The Officials Even Showed An Inclination To Follow Their Example, When They Learned That Taoukwang Refused To Listen To Any Conclusive Peace, And That His Policy Was Still One Of Expelling The Foreigners.

To carry out his views, the emperor sent a new commission of three members to Canton, and it was

Their studious avoidance of all communication with the English authorities that again aroused suspicion as to the Chinese not being sincere in their assent to the convention which had saved Canton from an English occupation. Taoukwang was ignorant of the success of his enemy, and his commissioners, sent to achieve what Lin and Keshen had failed to do, were fully resolved not to recognize the position which the English had obtained by force of arms, or to admit that it was likely to prove enduring. This confidence was increased by the continuous arrival of fresh troops, until at last there were 50,000 men in the neighborhood of Canton, and all seemed ready to tempt the fortune of war again, and to make another effort to expel the hated foreigner. The measure of Taoukwang's animosity may be taken by his threatening to punish with death any one who suggested making peace with the barbarians.

[Illustration: CANTON - THE FLOWER PAGODA]

While the merchants were actively engaged in their commercial operations, and the English officers in conducting negotiations with a functionary who had no authority, and who was only put forward to amuse them, the Chinese were busily employed in completing their warlike preparations, which at the same time they kept as secret as possible, in the hope of taking the English by surprise. But it was impossible for such extensive preparations to be made without their creating some stir, and the standing aloof of the commissioners was in itself ground of suspicion. Suspicion became certainty when, on Captain Elliot paying a visit to the prefect in the city, he was received in a disrespectful manner by the mandarins and insulted in the streets by the crowd. He at once acquainted Sir Hugh Gough, who was at Hongkong, with the occurrence, and issued a notice, on May 21, 1841, advising all foreigners to leave Canton that day. This notice was not a day too soon, for, during the night, the Chinese made a desperate attempt to carry out their scheme. The batteries which they had secretly erected at various points in the city and along the river banks began to bombard the factories and the ships at the same time that fire- rafts were sent against the latter in the hope of causing a conflagration. Fortunately the Chinese were completely baffled, with heavy loss to themselves and none to the English; and during the following day the English assumed the offensive, and with such effect that all the Chinese batteries were destroyed, together with forty war-junks. The only exploit on which the Chinese could compliment themselves was that they had sacked and gutted the English factory. This incident made it clearer than ever that the Chinese government would only be amenable to force, and that it was absolutely necessary to inflict some weighty punishment on the Chinese leaders at Canton, who had made so bad a return for the moderation shown them and their city, and who had evidently no intention of complying with the arrangement to which they had been a party.

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Words from 101521 to 102084 of 191255