should halt at Chang-tsia-wan, five miles short of Tangchow, to which place the Ambassadors should advance, with an escort, and sign the convention.

"Mr. Parkes rode on to Tangchow to arrange matters for Lord Elgin's reception, and to make sure of the agreement as to our advance, that a collision might not take place by inadvertence, it having been settled that the Chinese army should fall back from Changtsia-wan. Mr. Parkes was accompanied by an escort of Fane's Horse, under Lieutenant Anderson, and by Mr. Loch, private secretary to Lord Elgin.

"At daybreak on the 18th I marched, and, after going about four miles, I came in sight of a very large force of Chinese, both cavalry and infantry. While halt ing to form my force, Mr. Loch galloped in with three sowars, and informed me that, on going into Tangchow the previous day, they had found every thing quiet on the road; the Commissioners had agreed to all Mr. Parkes's arrangements; and that, accordingly, leaving Lieutenant Anderson and his sowars at Tangchow, Messrs. Parkes, Loch, Thompson, and Lieut.-Colonel Walker, with five men of the King's Dragoon Guards, had come out to meet us, and show us our camping ground, which was a mile and a half south of Chang-tsia-wan.

"On arriving at that spot, however, they found it occupied by a large Chinese army, while batteries had been hastily thrown up and armed, so as to flank the proposed site of our camp. From the commanding officer Mr. Parkes could obtain no satisfaction, so he started back to Tangchow, with an Sikh horsemen,

orderly of the King's Dragoon Guards, to see the High Commissioner and ask the reason of this move. Mr. Loch came on to tell me of this, and Colonel Walker and Deputy - Assistant - Commissary-General Thompson remained on the ground with four men of the King's Dragoon Guards and one sowar, where they were to await Mr. Parkes's return."

Mr. Parkes was accompanied by Mr. De Norman, attaché to the British Legation, and by Mr. Bowlby, correspondent of The Times newspaper, who were destined to meet a tragic and cruel fate. Mr. Loch returned with Sir Hope Grant's orders, and Captain Brabazon, R.A., volunteered to accompany him. They accordingly started under a flag of truce for Tangchow, with orders for Mr. Parkes and the whole party to return to head-quarters. Sir Hope Grant thus relates what followed.

"Meanwhile the Chinese cavalry advanced in great numbers on both flanks, and their infantry poured down on our right front, which was enclosed ground and carefully intrenched. I was extremely anxious not to engage, for fear of compromising our officers, who were in their lines. I therefore covered both my flanks with cavalry and ordered the baggage to be hastened on and massed on a village in our rear, where it could be defended by a small force. This latter operation occupied nearly two hours, during which time the enemy's cavalry had almost entirely surrounde our forces. Sufficient time elapsed for all of our party to turn from Tengchow, and I beca anxious for bir safety, when denly a motion appeared The go in their e

party dashed out of the midst of their ranks. Colonel Walker reported that, while waiting for Mr. Parkes, a French officer joined him, who was suddenly set upon and cut down by a Chinese soldier, and, on his riding up to prevent his being murdered, his own sword was snatched from his scabbard, and some men tried to throw him off his horse. Seeing that it was a deliberate attempt to assassinate the whole of them, Colonel Walker set spurs to his horse and galloped out with his party, under the fire of the Chinese line. One of his men was wounded and one horse, Mr. Thompson receiving a spear thrust in his back; but they fortunately managed to reach our lines, their wounds not being severe. It was now useless to wait longer, and the attack was immediately formed."

The result was that the enemy commanded by the Tartar General San-ko-lin-sin was completely defeated, and the Allied forces advanced beyond the village of Chang-tsia-wan.

The account which Lord Elgin gave in his despatch of the causes which led to hostilities on the 18th was the following:

"To hazard conjectures as to the motives by which Chinese functionaries are actuated, is not a very safe undertaking, and it is very possible that further information may modify the views which I now entertain on this point. I am, however, disposed at present to doubt there having been a deliberate intention of treachery on the part of Prince Tsai and his colleague; but I apprehend that the General-in-Chief, San-ko-lin-sin, thought that they had compromised his military poition by allowing our army to es

Chang-tsia-wan. He sought to counteract the evil effect of this by making a great swagger of parade and preparation to resist when the allied armies approached the camping ground allotted to them. Several of our people-Colonel Walker, with his escort, my private secretary Mr. Loch, Baron Gros' Secretary of Embassy, Comte de Bastard, and otherspassed through the Tartar army during the course of the morning, on their way from Tang-chow, without encountering any rudeness or ill-treatment whatsoever. At about a quarter to ten, however, a French commissariat officer was assaulted by some Tartar soldiers, under circumstances which are not very clearly ascertained, and this incident gave rise to an engagement, which soon became general. On the whole, I come to the conclusion that, in the proceedings of the Chinese Plenipotentiaries and Commander-inChief in this instance, there was that mixture of stupidity, want of straightforwardness, suspicion, and bluster which characterise so generally the conduct of affairs in this country, but I cannot believe that after the experience which Sanko-lin-sin had already had of our superiority in the field, either he or his civil colleagues could have intended to bring on a conflict in which, as the event has proved, he was sure to be worsted. At the same time, the facts that he covered by his guns and a portion of his troops the ground assigned to us, and that a French officer returning from Tangel with the knowledge and com the Chinese Plenipotenti assaulted and killed on i entirely justify both the bad faith which has been

against the Chinese authorities for their conduct in this instance, and the proceedings of the allied Commanders-in-Chief which have ensued therefrom."

