The first letter gives details of the scheme, and the second offers a reward of 200 Taels for restoration of the second letter, on hearing that the first had been intercepted.
I enclose a statement drawn up by A. D. R. Bidwell to whom the letters were originally brought.
Enclosure 3.
167
"300 men in iron Armour to proceed along by the sea and seize and slay??
The original documents, prepared by whomsoever, were exceedingly well executed and at first puzzled W. H. Medhurst and his advisers when subsequently shown to them by Mr. Meadows, the Vice-Consul.
As there was an uneasy feeling explaining the supposed accidental circumstance by which the first letter miscarried and came into his possession.
The attack, originally fixed for the 23rd ultimo, was certainly extremely original in its conception and no doubt would have been eminently successful if the European Community had been content to remain quiescent and allow amongst the Chinese at the time, a feeling which I believe not unfrequently arises and passes off with equal rapidity its appearance and disappearance.
And as several rumours of a severe attempt to fire the town - a scheme never utterly impossible, I did not think it prudent to allow the town...
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