The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-27 00:00:00

His lordship informed me then that he
whatever.
she Earl of Clarendon.
goes on to state, that on the 24 of
March
a ,eh His
me a letter, stating that it
reportedrH hie lordship
addressees
d d oressed
would be advisable 1 should collect at Shanghai,
towards the end of March, or as soon after as might
be convenient, as a Jarge a fleet, more especially of
gunboats drawing little water, as I could spare from
service elsewhere,' and that I had replied that my
attention had been for some time past directed to
that object ; that one gunboat and one gun-vessel
had already sailed for Shanghai ; that arrangements
were in progress for others to follow, and that it
was my intention to sail for Shanghai in the Cal-
cutta, should nothing prevent me, on the 16th of
March.
" 4. By reference to the disposition sheet of the
squadron, dated the 15th of March, their lordships
will at once perceive that at that date the following
vessels had sailed from Hongkong for Shanghai :
Higkflyer, Slaney, Cormorant, Nimrod, and Sur-
prise ; that the Sampson, Coromandel, and Leven
were preparing to sail, and did sail a few days after;
and that the Opossum, Staunch, and Bustard were
to sail when the monsoon abated. These vessels I
ordered to be convoyed by the Hesper, steam store-
ship, that they might be supplied by her with the
necessary coals, to hasten their voyage. I left
orders with Commodore Stewart to despatch the
smaller gunboats on the 10th of April, that being,
as I considered, from experience, the earliest conve-
nient time at which they could proceed, to allow
them to reach Shanghai in an efficient state for ser-
vice, and I gave orders for two more gunboats to be
kept ready if sent for, as stated in the disposition
sheet. I should have left on the 18th of March in the
Calcutta, but I was detained till the 25th, on account
of a succession of heavy gales peculiar to the season.
I sailed on the 25th in tow of the Niger, but I
found the north-east monsoon still so strong that
on the third day I proceeded under sail. The French
Admiral left Hong Kong the day after I did.
" His lordship next stated, that ever since I
have arrived in China I have been in constant and
unreserved communication with Sir Michael Sey-
mour, and as he was perfectly aware both of the
tenour of my route to the Court of Pekin, of the
time fixed in it beyond which I had resolved not to
wait the arrival of plenipotentiaries from the Em-
peror of China at Shanghai, and of the importance
which I attached to our being able, in the event of
failure in the attempt to negotiate at that place, to
appear off the mouth of the Peiho.' His lordship
confesses that he addressed to me the letter of the
2d March more with a view to put matters in a pro-
per official shape than for any practical purposes.
" 5. Up to the date of the capture of Canton I
, am quite willing to allow that Lord Elgin was in
constant and unreserved communication with me,
but this has not been the case subsequently. The
extent of my knowledge of his lordship's despatch
to the Court of Pekin is embodied in my letter to
you (No 68) of the 14th February, and to the mere
fact that his lordship had asked for plenipotentiaries
to meet him at Shanghai; but I must plead entire
ignorance of any date beyond which his lordship
had determined not to negotiate at Shanghai, or of
his lordship's intended ulterior proceedings, beyond
bringing pressure to bear on some point near the
capital, the extent of which, as far as my know-
ledge went, was to blockade the mouth of the Peiho
and the mouth of the Grand Canal in the Yang-tso-
Kiang, as directed by her Majesty's Government.
" Lord Elgin proceeds to recapitulate the before-
mentioned reasons, and states that on the 3d of
April the Coromandel arrived at Shanghai, and
brought the very perplexing intelligence that not
only had Sir M. Seymour put off his own departure
from Hong Kong from the 16th to the 25th of
March, but that no preparations for the immediate
despatch of gunboats to the north seemed to be in
progress. This information his lordship gathered
from the verbal reports of the officers of the Coro-
. mandel, for on neither point did his lordship hear
from Sir Michael Seymour. His lordship, under
; there circumstances, determined to rally round him
all the force he could collect, and proceed without
delay to the mouth of the Peiho; that his lordship
therefore wrote certain letters to the senior officers
at Shanghai and Hongkong, and proceeded to the
north on the 10th of April, taking with him the
Slaney in tow of the Furious, and arrived in the
Gulf of Pecheli on the 14th. That having only the
Cormorant and Slaney, lie had been precluded from
making any movement in advance ; and that from
all he had observed and heard, his lordship was
confirmed in the opinion that if on our arrival we
had been in a position to move at once up the river
towards Tien-tsin, we should have been able to do
so without resistance, convinced the Chinese that
foreign ships of war can ascend the river, and have
placed our force between the capital and the junks
conveying supplies of grain, which would have suf-
ficed to bring the Imperial Government to terms;
and that any further measures of violence or coer-
cion would have been avoided. His lordship con-
cludes this despatch by stating that the chief credit
of this rneasitro hay° ann,•,,,rl
navy.
