munication on the basis of international equality, (4) payment of the costs of the expedition, (5) a guarantee that one set of merchants, should not be held responsible for the doings of another, and (6) the abolition of the Hong Merchants' monopoly.
It will be observed that here also neither the cession of Hongkong, nor the establishment of a Colony anywhere else, was included in the programme. But as the Governor General of India had referred to Lantao, and as the Plenipotentiaries, immediately after the capture of Tinghai, organized a complete civil, judicial and fiscal administration for the whole Island of Chusan, as if it was to be a British Colony, the chances of Hongkong now seemed even farther removed than ever.
The Emperor's eyes were opened at last when he perused Lord Palmerston's dispatch, and seeing that he had either to concede the British demands or go to war, he is said to have observed, as he laid down the dispatch, that 'Lin caused the war by his excessive zeal and killed people in order to close their mouths.' Lin's enemies at Court now poured into the Imperial ear all sorts of whispers, in consequence of which both Lin and Tang (the former Viceroy of Canton, now Viceroy of Fohkien) were degraded. Kishen was appointed Imperial Commissioner to arrange the Canton affairs, but he was hampered by the direction to consult Lin and Tang as to the measures to be taken. Eleepoo, the Viceroy of Nanking, was also appointed Imperial Commissioner and directed to proceed to Ningpo (opposite Chusan) to settle the Chusan affairs. After various negotiations with Eleepoo, Her Majesty's Plenipotentiaries concluded at Chusan a truce (November 6, 1840) on an undefined general understanding that the peaceful negotiations, which had commenced, should be continued and concluded at Canton by Kishen, and that meanwhile the English would hold Chusan; as a guarantee.
Whilst the Plenipotentiaries were occupied in the North, Commissioner Lin, though chafing under the blockade of the Canton River, continued at first his former course of egging on the scum of the people to acts of violence against the English
