3rd to 5th) the official residences of the Civil Governor and of the Tartar General. Yeh still held out. The Admiral destroyed another fort (November 6th) and dismantled the Bogue forts (November 12th and 18th). But, when these measures also left the Viceroy as indomitable and intractable as ever, the Admiral informed Sir John that, in the absence of troops, nothing more could be done and retired to Hongkong, whence he wrote home asking for a reinforcement of at least 5,000 men. Chinese and European residents of Hongkong were dismayed.
Now it was Yeh's turn to commence hostilities in his own way. He had previously (October 28, 1856) put a price of $30 on English heads. He now raised the reward to taels 100 per head, called upon the Chinese population of Hongkong to leave the Colony immediately, and placarded the streets of Hongkong and Canton with appeals to the people to avenge his wrongs by any means whatever. In response to this appeal, which had at first no effect in Hongkong, the Canton mob set fire to the European factories at Canton (December 14, 1856) and later on (January, 1857) to the British docks and stores at Whampoa.
In Hongkong, where Taiping rebels and professional pirates and brigands had been making common cause under the aegis of the local Triad societies, the European community was, ever since the Arrow incident, pervaded by a growing sense of insecurity. On 10th October, 1856, a public meeting, summoned to consider matters seriously affecting the interests of the Colony, bitterly complained of the total inefficiency of the Police Force for the protection of life and property. Various forms of registering the Chinese residents, so as to exclude all Chinese whose honesty was not vouched for, were proposed and urged upon the Government with the utmost confidence. Sir John, however, put no trust in the vouchers that would have been produced and shrank from a measure the thorough execution of which would have involved the forcible deportation of the vast majority of the local Chinese residents. His refusal to sanction any of the popular measures proposed by the British
