The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-28 00:00:00

JANITA.4Y 28, 1858

men of the 59th may be daily seen at their exercise.
A. cloud of Chinese children take advantage of the
severity of discipline to hang upon their skirts,
stooping down and picking up the cartridge papers
from between the feet of the immovable redcoats,
who dare not even raise a foot to tread upon the
fingers that tickle their ankles. We are too poor
in men to be able to spare any to keep the ground.
Up in the ravine behind Government-house a de-
tachment is firing at a target at a range of 1,000
yards. That target has its attendant company of
more adult Fuk-hees. They can scarcely be kept
at a safe distance, and when the bugle sounds to
cease firing they rush in and dig out the wasted
lead. Further off on the side of the mountain,
with little flagstaffs fixed on rocks at various ranges,
a field battery is practising with shot and shell
Straight in the line of fire the Chinese washermen
are spreading their clothes to dry upon the brush-
wood, quite unconcerned at the discharges, satisfied
to confide in the skill of the artillerymen, and
having a full practical knowledge of the flight of
shot. At the short ranges the shells must pass a few
feet over their heads. It cannot be that men
who behave thus can be of a race of cowards.

We have also had a sham fight on a grand
scale. The racecourse and the surrounding hills,
and the road leading thence to the city, were coa-
tested with steadfast valour ; but, alas ! in this
month of December the thermometer still stands at
84 deg. in the shade, and the men look white and
worn before the work was done.

As a balance to the contemptuous indifference
with which we open all our preparations and all our
intentions to the spies of the Canton authorities, we
take care to use our own special sources of strength,
discipline, and wealth. The Coolie Corps are, like
everything else in China, anomalies in warfare.
They are natives of a country about to be invaded,
under drill, to carry the guns and provisions of the
invaders. Each gun has 18 coolies attached to it,
and they are exercised to attend the process of un-
limbering, and to take up the gun on their bamboo
poles and trot off with it, at a pace which might be
dangerous if their fidelity were in doubt, or if there
were no Minie rifles in their rear. These fellows
will do their work if they can be got on shipboard.
They will not desert, for they are better paid by us,
and would probably be beheaded by Yeh. They
will scarcely be expected to take the guns up under
fire from the enemy, so they will have no violent
incentive to run away. From the experience we
have here of the Chinese character—if such a fagot
of contradictions can be called character—l believe
they will do what we have hired them to do—act
as artillery and commissariat mules over rough
ground intervening between points of debarcat ion
and points of action. It will probably be arranged
that their pay shall be a little in arroar, and they
know that they will be shot down without mercy
if they attempt any tricks.
A short time since Mr. Caldwell, the "protector
of Chinese," whose practical knowledge of the
Chinese population is greater, perhaps, than that of
any European, was invited to inspect this body.
They were paraded to the number of 800. In walking
down the ranks he picked out 18 men as Canton
men, and three others as Mandarin soldiers. He
was right in every instance. The Canton men when
interrogated at once admitted they had never had
the least intention of trusting themselves in the
neighbour hood of their own authorities, but proposed
to take the English pay, and escape at the last
moment. The Mandarin soldiers said they would
serve, for the Mandarins owed them arrears, and
the English paid regularly. The other men come
ft ore a distant mountain district, have no families
within the power of the Mandarins, are many of
them implicated as rebels, and may, as Mr. Cald-
well thinks, be moderately trusted to act as their
interests may point.
These traits of Chinese character are not unim-
portant. It is only little by little that we can come
to get a notion of a people whose trains of thought
and motives of action are so utterly different from
OUT own.

