not worn out English superiority in valour and military

resources.

While Sir Michael Seymour sent home a request for 5000 troops to be sent to the Canton river from India, and while a few hundred men despatched from Singapore served

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to restore confidence at Hongkong, Yeh was busily employed in strengthening the defences of Canton and in preparing to withstand whatever force the English barbarians might bring against him. For the moment Yeh was not dissatisfied with the result. He had sufficient facts to appeal to in order to persuade his own Government that his measures would ultimately be crowned with success. The people of Canton had enough confidence in their leader to see in the destruction of the foreign settlement, and in the gradual retirement of the English fleet, an earnest of their coming victory; and their hostility consequently became more unequivocal and pronounced in its implacability.

The confidence of the Chinese was raised to such a point by the withdrawal of the English from their position opposite the city, that they resumed their activity along the whole course of the Canton river, and not a day passed by without some attempt to destroy one or other of the vessels keeping open the navigation of the river. The junks grew more daring in their attacks from the sense of security they felt through the inability of the English vessels to pursue them up the shallow creeks of the river, and even ventured on more than one occasion to engage men-of-war. But it was in their fire-ships that they placed their main reliance, and many ingenious contrivances† were invented for the purpose of blowing up the foreign vessels. At the same time the work of destruction which had been commenced so successfully at Canton was continued at Whampoa, where the English and

* Several circumstances had alarmed the residents at Hongkong during this troubled period. Not only had there been official proclamations from the mainland ordering all Chinese subjects to leave the island, under pains and penalties of the harshest kind, but placards had been put up in the public streets offering "a handsome reward" for the heads of any Europeans. All these acts of hostility were cast into the shade by the attempt to poison the white men by putting arsenic in the bread sold by the chief baker of the town. Fortunately the would-be poisoner put too much arsenic into the bread, and the fact was discovered before any serious harm was done. Yeh repudiated at the time and afterwards all responsibility or complicity in the matter; and the truth was never ascertained.

† One of these was an explosive machine fixed in a saucepan, and so arranged as to burst on coming into contact with a ship's side.

American docks, factories, and residences were burnt towards the end of January, 1857. Not until several merchant vessels of light draught had been procured and armed was the English admiral able to cope on something like equal terms with the innumerable junks which always shunned a close encounter, and promptly sought safety in the creeks and estuaries of the Bocca Tigris. The rare occasions when they could be brought to action served to demonstrate over again the oft-proved valour and energy of the English sailor, although the incidents must remain here untold.

The peculiarity of the disturbances at Canton consisted in their being essentially the outcome of Yeh's personal policy and resentment. Elsewhere there were tranquillity, if not goodwill, and the expression of a desire for peace if not the friendly sentiment which rendered it a matter certain to follow. The Governor-Generals of the Two Kiang and of Fuhkien were forward in their protestations of a desire to maintain the cordial relations arranged for under the Treaty of Nankin, and threw upon Yeh the responsibility of his own actions. And even with regard to the Imperial Government itself the expression of opinion was, to say the least, ambiguous, although the young Emperor Hienfung was much impressed by the reports of many victories over the barbarian English, with which his lieutenant at Canton took care to keep him well supplied. While local zeal was roused to its highest pitch in order to give Yeh some chance of holding his ground and succeeding in his main object, not less energy had been evinced in recommending the Viceroy's proceedings to the central administration as expressing the best and most profitable policy for the Chinese ruler to pursue. There was much in that policy to commend itself to the favour of a proud and youthful prince; and could Yeh have only convinced Hienfung that his power was equal to his will, he would no doubt have obtained the hearty support of the Emperor. Even as it was, Hienfung was loth to discourage one whose views coincided so closely with his own private opinion, and whose main fault was his anxiety to uphold the claims of China to a place of superiority among the

nations.

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Hienfung's policy consisted in the wish that the quarrel should remain as far as possible a local one. In this way he thought to avoid any immediate danger to the central Government, at the same time that he believed his own dignity and security would not be compromised. In the event of any conspicuous success, he would thus derive all the benefit in a national sense from a victory over the Europeans. A document which purported to be an Imperial Edict gave Yeh the support to be derived from the expression of these views; but as he required definite assistance to hold his ground, it is doubtful if the announcement of what the Emperor wished and hoped to gain by his policy carried to his mind any sense of assurance or comfort. As Yeh had reported two victorious engagements in which the Chinese had inflicted a loss of 400 men, including an admiral, on the barbarians, it was not supposed that the victor in such an engagement could need any material support against an enemy whom he had so easily vanquished. However much concern, therefore, the central Government may have felt in these early disputes, which resulted in the military operations that have been described, their attitude continued to be one of strict abstention from any direct interference. The settled policy at Pekin was to cast all the responsibility upon Yeh. He was long versed in the ways of the Europeans. He had had many dealings with them; he must treat the question from his own experience, and at his personal risk. With him, in the event of success, would rest the credit of humbling and defeating the hated foreigner. With him also would lie the shame and the penalty of failure in a course essentially of his own seeking, and one wherein his action had been left untrammelled.

Only those who from want of application prefer to judge the bearing of a great question by some isolated occurrence or from a single incident, instead of by the light of all the events relating to the issues involved, will persist in regarding the Arrow case as the only, because the immediate, cause of the hostile collision between England and China. That outrage-for it was an outrage-was but the last of a long succession of acts showing the resolve of the ruling

VOL. II.

T

authorities at Canton to thwart and humiliate the English in every way, just as it was the precursor of many outrages unknown in the practice of fair warfare, and repugnant to human sentiment. Had there been no Arrow incident at all, we must repeat, the attacks on Europeans, the refusal to hold diplomatic intercourse on terms of equality, the whole tenor, in short, of Yeh's policy and attitude, rendered the outbreak of war sooner or later a matter that was inevitable. But even with regard to the Arrow case, which in the heat of Party warfare was made the mark of moral indignation at home, it is possible to declare that the more carefully the facts are examined, the more attentively the whole course of English relations with the Chinese at Canton is studied, the more evident does it become that no other policy was open to Sir John Bowring* and Mr. Parkes than that they pursued and recommended in 1856-7. The action of Sir John Davis ten years before, when his measures were much more summary and decisive, was far more open to adverse criticism, and was attended in the first place by a greater loss of human life. But the chief reason of all for insisting on the injustice of the sweeping and violent denunciations bestowed on the Arrow case is that the Chinese Viceroy had the command of peace and war in his own hands. At

*

Sir John Bowring said, in his despatch of February 28th, 1857: "I have the comfort of believing that, notwithstanding the losses, privations, sufferings, and disquietudes which these events have produced, there exists an almost unanimity of opinion among Her Majesty's subjects in China as to the opportunity and necessity of the measures that have been taken, and a conviction that the crisis which has occurred was an inevitable one; while the councils of the Canton authorities were directed by such intolerable pride, presumption, faithlessness, and ignorance, as they have long exhibited. And it has greatly added to my gratification to know that the representatives of foreign Powers in China have generally concurred in approving of the course which has been pursued." When Sir John Bowring made the last statement, he had in his mind a recent despatch of Dr. Parker, the American Plenipotentiary to Yeh, in which the following lines occur: "The fountain of all difficulties between China and foreign nations is the unwillingness of China to acknowledge England, France, America, and other great nations of the West, as her equals and true friends, and to treat them accordingly. So far as respects this grave matter, the American Government is sensible that the English are in the right, and does choose to co-operate with them."

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