a corps of Bengal Engineers, and a corps of Madras sappers and miners, about 4,000 fighting men in all. The expedition was under the command of Sir J. J. Gordon Bremer, subject to the orders of two Plenipotentiaries, viz. Rear Admiral, the Hon. George Elliot, and Captain Ch. Elliot, R.N., the former Chief Superintendent of Trade at Canton.
The instructions which the Cabinet had given to the two Plenipotentiaries were, (1) to obtain reparation for the insults and injuries offered to Her Majesty's Superintendent and to Her Majesty's subjects by the Chinese Government, (2) to obtain for British merchants trading with China an indemnification for the loss of their property incurred by the threats of violence offered by persons under the direction of the Government, and (3) to obtain a certain security that persons in future trading with China shall be protected from insult or injury, and that their trade and commerce be maintained upon a proper footing.
It will be observed from the tenor of these general instructions, that the object of the expedition was not to make war against China, but to communicate with the Chinese Government (at Peking), in order to obtain official redress and indemnity for the past and commercial immunities and securities for the future. The means and mode of procedure now prescribed were exactly what so many former Canton residents and notably Mr. James Matheson had recommended in 1836. An appeal against the doings of the Cantonese Authorities, was to be made to a misinformed and misguided Emperor and negotiations were to be instituted with the moral support of the presence of an expeditionary force ready for war in case pacific measures should prove fruitless. Apart from the indemnity for the opium extorted by Lin, the opium question was not included in the programme, and very justly so, for in the reckoning which England had now risen up to make with China, virtually for two centuries of ill-treatment accorded to her merchants, the opium question was a mere accidental extra. Finally, it will also be observed that, among the objects of the expedition, the