On the Ist the death of Colonel Lugard, of the
Engineers. was announced, and on the 3d he was
buried with all military honours in the cemetery
bard by the racecourse. It was an imposing
spectacle, for all the officers of all the European
nations now present in Hongkong followed iu long
procession the gun carriage on which he was borne
to his grave. Many of those present not
only knew him as an officer whose loss at this
critical moment is disastrous to the public
service, but also loved the man. I was
on• of those who mourned to think we shall
heir no more his frank hearty laugh, and receive
no more his manly, soldierly greeting. Poor
Lugard was a victim to hard labour in this treache-
rous climate. He had much to do and small
materials to work with. He was a leader withcut
soldiers. He had to form and fashion a corps of
Engineers and Sappers and Miners out of troops of
the Line. His labour was incessant, and he paid
the penalty which these trying Hongkong heats
almost always exact for over-exertion.
The long-expected Adelaide made her appear-
ance on the lit, having on board 20 officers and
507 rank and file. On the 4th the Assistance came
in from Calcutta, bringing us back the 300 Marines
left behind by Lord Elgin and 100 of the 59th.
The letters by her were very unsatisfactoryin their
tone, and gave no promise of more troops from
India. _

We are now able to calculate the force upon
which we must depend to take and hold this city
with its million of inhabitants.
The first act in the way of a move was the issuing
of the following General Order to the fleet :
" GENERAL ORDER

"The period being nowat hand forcommencing active
operations against the city of Canton, the Commander-
in-Chief has to call the serious attention of the captains,
officers, seamen, and marines of the squadron to the
necessity of carefully protecting the lives and property
of the peaceable and unarmed inhabitants, not only on
the ground of humanity, but likewise on that policy,
which renders it so important to retain the goodwill of
those classes of the Chinese population, whose material
interest and predilections separate them from the High
Mandarins and the military powers of Canton, against
whom alone hostile actions will be directed.
"The Rear-Admiral has also to impress upon the offi-
*Ts and men who may so soon be actively employed,
his determination to discountenance and prevent all
looting or plundering, both as demoralising and as sub-
versive of thr discipline that is so essentially necessary
to success. He trusts that the officers, by precept, and
especially by their example, will carry out his views and
instructions.
"The Commander-in-Chief takes this opportunity of
expressing his warmest thanks to the commodore, cap-
tains, commanding officers, seamen, and Royal Ma-
rines of the squadron for the patient endurance they
have evinced during the last twelve months in the
monotonous and frequently harassing duty of keep-
ing open the navigation of the river, and he fur-
ther assures them that, whatever may be the nature of
expected operations, he shall enter upon them with the
strongest confidence in their ready and gallant co•
operation for the maintenance of the honour of the Bri-
tish flag and the success of our arms.
SEYMOUR,
Rear-Admiral, Commander-in-Chief."
The next act was a declaration from the French
Admiral declaring on the part of Franc) a blockade
of tie Canton river.
On the 11th it became known that the Chinese
writer, Ochung, who had been taken into custody
for maintaining a correspondence with Howqua,
had been sent into the city with letters from the
English and French Plenipotentiaries announcing
their arrival, and giving note of their credentials.
On the 12th Mr. Wade, the chief of Lord Elgib't,
interpreting staff proceeded to the city under a flag
of truce, and delivered the demands of the English
and French Plenipotentiaries upon the Imperial
Commissioner holding toe city of Canton.
A proclamation in the Chinese language was at
the same time circulated in the suburbs of the city.
It stated that certain demands had been made upon
the Imperial CoMmissioner, and that 80 days had
been given him within which to accede t) I)iern ;
that in the meanwhile (on the following Monday)
the allied forces would occupy the Islandof Lionel),
opposite to the city, doing no damage unless resist
ance should be made ' • that at the expiration of the
10 days allowed to the Commissioner an at tack would
be made upon the city, unless the terms demanded
were yielded, and warning all non-belligerents to
take such measures for the removal of their families
and property as they might think expedient.
It is a curious fast, illustrative of the rapidity
with which the Chinese obtain intelligence, that on
the Friday morning, while all the English in Hong-
kong were in ignorance of any communication
being about to be made up the river, I heard the
Chinese picture-dealer, to whose shop ass focus of
Chinese news I have already alluded in these
letters, offering to bet a picture against $5O that
the English would not be in Canton within ten days.
.He would not bet about 12 days.' He must have
got an early -copy of the proclamation, which was,
I believe, printed on boardship up the river, and
could nut, even at that distance of 50 miles, have
been in the hands of any Chinaman more than a
very few how e,
I poet this letter on Sur lay, although the mail
does not leave until Monday, fur as Honan is to be
occupied on Monday, and as I am going to witness
the operations, I may not be able to write again by
the outgoing mail. If.possible, however, I shall
send you a second letter.
We must hope, in the interest of humanity, that
when the allotted interval has expired Yeh will
yield. He must know that he has at his gr,tes the
representatives of the four great nations of the
earth, arid that however they may differ upon the
m3dus operandi, they are equally determined to
tolerate no Inge,r this foolish Chinese pageant.
Mr. Reed does not, I apprehend, propose to him-
self to go home withoiv, making a treAty, any more
thin does Count Putiatin, or Baron Le Gros, or

