(afterwards Sir) Henry Brougham Loch and several other English and French civilians and officers and the Indian escort, and was carried a prisoner to Peking. Here he was kept in heavy chains for eleven days, subjected to minor tortures before the board of punishments, and herded for four days with the worst felons in the common gaol. He was not, however, confined in a cage, as has been erroneously reported. Throughout his imprisonment he stoutly refused to purchase his life and liberty by making conditions which might compromise Lord Elgin's diplomatic negotiations; nor would he accept his release from prison unless Mr. Loch, who was separately confined, were permitted to share his advantage. After eleven days the two prisoners were placed together in a Chinese temple, where they received a secret message from their friends, worked in the embroidery of some linen, for which they had been allowed to send to the British headquarters. On 5 Oct. they were informed that they were to be executed that evening; but the order was countermanded by the prince of Kung, owing to the defeat of the Tartars at Pa-li-kao and the seizure of the Summer Palace; and on the 8th Parkes and Loch were allowed to rejoin the British camp. A quarter of an hour after the prince of Kung had released them, an express arrived from the emperor himself (who was a fugitive in Mongolia) with an order for their instant execution. With the exception of nine of the Indian escort, most of the other prisoners had died under the cruel treatment of their gaolers.
As soon as Parkes was restored to liberty he negotiated the surrender of one of the gates of Peking, and entered the city, 13 Oct., with General Sir Robert Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala). He had nothing to do with Lord Elgin's decision to burn the Summer Palace, but he considered it was a just punishment for the treachery and cruelty shown towards the murdered prisoners. The palace had already been so thoroughly looted by the French that its destruction involved less vandalism than is commonly supposed. On 27 Oct. Parkes accompanied the British embassy to its new residence within the city of Peking. It was the last act of the drama in which he had throughout played a prominent part.
After acting as interpreter on 8 Nov., when Bruce was formally introduced to the prince of Kung as the first British minister to the court of Peking, and Lord Elgin took his leave, Parkes returned to his duties as commissioner at Canton, from which he was speedily called away to undertake the responsible and difficult duty of selecting the new ports up the Yang-tsze-Kiang which had been conceded to British trade by the treaty of Tientsin. He accompanied Admiral Sir James Hope [q. v.] up the river in February to April 1861; established consulates at Chinkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow; and held various communications with the Taiping rebels who were in occupation of a great part of the country on both sides of the Yang-tsze, and, by their lawless incursions, added considerably to the difficulties of the new ports. The opening of the Yang-tsze to foreign trade was the most practical result of the treaty of Tientsin, adding no less than 3,500,000l. a year to the export trade of Great Britain; and the admiral ascribed the success of the operation mainly to the ‘unwearied zeal’ and ‘thorough knowledge’ of the people and language displayed by Parkes in this hazardous and delicate negotiation.
After a brief visit to the embassy at Peking in April 1861, and another interview with the rebel leaders at Nanking in June, with a view to prevent their attacking the British settlements, Parkes returned for the last time to Canton, where he superintended the sale of the new Shameen site to British merchants in September, and thus laid the foundations of the great settlement which has taken the place of the burnt ‘factories’ of former days. On 21 Oct. the British occupation of Canton came to an end, and the city was restored to the Chinese government. After handing over the city to its native officials, Parkes took a well-earned leave of absence, and sailed in January 1862 for home, where, in addition to much official and social ‘lionizing,’ he received in May the added honour of a K.C.B., at the early age of thirty-four.
In January 1864 he left again for China, to take up the post of consul at Shanghai, where he had been appointed as long ago as February 1859, but had been detained by the duties of the commission at Canton. The change from almost autocratic government of a great city to the routine and drudgery of a hard-worked consulate was abrupt and trying; the minute details and the constant pressure of judicial work told upon his nervous and restless disposition; and the anxieties of the Taiping rebellion, then in course of suppression by Colonel Charles George Gordon [q. v.], added to his cares. With Gordon he was on intimate terms of friendship, and their policy was identical; but from Li Hung-Chang, the governor-general, Parkes experienced much opposition, notably in the question of the disbanding of the ‘ever victorious army’ and the establishment out of its remains of a camp
