Page:Chinese account of the Opium war (IA chineseaccountof00parkrich).pdf/91

 greedy demands. If the English would not agree, he would find some pretext for fighting them. This was our second offer of assistance from abroad: but YIKSHAN at first refused oven to represent the matter to the Emperor. The French then suggested that they should, as a first step, go to Hongkong and see POTTINGER. After several days' discussion, they replied that the English demanded Hongkong and three millions [? of taels] for the opium. YIKSHAN still declined to forward their representations to the Emperor. At last, when he did so, he added:—"but the enemy's designs are unfathomable, and possibly they are really assisting the English in an under- hand way, and acting as spies on us for them." The French hung on from February to June, awaiting our commands; and at last in June proceeded to Wusung: but the English were already far up the Yangtsze. The French wanted to engage Chinese pilots to take them up; but the Shanghai officials, on the contrary, threw obstacles in their way; and so much time was occupied in trying to obtain pilots that, at last, when the French entered the river in other boats, the treaty of peace was already con- cluded, and the English had got all they wanted;— anyhow a vast deal more than the French had proposed on their behalf. The French head-man