Imatges de pàgina
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PROCRASTINATION.

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force as the British military commanders in the south could direct to the Peiho. What had been suspicion became conviction when the Imperial Commissioners presented a request to Mr. Bruce on his arrival at Shanghai to enter upon the discussion of some unsettled details, calmly ignoring that the ratification was stipulated to take place within a period of which only a limited number of days remained unexpired. Chinese policy has always relied upon procrastination as one of the strongest weapons at its disposal. It would have been in their eyes a legitimate device to have detained the English representative at Shanghai under various pretexts, and to have then taken full advantage of the expiration of the stipulated term to declare that the nonratification of the Treaty invalidated its most important clauses.

Neither Mr. Bruce's instructions nor his own reading of the situation justified any delay in proceeding to the north. A land force was summoned from the garrison at Canton, the fleet was directed from the Canton river to the Peiho, and Admiral Hope, who had succeeded to the command of the China squadron, assumed the personal direction of the operations which were to ensure the safe and honourable reception of Mr. Bruce at Tientsin. The arrival of the fleet * preceded that of the envoy by a little more than two days, and Admiral Hope, in the execution of the plan agreed upon with Mr. Bruce, sent a notification to the officers at the mouth of the Peiho that the English Envoy was coming. The reception met with could not but be considered distinctly discouraging. Two boats were sent ashore in order to establish communications. The first unfavourable symptom observed was that the entrance to the river had been barred by a row of iron stakes, while a still more formidable line of inner defence, consisting of an admirably constructed boom, hindered the approach of any hostile force; and when the boats approached the shore they were warned not to attempt to land by an armed and angry crowd. In reply to the

*The fleet reached the Shalootien islands on the 16th of June. On the 17th it proceeded to the Peiho, and Mr. Bruce arrived on the 20th.

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inquiries of the interpreter, it was said that these warlike preparations had been made against the rebels, that the garrison only comprised the local militia, and that no high official would be found nearer than Tientsin. In reply to a further demand, they were understood to promise that a sufficient passage for the English vessels would be made through the barriers in the course of a few days. On the occasion of a second visit the crowd became still more

demonstrative, one man even drawing his sword on the interpreter ; but the most unequivocal token of hostility was the closing up of the narrow passages through the stakes instead of their being widened, as had been promised.

In face of these proceedings, which could hardly be considered equivocal, there remained no alternative save to obtain by force that which was denied to friendship. The garrison declared themselves to be only the local militia acting in behalf of what they held to be their own rights, and without any reference to Pekin. There were reasons to doubt the correctness of this statement, but in the event of their defeat it simplified the position of Hienfung and his ministers. The latter could throw all the blame on the shoulders of the local officers, and deny their personal responsibility. There was, therefore, good reason to suppose that were a vigorous move made against the forts at the mouth of the river, the opposition of the Pekin Government would be as easily overcome as that of its soldiers. The result, of course, depended on the success of the attack; but no one anticipated that the forts would make a more effectual defence than they had the previous year, or that skill and enterprise would fail to obtain their usual rewards.

On the 25th of June, some preliminary matters having been arranged as to the disposal of the fleet, and as to how the marines and engineers told off to land were to be conveyed on shore, the attack on the forts began with the removal * of the iron stakes forming the outer barrier. This part of the operations was unopposed. A sufficient passage

* Performed by the Opossum steamer, which steamed up to them, fastened a hawser round each in turn, and then reversed engines.— Fisher.

REPULSE AT THE PEIHO.

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was soon made, and the vessels proceeded towards the entrance of the river without a single shot having as yet been fired on the one side or the other. But when the ships reached and struck against the inner boom the forts immediately opened fire with a rapidity and precision which showed that the guns had been trained to bear on that very spot. Eleven vessels in all were engaged in the attack; four of these reached the inner boom and engaged the forts at comparatively close quarters. The severity of the fire was soon shown in the damaged condition of the ships. Two of the gun-boats were soon in a sinking state, and not one had escaped without severe injury. Many officers and men had been killed; and when, after a three hours' cannonade, the firing from the shore became less vigorous, either from want of ammunition or from loss of men, the English expedition had itself suffered too much to be able to take full advantage of the superiority which its artillery had demonstrated after so fierce a contest.

