The Press. — London, England, 1858-02-27 00:00:00

IPom s a ngor, where there is a European garrison in consider able d a nger, and consequently a chance of gratifying his lust for murder. It would not . be matter of surprise if he turned up in Bombay. He is the representative of the Peishwas, and his natural strength is in Central India and the Deccan, where, as you will perceive from the inclosed statements, all is not so pleasant as we have been accus tomed to believe.—Times cor. From the west of India there is no news of im. portance. Lord Canning was going to Allahabad in a few days. THE CAPTURE OF CANTON. THE occupation of the heights and walls surrounding Canton have been followed by the complete occupa tion of the city and the capture of the Lieutenant Governor, the Tartar general, and of Commissioner Yeh himself, besides a vast quantity of silver bullion found in the imperial treasury. Our last intelligence left us at the close of the second day in possession of the heights, and having just completed the capture of Gough Fort, with a total loss of killed and wounded of 140 Eng lish and 31 French troops. From that night (Tuesday) till the Monday following our troops remained in possession of the ground they had won. The Chinese, stolid and imperturbable, made no effort to regain what they had lost. " Yeh," writes a corre spondent, " iives much as usual ; he cut off four hundred Chinese heads the other morning and stuck them up in the city, to show that, in spite of the pre sence of the barbarians, he was still master over the Chinese." At length a move was made by our troops. Certain intelligence had reached head quarters of the whereabouts of Yeh, and an attempt to capture him was resolved on. Three columns of troops penetrated the city early in the morning of the sth of January. No resistance was offered. Pehlwei, the governor of the city, was the first captured. The pioneers broke in the door of his yamun, the Chinese guards were knocked down or disarmed, and a dash made on a pavilion seen at the end of the courtyard : This third pavilion is a hall of audience, rude and dirty, but imposing. There is a fracture in the tiled roof, through which an English rocket had forced its way. There are curtained portieres right and left, leading evidently to private apartments. " Halt," " Stand at ease," and the muskets descend upon the stone floor with a ring which makes the old shed echo. At this moment one of the portieres is raised, and in old man, dressed in the ordinary blue Chinese dress, but wearing a Mandarin's cap, with a red button, appears in the doorway. He has a black moustache, a quick eye, and more intelligence in his face than you usually see in China, and he seems to say, as plainly as gestures can speak, " What can all this dia. quie.ade be about?" Every one I.lt that this could be no other than Peh•kwei. Colonel Holloway put his hand upon his shoulder, led him gently back into his apartment, seated him in a chair, and pat a guard round him. The ohl gentlemen was quietly at breakfast when the English Marines burst in. A f.w moments' delay occurred while a Chinese interpre- ter was got up, and the Governor, seeing he was in no immediate danger, recovered a composure which he bad never lost the power of assuming. He was asked for his seals of office and his papers. It was very unfortunate, but he had that morning mislaid his keys. " Tell him," said Colonel Holloway, " not to trouble himself, for I have a master key;' and at a sign a tall pioneer with his axe made his appearance. The Governor took up a napkin, and the lost keys were accidentally found to have been underneath it.—Times cor. Another detachment, under the command of Captain Parkes, makes a dash on the treasury in the street of "Benevolence and Love." The Tartar guard easily overpowered, the treasury is entered, and vast stores of valuables, besides fifty two boxes of dollars, with sixty.eight packets of solid silver ingots, reward the finders. No looting is allowed; coolies are called, and the boxes of treasure are safely removed to head (laners. "When the last British soldier left the !reioury, the mob," writes a correspondent, " poured in like a countless pack of famished wolves. The railing and self-denying English could hear their yells and shouts as they fought over the fur dresses and other stores that hail been left untouched." Contemporaneously with these operations a French column had advanced upon the head-quar tars of the T artar genera l. Th e Yamun, easily discernible from the lofty poles surrounding it, was quickly reached and entered, and the Tartar gene ral, hunted from room to room, is finally pulled out "f " a filthy closet." The capture of Yeh alone remained to be effected : Mr. Consul Parkes, who was attached as interpreter to Colonel Holloway's party, arrived too late, and was with out an escort. While he was deploring his ill•lucic, he met with Commodore Elliot, who, tired by Mr. I'arkes telling him that he had some information as to Yeh's lurking-place, agreed upon his own responsibility to accompany him with 100 blue-jackets. As they got deeper and deeper into the maze of streets some of the officers seemed to think they were doing an imprudent '' If the w ors t comes to the worst," said Captain hey, "we know the direction of the walls by this coin. PUB, and can fight our way to them," so on they went. THE PRESS, FEBRUARY 27, 1858. The longest chase must have an end. At last the guides called a halt at the door of a third-rate yamun, which appeared closed and deserted. The doors were forced open, and the