1842.
Summary of Official Documents.
479
arc inadequate; my official communications are cut off'; and the north and south are effectually separated; so that oven my dispatches to be forwarded to the throne, can be sent only by special messengers sent off express by myself. The number too of people within the city is very great, and, it is to be feared, will, from want of food, give rise to internal revolution.”*
On the 20th, Hailing writes his last communication to the emperor. A dispatch from the governor-gencral had reached him detailing the aid he had afforded in fire rafts, reinforcements, &c., after quoting which, he exclaims, "At the receipt of this, your slave was much astonished. The governor-general reached Chinkiáng only on the evening of the 13th, he first gave his orders for the preparation of these fire rafts on the 14th, and the same evening he went on to Nanking ; the next morning the foreign vessels came to Chinkiáng, and when they arrived nothing of the fire rafts was to be scen."
After some further details of his measures of defense, and the strength of the united forces acting under and aiding him, he recurs to the refusal of his request some months before to have the river staked, and thus ends his last dispatch: "Now the whole fleet of the rebellious barbarians is approaching, ship quickly following ship. Your slave is under the banner of the Tartars, an hereditary servant of the crown. Hc, then, can do no otherwise than exert his whole heart and strength, in endeavors to repay a small fraction of the favors he has enjoyed from his government."-The day after this he fought bravely for many hours, and when he found his troops all routed, and the city committed to his charge fallen into the enemy's hands, he sat down in one of the public courts of his official house, and ordering fire to be set to it, rc- mained there and perished in the flames. "And what else could he do?" is each Chinaman's remark; "he never could again see the emperor."
• It appears, from another document, that the intendant, lately appointed over the commissariat, the magistrate, and the officers of the post, fled on the 15th, but appeared again shortly after.
Drawn up by J. Rowr. Morrison,
Chinese secretary and interpreter.