about 8 P.M., having spent a very memorable first of January, and made a very interesting expedition; although I could not help feeling melancholy when I thought that we were so ruthlessly destroying the prestige of a place which had been, for so many centuries, intact and undefiled by the stranger, and exercising our valour against so contemptible a foe.

January 4th.—­I have not given you as full a description as I ought to have done of the views and ceremony of Friday, because I saw ’Our own Correspondent’ there, and I think I can count on that being well done in the Times....  This day is a pour of rain, rather unusual for the season....  Some of the Chinese authorities are beginning to show a desire to treat, and some of the inhabitants are presenting petitions to us to protect them against robbers, native and foreign.

[Sidenote:  Capture of Yeh.]

January 6th.—­Yesterday was a great day.  The chiefs made a move which was very judicious, I think, and which answered remarkably well.  They sent bodies of men at an early hour into the city from different points, and succeeded in capturing Yeh, the Lieutenant-Governor of the city, and the Tartar General, &c.  This was done without a shot being fired, and I believe the troops behaved very well, abstaining from loot, &c.  Altogether the thing was a complete success, and I give them great credit for it.  Yeh has been carried on board the ‘Inflexible’ steamer as a prisoner of war.  He is an enormous man.  I can hardly speak to his appearance, as I only saw him for a moment as he passed me in a chair on his way to his vessel.  Morrison, who has taken a sketch of him, speaks favourably of him; but it is the fashion to abuse even his looks.  The Lieutenant-General has been allowed to depart, but the Lieutenant-Governor and Tartar General are still in custody at head-quarters.  At my suggestion a proposal was made to the Lieutenant-Governor to-day to continue to govern the city under us; but the stolidity of the Chinese is so great that there is no saying what he may do.  We have given him till to-morrow to determine whether he will accept.  My whole efforts have been directed to preserve the Cantonese from the evils of a military occupation; but their stupid apathetic arrogance makes it almost impossible to effect this object.  Yeh’s tone when he was taken was to be rather bumptious.  The Admiral asked him about an old man of the name of Cooper, who was kidnapped.  At first he pretended that he knew nothing about him.  When pressed he said, ’Oh! he was a prisoner of war.  I took him when I drove you away from the city last winter.  I took a great deal of trouble with him and the other European prisoners, but I could not keep them alive.  They all died, and if you like I’ll show you where I had them buried.’  Morrison says that when he saw him on board the ‘Inflexible,’ he was very civil and piano.  He takes