The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-18 00:00:00

upon the whole it was certain that the merest trifle,
any at all, of the rice had slipped through,

1' An interdict having simultaneously been pn t
upon the payment of the usual British dues to the ccs.
tom-house, those who sate at the receipt of custom 'se.
gan to hold a sinecure office. Fine holiday times there
were now in Shanghai, which made the Chinese .Mr.
Toots very popular at that port ; but on the other hand,
at Peking, and all around the Imperial ExcheqUer,
which showed all the symptoms .of galloping consump-
tion, he would bare been cursed by bell, book, and
candle, had it been known distinctly who caused the
stoppace. Toots, therefore, fancied that he would try
his bard at a new swindle, which could cost him only
two dollars and a lie. So one fine morning be said 'ete
the consul—What is it you want ?—Cone. What is ?
Why, I should think you knew pretty well by this time
what I want is—the Teing-poo knaves.—Toots. Well,
I've got 'em.—Cans. How many ?—Toots. Tco ; but as
they were the ringleted. re, that ought to do.—Cons. No :
it's too little, by eight. However, as a payment to ac-
count, I'll take it : We'll call it a first instalment. But
let's have a look at the men ; are you pure they are
genuine ?—Toots. Oh, quite.—Cons. Well, I'll send for
the missionaries. These, on arriving, were introduced,
together with the consul, to Vie supposed ruffians ; but
the whole pretence was instantly detected as a hoax.
Neither of the men could be recognised by any of the
missionaries ; and by an ingenious artifice of the consul,
they were conclusively exposed as swindlers. Concert-
ing his plan with the missionaries, the consul challenged
both the knaves to answer him this question :
one most remarkable incident in the course of the
outrage—Had it happened at the east (otherwise the
Shanghai) gate, or at the north gate ? Alter an embar-
rassed pause, both men said—A t the north gate. Now,
in fact, it had happened at neither, but in the very centre
of the town, two miles removed from any gate. This
dodge, therefore, would not work, any more than the
brick-masked rice. The two scoundrels were exploded
from the stage with peals of laughter, whilst Mr. Toots
walked off re infect, saying, It's of no consequence, not
of the very least consequence, not the slightest in the
world.
"But nobody could say that of the next move in the
game. The consul had by this time become weary of the
fool's play, which, because it was childish and girlish be-
yond all belief to European minds, wae not on that ac-
count the less knavish or the lees dangerous. He was
therefore now prepared to play his last and capital card :
neither the rice embargo nor the customs' interdict was
of a nature to be long continued—the pressure, growing
every hour more severe, would have found a vent in
riots, such as neither prudence nor conscience, on our
British side, was likely to contemplate steadfastly. The
last resource, therefore, in a case where the subordinate
magistrates showed no signs of yielding, must be an
armed appeal to the higher. This was tried : it was
tried instantly ; instantly it met with the amplest ac-
quiescence ; instantly satisfaction was awarded on each
several article of our complaint, though Mr. Toots per-
sisted in saying "it was of no consequence, not the
least." * * * *
The arch little gipsy, the saucy Espiigle, thought other-
wise. She and Mr. Toots differed in opinion. For she
it was that worked the whole revolution. She it was
that carried a certain letter from the consul, and also
the consul's compliments, into the great river Yang-tse-
Keang ; and from pure forgetfulness (which I can allow
for, being myself subject to frequent absence of mind),
she carried at the same time her whole armament of guns.
This little ship, finding herself in this huge river, danced
a few cotillions up and down ; but, at last, night coming
on, she settled down to business ; ran up to Nanking ;
asked if the Viceroy lived there ; and, finding he did,
Jack handed in his papers, saying that the Viceroy
would find a writ inside for himself. It is inconceivable
what a fright and what a termashaw were caused by this
little Espiegle. For hundreds of milqs on both banks of
the river were seen men peering into honeycombed guns,
like magpies into a marrowbone, cleaning muskets, dry-
ing damp gunpowder. Some reason there was for all
this alarm, since the Espiegle had her guns with her ;
she showed her teeth."
• •

" But the great result of the trip to Nanking was,
that we gained all the objects contemplated by the con-
sul in a degree, and with a facility, that no man oould
have counted on ; so that no act of vigour ever perhaps
so fully justified itself by the results as did this of the
consul. The fact was, they were all alarmed at our pre-
sence. Vainly we spoke words of friendship and assur-
ance. The Emperor himself was not very far off,
and was agitated by the visit of the little Espiegle ;
which the crew could not understand, saying, Bless
your heart, the little pet wouldn't harm a fly ;
she's as quiet as a lamb.' She might be so, but
the likraii were all anxious that the lamb should
seek her pastures in some other river. This un-
easiness was our greatest auxiliary : aided by this
we obtained almost instant despatch ; and, that the
lamb might have no pretence for coming back to attack
the wolves, everything asked fur was conceded. Had
we asked for Toots's head, we should probably have got
it. Within three days, those ten ringleaders, whom
Toots had found it so dire an impossibility to produce
for trial, were paraded with the cangue (or portable pil-
lory) about their necks in the centte of Shanghai ; and
subsequently provided with chambers suited to their
various walks of study, in select dungeons : the thou-
sand junks, in number, roominess, and elegance of ac-
commodation, probably well representing the thousand
black ships' that followed Admiral Agamemnon to the
Troad, were all in one minute suffered to unmoor by the
little Childers, whose wrath exhaled as suddenly as that
of Diana at Aulis. Consequently rice was suddenly
looking down' to a horrible extent in Peking. The
customs which bad seemed frozen up, now thawed freely
into the celestial breeches-pocket, though sadly inter-
cepted by ravenous mandarins on the way. Concerning
all which, though everybody else was pleased, Toots
remarked that it wasn't of much consequence, in
fact, speaking confidentially, wasn't of any, not the
lest in the world, of no consequence whatever. So
terminated, in such triumphant style, and with re-
paration so ample, this affair of Shanghai, which, left to
itself, or confided to any other hands than those of
Rutherford Alcock, naturally and rapidly tended to a
new war ; that tendency it was which so much alarmed
the Viceroy. Of all diplomatists, this masterly Ruther-
ford Alcock is least open to the charge of having ope-
rated by means of war ; since, of all men in China, he
happens to be the one who prospered exclusively by pre-
venting a war."