Camp near Pekin.—October 14th.—We have dreadful news respecting the fate of some of our captured friends. It is an atrocious crime, and, not for vengeance, but for future security, ought to be severely dealt with.
[Sidenote: Burning of the Summer Palace.]
The form which the retribution took is well known. The Palace of Yuen-ming- yuen, the Summer-palace of the Emperor, the glory and boast of the Chinese Empire, was levelled with the ground.
The reasons which led Lord Elgin to decide upon this act are fully stated in a despatch dated the 25th of October. After dwelling on the necessity of inflicting some punishment at once severe and swift, that should leave Pekin untouched (for he had engaged not to harm the city) and should fall specially on the Emperor, who was personally responsible for the crimes that had been committed, he goes on to discuss the different courses that were open to him. He might inflict a fine; but it could not be exacted except by appropriating a further portion of the Chinese revenue, already seriously trenched upon by our previous demands. Or he might require the surrender of the individuals guilty of violating the flag of truce: but if he named no one, some miserable subordinates would be given up; if he specified the real culprit, Sang-ko-lin-sin, the demand would infallibly be refused and could not be enforced. Dismissing these alternatives he proceeds:—
Having, to the best of my judgment, examined the question in all its bearings, I came to the conclusion that the destruction of Yuen-ming- yuen was the least objectionable of the several courses open to me, unless I could have reconciled it to my sense of duty to suffer the crime which had been committed to pass practically unavenged. I had reason, moreover, to believe that it was an act which was calculated to produce a greater effect in China, and on the Emperor, than persons who look on from a distance may suppose.
It was the Emperor's favourite residence, and its destruction could not fail to be a blow to his pride as well as to his feelings. To this place he brought our hapless countrymen, in order that they might undergo their severest tortures within its precincts. Here have been found the horses and accoutrements of the troopers seized, the decorations torn from the breast of a gallant French officer, and other effects belonging to the prisoners. As almost all the valuables had already been taken from the palace, the army would go there, not to pillage, but to mark, by a solemn act of retribution, the horror and indignation with which we were inspired by the perpetration of a great crime. The punishment was one which would fall, not on the people, who may be comparatively innocent, but exclusively on the Emperor, whose direct personal responsibility for the crime committed is established, not only by the treatment of the prisoners at Yuen- ming-yuen, but also by the edict, in which he offered a pecuniary reward for the heads of the foreigners, adding, that he was ready to expend all his treasure in these wages of assassination.
On Thursday, the 18th of October, the extensive buildings of the palace were given to the flames; and during the whole of the 19th they were still burning. 'The clouds of smoke,' says Mr. Loch, 'driven by the wind, hung like a vast black pall over Pekin;' well calculated to enforce with their lurid gloom the lesson conveyed to the citizens in a proclamation which Lord Elgin had caused to be affixed in Chinese to all the buildings and walls in the neighbourhood, to the effect 'that no individual, however exalted, could escape from the responsibility and punishment which must always follow the commission of acts of treachery and deceit; and that Yuen-ming-yuen was burnt as a punishment inflicted on the Emperor for the violation of his word, and the act of treachery to a flag of truce.'
[Sidenote: Convention signed.]
Five days later, on the 24th of October, the Convention, which had been the subject of so much dispute, was finally signed, and Lord Elgin exchanged with the Emperor's brother the ratifications of the Treaty of Tientsin.
Camp near Pekin.—October 26th.—This will be one of the shortest letters which you have received from me since we parted, and yet perhaps it will not be the one which you will welcome the least, because it will convey to you the news that I have signed my treaty, and that the specific object for which I came out is therefore accomplished. I have not written my daily journal lately, because it would have been filled with my difficulties. … However, I have succeeded at last in a sort of way. Loch is going home with the treaty, and will make a point of seeing you, and giving you all our news. … I cannot decide as to my own return until I see Frederick. … The deaths of poor Bowlby and the others who were with him were very sad! Loch's escape was most providential. With 5,000 men led on without delay, as ought to be done in China, nothing of this kind would have occurred. I told Palmerston so before I started; but the delays incident to conveying so large an army as ours without risking anything, have nearly made the whole thing break down.