joined by the Imperial commissioners He-ngan and Hoo-sung-ih, with Yu-poo-yun, appointed to take the temporary command-in-chief of the troops; and has met with a little better success. In a gazette of the 6th August, the Emperor, however, expresses his displeasure on account of the Governor having attempted to enter the hills after the rebels, by which means the troops were in danger of being entrapped. His Majesty wishes all the mountaineers to be enticed into the plain, and driven together into one place, as at Pingtseuen in Hoonan:—then he says, they can be surrounded, and entirely cut up, without one being suffered to escape (or, in Chinese phrase, to slip through the meshes of the net)!
Another subject of Imperial reproof is the want of attention to the military force in Canton, in consequence of which the men are mostly so feeble-bodied and incapacitated for action,—that, although in their own province, many of them get ill from want of strength to bear the necessary labour and change of place.
The commissioners and governor are directed to draw supplies of grain from the districts in the neighbourhood of Leen-chow. Le, with Choo, the Fooyuen, and the Poochingsze or Treasurer, are commanded to draw up estimates of money requisite to defray each item of expense, and to employ just as much as is requisite, but nothing more,—We are told, that the sums which have already been issued by the provincial treasury of Canton to defray the expenses of troops, weapons, and ammunition, during the last five months, exceed two millions of taels.
Secret Associations.—The weakness of the Chinese government is in nothing more plainly evinced, than in its fear, not only of large bodies of men combined for secret and political purposes, but also of small religious sects, headed usually by men of feeble ability, whose sole object appears to be gain. This fear, we think, is a far more convincing proof of weakness, than any real or imaginary inability of ministers to put a stop to such associations.—We express ourselves doubtingly of their inability, because we are of opinion, that it is owing rather to the want of will than of means, that societies, like the San-ho-hwuy or Triad society, combined for the uneqiuivocal purpose of overthrowing the dynasty now occupying the Imperial throne, have been suffered to attain power, so formidable, as to defy the authority of the government, when it suits the purposes of the associates to do so. We believe, that the principles of the society or brotherhood which we have named in particular, are, to wait the time when heaven, earth, and man shall all appear joined to favour them, in the subversion of the government (which time, according to some, will be when the future Budha appears on earth);—and in the interim to exert all their efforts to hasten forward that wished-for period.
We have been led to these remarks by observing the frequent recurrence, in the Peking Gazette, of Imperial edicts against all associations; and the severity with which ringleaders are punished,—some being condemned to suffer the slow and ignominious death,—others hastened to immediate execution,—and numbers transported for life, without possibility of being included in any, even the most general, pardon.
In a late number of the Gazette, there is a long paper from the Emperor,—occasioned by a memorial from a member of the censorate,—wherein the subject of the Hwuy-fei, or "associate banditti," is connected with the rebellion of Chaou-kin-lung, which, says his Majesty, "could never have been commenced but by the intervention and instigation of those associates."—After considerable detail,—from which it appears, that the supreme government at Peking is not wholly ignorant of the unjust and unprincipled manner in which the local officers, at a distance from the capital, transact business; and that cases of appeal from the provinces, with regard to lands and property plundered, have of late become exceedingly numerous, his Majesty concludes with declaring his anxiety, on the people's account, that such illegalities should be prevented: and requiring the higher authorities ill all the provinces, to "make the Imperial mind their's; and to attend to the people's good as their chief occupation."
