The Soldier Phipps Endured For A Longer Time Than Mr. Bowlby The
Taunts And Ill-Usage Of Their Jailers, But They At Last Shared The Same
Fate, Dying From The Effects Of Their Ill-Treatment.
The bodies of all the
Englishmen, with the exception of Captain Barbazon, were restored, and of
most of the Sikhs also.
The Chinese officials were more barbarous in their
cruelty than even the worst scum among their malefactors; for the
prisoners in the jails, far from adding to the tortures of the unfortunate
Europeans, did everything in their power to mitigate their sufferings,
alleviate their pains, and supply their wants.
The details of these cruel deeds raised a feeling of great horror in men's
minds, and, although the desire to arrange the question of peace without
delay was uppermost with Lord Elgin, still it was felt that some grave
step was necessary to express the abhorrence with which England regarded
this cruel and senseless outrage, and to bring home to the Chinese people
and government the fact that Englishmen could not be murdered with
impunity. Lord Elgin refused to hold any further intercourse with the
Chinese government until this great crime had been purged by some signal
punishment. Sir Hope Grant and he had little difficulty in arriving at the
decision that the best mode of expiation was to destroy the Summer Palace.
The French commander refused to participate in the act which carried a
permanent lesson of political necessity to the heart of the Pekin
government, and which did more than any other incident of the campaign to
show Hienfung that the hour had gone by for trifling.
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Words from 136317 to 136590
of 191255
