Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall sp4.djvu/166

 annoyed by such a host of men in their city, for there were thirty large boats, each carrying about sixteen men, all dressed alike, and kept in the strictest discipline under their respective officers. These preparations were made to ensure the Ambassador as respectable an entry into the city as possible, but not until it was found, upon application to the local government, that it was intended to pay him none of the usual honours. When the baffled Viceroy, however, beheld boat after boat arriving in his city, he would have been glad to have made any conditions on the subject of Lord Amherst’s reception; but Captain Maxwell had taken his line, and it was now too late.

“When the procession reached the Factory, the boats drew up and saluted his Excellency with three hearty cheers, the sound of which reached as far as the Viceroy’s palace, and is said to have disturbed him exceedingly.”

The last additional chapter contains the following account of Captain Hall’s interview with Napoleon Buonaparte, at St. Helena, in 1817.

“In pursuance of Captain Maxwell’s plan, arrangements were made by which Lord Amherst left Canton with still greater pomp and ceremony than he had entered it. He embarked at Wampoa on board the Alceste, which for this purpose was anchored at the highest point ever reached by any foreign ship: and such was the improvement in Chinese manners in the interval, that as the frigate dropped down the river, and passed the batteries a second time, the British flag was honoured by a complimentary salute from each in succession. The Embassy finally quitted China in January 1817. The subsequent fate of the frigate, and the new and arduous duties which fell to the lot of her commander on that trying occasion, are well known to the world. The Lyra was sent to Calcutta with despatches to the Governor-general; from whence she proceeded to Madras and the Isle of France, and after a prosperous and pleasant passage round the Cape of Good Hope, anchored at St. Helena on the 11th of August.

“Of course, nothing could engage our attention on arriving at this island so strongly as its wonderful inhabitant. Napoleon Buonaparte. For many weeks before, the probability of seeing him had engrossed the thoughts of every one on board in a degree which it is difficult to describe, and would hardly be credited by those who, from distance or other circumstances, never by any possibility could have been admitted to his presence. Whatever prejudices or opinions we might previously have entertained respecting his character, every former sentiment was now overwhelmed by the intense anxiety to see a man who had exercised such an astonishing influence over the destinies of mankind. The vivid interest recently excited in our minds by travelling into remote countries, and being the first to contemplate unknown nations, and a totally new state of manners, high though it had