The doubtful fortune of the day might, it was hoped, be restored by an attack on land; and the marines and engineers, who had been sent from Hongkong, and who had been placed in junks, were brought up to attempt the capture of the forts by storm. The troops on landing had to cross for 500 yards a mud-bank, in which the men sank ankle deep; and as they were exposed all the time to a sustained and galling fire, they suffered considerable loss. Some of the marines, too, in their haste, rendered their guns useless by wetting their powder, or by jumping too quickly into the mud and getting them stuffed up with it. Before the attacking party reached the edge of the ditch it was clear that the chances were decidedly against a successful issue; the ladders and portable bridges had been all destroyed by the fire of the Chinese. An advance party got to within twenty yards of the works, but it could effect nothing. It was safely withdrawn under cover of the darkness, which very fortunately soon set in and shielded the retreat of the forlorn hope, and the Chinese were left in undisputed possession of the Taku forts and of the glory of the battle. The loss of three gun-boats, and of more than 300 men killed and wounded, was a very heavy

price to pay; but the most serious of all the consequences of this disastrous attempt on the Taku forts consisted in its encouraging the Chinese to believe in their capacity to resist the English, and thus necessitated a fresh campaign. The engagement in the Fatshan channel had first shown Europeans of what a vigorous resistance Chinese troops were capable; but the defence of the Taku forts produced a wider and more profound impression. It was no longer wise or possible to treat the Chinese as adversaries of an utterly contemptible character.

The effect of this success on Chinese policy proved hardly less than it was on foreign opinion. The Chinese Government had up to that point been swayed by opposite counsels. The party in favour of peace and the ratification of the Treaty was hardly less able or active than that which demanded if not war at least an unyielding attitude towards foreigners. At the very moment that the garrison of the Taku forts was making its resolute and successful stand against Admiral Hope the former had gained the upper hand, and were causing a house to be prepared at Pekin for Mr. Bruce's use and reception. There is little doubt that had Admiral Hope's attack been successful the acts of the Chinese at the mouth of the Peiho would have been repudiated, and that the so-called peace party would have carried the day, much to their country's advantage. But if that was the probable result of an English success, the consequences of what happened were quite as unequivocally in favour of the war party. Sankolinsin, the Mongol prince who had first checked the Taeping rebels in their march on Tientsin, became the master of the situation, and declared that there was nothing to fear from an enemy who had been repulsed by the raw levies of Pechihli, while he held the flat country between Pekin and the Peiho with the flower of the Tartar Banners. The mind is most easily influenced by the recent event, and the successful defence of the Taku forts obliterated all remembrance of previous defeat. The ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin at Pekin became at once impossible, save at the point of the sword."

* Mr. Bruce concluded his despatch home describing these events as

A RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR.

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So distinct a repulse could not fail to be followed by a long delay in the resumption of military measures calculated to be decisive. Mr. Bruce returned to Shanghai, the land. forces were sent back to Hongkong, and the vessels of the fleet were disposed so as to be of the best possible use in protecting the interests of English commerce. Beyond this nothing could be attempted until further instructions and reinforcements arrived from Europe. Nearly three months elapsed before the Cabinet in London had made up its mind as to the course it should pursue, but on the 26th of September, 1859, Lord John Russell wrote to say that military preparations had been authorized which would enable the objects of English policy to be obtained. While these preparations were in progress, and the new Cabinet of Lord Palmerston was somewhat reluctantly, if we are to judge from the delay, sanctioning the further employment of force, some events happened in China to show whither matters were tending.

The news of the victory at Taku was followed by a general ebullition of anti-foreign feeling in all the trading ports. At Shanghai a riot occurred, when an Englishman was killed, and Mr. Lay, an officer in the Chinese service, and several others, were wounded. The Russian minister, General Ignatieff, succeeded in reaching Pekin by the land route long open to Russia from Kiachta, and in obtaining the ratification of the Russian Treaty; but the details of his reception showed that the treatment accorded to him was not of a kind that would have satisfied what the English held to be the requirements of the occasion. The American Minister, Mr. Ward, also proceeded to Pekin, but not by the Peiho. The circumstances of his visit would not have been held

follows:-"Whatever may be the ultimate decision of this Government with reference to the Treaty of Tientsin, I do not think that its provisions can be carried out until we recover our superiority in the eyes of the Chinese."

The circumstances of this visit to Pekin were described as follows in the North China Herald of August 22nd, 1859:-" The mission was limited to twenty persons and landed at Pehtang. During residence in the capital, the Americans were confined to their quarters, and not allowed the use of horses. They were refused audience unless they made the kotow, and the exchange of the ratifications was effected not at Pekin,

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