The Sun.
London, England, 1857-02-25 00:00:00

ance that the British flag shall in future be respected ; that
48 hours are allowed for this communication, which being
passed, you are instructed to call on the naval authorities
to assist you in enforcing redress."
And as another specimen of this style of commnnication
by the English authorities, I will read to your lordships
the first letter addressed by Sir J. Be wring to Commis-
sioner Yeh. This document runs thus :
" Hong Kong, Nov. 10, 1850.—Sir,----His Excellency
the naval Commander-in-Chief, Sir M. Seymour, has com-
municated to me copies of his late correspondence with
your excellency. In the hope of preventing a recurrence
of the present unfortunate state of things at Canton, his
excellency has proposed that, as elsewhere, there should be
free intercourse between the authorities within and foreign
representatives without the city. This proposition your
excellency declines to entertain. You insist not only in
confounding it with the past discussions of the treaty right
of all foreigners to enter the city, but in maintaining that
the right itself is shown to have been definitely abandoned
in a despatch from my predecessor, Mr. Bonham, dated
9th April, 1849. The passage cited is not quoted in full
by your excellency. Referring to the non-fulfilment of the
I engagement entered into in 1847, Mr. Bonham proceeds,
although entered into by Keying, and confirmed by your
i
Emperor, t (the engagement) has not been carried out ; the
question at issue rests where it was, and must remain in
abeyance. The discussion of it cannot at present be farther
prosecuted between your excellency and myself. I can but
repeat my regret at the unsatisfactory report which this
evasion of the treaty will compel me to make to my Go-
vernment.' Your excellency seeks to construe as declara-
tory of its cessation for evermore, words simply signifying
that discussion of our treaty right was suspended until
further report of its repudiation could be made to her Ma-
jesty's Government. Pending this reference, Mr. Bonham
called on British subjects to abstain from entering Canton.
That the British Government had never abated au iota of
its claim is shown by Mr. Bonham's letter of the 21st of
August, 1819. This was written under instructions of
Viscount Palmerston, then Principal Seoretary of State
for Foreign affairs, and his excellency Seu was requested to
transmit it to Pekin. The assumption of Seu himself, in
his reply, dated 27th Aug., 1849, that the discussion was
no more to be renewed, was at once rejected by Mr. Bon-
ham, and your excellency must be well aware that ever
since my return to this country as minister plenipotentiary,
the subject has been foremost amongst those of which I
have hal occasion to advise your excellency the British
Government looked for a satisfactory adjustment. I beg
to refer you particularly to my communications of 25th
April, 10th July, and 27th Dec., 1854, and of the 11th
June, 1855. The tenour of your correspondence with Sir
M. Seymour obliges me once more to remind you that the
treaty right of British subjects to be admitted into Can-
ton has never been abandoned by the British Government.
But this right is not at the present moment antler discus-
sion. The Admiral is simply insisting on certainty of access
to the local authorities, and with good reason. Had the
British consul been able to obtain such access on the day
that the lorcha's flag was torn down, and her craw unlaw-
fully seized, the affair might have been settled in a single
interview ; as it was, letter after letterhad to be addressed
to your excellency; severa 'you allowed to remain for days
without a reply, and to this hour you have neither apolo-
gised for the misconduct of your executive, nor have you
given any sufficient assurance that henceforward our flag
and jurisdiction shall be respected. Your Excellency's per-
tinacity in ignoring your obligations on these points has
rendered necessary a series of coercive measures ; and it
is to avoid the future necessity of a course as opposed to
our interests as it is offensive to our feelings, that the ad-
miral has made to you thissimple proposition."
This was the first communication, and made too upon
the ex parte statement of Consul Parke-4 In reply to
this, Commissioner Yeh wrote thus :
"It was shown on trial of the prisoner that the lorcha
was built by Seoachinz, a Chinese; a register was pur-
chased for herof the merchant Bloch, for LOY) dole., and
she assumed the British flag without be in t entitled to it.
