21st._--Gros arrived last evening. He is very well disposed, and
ready to act with me. The French Admiral may be expected any day. We
are going to make a communication to Pekin to invite a Plenipotentiary
to meet us here, as we cannot go up to Tientsin.

About a week afterwards the bar was crossed; but it was not until three
more weeks had passed that the forts at the mouth of the river were taken,
in order to secure the passage of the Envoys up to Tientsin.

[Sidenote: Taking of the forts.]

_May 21st._--I have spent during the last three weeks the worst time I
have passed since 1849, and really I have not been capable of writing.
The forts were taken yesterday. The Chinese had had several weeks to
prepare, and their moral was greatly raised by our hesitations and
delays. The poor fellows even stood at their guns and fired away
pretty steadily. But as they hardly ever hit, it is of very little
consequence how much they fire. As soon as our men landed they
abandoned the forts and ran off in all directions. We have hardly had
any loss, I believe; but the French, who blundered a good deal with
their gunboats, and then contrived to get blown up by setting fire to
a powder magazine, have suffered pretty severely. I fancy that we have
got almost all the artillery which the Chinese Empire possesses in
this quarter.... This affair of yesterday, in a strategical point of
view was a much more creditable affair than the taking of Canton. Our
gunboats and men appear to have done well, and though they were
opposed to poor troops, still they were troops, and not crowds of
women and children, who were the victims of the bombardment at Canton.

_May 22nd._--Would that you had been a true prophet! Yet there is
something of inspiration in your writing on the 1st of March: 'I was
fancying you even now, perhaps, ascending the Peiho with a train of
gunboats!'

_May 23rd._--These wretched Chinese are for the most part unarmed.
When they are armed, they have no notion of directing their firearms.
They are timorous, and without either tactics or discipline. I will
venture to say that twenty-four determined men, with revolvers and a
sufficient number of cartridges, might walk through China from one end
to another.

_May 25th._--No news since I began this letter, except a vague report
that the Admirals are moving