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Rh prey upon British shipping (since August, 1839) with war-junks and fire-ships, and to prevent disloyal Chinese traders from supplying the British ships with provisions, accomplished next to nothing. They burned, by mistake, the Spanish brig Bilbaino (September, 1839), captured here and there Chinese junks which supplied British ships with provisions, made sundry night attacks on British vessels by sending down upon them, with the tide, fire-ships chained together in couples, but they did not capture a single British ship or boat. Commissioner Lin then resorted to the usual Chinese appeal to sordid avarice and ordered the Magistrates of the neighbouring districts to issue proclamations offering rewards, not merely for the destruction of British men-of-war or merchant vessels, for which large sums of money were promised, but for the capture or assassination of individuals. Accordingly a price of $5,000 was put on Elliot's head, sums ranging from $5,000 to $500 were offered for any English officer, according to gradation of rank, made prisoner, and one third of the money in each case for any British officer killed, also a reward of $100 was offered for any British merchant made prisoner and $20 for any such merchant killed. But Lin's bounty and assassination schemes were nearly as fruitless as his volunteer scheme. No British officer was captured or murdered, and but few British civilians were made prisoners or assassinated, though secret ambushes were laid frequently and the poisoning of wells was a common practice.

In June 1840, the ships forming the expedition began to assemble in Hongkong harbour, and every day now brought some man-of-war or troopship or other from England or India. By the end of June there had arrived seventeen men-of-war among them three line-of-battle ships (the Melville, Wellesley and Blenheim), with four of the East India Company's armed steamers (the Queen, Atalanta, Madagascar and Enterprise, to which subsequently the Nemesis was added). There were also twenty-seven troopships, which brought three regiments (18th Royal Irish, 26th Cameronians and 49th Bengal Volunteers),