The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-29 00:00:00

whatever may happen I shall, at least, have the
consciousness of having acted rightly. Therefore
go to Mr. Parkes and tell him that he shall be
removed to good quarters, and that he shall not
have to complain of his treatment now that he is
in my hands. Let there be no delay, no, not even
to write orders, but take the officer Sung with you
in proof that yon are acting by my direction.
Hang-ki followed up this speech with a longer
one of his own, the tenour of which was that I
should mark my appreciation of the Prince's good-
ness by persuading the Allies to observe the same
high principles as those which actuated the Prince.
I replied that I had no difficulty in assuring the
Prince that justice and courtesy would continue to
mark, as hitherto, the action of my own nation. It
was the absence of those principles on the part of
Chinese officials, as shown in their discourteous and
unjust treatment of foreign Governments, by refus-
ing to hold intercourse with them on terms of
equality, that had been the cause of the present
troubles. 'With justice and courtesy on the side of
the Chinese, I had no doubt accommodation could
be arrived at.
"Listen," said Hang-ki to the three mandarins
who were with him, "he declares that his nation
will act according to justice. Take off his chains."
This having been done, Hang-ki again resumed
the conversation. Ile told me that affairs remained
in a doubtful state; that correspondence between
the Prince of Kung and Lord Elgin continued; but
that it was still impossible to say whether the re-
sult would be war or peace. He thought, however,
that in the course of the negotiations an opportu-
nity would be afforded me of rendering the Prince
some assistance in return for his kindness to me.
I thanked the Prince for his good intentions, but
pointed out that, so long as I remained a prisoner,
I could be of very little use in promoting the set-
tlement of differences ; and I begged, therefore, that
he would form no high expectations of my assist-
ance, as, in the event of matters going contrary to
their wishes, they might visit their dissatisfaction
upon me.

Hang-ki assured me that I need not apprehend
danger in my own case, except in the event of a
great emergency, say the assault of the city, when
the foreigners would be killing Chinese, and it was
only natural that the latter should take revenge.
This led me to remark upon the more humane
practices of Western nations in regard to their
treatment of non-combatants; and those protected
by flag of truce, &c.; but Hang-ki met my
obser-
vations by stating that the customs of all nations
could not be expected to be the same on these
points.
Hang-ki having told me that I should probably
be taken out of prison to-morrow, I stated that I
hoped Mr. Loch would have the benefit of this ar-
rangement, as, if not, I could not avail myself of it.
We had been sent away together under the same
flag of truce ; had been seized and imprisoned
together; and it would not now do to take one of
us out of prison and leave the other in.
Hang-ki replied, that I was raising a difficulty
which he could not -elect without further instruc-
tions from the Prince of Kung.
He then took leave of me, but returned in a quar-
ter of an hour to say that he did not see how he
could brine. up the subject of the removal of Mr.
Loch to th%:Prince, unless I gave him a note stat-
ing that the latter had been exceedingly kind to
me, and was also very able and intelligent. I said
that it was quite impossible for me to express any
opinion as to the Prince'scharacter and attainments,
as I had never seen the Prince, nor had I ever
heard anything of his highness besides what Hang-
ki himself bad told me. Neither could I conscien-
tiously declare that he had treated me with extra-
ordinary kindness, seeing that I was still detained
in the common prison into which I had been at first
thrown, and that I had only that moment been re-
leased from my chains, although this privilege was
enjoyed by nine-tenths of the felons who were my
companions. It was not favour, but justice, that I
sought at the hands of the Prince. To be detained
as a prisoner at all was in itself an injustice, but if
so detained I ought not to be treated as a criminal
and an offender against Chinese law, but as an
officer and a prisoner of war. I was certain, I
added, that the justice and courtesy of the Prince,
of which Hang-ki bad said so much, would induce
him to relieve Mr. Loch and myself from our pre-
sent ignominious position, if the matter were pro-
perly represented to him.
Hang-ki urged that if I furnished him with a
paper to the effect requested, he could do more than
if he went to the Prince empty handed. Not will-
ing to lose the advantage which this demand gave
me, I again replied that I could write nothing of
the kind as long as I remained in prison, and that
I would not leave she prison unless I was accom-
panied by Mr. Loch; but that as soon as we were
taken out of prison, and were treated properly, I
should be ready to note the fact in writing, and
also to state, if he wished it, that I had been told
that the Prince was an able and intelligent man.
Hang-ki then left me, and returned in the after-
noon of the following day (September 29th) with
an order for the removal of Mr. Loch and my-
self from the prison of the Board of Punishments
to a temple where quarters had been prepared
for us. I need not here dwell upon the satisfac-
tion Av e both felt as we met each other again in
one of the outer courts of the Board. Having been
put into separate vehicles we were conveyed, in the
charge of Hang-ki and a strong escort, to* the
temple spoken of. Here we were placed in a room
about 20 feet by 10, which was e ntered by another
room of the same dimensions, in which eight of the
jailors of the Board were stationed. These rooms
looked into an open court, about 40 feet sqdare, in
which we were allowed to take exercise; but a
strong party of soldiers guarded the outer entrance
into this court, and we soon became aware that\
military were put up, in and about all pasts of the
building. Hang-ki explained the presence of the
jailors, by saying that they had been brought here
to act as our b: ervants. With a degree of conside-
ration for our comfort, not usually shown by man-
darins, he had supplied us not only with such essen-
tials as good food, beds, &c., but also with the
jo:uries of writing materials, soap, and towels,
sce. He left it to ourselves to order our meals
whenever we chose, and these, I may mention, were
abundant ai2d good during the time of our stay in
the Kaow-rnowu temple. As soon as ho had seen
us located in owe .new quarters I gave him, accord-
ing to m, promiwi the following note :
"The 'Chinese authorities are now treating Mr.
Loch and myself well, :Ind we are informed that
this is done by the direeio,a of the Prince of Kung.
We are also told by their his Highness is a
e,.
man of decision and great ioteLligence, and I trust
that, under these circumstances', h,,,,stilities may be
temporarily suspended to give owortunity for
negotiation."
September 30.—One of Han;-ki,s head Nt wants
delivered, in the name of the Prince of Kting,-
levee present of fruit and confectionery. Hang-ki
followed himself at 2 p.m., and talked at consider-
able length without having any apparent object.
He maintained that the invasion of a country and a
march upon the capital was altogether contrary
to justice and reason, end that was what we were
now doing.
I held that the justice or injustice of in-
.vasion depended upon circumstances ; if one
Power were wronged by another Power,
and could not obtain redress by fair means,
force was the only resource left. We knew
from history that China had been invaded about
200 years ago by the Manchoo Tartars, who, when
once they had taken possession of the country,

