The Sun.
London, England, 1848-04-22 00:00:00

EVENIN G, APRIL 22, lB4B.

on the rivers of Kwang• tung, in which the person '
1 L., ;d,.1 v.„ond.-.1
save nib properly, the heads of those criminals %%ho
are to be decapitated, shall, as an additional punish-
ment, be publicly exposed on poles ;' and after having
respectfully issued their death-warrant, judgment
will, in the first place be executed, their heads then
sent to the scene of the crime, and there exposed to
the public by suspension from poles, as a warning
example.
" Chin-a• tseen and Tsang-soo tee, who boarded
the boat in order to search for booty, have been
sentence I, in accordance with the original law [on
robbery], to he decapitated ; the punishment to be
inflicted immediately [after the Board of Punishments

has notified its confirmation of the sentence].
" Kwo-a-kew and the others have been sentenced
in accordance with the clause [against those who
stand by and receive the booty, but do not assist in
searching for it] to be sent to the new territory in
Tartary as slaves to the officers and soldiers.
" The booty which has been seized is to be given
over to the proprietor after having been recognised by
him ' • and it has been settled that the rest of the booty
shall be recovered from [the property of relations of]
the criminals at present in custody.
" As to the criminals not yet apprehended, orders
have been given that search be made after them, and
that they must be apprehended, when their cases will
be settled separately.
" I have now to give you a declaration for your
information, and request that you will hand over into
the possession of the person from whom it was robbed
the booty now sent you. A necessary declaration.
" Accompanied by robbed booty, consisting of a
case containing ten pieces of foreign cloth.
" For the British Consul Macgregor.
" October 17, 1847."

