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The arrival of the English fleet awoke the Chinese court for the time being from its indifference, and Taoukwang not merely ordered that the fleet should be provided with all the supplies it needed, but appointed Keshen High Commissioner for the conclusion of an amicable arrangement.

The four principal officials after Sung, whose death occurred at an early date after Taoukwang's accession, were Hengan, Elepoo, Keying, and Keshen.

But the promises given by Keshen were merely to gain time and to extricate him from a very embarrassing situation. The morrow of what seemed a signal reverse was marked by the issue of an imperial notice, breathing a more defiant tone than ever.

Baffled in these attempts, the fleet sailed north for the mouth of the Peiho, when at last Lord Palmerston's letter was accepted by Keshen, the viceroy of the province, and duly forwarded by him to Pekin.

Keshen arrived at Canton on November 29, 1840, but his dispatch to the emperor explaining the position he found there shows that his view of the situation did not differ materially from that of Lin. "Night and day I have considered and examined the state of our relations with the English. At first moved by the benevolence of his Majesty and the severity of the laws, they surrendered the opium.

Keshen was remarkable for his astuteness and for the yielding exterior which covered a purpose of iron, and in the English political officer, the Captain Elliot of Canton, he did not find an opponent worthy of his steel.

The capture of the Bogue forts produced immediate and important consequences. Keshen at once begged a cessation of hostilities, and offered terms which conceded everything we had demanded. These were the payment of a large indemnity, the cession of Hongkong, and the right to hold official communication with the central government.

After the celebrated destruction of all he could get possession of, by Commissioner Lin, in June, 1839, which operated somewhat like the Frenchman's revenge upon the bank, in destroying the bill for which he had been refused specie, not only having to be paid for by the Chinese, after an expensive war, but causing other imports of the drug to supply its place; the English, naturally seeking a safe and suitable spot for a dépôt, arranged so as to make its cession an article in a treaty with High Commissioner Keshen, in January, 1841, which, although it was abrogated, and hostilities resumed, made but little difference in the destinies of Hong-Kong, for it is well known that wherever that nation plants its foot, the marks of it are not easily obliterated.

Sir Hugh Gough stated, in a public notice, that the city was spared because the queen had desired that all peaceful people should be tenderly considered. The first English successes had entailed the disgrace of Lin, the second were not less fatal to Keshen.

China had learned nothing from her military mishaps at Canton, Amoy, and Chusan, and from the appearance of an English fleet in the Gulf of Pechihli. Keshen had gained a breathing space by procrastination in the north, and he resorted to the same tactics at Canton.