never quitted it, but founded the present dynasty- ,
and yet I presumed that he, as a IVlanchoo, was
quite prepared to defend that course.
He then argued that, if we captured Peking, we
should have to contend against the viceroys of all
the provinces, who would, of course, march upon us.
I said I thought not, as many of these ♦iceroys
were already unable to hold their own against rebels
and banditti. Instead, however, of wasting time
in arguing upon the degree of mischief that would
ensue upon the capture of Peking, I advised Hang-
ki to avoid that contingency altogether, by effect-
ing a timely settlement of affairs, instead of con-
tinuing to, indulge in delays which, under present
circumstances, must prove particularly dangerous.
Hang-ki went over a good deal of old ground,
and defended. hesitation on their part, on the
ground that we put difficulties in their way which
they could not get over. Among these he enume-
rated bringing up a large escort to Peking ; the
demand for immediate indemnities ; the presenta-
tion of the Queen's letter, &c.

As Hang-ki insisted in keeping me in the dark
as to the movements both of the Ambassadors and
the forces, I.could not give a more practical form to
my suggestions. I had gathered from a conversa-
tion with one of Hang-ki's servants, previous to the
arrival of his master, that our army had advanced
to and continued to halt at Pa-le-cheaon, and when
I assumed this as the fact, Hang-ki's equivocations
convinced me of its truth. I advised him, there-
fore, not to lose what appeared to me their last
chance of negotiation, as one more march would

bring our army under the walls of Pekin. Hang-
ki having again put forward the old plea that their
fears for the safety of their deputies prevented the
despatch of these officers to our camp, Mr. Loch
volunteered to escort them out and to return with
them again. Hang-ki -mid he would submit this
proposal to the Prince of Kung.
October I.—Hang-ki called at 11 a.m., and was
accompanied by Lau, formerly Naoutai at Shanghai
and a high literary mandarin. Lau had been sent
by the Prince of I to Ho-se-woo with despatches
for the Ambassadors at the same time that Mr.

