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the rebels were to march northwards where they felt
confident of gaining support.
The collapse of the first move seems to
have retarded operations, and now the officials are
bestirring themselves in searching all suspected places, and arresting any who can in the remotest degree be connected with the plot.
Already the officials have ascertained that
the movement is very wide spread, and that in differ- ent parts of the province promise of support of men
and money had been secured as soon as a beginning had been made. The Superintendent of Police has informed
me that when the plot can be sifted to the bottom many influential men and high military officials will be involved. The real instigators have not yet been dis- covered; or if they have the fact is being kept secret, but the chief actors in the raid planned in Hong Kong are known, and the Canton Authorities are doing all they can to arrest them with the object of extorting
confessions out of them.
So far as is at present known, the person who has been most busy in working up the movement in Hong Kong is one Sun, a man who has lived in America for some years, who has studied medicine in a Hong Kong Hospital and who has been for some time connect- ed with the American Presbyterian Mission. He fled as soon as the fiasco on the 28th was discovered and is now in Hong Kong, oneof his associates is an em- ploye of Messrs. Sassoon & Co. in Hong Kong. He also is a Christian, and it was he who recruited the 400
men