She was lying at the time of the seizure off the Dutch Folly,
and, as has been clearly proved, with no ensign flying ; it
being as it appears an established law with British vessels
to haul down their ensign when they drop anchor, and not
to hoist it again until they get under weigh. Had it been
shown on the trial that her flag was bona fide th,lt, of a Bri-
tish merchant vessel, it would have been doubtless correct
to follow some other course than the one pursued, but the
fact being that a Chinese had assumed the flag without
title, what need was there for Mr. Consul Parkes to put
himself forward as his advocate? Again thel2 men seized
were all taken back by Hew, assistant magistrate at Nanhae
on 22d ult., but Consul Parkes declined toreceive either them
or a despatch sent with them from me. The letter under
acknowledgment says that had the authorities been accessible
to the consul the affair might have been disposed of in a sin-
gle interview. The assistant magistrate, Hew, was s ent
twice with the men to bo surrendered. It is through him
that (foreign) correspondence with me is always transmitted.
Now the assistant magistrate is acom,missioned officer of the
Chinese empire. Heretofore any foreign business that has
had to be transacted by deputy has been transacted by officers
similarly deputed, and the present was a case of all others
requiring common conference; but Consul Parkes had
made up his mind not to consent to what was proposed.
On la subsequent occasion I sent Tecang, prefect of Lay-
chow-foo, to the foreign factories to consider what steps
should be taken, but the consul now insisted on something
more than (the rendition of) the men captured on board
the lorcha. There being in all this no inaccessibility on the
part of the Chinese officials, what was there to make an
immediate adjustment of the dispute impracticable ?"
Nor is it alone in the despatch of Sir J. Bowring that
this language prevails. In Consul Parkes' letter of the
lbth Oct. to Yeh this passage occurs :

"At about 10 a.m. yesterday I received your Excel-
' lency's ' Declaration,' which, I regretted to tee, evinced no
desire on your Excellency's part to grant the satisfaction
demanded in my letters of the Bth and 12th inst."
And in his letter of the 21st of the same month to the
same functionary we find the following :
" But your Excellencylwith a strange disregard both of
justice and treaty engagements, has offered no reparation
or apology for this injury; and by retaining the men you
have seized in your custody, signify your approval of this
violation of the treaty, and leave her Majesty's Government
without any assurance that such aggressions shall n ,t again
occur. Your Excellency was warned by what took place on
the evening of the 14th inst. of the dangerous consequences
to which a refusal might lead ; but your Excellency treats
with indifference that warning, and also the several pro-
tests made to you not only by me but by her Majesty's
plenipotentiary."
And with what spirit this discussion was carried on on
our part your lordships may judge from the fact that
when the Chinese authorities sent back the whole of the
men taken on board the lorcha, the consul then raised
the objection that the men were not sent back in the cus-
tody of a proper officer. Indeed the impression—and I
say it with regret—left upon my mind by the careful pe-
rusal of these papers is this—that Sir J. Bo wring desired
to make the most of the difficulty which had arisen with
a view to the carrying out of his favourite scheme. And
your lordships will see that the plan of operations was
matured, as I may say, from the first. Consul Parkes, in
his despatch of the 12th Oct., eight days only after the
difficulty had first arisen, writ es thus :
" I advise, therefore, and I do so with all the deference
due to the superior judgment of your Excellency and the
naval commander-in-chief, and with a deep sense of the re-
sponsibility which I, as the officer charged with the care of
British interests at Canton, in offering this advice, incur,
that as we have searched the river and found no war-junks
(and anything less than the seizure of a fleet would, I am
now convinced, have had no effect on the Imperial Coin-
missioner), our operations should now be directed against
the forts between Whampoa and Canton. The Imperial
Commissioner, I submit, should again be summoned to
grant the satisfaction already demanded within twenty-
four hours, failing which we should then take possession of
the four barrier forts. I cannot conceive it possible that,
his Excellency will then withhold compliance with our de-
mands; but should he still continuo contumacious, a simi-
lar course should then be pursued with the forts at Canton,
and it would be exceedingly advisable, I think, that the re-
sidence of his Excellency, which is not far from the water-
side, should also in that case feel the effects of the boni-
bardmeut. But I consider it altogether indispeusable to
the safety of our greatinterests at Canton, that prior to the
commencement of these operations a force sufficient for the
protection of the foreign factories should be placed in posi-
tion before them. I advocate attack on the Barrier Forts
in the first instance, because they stand by themselves, and
are not surrounded, as are those at Canton, by the dwel-
lings of the people, who should be exempted, whenever
it is in our power to do so, from any disastrous conse-
quence accruing from the acts of their authorities, and
will, it may be hoped, see the justice of offensive
measures being aimed by us solely against the latter.
