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Inclosure 1 in No. 21.
Chinese Secretary's Office, March 9,1857.
(Extract.)
I HAVE the honour to state that I went yesterday evening to meet a Chinese who was believed to have information to give respecting the steamer "Queen," captured, as your Excellency is aware, on the 23rd ultimo, by some Chinese who had taken a passage in her from this to Macao.
All he had to tell, of his own knowledge, regarding the steamer, was this: that he left Fat-shan, the large market-town some ten or twelve miles west of Canton, on the 6th instant, for Macao, en route to Hong Kong, and that he saw the steamer lying some three or four miles below Fat-shan, at a place called Tai-kei-mi; it was his impression that she was left there because she drew too much water to have gone higher up the stream. He had heard that her captors committed the act as a speculation of their own, and that Yeh, to whom they presented the vessel in hopes of obtaining a reward, on learning that she was not British, had dealt with them as criminals, and was prepared to surrender her, provided she were claimed by the Representative of any other Power.
Other matter fell from the man, which I think may be worth your Excellency's attention. He describes himself as a drug merchant from Soo-chow, in the south of Sze-chuen. He comes to Canton once a year on business, and, being a Roman Catholic, visits Hong Kong, with letters from the missionaries of his Chrétienté, and takes back a remittance from the French Mission here established. He is, apparently, a substantial and respectable man, not in office, but holding, by purchase, the rank of District Magistrate.
He left home, I think, in August, when he had not heard of the trouble caused by the appearance of savages in the west and south of his province, mentioned in the "Pekin Gazette" as occurring in the summer. Kwei-chou he knew had been seriously disturbed by the aborigines, but Hoo-nan, through which he passed, was tranquil. He crossed the Kwang-tung frontier about the 10th of October, and reached Canton safely on the 26th.
He confirms the report that there has been a terrible outbreak in Tsing-yuen, about 100 miles north of Canton. The district in question is never quiet, but by his account, on this last occasion, some thousands of people had been massacred by outlaws, wearing, as is now apparently the mode, the red cap badge of the Tai-ping-wang insurgents.
In answer to questions regarding the condition of Canton itself, he said there was no business doing when he visited it a few days ago. The merchants were much dispirited, in particular Howqua, who was mistrusted by foreigners as their opponent, and taunted by Yeh with being a traitor in foreign interest. There was no sign of yielding, as it was not possible for Yeh, if he entertained it, to admit any feeling of apprehension to the people, and almost as impossible for them to make any such admission to Yeh, partly because it would be too humiliating, and partly because were despair to drive them this length, Yeh is very inaccessible. He rejects all advice tendered to him by the subordinate heads of the provincial Govermnent; expresses perfect confidence in his own resources, and yet is without any declared plan for purposes of peace or war.
There were large numbers, said my informant—who cannot himself return home until business is resumed at Canton—as anxious for peace as he, but the causes adverted to above, the awe with which the braves inspire the persons who contribute to their support, the absence of any leader or leaders of sufficient sense or weight to move the people towards measures of accommodation, and, lastly, the apprehension, which though vague was sincere on the part of the people themselves, that concession on their side would encourage encroachment on ours, all induced him, my informant, to fear that unless we, which he did not expect, were to make the first move towards peace, it could not be obtained without the mediation of some other foreign Power. It was left entirely to Yeh, by the Emperor, to make peace or war.
I did not think it worth while to make many remarks in reply, but in regard to our encroachments I said that he must know that it was simply impossible for a mercantile community to submit to the restrictions heretofore imposed upon us in respect of building sites and personal freedom; territory, of course,