In the meantime, Mr. Parkes, Mr. Loch, Captain Brabazon and their companions had been taken prisoners by the Chinese, and the first two, accompanied by a sowar carrying a white flag, were brought before San-ko-lin-sin, who received them with rudeness and insult. The rest of the party, consisting of Captain Brabazon, Lieut. Anderson, Messrs. De Norman and Bowlby, an English Dragoon, and eighteen sowars, remained behind, and were carried off into the interior, where all, with the exception of a few of the sowars, miserably perished, owing to the excessive cruelty with which they were treated, their hands and feet being bound so tightly with cords that in some instances the flesh burst, and mortification ensued.

As the cannonade became heavier, San-ko-lin-sin rode off to the front, and Mr. Parkes, Mr. Loch, the sowar, and two French soldiers who were then for the first time observed to be prisoners, were ordered to get into an open cart of the roughest description, and were conveyed through Tang-chow to Pekin, suffering severely from the cords with which they were bound, and the jolting of the cart along the rough causeway. At Pekin they were carried to the Board of Punishments, where Mr. Park was separated from his companio and brought before a tribunal examiners, who ordered him to in a common prison belo Board of Punishment Mr. Parkes, in t narrative he wrot and detention,

found myself in a throng of 70 or 80 wild-looking prisoners, most of them offensive in the extreme, as is usual in Chinese gaols, from disease and dirt." He adds:

"I was again carefully examined and searched by the gaolers, who also saw that my chains were properly secured, and bound my arms with fresh cords, not so tightly, however, as to prevent circulation, or to occasion serious inconvenience. At the same time, however, they removed, to my intense relief, the cords from my wrists, which, being very tightly tied, had caused my hands to swell to twice their proper size, and were now giving me great pain. They then laid me on the raised boarding on which the prisoners sleep, and made me fast by another large chain to a beam overhead. The chains consisted of one long and heavy one, stretching from the neck to the feet, to which the hands were fastened by two cross chains and handcuffs, and the feet in a similar manner."

Mr. Loch was also confined in a separate prison of the same loathsome kind. Mr. Parkes, who was intimately acquainted with the Chinese language, was frequently subjected to a rigorous examination, but he took care to give no information which could be of any value to the Chinese. He mentions a curious fact respecting the humanity shown to him by the prisoners:

"But it was only from the pri soners that I obtained sympathy hearing. Man of these unrtunate men wlad, when so rmitted, to round me to

give them of

the example

set them by their authorities, and treating me with abuse or ridicule, they were seldom disrespectful, addressed me by my title, and often avoided putting me to inconvenience when it was in their power to do so. Most of them were men of the lowest class, and the gravest order of offenders, as murderers, burglars, &c. Those who had no means of their own were reduced by prison filth and prison diet to a shocking state of emaciation and disease; but those who could afford to fee the gaolers, and purchase such things as they wanted, lived in comparative fulness and comfort."

On the 22nd of September Mr. Parkes was removed from the common prison to a separate ward, about eight feet square, on the opposite side of the court, and four gaolers were appointed to watch him. Here he received frequent visits from a Mandarin named Hang-ki, whom he had known at Hong Kong, and who was sent by Prince Kung, the Emperor's brother, to endeavour extract information from him, and make use of him to obtain favour able terms with the British Plenipotentiary, Lord Elgin. At last he was told that he should be taken out of prison; but Mr. Parkes generously refused to leave it unless he were accompanied by Mr. Loch. The result was that on the 29th of September Hangki came to the prison with an order for the removal of both, from the Board of Punishments, to a temple, where quarters were provided for them, and where they were well treated until their final release. In the meantime Lord Elgin had refused to negotiate unless the prisoners were returned, and on the 25th of September he

replied to overtures from Prince Kung, that the army would advance to the assault of Pekin unless within three days the prisoners were surrendered and the convention signed at Tang-chow, and the ratifications exchanged at Pekin. As Prince Kung continued to evade these demands the army marched forward, and on the 6th of October the Yueng-min-yuen, or summer palace of the Emperor, was reached and taken, the French being the first to enter it, where was reaped an abundant harvest of spoil. An eye-witness thus describes the scene of destruction that ensued:

"The Summer Palace is about five miles by a circuitous road north-west of this camp, outside the earthwork. A description of it is given in Staunton's account of Lord Macartney's embassy, and other works on China, but no pen can describe correctly the scene that has taken place there within the last two days. Indiscriminate loot has been allowed. The public reception - hall, the state and private bedrooms, anterooms, boudoirs, and every other apartment has been ransacked: articles of vertu, of native and foreign workmanship, taken, or broken if too large to be carried away; ornamental lattice - work, screens, jade stone ornaments, jars, clocks, watches, and other pieces of mechanism, curtains and furniture-none have escaped from destruction. There were extensive wardrobes of every article of dress; coats richly embroidered in silk and gold thread, in the Imperial Dragon pattern; boots, headdresses, fans, &c.; in fact, rooms all but filled with them; store rooms of manufactured silk in rolls, such as may be bought in