On the 30th October, in a dispatch to Viscount
Palmerston, Sir John Davis complains of a fresh act
of aggression on three British merchants, at a village
about six miles up the river from Canton. The na-
ture of this outrage is thus described in a letter of
Consul Macgregor :
" I have the honour to report to you that I have
received a complaint from Messrs. Morrison, Mac-
gregor, and Small, British subjects, of which the fol-
lowing is the substance :
" Having hired a sampan, or small Chinese boat,
in the afternoon of the 24th instant, these gentlemen
proceeded up the river with the intention of taking a
stroll in the country, in accordance with sect. 2 of
the agreement of the 6th April of the present year.
From the time of their leaving the factories until
they reached a place of the name of Cha tow,
about six miles from Canton, they met with no
molestation, but on ariving at that village some fifty or
sixty men, armed with spears, swords, and shields,
came running to the river side, yelling and shouting,
and threatening the party in the boat that if they at-
tempted to land they would be killed. The tumult
among these people being very great, and many more
of them, also armed, coming from the village, the
complainants put their boat about at the earnest so-
licitations of the boatmen, who were very much
alarmed at the hostile demonstrations of their country-
men. On returning it was necessary for the boat to
pass a point of land nearer to the village than the first
landing place ; ;.when it approached this point the
multitude was seen crossing the fields, evidently with
the intention of intercepting it. The party in it or as
in considerable danger, the creek being very narrow
at that place, and the behaviour of the mob violent in
the extreme ; as the boatmen, however, used every
effort to keep clear of the land, the party succeeded
in making good their retreat."
Reparation on account of those proceedings was
demanded from Commissioner Keying. In a subse-
quent dispatch, dated November 14, Sir John Davis
says :
"On the 10th instant I received a private note
from Consul Macgregor, from which I gathered that
a Chinese boat, with Mr. Elmslie and two others,
while passing down the river, had apparently been
fired at with a loaded ginjall from one of the forts.
To my surprise, however, the Consul added that he
should not address Keying about this until the 9th,
the day after he wrote, although the occurrence had
taken place on the 6th. It is obvious that Keying
would not be disposed to attach much importance to
what the Consul did not mention until three days
after it happened.
"I therefore lost no time in addressing a strong
note to Keying.
" The 42d Regiment was on the eve of embarking
for Madras, but Major-General D'Aguilar concurred
with me in the advisability of suspending their de-
parture until a full and satisfactory explanation, and,
if necessary, reparation, had been obtained from
Keying.
"My note went up on the 10th instant, and on the
morning of the 13th I received through the consul a
handsome and conclusive reply from the Imperial
Commissioner, in which he announced the degrada-
tion of the two officers in the fort, and the flagellation
of the men. Your Lordship will observe that Key-
ing calls on God to witness the sincerity of his con-
stant wish to maintain peace, and do what is right.
He adds, in the same note, that the rioters at Cha-
tow, on the 24th October, besides flogging, be
paraded in the wooden collar near the factories, with
their offence inscribed."
On the 20th of November Sir John Davis, in a
further letter to Viscount Palmerston, complains of
the residents at Canton sending over false reports as
to the state of the country, which were productive of
much mischief; and he adds :
" In your Lordship's second reply to the Liverpool
Association, you left it to time and events to decide
whether their anticipations as to the future results of
the measures in the Canton River would be verified
or not. They themselves must now be glad that
their frightful dreams have not been realised.
" The speculations of the association as to a steamer
opposite the factories are happily rendered superfluous
by the fact that now, for the first time since the peace,
it may be confidently predicated a steamer will not be
required. There is an end of the mob at Canton in
its antagonism to the factories, and this is a great
point gained. With the mob Keying could not well
deal ; with individual aggressors he not only can, but
has shown plainly that he will. I beg to attach to
this dispatch a statement from Mr. Johnston of his
personal experience of the improved state of Canton."
Mr. Johnston, in his communication, observes—
" There is a very observable improvement in the
temper of the people of Canton, and after a few days'
stay at that place I was so struck by the improve-
ment, that I walked with the most perfect confidence
round the city, through the extensive suburb to the
east and west of it; and I also visited the Budhist
Temple at Houan, where I remained for upwards of
two hours. These expeditions were made without
meeting the slightest opposition or molestation. . .
During a residence in the south of China since 1834
I have never before thought it safe to go round the
city of Canton."
On the same day, however, on which this letter was
written, Captain M'Dougall, of her Majesty's ship
Vulture, while walking round the city with the con-
sul, vice-consul, and interpreter, was pelted with
stones by some boys.
We now come to the dispatches relating to the last
and most atrocious outrage, namely, the murder of
six English gentlemen at a village a few miles up the
river from Canton. These papers fill a considerable
portion of the volume, and many of them have already
been published. It, therefore, is unnecessary to re-
peat them ; but there are others of considerable
interest. The following is the dispatch of Sir John
Davis to Viscount Palmerston on the subject :
" Canton, December 13, 1847.
"My Lord,—On the 7th instant, I received a state-
ment at Hong-Kong from Mr. Consul M'Gregor, that
six young Englishmen—John Bellamy, Henry Balk-
will, Patrick M'Carte, William Brown, William
Rutter, Alexander Small, clerks to merchants at
Canton—had proceeded about three miles up the
river on the sth in a Chinese boat, and that they had
not been heard of until the time he wrote on the 6th.
'On ' the Bth I learned, to my great horror, as
well by private letters as by the inclosed dispatch
from the Consul (which, in some of its details, has
since proved incorrect), that the above six young
men, some of them wiih pistols in their possession,
went into the village called Hwang. chu• kee, three
miles above Canton, and, getting into an afray with
the natives, shot one of them dead-and wounded two
others, and that, being overpowered by numbers, they
were all of them ultimately murdered with circum-
stances of great cruelty.
" The extreme anxiety of Keying on this occasion
was evinced by his addressing me on the 7th instant
the inclosed note, which I received on the Bth. He
therein declares that not an individual of the guilty
should escape, and thus the national laws. would be
vindicated, and the hearts of men rejoice.'
" I embarked for Canton at daylight on the follow-
ing morning, in her Majesty's ship Daedalus, but
continued
b t
continued calms detained us, and I did not reach this
until yesterday, the 12th. Keying, in th
mean-
while, wrote me the addition&
notes ,e
annexed to thi
all of which I forward as indicative
of his great'
anxiety to assure me that all which justice required
should be done. By the inclosed reply from on board
the Daedalus, I endeavoured to convince him of the
feeling which would be excited by the late barbarous
atrocity, and the probable consequences of neglecting
to punish it fully.
_ "On my way up to Canton I received the annexed
from Keying, dated the 11th instant, in which he
detailed the further measures taken for the apprehen-
sion of the murderers, and added that six of the
parties concerned had been captured.
" On my arrival at Canton yesterday, I found that
all the bodies of the murdered persons had been re-
covered in a shocking mutilated state, and that they
had been buried by their friends. I lost no time in
addressing the inclosed note to Keying, in which I
acknowledged his express determination to do justice,
and proposed that officers deputed by myself should