were trying to evade the performance of their promises, and that there was nothing for it but to ’appeal again to ’that ignoble passion of fear which was unhappily the one primum mobile of human action in China.’[4] Accordingly he wrote to the Imperial Commissioners that, as the Emperor did not carry out what they undertook, he would have nothing more to say to them on the subject; that the English soldiers and sailors would take the Braves into their own hands; and that he or his successor would in a month or two have an opportunity of ascertaining at Pekin itself whether or not the Emperor was abetting the persons who were creating disturbances in the South.

The journal continues, under date of January 20:—­

[Sidenote:  Town of Shanghae.]

Yesterday I took a walk through the town of Shanghae with a missionary who is a very good cicerone.  We went into a good many ateliers of silversmiths, ribbon-makers, tobacco-manufacturers, carvers in wood, and the like.  The Chinese are skilful manipulators, but they are singularly uninventive.  Nothing can be more rude than their labour- saving processes.  We visited also a foundling establishment.  There was a drawer at the entrance in which the infants are deposited, as is, I believe, the case at Paris.  The children seem tolerably cared for, but there were not many in the house.  The greater portion are given out to nurse.  We went also into a large inn or lodging-house, frequented by a respectable class of visitors—­silk merchants, &c.  The rooms seemed comfortable, quite as good as the accommodation provided for commercial travellers at an English inn.  A good many books seemed to form part of the luggage of the occupant of each room that we entered.  It is curious that I should have been engaged in so many enterprises of rather an out-of-the-way character since I have been out here.  I confess that in my own opinion the voyage up the Yangtze is not the least important one.

January 22nd.—­Mail arrived.  Frederick’s appointment[5] is very satisfactory, and I am sure it is the best the Government could have made for the public interest.  It is a great comfort to me to know that he will wind up what I cannot finish.

[Sidenote:  Return to Hong-Kong.]

Shanghae.—­January 25th.—­After full consideration I have resolved to go at once to Hong-Kong, and take the Canton difficulty in hand.  A variety of circumstances lead me to the conclusion that the Court of Pekin is about to play us false.  Ho, the Governor-General of the Two Kiang; the Tautai of this port; and the Treasurer of the district, all well-disposed to foreigners, have been gradually removed from the councils of the Commissioners.  Some papers which we have seized also indicate that the Emperor is by no means reconciled to some of the most important concessions obtained in the Treaties.  This row at Canton is therefore