And should wo be driven to the extremities I have hero
anticipated, I then think that our proceedings would lose
much of their effect if wo leave the forts in the condition
in which we find them; but that one or more should, as
far as possible, be destroyed, to mark by their ruins, for a
time at least that aggression, when unprovoked and uu-
atoned, may be visited with signal retribution."
Now, I will show your lordships that the old idea of
Sir J. Bowring was mixed up with the business of repara-
tion fur the Arrow difficulty ; for we find in one of these
despatches the following.—
"f have conveyed. to Sir Michael Seymour an opinion
that if his Excellency and yourself agree on the fitness of
the opportunity, it would be well if tho vexata qucestio of
our entrance into the city should now be settled."
And we find elsewhere that Sir J. Bowring expresses
his wiiliugness to go to Canton in order to the settle.
ment of the matter. It appears, however, that the
Chinese commissioner was not so easily to be deceived
as to the real object of these demands for reparation, for
we find him writing thus to Consul Parkes :
" But I, the minister, also know full well what you, the
said consul, have in view. (A. laugh.) For a certainty it
is nothing less than a desire on your part to imitate the
course taken by the Euvoy Davis in the spring of 1847."
The shrewdness, indeed, which the commissioner
showed in " smelling a rat" in this transaction appears
not to have been without its effect on Sir J. Bo wring.
It would seem, I am sorry to say, that the governor lost
his temper, for in his reply to the despatch of Consul
Parkes, which enclosed hies the couunisezener a commu-
nication, he wrote thus :
"I have your despatch, dated yesterday, and regret to ob-
serve that the unabated obstinacy of the Imperial Commis-
sioner has necessitated the continuance of offensive opine-
lions. I notice in the declaration of his Excellency, dated the
26th inst., that a reference is made to the prooeteliugs of
Sir J. Davis in 1341. You may find a proper opportunity
of reminding the Imperialiolat
ed, Commissioner
e
promisesthata
e insteadgge.
gsehamefaliy v
into by the Chinese authorities had
bio2feeebnnetisn then entered
faithfully and honourably kept, all the existing
calamities would have been avoided."
I will not weary and disgust your lordships by going
through the various details of these miserable transac-
tions. On the 25th the Dutch Folly fort was taken ; on
the 27th fire was opened on the residence of the com-
missioner and on the town ; on the 29th a practicable
breach was effected, and the city was stormed. I should
remark that a short time previous to this Sir J. Bu wring,
acting in defiance of his standing instructions, sent to
Hong Kong for troops, and obtained the miserable sup-
ply of 17 sappers and miners. This is a fitting opportu-
nity of recalling to your lordships' recollection a very
proper letter, written by the noble earl opposite (Earl
Grey), when he was at the head of the C lonial-office,
and deepatelied, as the noble call himself stated, with
the full concurrence of the Duke of Weilingten. That
letter was addressel to Major-General D'Aguilar, and is
as follows :

" Colonial-office, Nov. 21, 1847.
" Sir,—The Governor of Ceylon has communicated to
me an application which you have made to the major.
general commanding her Majesty's troopsin that island
01 A rcuarconunt of half A company of artillery, vith