.372
Review of Public Occurrences. During the
Jris.
upon passing foreigners. In this menacing posture of affairs outside, 1 had deter. mined to abide at Macao, so that my intercourse with her majesty's sloop night not be interrupted, and that I night concert with the commander measures of general protection, if any attack should be really directed against the lives or properties of her majesty's subjects.
"Resolved, in any pressure of emergency, actually threatening the continued peaceful intercourse with this empire, to incur most heavy personal responsibilities concerning the ships engaged in the illicit traffic, I had also determined to resist sudden aggression on British life and British property at all hazards, and to all extremity; and I am well assured, your lordship will be of opinion, that this was my capital duty as the queen's officer. On the 22d instant, however, as your lordship is already aware, the news reached me, that the storm had changed its direction, and impended over the whole foreign community at Canton in the most alarming form. Forwarding an address to the governor of Canton through the keunmin fú, and a transcript of the same to that officer, issuing two circulars to her majesty's subjects, and addressing a secret letter to captain Blake, of her majesty's sloop Larne, I procceded to make the attempt to reach these factories on the 23d instant.
*
It had been my intention to proceed only to the Bocca Tigris and carry on my communications from that point, but further disquieting private intelligence reached me from Canton; and the reflection of the natural unfitness of a coin- inercial community to take any consentaneous course respecting the delicate and momentous question 'n hand, in this hour of extreme peril to all interests, and indeed generally to human life, carried ine to the conviction that I must either reach these factories, or some desperate calamity would ensuc. On Sunday the 24th inst., I passed through the Bocca Tigris, and calling to me an inferior officer stationed there, explained to lúm my apprehension, that if the communications were cut off between me and all the people of my nation at Macao and the other anchorages, they would believe that I and all the other foreigners were prisoners, or alarmed by vague reports that our lives were in immediate peril, they would attempt a rescue, to the certain violation of the peace between the countries, and to the great increase of our own danger. This I desired him to explain to his admiral with my respects. I reached Whampoa at 4 P. M. of the same day (the 24th), where I learnt, as I had anticipated, that the intercourse between that place and Canton had been entirely cut off for forty-eight hours.
44
Putting on my uniform directly, and placing myself in the gig of her majesty's sloop Larue, which I had taken up with me, with the ensign and pendant hoisted, and my Chinese passport for the cutter in my hand, (declaratory of iny public character and name), I proceeded forthwith to the chief officer I could find in the reach. I told that officer that it was my purpose to proceed to Canton; and that apprehending forcible interruption, I had to warn him that my boat was unarmed, that my purposes were peace and the protection of my countrymen, that I should offer no resistance, but that it was my resolution to reach the factories, or to sacrifice my life in the attempt. I therefore called upon him not to lose one moment in forwarding expresses to advertise the officers of various stations not to fire upon me. Disregarding his carnest dissuasion, I proceeded on immediately in the cutter to the usual anchorage, about four miles from these factorice. At that point I was again approached by several armed boats; but pursuing a similar course of pepresentation. I entered the gig, and proceeded unwards with all POSSI
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