bluejackets were all over the place in a moment. It was evident that they were now on the right scent. The place was full of hastily-packed hag. gage. Mandanns were running about—yes, running about—and at last one came forward and delivered him self up as Yeh. But he was not fat enough. Parkes pushed him aside, and, hurrying on, they at last spied a very fat man contemplating the achievement of getting over the wall at the extreme rear of the yamun. Cap tain Key and Commodore Elliot's coxswain rushed for ward. Key took the fat gentleman round the waist, and the coxswain twisted the august tail of the Imperial Com missioner round his fiat. There was no mistake now— this was the veritable Yeh. Instinctively the blue jackets felt it must be Yeh, and they tossed up their hats and gave three rattling cheers. Yeh is by no means the hero people thought him. He trembled violently when he was taken; he strenuously denied his identity; and it was not till Mr. Parkes had several times had the satisfaction and triumph of assuring his old enemy of his personal safety that he grew com posed. As soon, however, as he felt himself safe all his arrogance returned. He posed himself magnificently in his chair. He laughed at the idea of giving up his seals, and also at the idea of his being led away. He would wait there to receive the men Elgin and Gros. They searched all his packages for papers, and found among other things the original ratifications of the treaties with England, France, and America; they were, as he inti mated, too unimportant as documents to be sent to Pekin This search lasted three hours. The news of the capture' had been sent to head quarters; Colonel Hooker was despatched with a strong body of Marines, and Yell again trembled as he entered his chair a captive. The following personal description of Yeh is given by the Timis correspondent : It is a huge, sensual, fiat face. The profile is nearly straight from the eyebrow to the chin. He wears his Man• darin cap, his red button, and his peacock's tail, but in other respects has the ordinary quilted blue tunic and loose breeches, the universal winter wear of this part of China. He seats himself in an armchair, and some inferior Man darins who have pressed in after him stand round and make him a little court. The officers who fill the room are passing to and fro upon their own duties, and of course refrain from staring at him. Yet no one can look upon that face without feeling that he is in the presence of an extraordinary man. There is a ferocity about that restless, roving eye which almost makes you shrink from it. It is the expression of a fierce and angry, but not courageous animal. While the long nails of his dirty fingers are trembling against the table, and his eyes are ranging into every part of the room in search of every face, his pose of dignity is too palpably simulated to inspire respect, even if you could forget his deeds. But no oue can look upon him with contempt. Yeh and the other prisoners were kept in close cus tody that night. The next day they were visited by the admirals and two generals : The two admirals and the general now arrive, and, after some salutations, which were naturally more em barrassing to the captors than the captive, the English admiral inquired whether Mr. Cooper, sen., was still living. You will recollect the circumstances under which this gentleman was kidnapped. Yeh burst forth into a loud laugh, which sounded to every one present as though he were recollecting and enjoying the recollection of this poor man's sufferings. When he had finished his cachin• nations he replied, " I can't recollect about this man, but I will make inquiries to-morrow, and if he can be found you shall have him." The disgust was at that moment so great, for many in the room had known and esteemed poor Cooper, that if the audience could have decided the matter, Yeh would have been 'aken out and hanged. He was told that his answer was not courteous, and he replied that it was, at any rate, the only answer he should give. The admiral now asked whether he had any other prisoners alive in his custody. He appeared to have misunderstood the question, for he replied " Those eighteen men were my prisoners of war. I took a great deal of trouble about those persons to have them pro perly buried. I can show you their graves at this day." " What eighteen men were they r asked the admiral, " and when were they taken ?" " How can I tell you who they were, and how can remember when they were taken? You were fighting from October till January, when you were beaten off and eapelle 1, and your ships ran away. It was during this time." It was evidently not consistent with the dignity of the admirals and general to prolong this conversation. After a moment's consultation they directed Mr. Parkes to assure " his Excellency " that every care would be taken for his persona safety and convenience, but that ho would be removed for the present on board ship. " I don't see any necessity for going on board ship," re plied his Excellency, " I can do everything that requires to be ddne just as well here." But when Yeh observed that the admirals were grave and impassible, and that they were about to retire, his eyes roved round thel room again in terror, and he added, " Well, I will accept your invita tion. la fact, I shall be very glad to have au opportunity of seeing one of your ships." It was more than an hour, however, and after delays so frivolous that I cannot describe them, that he was at last fairly seated in his chair. As he progressed, with his escort of Marines, along the walls to the landing-place, he met a gang of our Commissariat coolies. I am told that these fellows put down their loads and saluted him with a roar of laughter. This was too inueh. He gnashed his teeth with rage and Made a threatening gesture. 