Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 3.djvu/55
PRECONVENTIONAL PERIOD
seeing that the main defences of the town were in our possession, and that the day was irretrievably lost, he returned to his house, and calling for his secretary, desired him to bring his official papers into a small room adjoining an inner court of the building, where deliberately seating himself, and causing the papers with a quantity of wood to be piled up around him, he dismissed the secretary, set fire to the funeral pile, and perished in the flames.
The war ended here. Moving on to Nanking, the invaders were fortunately delayed by a faulty reconnaissance, so that before the attack could be delivered, plenipotentiary power to treat for peace reached the Chinese generals, and thus the horror was averted of the sack and possible destruction of a city whose magnitude may be estimated from the fact that it was surrounded by walls twenty-two miles in circuit, from twenty to forty feet thick, and from forty to ninety feet high.
The negotiations that ensued were of the briefest description. Two hours sufficed to settle the conditions of peace, though two days were required to commit them to ideographic script. The Chinese, in truth, were not in a position to discuss; they had only to obey.
Before moving up the Yangtse for Shanghai the British plenipotentiary, Sir Henry Pottinger,—who had succeeded Captain Elliot,—published a manifesto setting forth the grievances of which his country complained. The acts of Commissioner Lin at Canton headed the list, and it was alleged that the opium had been given up by