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report that M. Tricon, the French Minister, and Mr Grosvenor, the Secretary of the English Legation at Peking, both paid me a visit here last week; I have heard alike the English and the French diplomatic views of the situation. I am also in frequent correspondence with Sir Harry Parkes, who has returned to Peking, after successfully concluding a treaty with Korea. He intends to visit me at Hongkong in next March.
The opinions of all these high authorities, and my subsequent observations from this central post of Hongkong, confirm the views reported in my previous despatches.
Mr Tricon thinks that neither France nor China will formally declare war, though their respective forces are sure ere long to come into collision at Bacninh, in Tonquin, where, in addition to the banditti...
* The latest intelligence from Tonquin which has reached me to this date will be found in the enclosed article from the principal French newspaper published at Saigon.