Page:Chinese account of the Opium war (IA chineseaccountof00parkrich).pdf/59



THE NANKING TREATY.

HE yielding to terms on the part of the English at Canton in May 1841 was owing partly to our armies having to escape from immediate peril, and partly to the anxiety of the enemy to replenish his military chest with our money; so that neither side had leisure to think of trade arrangements: and the foreign soldiers, knowing, after their narrow escape at Sám-yün Village, that they had drawn upon themselves the hatred of the people of Canton, whose ferocity they now had reason to fear, did not dare to enter the Canton River any more for purposes of trade. The co-hong merchants were unwilling to go to Hongkong on account of the perils of the sea, and therefore it was proposed to exchange Hongkong for Tsím-sha Point and Cowloon. As the Emperor had not yet been invited to agree to Hongkong being given up, the Tartar-General and the Viceroy felt that the other two places were still more out of the question, and therefore arranged that [the foreigners] should come to Whampoa as before. But the enemy would not allow us to repair the Bogue Forts, which