The Sun.
London, England, 1857-01-29 00:00:00

;lIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

THIS DAr—Morn. 12 min. aft. 4—Evening 32 min. aft 4
11::....:603110S4-3forn. M min. aft. 4—Evening 12 min: aft. 5

THE WEATHER—SUN OFFICE, JANUARY 29.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
38 —highest sinee noon yesterday.
28 —lowest this morning snd during the night.
34 —this day at noon.
jA ROM' =NB, 29'84.
WIND, N.N.E. —Light, with fine, frosty weather.

•
§11,31,

L ,I ON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 1857

Those who in URQUHART and Manchester
style exulted so much in the convicting, as they
thought, our English authorities at canton, of
illegal and cruel proceedings, seem likely to be
themselves convicted of mere partisanship. With
a certain school everything done by our colonial
commissioners and admirals is necessarily wrong.
They are wrong if they allow British trade and
commerce to be insulted and injured, but much
more wrong if they punish insults and injuries,
especially if committed by semi-barbarians. Now,
there are, doubtless, abuses of authority, and
mismanagement in plenty, abroad as well as at
home, but we cannot give in to the practice of
condemning our own countrymen under circum
stances so different to those which surround u-s,
except upon the fullest information.
From the first despatches, it might seem tl]
the warlike proceedings were commenced upon
ground technically illegal, the Arrow's British
register baying, it was said, expired for 11 days.
But even this now appears to be improbable, to
say the least. It appears that by the Colonial
Act, if she left Hong Kong before the register
expired, she was entitled to its benefit till by her
return she was enabled to renew it. As, in
accordance with one of the conditions of the Act,
she bad still her English master, Mr. KENNEDY,
it hardly seems likely that he, for his own safety's
sake, would suffer his vessel to lapse into a Chi-
nese one ; well knowing, as he must do, the tem
per of YEH and his Canton rabble towards
Englishmen.
Be this, however, as it may, it is very clear
that the Chinese fully intended to insult our flag,
and to defy the Treaty. They had duly been
made acquainted with the Act which authorised
colonial registers of Chinese built vessels on the
conditions, principally, of paying a thousand

dollars for it, and ton dollars annually for its

renewal—next of having an Eiglish master

next of having the name painted in very large

letters both in English and Chinese on the stern.

The latter fact, especially in connection with that
of the flag being flying at the time the Arrow was

boarded, shows that the Chinese must have been
cognisant of the British character of the vessel.
YEll, himself, proves by his own remarks that he
knew of the registration ; he objects, indeed, to
colonial registration. But the objection was too
late ; it ought to have been taken when the Act
was first communicated to him. Nothing can be
clearer, therefore, than the intent of YEH to gain
a triumph over the barbarians, and to digrace us
in the eyes of his brutal
too, populace. It appears,
as we all along expected would prove to tie
the fact, that this was not the first act of the
kind, but one of many similar acts. Abput a
year before YELT had seized a lorcha under British
colours, had dismantled her, had surrendered mil)
to men of war's boats, that only her hull had even
rhea been recovered, and that, after weeks of fruit-
less negotiation, her owners had obtained no re-

Some ten years previously four English-