operation, was stoutly maintained. The security of our position here will now be the main object of our exertions. I have, &c., (Signed) M. SEYMOUR. His Excellency, Sir John Bowring, LL.D., List of Officers engaged in the destruction of War Junks and the French Folly Fort, on the 6th November, 1856. Calcutta. Launch Mr. E. H. Stuart, acting mate. Barge Pinnace Launch Barge Pinnace Lieutenant F. J. Campbell. Mr. Kennedy, midshipman. Sybille. Lieutenant A. H. Alston. Mr. H. T. Price, midshipman. 1st Cutter Mr. A. T. Brooke, midshipman. Pinnace 1st Cutter Encounter. Lieutenant Gibson. Mr. F. R. Hardinge, acting mate. 2nd Cutter- Mr. Alexr. Tupman, midshipman. 2nd Gig Mr. W. G. P. O'Callaghan, cadet. Sampson. 1st Cutter - Lieutenant Wm. Clark. 2nd Cutter Mr. Charles H. Murphy, midshipman. Winchester. Cutter - Mr. Wm. Bell, midshipman. A party of Royal Marines Light Infantry on board the steam-tender Coromandel, under the command of Captain Boyle, R.M.L.I., Her Majesty's ship Calcutta. (Signed) CHAS. J. B. ELLIOT, Commodore. List of Casualties amongst the Naval Force employed at the destruction of War Junks and the French Folly Fort, on the 6th November, 1856. KILLED. William Prowse, ordinary seaman, Calcutta. WOUNDED. William Reid, royal marine, dangerously, Barra couta. John Barne, royal marine, severely, Barracouta. John Dempster, quartermaster, slightly, Barra couta. Charles Hipsey, stoker, slightly, Barracouta. (Signed) CHAS. A. ANDERSON, No. 253. SIR, Staff-Surgeon, Calcutta, in Medical Government House, Hong Kong, I have received your Excellency's despatch of the 6th instant, informing me that shot and shell had been thrown into the most distant of the city forts and Government buildings, and announcing the destruction of a large number of Chinese war junks, and the capture of the French Folly Fort. I have to express to your Excellency my great and admiring sense of the consummate skill and prudence with which the military operations have been directed, and to all concerned my thorough appreciation of the promptitude, zeal, and bravery which have given them such successful results. Whatever may have been the importance of the question which necessitated the first appeal to hostilities, it has now assumed a character seriously involving all our present and future relations with China; and I am of opinion that everything possible should be done to give effect to Treaties which have been pertinaciously and recklessly violateda small and turbulent fraction of the population of China cannot be allowed to supersede the engagements of their Emperor to the Sovereign of Great Britain. I submit to your Excellency that the next step to take should be a notice to the Imperial Commissioner that unless, within a period to be fixed by you, your reiterated demands are complied with, the Bogue Forts will be destroyed. I think it should also be stated that the object of our entering the city is to carry forward a work of peace and amity; to put a stop to the miseries, whose infliction has been rendered imperative by the resistance to lawful requirements, and to prevent their recurrence on any future occasion. I have, &c., (Signed) JOHN BOWRING. His Excellency Rear Admiral Sir M. Seymour, K. C.B., Naval Commanderin-Chief, &c., &e., &c., Canton. SIR, British Consulate, Canton, November 9, 1856. I have to acknowledge your Excellency's letter of the 7th instant, in which you disclaim the adoption of forcible measures, and appeal to higher principles as the proper guide of our actions. I deeply regret that your Excellency should not at an earlier date have kept these principles in view, for it is owing to the utter disregard of them on your Excellency's part, as evinced by your violation of Treaty engagements, your discourtesy and inattention to my demands, that the present unwilling resort to force has been rendered unavoidable. Neither is it creditable to your Excellency that, in the employment of force on your part, you should have recourse to measures so opposed to civilized practices, as that of offering a reward for the indiscriminate murder of Englishmen. I enclose you a copy of one of these proclamations, the original of which, under your Excellency's seal, is in possession of Her Majesty's Consul. I take this opportunity to repeat the demands already so clearly presented to your Excellency in my letters of the 30th October and 1st November, and to again state that your Excellency's compliance therewith is the only solution of the present difficulty that I can accept. The fulfilment of the particular Treaty engagements, which is the sole object of those demands, is now proved to be indispensable for the preservation of peace and amity, and the prevention in future of disastrous misunderstandings like the present. I therefore once again warn your Excellency, that active operations will be recommenced, unless I receive within twenty-four hours your assent to all I have required. The experience of the last fortnight should have convinced your Excellency of the futility of seeking to incite the people to support you in your unjust and personal policy, and I, therefore, trust you will well consider the danger of the crisis you persist in urging on. Accept, &c., (Signed) MICHAEL SEYMOUR. His Excellency Yeh, Imperial High of the Two Kwang, &c., &c., &c. YEH, Imperial Commissioner, Governor-General of the Two Kwang Provinces, &c., makes communication in reply. On the 10th instant I received a letter from your Excellency, dated the 9th instant, with a copy of a proclamation appended to it. As to the imputation that I am vainly seeking to incite the people to a rupture, in support of an unjust and personal policy, I would ask by what person have they really been incited to a rupture in this case? The seizure of some criminals on the part of the Chinese Government-a small matter-having been misrepresented as a hauling down of your flag. On the 23rd, 24th, and 25th ultimo, you opened fire on the different forts of the city. To this, in consideration of the peaceful relations so many years subsisting between us, I made no rejoinder whatever. Had I not referred myself to the higher principles (which your letter accuses me of not keeping in view), I should have shewn no such forbearance. But when, following up this, on the 27th and 28th, you opened a fire on the city, by which numberless houses were consumed, with considerable loss of life, the whole population, thus subjected to calamity, gnashed their teeth in anger. At the time you took possession of the forts, although the gentry and the mercantile community of the whole city put forth |