[Sidenote: Leaves Pekin.]

After this we set out for Tung-chow. We had to wait there all night, as our boats were not ready, and we are now (10th November, noon) gliding down the river, each in a chop boat (a little boat with a very convenient cabin, in which one can sleep, read, write, &c.), on a lovely autumn day, low temperature, and bright sunshine. I think that this wind-up at Pekin was very promising. It is probable that there may be some reaction when the Emperor and the bad advisers whom he has about him return, and even Ignatieff did not choose to remain at Pekin during that moment of reaction. At the same time, it is evident that Kung, who is his brother, has committed himself to the peace policy, and that his intercourse with us has been much more satisfactory to him than he at one time expected. It is probable that the Emperor will for once hear something of the truth. Kung will claim credit for having induced us to remove from Pekin to Tientsin, while the fact that we are still as near as Tientsin will be an in terrorem argument in support of his policy of conciliation. If Kung weathers the difficult moment which he will have to traverse when the Emperor returns, I have hopes that all the benefit which I have expected to derive from our minister's residence at Pekin will be achieved. Our Sinologues are fine fellows. It is refreshing to see their spirit and pluck. Wade, Parkes, and Morrison, all put their services at our disposal, and offered to remain alone at Pekin. My choice, however, fell on a younger man, of whom I have a very good opinion, and who has been with me as assistant-interpreter.[12] I thought it better, for many reasons, to leave a person who had smaller pretensions than any of those I have named. The gossip is that the Emperor is occupying his time at Jehol by marrying a fourth wife (a rather expensive proceeding) and getting tipsy. I am afraid he is not much worth; although, if the papers in the vermilion pencil, which we found in the Summer Palace, are his writing, he is not such a fool as people suppose. … Frederick brought with him your letters to September 10th. I pray that you may now be rejoicing in the belief that Bruce is getting on well and happily at school.

[Sidenote: Tientsin.]
[Sidenote: Its climate.]

Tientsin.—November 14th.—Here I am again in the house which I occupied two and a half months ago, and which is by far the nicest Chinese house I have seen, and its exposure to the sun is now most agreeable. The climate is at present charming. If nothing else had been done by these recent proceedings, the fact of placing our troops and embassy here, instead of in the south of China, would have been almost worth the trouble. It is also a much drier climate than that of Shanghae. We have had about seven days of rain in all, since I left Shanghae in July. Frederick had nineteen days consecutively just before he left Shanghae. He was not well himself then, but he is all right now. His ride to Pekin—eighty miles in thirty hours—set him up again. I found the Admiral very cordial. … Gros is not yet come, and I do not like to depart from here without seeing him.

He was detained at Tientsin for several days, arranging a variety of matters of detail; and it was not till the morning of the 26th of November that he found himself once more afloat on the Gulf of Pecheli, on board the 'Ferooz,' homeward bound.

[Sidenote: Results of the mission.]

The general results obtained by the mission thus happily terminated cannot be better summed up than in the words of the despatch in which the Foreign Minister, Lord J. Russell, conveyed to Lord Elgin Her Majesty's 'full approbation of his conduct in the various particulars' above described.

'The convention,' he wrote, 'which you concluded with the Prince of Kung on the 24th of October is entirely satisfactory to Her Majesty's Government. It records the reparation made by the Emperor of China for his disregard in the previous year of his Treaty engagements; it sets Her Majesty's Government free from an implied engagement not to insist in all particulars on the fulfilment of those engagements; it imposes upon China a fine, in the shape of an augmented rate of indemnity; it affords an additional opening for British trade; it places on a recognised footing the emigration of Chinese coolies, whose services are so important to Her Majesty's colonial possessions; it relieves Her Majesty's colony of Hong Kong from a source of previous annoyance; and it provides for bringing generally to the knowledge of the Chinese the engagements into which the Emperor has entered towards Great Britain.

'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.