Sunday, September 5th._--I wish to be off for England: but
I dread leaving my mission unfinished.... I feel, therefore, that I am
doomed to a month or six weeks more of China.

_September 6th._--It is very weary work staying here really doing for
the moment little. But what is to be done? It will not do to swallow
the cow and worry at the tail. I have been looking over the files of
newspapers, and those of Hong-Kong teem with abuse;--this,
notwithstanding the fact that I have made a Treaty which exceeds
everything the most imaginative ever hoped for. The truth is, they do
not really like the opening of China. They fear that their monopoly
will be interfered with.

_September 11th._--I am amused with the confident way in which the
ladies here talk of going home after five years with fortunes made.
They live in the greatest luxury,--in a tolerable climate, and think
it very hard if they are not rich enough to retire in five years.... I
do not know of any business in any part of the world that yields
returns like this. No wonder they dislike the opening of China, which
may interfere with them.

[Sidenote: Arrival of Commissioners.]

It was not till the 4th of October that the arrival was announced of the
Imperial Commissioners, including among their number his old friends
Kweiliang and Hwashana. While they were on the road, circumstances had come
to Lord Elgin's knowledge which gave him reason to fear that they might be
disposed to call in question some of the privileges conceded under the
Treaty, and that they might found on the still unsettled state of affairs
in the South a hope of succeeding in this attempt. He thought it better to
dispel all such illusions at once, by taking a high and peremptory tone
upon the latter subject. Accordingly, when his formal complaint against
Hwang, the Governor-General of the Two Kiang, for keeping up hostilities in
spite of the Treaty, was met by a promise to stop this for the future by
proclamation, he refused to accept this promise, and demanded the removal
of Hwang and the suppression of a Committee which had been formed for the
enrolment of volunteers; intimating at the same time, through a private
channel, that unless he obtained full satisfaction on the Canton question,
it was by no means improbable that he might return to Tientsin, and from
that point, or at Pekin itself, require the Emperor to keep his
engage