ong-Kong to-morrow; but since you
behave with evasion and bad faith, in not punishing the offenders in
the presence of deputed officers, I shall keep the troops at Canton, and
proceed to-morrow in the steamer to Foshan, where, if I meet with
insult, I will burn the town.' Foshan is a town in the neighbourhood of
Canton, and happened to be the scene of Colonel Chesney's ill usage.
Now, upon this vigorous step, what followed? Hear Sir John:--'Towards
midnight a satisfactory reply was received, and at five o'clock next
morning three offenders were brought to the guard-house--a mandarin of
high rank being present on the part of the Chinese, and deputed officers
on the part of the British. The men were bambooed in succession by the
Chinese officers of justice;' and at the close of the scene, the
mandarin (upon a requisition from our side) explained to the mob who
crowded about the barriers _why_ the men were punished, and warned them
that similar chastisement for similar offences awaited themselves. In
one point only the example made was unsatisfactory: the men punished
were not identified as the same who had assaulted Colonel Chesney. They
might be criminals awaiting punishment for some other offence. With so
shuffling a government as the Chinese, always moving through darkness,
and on the principles of a crooked policy, no perfect satisfaction must
ever be looked for. But still, what a bright contrast between this
energy of men acquainted with the Chinese character, and the foolish
imbecility of our own government in Downing Street, who are always
attempting the plan of soothing and propitiating by concession those
ignoble Orientals, in whose eyes all concession, great or small,
through the whole scale of graduation, is interpreted as a distinct
confession of weakness. Thus did all our governments: thus, above all
others, did the East India Company for generations deal with the
Chinese; and the first act of ours that ever won respect from China was
Anson's broadsides, and the second was our refusal of the _ko-tou_. Thus
did our Indian Government, in the early stages of their intercourse,
deal with the Burmese. Thus did our government deal with the
Japanese--an exaggerated copy of the Chinese. What they wanted with
Japan was simply to do her a very kind and courteous service--namely, to
return safe and sound to their native land seven Japanese who had been
driven by hurricanes in continued succession into the Pacific, and had