’These are all solid advantages; and, coupled with the provisions of the Treaty of Tientsin, they will, it may be hoped, place the relations between the two countries on a sound footing, and insure the continuance of peace for a long period to come.’

[1] Captain Roderick Dew had been engaged at the capture of Canton in
    December, 1857, and also in May, 1858, at the taking of the Taku
    forts.

[2] The new Plenipotentiaries were Tsai, Prince of I., a cousin of the
    Emperor, and Muh-yin, President of the Board of War:  with whom was
    joined Hang-ki, a member of the previous commission.

[3] ’A prisoner taken on the 21st of September, in the course of
    conversation, volunteered the remark that the fighting was all the
    doing of Sang-ko-lin-sin, who was as anxious for it as Prince Tsai was
    opposed to it.  This accords with other reports.’—­Mr. Wade’s
    Memorandum.

[4] In view of the tragic events which followed, the reflection will
    naturally arise that, if this party had not been thus sent forward in
    advance of the army, those events would not have occurred.  On the
    other hand it must be borne in mind, (1) that it was a matter of
    necessity that some one should go forward to arrange with the Chinese
    authorities as to the place where the Allied armies were to encamp;
    (2) that the practice of sending one or other of the Chinese scholars
    within the enemy’s lines had long been habitual, having been followed,
    with the best results, on many occasions, not only in this but in
    former expeditions; and that the Chinese, whatever might be their
    faults, had never shown any disposition to disregard a flag of truce;
    (3) that, accordingly, no one concerned appears to have had any idea
    that there was danger to be braved; and that, putting aside Lord
    Elgin, Baron Gros, and Sir Hope Grant, the readiness of Mr. Parkes,
    not only to go himself—­that in one who ‘knew not what fear was’
    proves nothing—­but to take with him several friends who were not
    called by duty, shows that, in the judgment of a man of great
    shrewdness and unrivalled knowledge of the Chinese character, who was
    moreover fully cognisant of all the circumstances, there existed no
    ground for apprehension; (4) lastly, that all the evils that followed
    were due, so far as it is possible now to judge, to a circumstance
    which no one could have foreseen at the time, viz. to a change of
    policy and of party within the Chinese Government.

[5] ’Personal Narrative of Occurrences during Lord Elgin’s Second Embassy
    to China,’ 1860.  By Henry Brougham Loch, Private Secretary to the Earl
    of Elgin.

[6] With generous candour, Mr. Loch, in his ‘Narrative,’ bears testimony
    to the correctness of this view.