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other nations who are in friendly relations with China—Americans, French, Russians, Portuguese and Spaniards—have also received the deadly poison, and that some may yet die remains to be known.
The Undersigned, therefore, in behalf of the Government of the United States, on the part of humanity, and reverently in the name of God, protests against this most barbarous deed, and as on former occasions, when protesting against the offering of pecuniary rewards to perfidy and assassination of foreigners, must hold the Imperial Government of China responsible for all the consquences, both to individual and national interests.
The Undersigned, &c.(Signed) PETER PARKER.
Inclosure 2 in No. 6.
The Governor of Macao to Commissioner Yeh.
Macao, January 16, 1857.
(Translation.)
Most Illustrious and most Excellent Sir,
IN acknowledging the receipt of your Excellency's despatch of the 5th instant, I have to thank your Excellency for the measures adopted by your order in the vicinities of Macao, for the purpose of preventing any impediments to the commerce carried on by the Portuguese and the foreigners resident in this city.
A fact recently occurred at Hong Kong which will show your Excellency that there is not only a necessity for such orders, whereby a distinction may be drawn between friends and enemies, but that it is further requisite to command and advise the people not to lay hold of hostile measures of a nature that may affect not the British alone, but also those who are not concerned in the question existing between them and the Chinese Government.
It appears that on the 15th instant a large quantity of bread sold at Hong Kong contained poison. Eighteen Portuguese carpenters, who were retiring from their work on board the Spanish Government steamer at Whampoa, ate or the said bread on their passage hither, and became sick . The same happened to a large and principal family of Macao, which had only left this on the 14th to embark for Europe on the following day. There are here more than thirty Portuguese persons who, without having anything to do with the hostilities, or with the English, and without having even disembarked at Hong Kong, have nevertheless become victims of an odious act as practised by a man of the people!
I am sure that your Excellency in your high intelligence cannot approve of such a mode of warfare which, beyond the fact of its being horrible in itself, is contrary to the laws of civilized nations, and carries with itself the risk of hurting indiscriminately the friend and the foe, the woman and the man, the child and the decrepit; and that your Excellency will perceive the necessity both of advising the people as to the manner of hostilizing their foes, as well as of prohibiting such horrors.
War is always a calamity, but it is sometimes a painful necessity for Governments and nations. All people have a right to defend themselves and to attack their enemy, and it is even praiseworthy when it is done in a noble manner. But in that war it is incumbent on the authorities to direct the people in the way of diminishing, and not of augmenting, the evils inherent to such a state of things.
I wish your Excellency, &c.
