1
Further Papers relating to the Proceedings of Her Majesty's Naval Forces at Canton.
No. 1.
Sir J. Bowring to the Earl of Clarendon.—(Received May 31.)
Hong Kong, April 14, 1857.
(Extract.)
I SEND your Lordship a report from Mr. Chinese Secretary Wade, giving an account of sundry documents seized on board a mandarin junk by the expedition commanded by Commodore Elliott.
These papers seem to connect the Imperial Commissioner, the mandarins, and the Canton Associations, with the atrocious acts of incendiarism, kidnapping, and assassination, which have menaced, and continue to menace, the Colony. They contain, moreover, satisfactory evidence of the efficacy of the precautions taken hitherto for the preservation of the persons and property of Her Majesty's subjects; precautions which I hope will conduct us safely through our perils.
As there is no time to forward a copy of these documents to the Colonial Department, may I hope your Lordship will kindly cause this despatch and its inclosures to be communicated to Mr. Labouchere?
A digest of the contents of the documents above referred to is under preparation by Mr. Wade, but it is far too voluminous to be forwarded by the present mail.
Inclosure 1 in No. 1.
Mr. Wade to Sir J. Bowring.
Chinese Secretary's Office, Hong Kong, April 14, 1857.
Sir,
I HAVE the honour to inclose to your Excellency the Memorandum prepared by your desire of the contents of certain papers recently seized on board a mandarin junk by a party under the orders of Commodore Elliot. From the original pile, which was of considerable bulk, I selected between fifty and sixty papers having reference to recent events in and near this Colony; of these I have to lay before your Excellency rough translations of twelve, and in the accompanying Memorandum will be found, as nearly in order of time as I have been enabled to arrange them, all the items of intelligence contained in the whole collection of papers that appear to me deserving of record.
The papers prove to be the correspondence of Chan-tsze-tin, the younger brother of Chan-kwei-tsih, President or Chief of the Committee of Hostility in San-on, the district on the coast of which Hong Kong is situated. The latter is a graduate of the degree of doctor, and formerly held office as a subordinate member of the Board of Revenue. His brother is a graduate, and the pupil of Su-ting-kwei, a member of the Han Lin College, one of the most important of the Canton gentry, and apparently the channel of communication between these brothers and the Governor-General Yeh; by whose desire they repaired to their