the Earl of Elgin. However much we may deplore
the undignified policy which the American states-
men at home have chosen to adopt, and however
much we may feel satisfied to find that they are
baulked of even the advantage they proposed to
themselves of monopolising the trade while we
were fighting the common battle, still our interests
are identical, and eventually we must work toge-
ther. The High Mandarins of China cannot but
know the power of the nations arrayed against
them. But, if they do not, if they are ignorant of
what every Chinaman at Singapore knows full wt l
and of what each small tradesman at Hong Kong
could tell them, what a practical satire this igno-
rance is upon that system of competitive examina-
tions and the rule of literary men, which, as it_ is
worked in China, has been so little understood and
so senselessly extolled ! It is useless; however, to
speculate upon what Yeh will do, for the next mail
will bring you tidings of what he has done, and what
we have done.

Meanwhile we must have troops. It will not do
to " give up China altogether." The hot months
will soon be round again, and we must expect that
of our handful of land force many must be invalided.
If disease should unhappily so reduce our scanty
and insufficient garrison as to compel us to retire
from the city, after having once taken possession,
the cansequences would be most disastrous. Already
have placards been posted at Amoy threatening a
massacre of the English there. It is a vain threat
while the might of England is felt in the South, but
it would easily become a dire reality. The English
families are mixed up in the crowded Chinese town.
They are without any means of mutual protection,
and the presence of a single ship of war is rather
a terror to the Chinese than a protection to the
Bri►ish. At Swatow, where many English now
reside, there is, and can he while the present treaty
holds, no protection whatever. At Foo-chow there
is a flourishing English settlement, but the ships-
of-war cannot get within 10 miles of the place.
What might be suffered at Ningpo the Portuguese
have already proved. Shanghai has the guns of
the Pique, and Sir Frederick Nicholson might land
his men and do something to protect the settlement,
for it has already shown itself defensible. But it
is our moral prestige which protects us in the North,
and this would be utterly ruined by ahy weakness
or shortcoming at Canton. Better be wise in time,
and send on a reasonable number of troops at once
than have to exact more terrible vengeance for more
massacres.

The attacking force, exclusive of the ships, a
list whereof I gave you by the last mail, will be
as follows

Troops from the garrison of Hong Kong, including
the 59:h Regiment, the Artillery, the Engineers,
and a portion of the Madras troops BOO
Marine 5........................... ..
Naval Brigade .
French troops and sailors 9OO

