The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-28 00:00:00

CHINA.

THE PEACE OF PEKIN.

We have been favoured with the following most
interesting and important letters from llead-quar-

ers

CAMP BEFORE PEKIN, OCT. 26.
My last letter left while the preparations were
still going on for getting the siege guns into position
opposite that portion of the wall to the eastward of

the An-ting Gate which it was intended to breach,
should the gate itself not be surrendered to the
allied Commanders-in-Chief by noon of the 13th

inst., in compliance with their demand made some
days previously.
The Temple of the Earth, a building of vast ex-
tent, surrounded by high walls, with large enclo-
sures, was the place selected for the formation of
the batteries, for which it was admirably adapted.
The outer wall was distant about 130 yards from
and ran parallel to that of the city.
On the evening of the 12th the guns were in
position, and everything in readiness for an attack
on the next day. About 10 minutes before the ap-
pointed time, however, the Chinese troops were
withdrawn from the walls, and the gate surrendered
in due form, the Bth Punjab Infantry, supported by
the 99th Regiment and Desborough's battery, pass-
ing through it, the latter immediately afterwards
taking up position on the top of the wall, and by
so doing commanding all the approaches. The sun
shone brightly on the half-shaved pig-tailed heads
of the crowds that pressed as closely round as the
line of sentries thrown out along the main street
would allow them, showing the utmost curiosity
in the proceedings, and on one occasion, when re-
quired to do so, assisting with the utmost eager-
ness and good humour in dragging within our lines
some large brass guns left behind by the Chinese
soldiers.

From information we have since received it ap-
pears that up to the last moment the question of
the surrender of the gate was the subject of violent
discussion within the city. It was, as might be
supposed,/strongly opposed by the anti-foreign and
non-responsible party among the mandarins, but on
this occasion public opinion was too powerful and
too loudly expressed to be resisted. In what man-
ner and through what medium of communication
this was made known to Prince Kung and the
other members of the Government we have bees
unable to ascertain with certainty, but there is good
reason to suppose that it must have been through the
Censors. From papers discovered at Yuen-Ming-
Yuen, these men would appear to be, to a certain
extent, representatives of public opinion. They
certainly, if we may judge from their memorials,
are not wanting in boldness and firmness of lan-
guage, when they imagine that the public interests
are threatened by the policy or the actions of the
Imperial Government.
The Chinese authorities had given notice that on
the 12th some more of the prisoners still remaining
in their bands would be given up, and accordingly
in the course of the day eight Sikhs were brought
into camp, but no Bowlby or Brabazon, as
had almost besn hoped for against hope, accom-
panied them, nor were the Sikhs able to give us
any tidings of them. We had not, however, long to
wait for these. On the 14th two more Sikhs, who
turned out to be the last of the survivors, were
released, and from them we learnt that Bowlby and
Pbipps, the private of the King's Dragoon Guards,
had, like De Norman, Anderson, and the two sowers,
whose fate I was enabled to communicate to you
by last mail, been unable to survive the brutal
treatment to, which they had been subjected during
the earlier period of their imprisonment. On the
same day that the above-mentioned two Sikhs came
in, the bodies of De Norman, Anderson, and two
Sikhs arrived in carts, and on the 16th those of
Bowlby, Phipps, and two other Sikhs ; those of four
more Sikhs which were brought in en the 17th com-
pleted, with the survivors, the entire party that
had been taken on the 18th of September, with one
exception, that of poor Brabazon, whose fate for
some time remained enveloped in mystery. Twenty-
six, in all,' were captured—seven Englishmen, 19
Sikhs ; of these two Englishmen (Parkes and Loch)
and 11 Sikhs were released, and four Englishmen
(De Norman, Bowlby, Anderson, and Phipps) with
eight Sikhs. died of their sufferings. Brabazon alone
continued missing. Accounts subsequently received
left us in no doubt, however, either as to the fact of
his death or of the way in which. it happened.
Though the earliest of them all, in point of time, it
was perhaps the happiest death, for he was saved
much of the sufferings the others underwent. No
attempt was made by the Mandarins to produce his
body, and when they were asked what had become
of him, they said two Europeans had been beheaded
by order of the General commanding at Pa-li:chow,
when that position was attacked by the allied
armies on the morning of the 21st of September,
and their bodies thrown into the canal.
This statement agreed so accurately with that
given by the Chinese Christians who visited Baron
Gros, and also with the information derived through
the Russians, that no doubt remained that poor
Brabazon was one of those Europeans.
When the An-ting Gate was surrendered to the
allied Commanders-in-Chief, they were ignorant of
the sad particulars attending the deaths of those
poor fellows ; the details were gradually obtained
through the released prisoners ; and as the bodies of
our murdered countrymen were brought in, the
treatment they had endures burst upon is with
appalling distinctness. There was but one feeling
throughout the army, horror at the treachery and
the atrocious cruelties that had been committed, a
feeling most fully-participated in by Lord Elgin and
Sir Hope Grant.
The Prince of Kung, by almost daily letters and
messages, was expressing his readiness and anxiety
to come to an early settlement of all difficulties, but
a great retribution awaited the Emperor and the
Chinese Government for their acts, before such a
request could be acceded to.
The punishment inflicted cannot be judged by
any standard of our own, but it falls with peculiar
force on the Chinese, who attach so much import-
ance to established customs, and feel such venera-
tion for everything belonging to or connected with
the Emperor.
To exact a money indemnity, even if it could
have been made forthcoming, would have been but
an inadequate way of marking the opinion of a
great civilised nation on acts that would disgrace
the most barbarous, and an indignation that required
money to allay it would have been deemed merely
affected, and put forward as a pretext for obtaining
a larger indemnity than the one named in the con-
vention. All such exactions also fall on the people,
and they were not to blame.
To reach the Emperor and the Mandarins was
the great object and the great difficulty. It could
only be done by adopting some measure that would
place beyond the possibility of doubt in the minds
of the governing classes of China that we were at
at the arrogance of the Chinese
Pekin as masters, that
Government could be lessened, and it made to feel
the responsibilities that attach to the commission of
acts of duplicity and cruelty. The only hope that
could be entertained,of at last awakening the Em-
peror to the necessity of accepting the state of
things forced upon him by circumstances and the
times in which he lived was by attacking his pres-
tige, which had for so long enveloped him like a
cloud, and prevented his perceiving the dangers
that threatened and surrounded his throne. By an
evidence of power that all the sophistry of the
most cunning Mandarins could not gainsay was
this object alone attainable.
There seemed two ways of arriving at this result ;
one was by capturing and holding the Imperial
city of Pekin ; the other was the destruction of
Yuen-Ming-Yuen, the favourite Palace of the Em-
peror, and where the cruelties to the prisoners were
first commenced.
At Yuen-Ming-Yuen the tablets of the dynasty
were preserved, on the safety of which,in the opinion
of the Chinese, the existence of the present reigning
held
in depends. By the people the Palace was
in great veneration from its being the constant resi-
dence of the Emperor, and the place.
we
assembled ;
here all the
great princes and nobles of the
the gardens and buildings wereernf
empire
for their
raense sums were
beauty throughout China, and i
i i
yearly expended on their man It was the
ra
tenanee,