Page:China and the Manchus.djvu/93

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TAO KUANG
77

supersede him. Further vexatious action, or rather inaction, on the part of these two at length drove Captain Elliot to an ultimatum; and as no attention was paid to this, the Bogue forts near the mouth of the Canton river were taken by the British fleet, after great slaughter of the Chinese. In January, 1841, a treaty of peace was arranged, under which the island of Hongkong was to be ceded to England, a sum of over a million pounds was to be paid for the opium destroyed, and satisfactory concessions were to be made in the matter of official intercourse between the two nations. The Emperor refused ratification, and ordered the extermination of the barbarians to be at once proceeded with. Again the Bogue forts were captured, and Canton would have been occupied but for another promised treaty, the terms of which were accepted by Sir Henry Pottinger, who now superseded Elliot. At this juncture the British fleet sailed northwards, capturing Amoy and Ningpo, and occupying the island of Chusan. The further capture of Chapu, where munitions of war in huge quantities were destroyed, was followed by similar successes at Shanghai and Chinkiang. At the last-mentioned, a desperate resistance was offered by the Manchu garrison, who fought heroically against certain defeat, and who, when all hope was gone, committed suicide in large numbers rather than fall into the hands of the enemy, from whom, in accord-