201 Yeh the next day was sent on board the Inflexible, and having been safely caged, Peh-kwei and the Tartar general were reinstated in the city, under the protection of the allied plenipotentiaries, in order to preserve the city from being sacked by the populace. British commissioners accompanied them, and Canton was placed under a British Protectorate. By the last accounts matters were settling down in the city. Nothing is known of Lord Elgin's future policy, but it is believed he will proceed to Peiho "as early as possible." All was quiet along the coasts. THE KING OF DELHI. The following is an extract from a letter written by the wife of Major (then Captain) Hodson, from Delhi : There is a report which has been mischievously set about, and may have mischievous consequences—viz., that the King has the whole of his retinae, and has returned to his own apartments in the palace. This is perfectly un true. I went with Mr. Saunders, the Civil Commissioner, and his wife to see the unfortunate and guilty wretch. We mounted a flight of stone steps, at the bottom and top of which was a European sentry. A small low door opened into a room, half of which was partitioned off with a grass matting called chitac, behind which was a woman cooking some atrocious compound. if I might judge from the smell. In the other half was a native bedstead—i.e., a frame of bamboo on four legs, with a grass rope strung across it ; on this was lying and smoking a hookah an old man with a long white beard; no other article of furniture whatever was in the room, and I am almost ashamed to say that a feeling of pity mingled with my disgust at seeing s man recently lord of an Imperial city almost unparalleled for riches and magnificence confined in • low, elate, dirty room, which the lowest slave of his household would scarcely have occupied, in the very palace where he bad reigned supreme, with power of life and death, un trammelled by any law, within the precincts of a royal residence as large as a considerable sized town ; streets, galleries, towers, mosques, forts and gardens, a private and a public hall of justice, and innumerable courts, passages, and staircases. Its magnificence can only be equalled by the atrocities which have been committed there. But to go beet to the degraded King. The boy, datums Bukt, repeated my name after Mr. Saunders. The old man raised his head and looked at me, then muttered some thing I could not hear. and at the moment the boy, who had been called from the opposite door, came and told me that his mother, the Begum, wished to see me. Mrs. Saunders then took possession of me, and we went on into a smaller, darker, dirtier room than the first, in which were some eight or ten women crowding round a common " charpoy." or couch, on which was a dark, fat, shrewd, but sensual. looking woman, to whom my attention was particularly drawn. She took hold of my hand (I shuddered a little), and told me that my husband was a great warrior; but that if the King's life and her son's had not been promised them by the Government the King was preparing a great army which would have annihilated us. The other women stood round in silence till her speech was finished, and then crowded round, asking how many children I had, and if they were all boys, examined my dress, and seemed par ticularly amused by my bonnet and parasol. They were, with one exception, coarse, low-caste women, as devoid of ornament as of beauty. Zeenat Mahal asked me (a great honour, I found, which T did not appreciate) tosit down on her bed, bat I declined, as it looked so dirty. Mr. Saun ders was much amused at my refusal, and told me it would have been more than my life was worth six months before to have done so, and I have no doubt of it. I heard by the same mail from my brother him self, at the Camp Bewar, referring to an account which he had sent me of the capture of the Princes, but this has not reached me. He had on the pre vious day ridden ninety-four miles with a party of his "horse," to carry despatches from Colonel Seaton to the commander-in-chief through a hostile conntry. This shows the use of light cavalry in India.—l re main your obedient servant, GEORGE H. HODSON. Cookbam Dean Parsonage, Maidenhead, Feb. 22. THE. ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON. Tar•, trial of the prisoners charged with the atterrpt to assassinate the Emperor of the French, on the 14th of last month, commenced on Thursday, before the Assize Court of the Seine. The Procureur- General, naming the prisoners-1. Felice Orsini, a literary man, aged 29, born at Melilola (Boman States), residing usually at London (England), having lodged in Paris, in Rue Monthabor, No. 10 ; 9. Charles de Rudio, aged :25, professor of languages, born at Belluno (Venetian States), residing usually at. Nottingham (England), having lodged in Paris, Rue Montmartre, No. 132, Hotel de France and Champagne ; 3. Anthony Gomez, aged 29, servant, born at Naples ;Italy), residing usually in England, having lodged in Paris, Rue St. Honore, Hotel de Saxe-Coburg ; 4. Joseph Andrew Pierri, professor of languages, born at Lucca (Tuscany), residing usually at Birmingham (England), having lodged in Paris, Rue Montmartre, No. 132, Hotel de France sad Champagne; 5. Simon Francis Bernard, formerly a surgeon in the navy, born at Careassenne (Ande),