6
No. 6.
Sir J. Bowring to the Earl of Clarendon.—(Received March 16.)
Hong Kong, January 19, 1857.
My Lord,
I AM informed the United States' Commissioner, the French Chargé d'Affaires, and the Governor of Macao, have sent in protests to the Imperial Commissioner Yeh, against the daring and indiscriminating attempt to poison the foreign community, which was exhibited in this Colony on the 15th instant.
Dr. Parker has sent me copy of his letter to the Imperial Commissioner, which I have the honour to inclose.
Though some hundreds of persons ate of the poisoned bread, it having been supplied by the largest bakery in the Colony, so rapidly did the fact circulate of the poisoning of the loaves issued for the morning's supply, that measures were almost universally and promptly employed to counteract the effects of the arsenic, and though there has been much suffering, there has mercifully been no loss of life.
The Chinese proprietor of the bakery fled with his family in the morning on which the crime was committed. A steamer was sent in pursuit of him, and he was arrested at Macao. Proper steps have been taken for a thorough investigation of the matter, and appropriate punishment will follow the evidence of guilt.
I have, & c.
(Signed) JOHN BOWRING.
P.S.—January 21. Since writing the above, I have received copy of the protest addressed by the Governor of Macao to the Imperial Commissioner, and of which I now inclose translation.
Inclosure 1 in No. 6.
Dr. Parker to Commissioner Yeh.
Legation of the United States, Macao,
January 16, 1857.
Sir,
THE Undersigned, Commissioner and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America in China, is again compelled to address your Excellency remonstrating and protesting against the violation of our Treaty of Amity and the laws of civilized nations, and the rules of justifiable war.
The United States' Consul, who arrived from Hong Kong last evening, has appeared before the Undersigned, and in person represented that a most diabolical deed has there been perpetrated by Chinese subjects, who had administered poison, in the bread supplied to the public in that Colony and on board vessels in the harbour, to multitudes of men, women, and children, without distinction of nation; that he had himself partaken of the poison, from which he is still suffering, and that other citizens of the United States are rendered dangerously ill by the poisoned bread.
The Undersigned, as in duty bound, solemnly protests against this unjustifiable mode of warfare. "The use of poison as a means of war is prohibited by the unanimous concurrence of all the public jurists of the present age. The custom of civilized nations has exempted the persons of the Sovereign and his family, the members of the Civil Government, women and children, cultivators of the earth, artizans, labourers, merchants, men of science and letters, and generally all other public or private individuals engaged in the ordinary civil pursuits of life, from the effects of military operations, unless actually taken in arms, or guilty of some misconduct in violation of the usages of war, by which they forfeit their immunity." Now by the manner in which the poison has been administered in Hong Kong, not only have the innocent women and children, and all artizans, labourers, merchants, and men of science belonging to the English nation, had their lives exposed; but the citizens and subjects of
