[Sidenote:  Taking of the forts.]

May 21st.—­I have spent during the last three weeks the worst time I have passed since 1849, and really I have not been capable of writing.  The forts were taken yesterday.  The Chinese had had several weeks to prepare, and their moral was greatly raised by our hesitations and delays.  The poor fellows even stood at their guns and fired away pretty steadily.  But as they hardly ever hit, it is of very little consequence how much they fire.  As soon as our men landed they abandoned the forts and ran off in all directions.  We have hardly had any loss, I believe; but the French, who blundered a good deal with their gunboats, and then contrived to get blown up by setting fire to a powder magazine, have suffered pretty severely.  I fancy that we have got almost all the artillery which the Chinese Empire possesses in this quarter....  This affair of yesterday, in a strategical point of view was a much more creditable affair than the taking of Canton.  Our gunboats and men appear to have done well, and though they were opposed to poor troops, still they were troops, and not crowds of women and children, who were the victims of the bombardment at Canton.

May 22nd.—­Would that you had been a true prophet!  Yet there is something of inspiration in your writing on the 1st of March:  ’I was fancying you even now, perhaps, ascending the Peiho with a train of gunboats!’

May 23rd.—­These wretched Chinese are for the most part unarmed.  When they are armed, they have no notion of directing their firearms.  They are timorous, and without either tactics or discipline.  I will venture to say that twenty-four determined men, with revolvers and a sufficient number of cartridges, might walk through China from one end to another.

May 25th.—­No news since I began this letter, except a vague report that the Admirals are moving up the river slowly, meeting with no resistance, rather a friendly reception, from the people.  I am surprised that we have not yet heard anything from Pekin.  I hope the Emperor will not fly to Tartary, because that would be a new perplexity.  I am not quite in such bad spirits as last week, because at least now there is some chance of our getting this miserable war finished, and thus of my obtaining my liberty again....  We ought to have a mail from England any day....  Changes of Government have this inconvenience, that of course the new-comers cannot possibly take time to read over previous correspondence, so that they must be but partially informed on many points,... but no doubt at this distance it is practically impossible for Government to give instructions, and all the responsibility must rest on the agent on the spot.  At this moment, when I am moving up to Pekin, I am receiving the despatches of the Government commenting upon the Canton proceedings, and asking me:  What do you intend to do next?