Coolies—

Chinese
Attached to Medical Staff
Commissariat
Malays

5,700

671
85
48
183

Total
CANTON RIVER, DEC l5.
As I had reason to suppose that the occupation
of Honan would take place on Tuesday, and that
the mail would be detained to allow the news of
this fact to reach Englan,l, I came up the river on
Sunday and found the English Admiral's flag still
flying at the anchorage between the Bogue Forts
and Tiger Island.
The French fleet had just moved up. The two
navies had been indulging in mutual civilities on
the occasion of the French declaration of blockade.
The English Admiral hoisted the French flag at the
main and issued a congratulatory general order.
The French returned the compliment, and issued an
order very fervent in its term. Moreover, the
French entertained the English fleet with theatri-
cals, and supper after the play, and they have left
Jack in high good humour with his lively allies.
Mr. Wade and M. Marques had returned from
their mission. Yeh despatched a mandarin of the
fifth rank—" All same, Captain," as the pilot re-
marked—to receive the two epistles. His scribes
are probably now looking up, Mencius and Choo-tze
for a stock of moral sentiments to be worked into
the reply.
If the reader has any curiosity as to this piece of
Chinese ceremonial it was after this fashion :—The
Chinaman, Achong, had been seat with a letter
from Sir John Bowring, and another from M.
Bourbelonne, notifying the arrival of the English
and French Plenipotentiaries, and stating that on
Saturday, at noon, a communication from these
high officers would be sent to the Imperial Com-
missioner.

Al 10 o'clock on the day appointed. a Hong boat
containing
'
a well-known official—rather a low fel-
low and decided in his opinions as to outside bar-
barians—took its station in the river. At noon the
English gun-boat, accompanied by the Dragonne
French gunboat, appeared at the western point of
Honan Island, and choosing its anchorage sig-
nalled to the Mandarin's boat to approach. The
interpreter, accompanied by M. Duchesne de Bel-
cour, Captain Bate, and some few other spectators,
went /cm board the Chinese boat, and was received
by the Mandarin with that tone of rollicking, swag-
gering civility which is thought by the Chinese to
be good manners towards barbarians, but bad man
ners towards each other. He called for tea, and
after this had been duly taken delivered Yeh's
answer to Sir J. Bowring and M. de Bourbelonne's
notes. Then he received the despatches from the
plenipotentaries of the allied Powers, and with
bows and "chin-chin" the parties separated. I
understand that Yeh's answer is couched in terms
of scant courtesy; that it recognises the plenipo-
tentiaries not as ambassadors to the Emperor, but
as ambassadors to Canton, and that it merely says
he shall receive any communications they may have
to make to him.

General Von Straubenzee, attended by Major
Clifford, joined the fleet on Sunday.
This morning at half past .nine the Admiral, ac-
companied by the General, left the Calcutta for the
Coromandel. They go up together to the French
Admiral, and will direct the debarkation of a
marine force of about 1,000 men on Honan Island.
I have frequently explaiued—but some do not
read and some do not remember, so I may as well re-
peat—that the Canton River is a very enormous
volume of water, seeking the sea by various chan-
nels. In front of Canton there are two of these
channels of special importance, and between these
two and formed by them is the large island of
Ronan, more than a mile and a half wide and four
or five miles long. On the channel opposite to the
back of the island stands the Macao Fort, now in
our possession aid garrisoned. The island, there-
fore, lies between Macao Fort and the city of
Canton.

The Imperatrix and the Imperador have already
gone up with the Marines, and behind the Coro-
mandel is the curious sight of a long train
of Chinese bumboats, freighted not only with or-
dinary stores, but carrying 30 head of live cattle.
The Chinese purveyors modestly desired that a gun-
boat should be ordered to tow them up, and although
the request excited some merriment among the blue
jacket., these bumbo4tuuen are much too important
to be left behind. So the Plover is tugging them
up the stre tm. That' stiff little Plover, the last
time I saw her she was sharing the shot with the
Hong Kong high up Fat shan Creek ; now she is
dragging up a ragged crew of China boats. Let us
move up the river after the Admiral and the Gene-
ral. It is fortunate for General Straubenzee that
he is not only a good soldier, but also that be is a
man of popular and winning manners. The fleet,
who all have a sort of Chinese filial affection for
Sir Michael Seymour, were rather inclined to look
with an evil eye upon any one who came to share
his laurels. They began rather early to find fault
with the General's name ; but now he has been
among them a little the general opinion is, as I
heard it expressed, "It is impossible to help liking
that old Strawberry jam after all." Moreover, they
see Sir Michael and the aforesaid Strawberry-jam
consorting together with intimate cordiality; the
Marines see that the General is every inch a sol-
dier, and everything in this important matter moves
easily and well.

