The Result Of This Was Seen On The 27th, When,
Just As Sir Hugh Gough Was Giving Orders For The Assault, He Received A
Message From Captain Elliot Stating That The Chinese Had Come To Terms And
That All Hostilities Were To Be Suspended.
The terms the Chinese had
agreed to in a few hours were that the commissioners and all the troops
should retire to a distance of sixty miles from Canton, and that
$6,000,000 should be paid "for the use of the English crown."
Five of the $6,000,000 had been handed over to Captain Elliot, and
amicable relations had been established with the city authorities, when
the imperial commissioners, either alarmed at the penalties their failure
entailed, or encouraged to believe in the renewed chances of success from
the impotence into which the English troops might have sunk, made a sudden
attempt to surprise Sir Hugh Gough's camp and to retrieve a succession of
disasters at a single stroke. The project was not without a chance of
success, but it required prompt action and no hesitation in coming to
close quarters - the two qualifications in which the Chinese were most
deficient. So it was on this occasion. Ten or fifteen thousand Chinese
braves suddenly appeared on the hills about two miles north of the English
camp; but instead of seizing the opportunity created by the surprise at
their sudden appearance and at the breach of armistice, and delivering
home their attack, they merely waved their banners and uttered threats of
defiance. They stood their ground for some time in face of the rifle and
artillery fire opened upon them, and then they kept up a sort of running
fight for three miles as they were pursued by the English. They did not
suffer any serious loss, and when the English troops retired in
consequence of a heavy storm they became in turn the pursuers and
inflicted a few casualties. The advantages they obtained were due to the
terrific weather more than to their courage, but one party of Madras
sepoys lost its way, and was surrounded by so overwhelming a number of
Chinese that they would have been annihilated but that their absence was
fortunately discovered and a rescuing party of marines, armed with the new
percussion gun, which was to a great degree secure against the weather,
went out to their assistance. They found the sepoys, under their two
English officers, drawn up in a square firing as best they could and
presenting a bold front to the foe - "many of the sepoys, after extracting
the wet cartridge very deliberately, tore their pocket handkerchiefs or
lining from their turbans and, baling water with their hands into the
barrel of their pieces, washed and dried them, thus enabling them to fire
an occasional volley." Out of sixty sepoys one was killed and fourteen
wounded. After this Sir Hugh Gough threatened to bombard Canton if there
were any more attacks on his camp, and they at once ceased, and when the
whole of the indemnity was paid the English troops were withdrawn, leaving
Canton as it was, for a second time "a record of British magnanimity and
forbearance."
After this trade reverted to its former footing, and by the Canton
convention, signed by the imperial commissioners in July, 1841, the
English obtained all the privileges they could hope for from the local
authorities.
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