" 6. On the 23d of March I despatched the Leven
and Coromandel to Amoy and Shanghai ; the for-
mer to remain at Amoy until relieved by the Elle,
to sail in a few days. As I was to sail two days
after the Coromandel, I did not write to Lord Elgin
by that opportunity, though I had written t' his
Excellency a private letter on the 15th ; and to show
how little I anticipated any sudden removal from
Shanghai, from any information in my possession,
I quote the following extract from my letter to you,
No. 138, of the 25th of March I have the honour
to report that I intend to sail this day, in her Ma-
jesty's ship Calcutta, for the Rugged Islands, the
nearest convenient anchorage to Shanghai, with
which I shall keep up a communication by means of
the Coromandel steam tender.' On my arrival at
the Rugged Islands, on the 13th of April, I found
the Sampson and Coromandel waiting for me, with
the intelligence that Lord Elgin had, with the Pique,
Furious, Cormorant, and Slaney, proceeded to the
Gulf of Pecheli on the Bth and 10th of April. A
tntle4arBn, nefooufwn chreeh ta3hteh copysameof
is
April,
en-
closedi
n-
t leeetl tligre
ler
eomm;
andletter,
o rt dh Et
Nl
Igoe
contained the first intimation I had received from
his lordship of his intention to proceed up the river
to the city of Tien-tsin. Having left Hong Kong
eairdlyedfuteunr,e
anfatveraldeoepereaethisounlstewtieonuldwihtahvethbeeenn
under the impression that on my arrival at Shanghai
naval
commanders-in-chief, I must confess my extreme
is
Hong Kong I had made eve
fls
eeuefrtl
for
set
werehoen
Glearningefluflof
h fully
ht
araet
Pecheli Lo;
ind
andrbd y Elginmay
i r
addhaal d
i thati
aumialready.ty
Before leaving Hong Kong I had made every in-
quiryvee respecting tlhnegd thee()m
en
taey navigation i oe ne n
col
ef
itehhe, Gulf of
which I
had hoped to have communicated to Lord Elgin, at
Shanghai, that the end of April would be suffi-
ciently early
cientiy early for her Majesty's ships to assemble off
the Peiho,et ofto thecarry
Calcutta
on
havingoperationseawrried away with effect;ey
and
the her
mainyard in the still strong north-east wind, while
crossing the gulf on the 23d April, sufficiently
proves the correctness of my opinion. Even after
the 10th of May there were many days d • during
which it was quite impracticable for the gunboats
to carry on active operations.
" 7. On referring to the Admiralty letter No. 151,
of the 20th April, 1857, it is distinctly stated that
the letter from the Foreign-office of the 17th April,
'that when negotiations become useless, it then
rests with the Admiral to determine where and
how the forces at his disposal shall be employed,'
and in the memorandum for Lord Panmure which
accompanies that letter this sole responsibility is
made more manifest. Had Lord Elgin waited my
arrival at Shanghai, I should have been able to
learn his Excellency's wishes, and to have made
the necessary arrangements for carrying out any
intended operations ; but no later than the 10th of
April his lordship, acting on the verbal reports of
the subordinate officers of my flag tender, and know-
ing I must be close at hand (I arrived three days after-
wards), proceeded with the small force then at Shang-
hai to the Gulf of Pecheli, and, having arrived there
on the 14th, finds, according to his lordship's own ad-
mission, that the force was inadequate for making
any movement in advance ; so that the only object
attained was the placing me in a false position by
taking my ships under my orders, and giving to the
Chinese an undue knowledge of our approach.
" I most respectfully, and with all deference to
the opinion of the Earl of El • gin, beg to submit that
ti •
me was no urgent necessity for making the com-
munication to the
Plenipotentiaries
of the other
Powers, upon which his lordship lays so muck
stress, until after I had arrived
that the delay of a
few
days in at Shanghai, and
the
e commencing a most
important operation at
was not of the slightest eensoepening of the season
consequence. His lordship
als) mentions how important it would have been
to stop the grain junks from entering the Peiho.
llis lordship had it in his power to
carry such ob-
ject into effect by application to the senior officer;
and I know that the senior French naval officer had
orders to carry his Minister's wishes in that re-
spect into effect should it be desirable. One gun-
boat inside the bar of the Peiho would have suf-
ficed. Had any casualty happened to the ships
which Lord Elgin took into the Gulf of Pecheli
(and one was very ii2ar occurring), or had the on-
ward
movement in advance,' which his lordship
seemed to contemplate without reference to me, on
Allem the sole responsibility rested, been a failure,
it would have been the Admiral, and not Lord
Elgin, who would have been held answerable both
to their lordships and the country at large.
" 8. With regard to Lord Elgin's last observa-
tion, that the wole credit of the measure proposed
would have accrued to the British navy, I have
only to remark that the result of the operations
which did take place were highly creditable to