Wade and myself had visited the Prince at Tung-
chow. In a half serious tone I compared the diffe-
rent treatment in the two cases. On the 16th

September I had carefully escorted Lau past our
lines, and on the 18th 1 had been seized and brutally
treated by the Chinese in theirs. Hang-ki came
forward in defence. The seizure of myself and
party was almost a necessity, he said, arising out
or the exigency of the moment : hostilities had
been resumed, I was in their hands at the time,
and it is contrary to all reason, he added, to put a
sword into the hand of your enemy at the very
time when you are going to give him combat. True,
I had at one time to complain of ill-treatment, but
that had been corrected, and I was now well taken
care of. They all blamed Sang-ko-lin-sin and the
Prince of I for fighting at Chang-kea-wan instead
of concluding peace ; but, although they admitted
that my detention was an act of treachery, they
would not see in my presentdetention acontinuation
of the injustice. The Prince of Kung does not
approve, Hang-ki said, of Mr. Loch going out with
the deputies; but we wish you to write a note to
Lord Elgin, proposing that your army should retire
for 10 or 20 le, and that deputies from both sides
should then meet upon some neutral ground. I
pointed out that such proposals should be made by
them to your lordship direct, and not through me.
and that I could not lower myself in the eyes of
my own people by proposing that our troops should
fall back previous to negotiation. I consented.
however, to note the proposal they made as to a
meeting on neutral ground, and accordingly wrote
your lordship the annexed letter. Mr. Loch and
myself also prepared private notes to be used in the
' event of Prince Kuug allowing these to be for
warded with the former.
The 2d of October passed without a visit, but on
the 3d Hang-ki and Lau called in the afternoon
The Prince of Kung, they said, had kept back all
the letters we had written on the Ist. Again, they
seemed disposed to limit their conversation to gene-
ral subjects, and to deplore the existence of present
differences without making any real effort to settle
them. They stated that Lord Elgin had started a
different proposition to theirs, namely, that depu-
ties should meet " before the armies," instead of at.
"a neutral spot." I pointed out that this was a
distinction without a difference. They then showed
me a paper, purporting to be an extract from one
of your lordship's despatches, on the subject of the
presentation of the Queen's letter, and wanted me
to declare to them whether this meant that your
lordship had no intention of insisting 'upon an
audience with the Emperor. They also produced
another extract, and desired me to inform them
whether that meant that your lordship demanded
nothing more than the execution of the Treaty of
Tien-tsin. I declined to give an opinion as to the
meaning of any isolated passages in your lordship's
communication, unless they showed me the original
letters ; these they always declined to produce.
They then delivered the following note, which had
been sent by Mr. Wade, in reply to the paper I had
written on the day we were removed from prison,
and which I now learned had been forwarded by
them to the English camp :
"My dear Parkes,—We are glad to hear from
you at last. I have written you a note in Chinese,
and take my chance with this in English. Ever
since the Prince Kung has begun to write, Lord
Elgin has been writing to say that if they send an
officer to get the treaty ready for signature, and
send out the prisoners at the same time, peace will
be made. He adds no conditions to those he in-
sisted on before, and if the Chinese had had any
sense they would have made peace a week ago. As
it is, they have delayed so long that we have been
obliged to move on the force; and if they do not
make peace now, we shall be obliged to attack
Pekin. Our shell will easily destroy the city, and
if any harm befal you all, it will be burned from
one end to the other. Every one here wishes you
well ; if the other fellows want anything, try to get
the mandarins to inform us."
The Chinese version of the above note, which
had been forwarded open, had, of course, informed
them of its contents. It gave us the information
we had so long been wishing for, and enabled me
to point out to Hang-ki and Lau that it was use-
less for them to ask me any longer for suggestions,
as it was quite clear they had only one course to
pursue. Again I urged on them the great risk to
which they exposed their Government and city by
indulging in further delay; but they did not
appear much concerned, and said that they had
heard, through the French, that there was to be no
more fighting. I then wrote the following acknow-
ledgment of Mr. Wade's note, in English and
Chinese, and bagged them to deliver it
My dear Wade,—We have received the clothes
and your note of the 2d, acknowledging mine of
the 29th of September. I see that subsequent
notes (one public and two private) of Ist October
have not been delivered to you. I find that such
arguments as I have been able to use to the Chinese
authorities are in complete accord with your own,
