Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/78

70 well-executed business, but it unfortunately did not bring a settlement a whit the nearer. Nothing further of importance occurred until the commencement of November, when Sir Michael Seymour attacked and destroyed a fleet of war junks which were threatening his communications. On the 9th of November he issued another ultimatum giving notice that hostilities would be prosecuted actively if a settlement was not reached in twenty-four hours. As the only response vouchsafed was an evasive communication in which stress was laid on the growing indignation of the Chinese people at the British action, Sir Michael Seymour on the 12th and 13th of November attacked and captured the Bogue forts, which at the time were armed with four hundred guns. Still there were no overtures for peace from the Chinese. On the contrary the Cantonese showed the greatest activity in perfecting their defensive measures and waging hostilities in their peculiar fashion. Stragglers were cut off and ruthlessly butchered, in some instances after horrible torture; attempts were made to fire ships, and forts were blown up. Finally, successive attempts were made to fire the foreign factories, attempts which in the long run were so successful that the entire foreign settlement was completely destroyed. The position ashore at length became so difficult to hold that Sir Michael Seymour elected to withdraw his men to the ships, and to conduct the negotiations from them. The Chinese, elated at this retrograde move, now redoubled their efforts to annihilate the hated barbarians. Unwary Europeans who happened to be moving about at this period were captured and murdered. In one instance a daring attack was made upon a postal steamer plying between Canton and Hongkong, and the ship captured and destroyed, and the Europeans on board put to death. This deadly activity was stimulated by the rewards offered by Yeh, which at this juncture amounted to as much as thirty pounds a head.

The hostilities went on in desultory fashion for some weeks, the Chinese gaining confidence as they realised how impotent Sir Michael Seymour was to deal with them effectually. Towards the end of January, 1857, the British and American docks and factories at Whampoa were destroyed by fire. Wherever it was deemed safe to attack the property of foreigners the attack was delivered. To deal with the marauding Chinese junks, which were able to avoid encounters by taking refuge in the numerous shallow creeks where the large ships of the navy could not follow them, Sir Michael Seymour manned and armed a number of native ships and carried the war very successfully into the heart of the enemy's country. But these measures had only a local and transient effect. They left Yeh absolutely indifferent, and if they moved the populace at all it was only to add fuel to the flames of their patriotic ardour. In the face of such a situation, Sir Michael Seymour could not do less than apply to the home authorities for that material aid which he needed to carry out a comprehensive plan of campaign. At the close of 1856 he sent home a demand for 5,000 troops and meantime called to his aid as many of the units of the garrison of the Straits Settlements as could be spared. War by this time was not only in sight—it had arrived.

The Home Government treated Sir Michael Seymour's requisitions with the seriousness that they merited. They saw that whether they liked it or not they had to deal with a difficulty of more than ordinary importance in its military as well as in its diplomatic aspects. They therefore decided to send out the Earl of Elgin as special envoy to direct any negotiations which might be entered into with the Chinese Government. Lord Elgin was a nobleman thoroughly qualified by temperament and experience in public life for the duty. His views were broad and statesmanlike and he had sufficient of the national quality of caution to make it certain that he would not rush the country into reckless courses. He left England at the end of April, 1857, intent on making his way to the seat of disturbances as quickly as possible. But neither Lord Elgin nor the Government at home had foreseen a crisis in India with which the China difficulty was by comparison insignificant. While Lord Elgin was on the sea the flames of mutiny were sweeping over Northern India, placing the British power in the deadliest peril it had been in for generations. On arrival at Singapore on the 3rd of June, a letter from Lord Canning, the Governor-General of India, met the Envoy, representing in the most urgent terms the peril of the position in which the paramount power was placed and imploring him to divert the China expedition to the assistance of the sorely tried British forces in the North West Provinces. It was impossible, of course, to resist so pressing an appeal. The necessary orders were given and the British regiments drawn from England and Mauritius were promptly despatched to Calcutta, where they arrived to materially alleviate a very dangerous situation. Meanwhile Lord Elgin resumed his journey to Hongkong, which port he reached in the first week of July, 1857. In the months preceding his arrival, Sir Michael Seymour had been busily occupied in carrying home to the mind of the enemy the fact that war for them was a very costly business. A great fleet of Government junks was destroyed in the Escape Creek, an inlet lying between Hongkong and the Bocca Tigris, smaller expeditions were conducted up the other creeks in the locality, and, most important of all, on the 1st of June the Admiral, with a small force of men, stormed and captured immensely strong positions held by the enemy in and about the town of Fatshan. The latter operations were carried out with a dash and gallantry characteristic of the senior service, and though they resulted in somewhat heavy casualties—thirteen killed and forty wounded—the price was not a heavy one to pay for what was unquestionably a valuable piece of work.

Lord Elgin, on deliberating carefully over the position of affairs which confronted him at Hongkong, came to the conclusion that the operations against Canton with a view to the crushing of Yeh's power must be suspended pending the arrival of fresh troops from home. The decision arrived at caused some discontent amongst the mercantile community, who were naturally anxious that a decisive blow should be struck without delay in view of the certain misconceptions which would arise from a slackening of the operations. But though the arguments used in support of this view were exceedingly weighty, there is little doubt that Lord Elgin was entirely in the right. To attack Canton with a reasonable prospect of success at least four thousand troops, it was calculated, would be required. At Hongkong at that time the total garrison only numbered fifteen hundred, and of these a considerable number were ineffectives. The utmost force that could have been mustered with the assistance of the fleet was two thousand men. This body, even if successful in capturing the enemy's positions, was altogether too small to hold them. Moreover, without reserves for the expeditionary force to fall back upon, the British power would have been greatly imperilled in the event of a disaster. Lord Elgin, though opposed to active measures in the Canton River, was not content to sit down and do absolutely nothing. He proposed to the Home Government that he should make a demonstration with the fleet off the Peiho, with the object, if possible, of getting into touch with the Peking authorities. Lord Clarendon, the Foreign Secretary of the period, wrote entirely approving of the suggestion; but local opinion was strongly