Dim 16.
This morning the occupation of Honan took place.
The sight from Macao Fort was interesting only
for a few minutes. One battalion of our Marines
and 150 French sailors disembarked, under the
guns of shipping, upon the back of the island, and
out of sight of Canton. As they advanctd into the
island we watched the lines of red and blue, not
quite expecting, but feeling the possibility that some
puff of smote might give signal for a fight. The
Chinese, however, had wisely seen that this plain
and open island was not defensible. If there ever
had been any soldiers there, which is voty
improbable, they had been withdrawn, when we
issued our proclamation to the inhabitants than
we intended to take peacable possession. Some
tents were now pitched, the outposts formed, the
French and English positions demarcated, and our
material guarantee was seized.
Another affair has happened, which terminated
in a very different manlier. Intelligence travels
slowly from ship to ship in our widely-separated
force, but I believe the circumstances are these :
On the afternoon of Monday Lieutenant Pym, of
Arctic celebrity, who now commands tie Ban. erer,
landed for exercise in the neighbourhood of a
Mandarin village some way d9wh the river. lit
Was accompanied by Mr. Wurgman, the artist who
is here sketching fur the Illustrated News. Allured
by the friendly appearance of the inhabitants, they
entered the village, and they appear also to have

entered the house of the Mandarin there. Whether
Lieutenant Pym was acting prudently or properly
in doing this I am not able to state ; my informa-
tion is too indistinct to allow me to offer even a
suggestion upon this point. All that is certain is
that as the party returned to the boat the popula-
tion of the village suddenly encompassed them and
poured in a volley from giegals and other firearms.
Five men were killed. Lieutenant Pym was shot
through both legs. The interpreter then jumped
overboard, and was followed by several of the men,
who retreated across the paddy fields. They were
followed by the Chinese multitudeand six wounded.
All this took place within sight of the Nankin,
whence a-Sistanee was, of course, despatched at the
first sound of fire-arms. The Nankin men arrived
just in time to rescue Lieutenant Pyn, who was
keeping the Chinese at bay with his sword and
revolver. Of the whole party every one was either
killed or wounded, except Mr. Wurgman and two
seamen. This seems to have been a most
treacherous and unprovoked assault, and an attack
upon the village was subsequently made by the
Nankin. The first attempt was, I believe, not very
successful, but it will doubtless he renewed.

TUESDAY NIGHT.
It is most provoking that the most important
events will happen wi hin half an hour of the de-
parture of the mail. This afternoon a messenger
from Yeh arrived at Macao Fort with a despatch for
the .Plenipotentiaries. You know how hoping
against hope I have kept up some intelligence in-
side the city. Hitherto it has stood me in little
stead, but at a critical moment it has turned up
trumps. lam informed, then, that the Chinese_
merchants say that Lord Elgin's demand was of
the most temperate character - that he asked for no
more than that the treaty should be carried out,
that Canton should be put upon the same footing
as the other treaty ports, its gates opened to com-
merce, compensation given for damage done to
British merchants, and our occupation of Ronan
acquiesced in as a material guarantee until all
matters are settled. At least one of the Chinese
merchants thinks that these demands should have
been jumped at. Yeh, however, thinks otherwise.
The answer just gone up to Lord Elgin is couched,
if my information is correct, in a fine sarcastic vein,,
much like that returned to the American. It tells
his lordship that the question of the treatment of
strangers at Canton has been settled by the decree
of the Emperor ; that Sir George Bonham was
made a baronet for respecting that decree, and he
recommends Lord Elgin to follow his example ;
that, as to compensation, Yeh has a demand upon
the English Government for losses suffered by the
Chinese.

You must make some allowance for a version of
a Chinese document read to me in Canton English ;
bet I think I can pledge myself that this will be
found to be the substance of this document.
Lord Elgin is no true son of Robert the Bruce if
he stands this style of answer ; so we may soon now
expect something decisive here.