good offices of its minister, then resident there, and that minister made efforts to communicate with Mr. Ward, but all his letters were withheld, and his messengers and members of his suite were refused access to the American quarters.
His mission to the capital having proved fruitless, Mr. Ward returned to Pehtang, situated on one of the mouths of the Peiho, where he had landed, and there, "with every mark of respect," the exchange of the treaty was effected with the governor-general of the province. During the discussions at Peking reference was made to the acts of Commodore Tatnall, and it was stated that the emperor required the kotou "in proof of sincere repentance" for the aid rendered the British. After the treaty had been exchanged, the governor-general stated that his Majesty had directed him, as a mark of his peculiar favor to the minister, to deliver to him an American prisoner taken at the attack upon the forts. The prisoner when brought in acknowledged that he was a Canadian in the British navy, and to secure better treatment he had told the Chinese that he was an American, and that there was a body of two hundred Americans who took part in the attack.
The course pursued by Mr. Ward after the allies retired from the Peiho exposed him to the criticism of his colleagues and to the ridicule of the press, but it was in line with his instructions, and met with the approval of his government. His treatment at Peking was an affront to himself and his country, but one which he could not well have anticipated, and through which he bore himself with dignity and self-possession. It was a part of
