out a shot being
fired, and I believe the troops behaved very well, abstaining from
_loot_, &c. Altogether the thing was a complete success, and I give
them great credit for it. Yeh has been carried on board the
'Inflexible' steamer as a prisoner of war. He is an enormous man. I
can hardly speak to his appearance, as I only saw him for a moment as
he passed me in a chair on his way to his vessel. Morrison, who has
taken a sketch of him, speaks favourably of him; but it is the fashion
to abuse even his looks. The Lieutenant-General has been allowed to
depart, but the Lieutenant-Governor and Tartar General are still in
custody at head-quarters. At my suggestion a proposal was made to the
Lieutenant-Governor to-day to continue to govern the city under us;
but the stolidity of the Chinese is so great that there is no saying
what he may do. We have given him till to-morrow to determine whether
he will accept. My whole efforts have been directed to preserve the
Cantonese from the evils of a military occupation; but their stupid
apathetic arrogance makes it almost impossible to effect this object.
Yeh's tone when he was taken was to be rather bumptious. The Admiral
asked him about an old man of the name of Cooper, who was kidnapped.
At first he pretended that he knew nothing about him. When pressed he
said, 'Oh! he was a prisoner of war. I took him when I drove you away
from the city last winter. I took a great deal of trouble with him and
the other European prisoners, but I could not keep them alive. They
all died, and if you like I'll show you where I had them buried.'
Morrison says that when he saw him on board the 'Inflexible,' he was
very civil and _piano_. He takes it easy, eats and drinks well, &c. He
said to his captain, that if it was not an indiscreet question, he
would be glad to know whether it was likely that we should kill him.
The captain had no difficulty in re-assuring him on that point.

_January 8th_.--We had rather an important day's work yesterday. The
Lieutenant-Governor showed some symptoms of a willingness to govern on
our conditions. This gives some chance of our getting out of the
difficulties of our situation. You may imagine what it is to undertake
to govern some millions of people (the province contains upwards of
20,000,000), when we have _in all_ two or three peopl