Page:Chinese account of the Opium war (IA chineseaccountof00parkrich).pdf/90

 granted, and that ships smuggling opium should be confiscated with their cargoes. But the leaders in Canton made a night attack upon the factories, and killed several Americans by mistake; so that the Americans were no longer willing to come forward in our interests.

After the repeated breaches of their conven- tion by the English, the French foreign official several times offered his assistance in building ships. That winter two men-of-war arrived, with a military leader, who said he had some confidential business upon which he wished to confer with the Tartar-General: he begged that the services of an interpreter might be dispensed with, as he had two bonzes with him who understood Chinese. The Tartar-General YIKSHAN and the Viceroy K‘IKUNG had several interviews with him outside the city. The attendants were dismissed, and it was confidentially represented that, the English having stopped the trade of all nations, the French King had sent men-of-war for protection, and had ordered him to act as mediator, and to proceed to Ningpo and Shanghai to arrange peace, when he would have no difficulty in bringing the English to a proper sense of things, and in finding a way out of their