and my only hope is that Prince Lung is a man of
sufficient intelligence and weight in the councils of
his Government as to ieduce the latter to follow,
without further hesitation, the course marked out
by Lord Elgin,"
In one respect Mr. Wade's note gave us con-
siderable concern, as it seemed to infer that several
other persons were in the hands of the Chinese
besides the Sikh and the two Frenchmen who were
sent to Pekin with us ; bat though we often tried
to learn from Hang-ki and the other mandarins the
fate of the other gentlemen and men from whom we
were separated on the day of our seizure, they
al ways insisted that they knew nothing about any
other prisoners, and had only accidentally heard
three or four foreigners were detained in Sangeko-
lin-sin's camp. Having imagined from casual re
marks let fall from time to time by Chinese about
us, that Mr. Loch and myself, with the Sikh and
the two Frenchmen, were the only prisoners in
Pekin, we had hitherto hoped that the larger por-
tion of our original party, numbering no less than
twenty-three persons, had escaped capture.
October 4.—Lau called to say that all our notes
had been sent to the English camp with another
despatch from the Prince of Kung to your lord-
ship, upon the answer to which peace or war de-
pended. He would not, however, tell us the tenor
of the Prince's despatch,
October s—Hang-ki and Lau called in the after-
noon. As usual, their conversation was at first
desultory, and they pretended to want to discuss
with me certain provisions of the Treaty of 1858
and the Convention of Tien-tsin. To our inquiries
as to whether they bad any letters for us, they at
first produced only one newspaper and a packet of
medicine, but on my insisting that they must have
received something more, they delivered us Mr.
Wade's note of October 4, informing us, in very
decided language that your lordship had determined
not to open negotiations with the Chinese authori-
ties until the prisoners seized under the flag of
truce had been given up ; further, that as the
Chinese had not complied with this demand,
although often repeated, hostilities would at once
bo. resumed. As reference to this letter may be
cermenient in this place, I beg to annex a copy. I
readran it
,over to Hang-ki twice, and the uneasiness
read he and Lau had, till then, been trying to
be,...eme now more and more apparent.
conceal,
They again en,:leavoured to lead me into a long
discussion as to the
rightfulness of our proceeding,
reply to give them—" You
but I had only the one
have to choose between' ,destruction of your
capital or the unconditional surrender of your
prisoners." They could not agree, tt./..1.ey said, to that
mode of proceeding, and thingsmn' therefore,
take their course. Twice they went rnseq, and
twice they returned to ask if I could not pare: out
some other mode of meeting the difficulty, In reply
I simp;y quoted from Mr. Wade's letter. " But if
you are released," they e aid," before the Convention
is signed, and peace concluded, you will want to
retaliate upon us in some way for what you have
undergone. Mr. Loch and myself very distinctly as-
sured them that we had no wish or intention of
the kind, and they had it yet in their power to
atone for the wrong committed, by immediately
releasing all their prisoners. They then urged
that the Prince of Kung wanted to see me be-
fore we were returned. They could not say
when, perhaps in two or three days' time, I warned
them against incurring any delay on this account,
adding that, although it would be gratifying to
me to see his Highness, such an interview
could
not have any influence upon your lordship's actions.
I then wrote and gave them in English and
Chinese the following reply to Mr. Wade
" My Dear Wade,— We have received your letters
of the 4th, and I read the contents of yours to
Hang-ki (who brought it to me), in order that he
might see that the only way of adjusting difficulties
is the one which you point out. The Chinese, if
they are sincere in their wish for peace, have the
means in their own hands of bringing about a set-
tlement at any, moment, and if the destruction of
Pekin or any great calamity ensue, it is the conse-
duence of their own conduct.
October 6.-11stag.ki called at noon. He had
been up the whole night, he said, with the Prince
of Kung, discussing the provisions of the Treaty of
1858, and the proposed Convention. The Prince
of Kung had determined to accept both, and to
give up the prisoners in three days' time, on condi•
tion that both the Allied and the Chinese forces
should fall back a few miles, and thus place some
distance between each other. The Prince now
wanted me to write to your lordship to this effect;
and he also wished explanations from me on seve-
ral points in both Treaty and Convention, particu-
larly in respect to the Resident Minister, the pay-
ment of indemnities, and the evacuation of
the places held by the Allied troops. I
again pointed out how useless it was for me
to continue to write notes to your lordship, and
repeated my objections to being made the medium
of proposing that our troops should fall back from
any position they now had before or near Pain.