sponges, etc., and, what I prized more than all, your own letter. I trust the sight of my handwriting may give you half the pleasure which yours did to me.... Lord Elgin has left for the north,... whether he will ultimately go to Pekin is more than I can say, but one thing is certain, if he goes there he must go peaceably, for we have no land force to send with him. Oliphant^i (a friend of Augustus 's^^^ went up to Shanghai in advance, accompanied by a French attach^ bearing Lord Elgin's letter to the Emperor. They report most favourably of their reception, the mandarins expressing the greatest impatience for the arrival of the ambassadors. I have every reason to think that matters will be very shortly settled with the Chinese, and there is no doubt whatever that Lord Elgin has completely made up his mind to bring affairs to a speedy peaceable issue. He has started from here with all his future plans cut and dried, which are that a treaty will be settled by June, when he goes to Japan, and expects to get to Suez in September. India is, I believe, to be his ultimate destination.... The Hong Kong merchants are beginning to feel dissatisfied with Lord Elgin for coming out all this way to do nothing, as they say. They are very diffident about the present state of things, and not one of them has made even an attempt at re-establishing himself at Canton. One reason for this, however, is that the Factory Ground is to be re-allotted to the different European nations by the two plenipotentiaries, which has not yet been done. People must not imagine that the question of free intercourse with China or even Canton will be finally settled by the forthcoming treaty; Chinese insolence, exclusiveness, and ignorance are not to be set aside so easily. It must take years and years to destroy the prejudices which have been formed and encouraged for so many centuries, therefore a few years hence there will most assuredly be a repetition of the present Chinese expedition. It seems almost a pity not to clinch matters more decidedly than we are likely to do, but I do not think it can be
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helped; there is no use in asking more from the Chinese than we can enforce, and we are not in a position to enforce much more than we have got. India has absorbed all our forces, and will continue to do so for some time to come, and without more troops an expedition to Pekin is quite out of the question.... The city of Canton is about the most dirty, stinking city in the world, and \vath scarcely anything in it of the smallest interest. No lady could walk in it; in fact, I have only heard of one having ever done so, and she was the wife of the French Consul at Macao, nee Miss McLeod, I believe an American.... She walked through the city in man's clothes and rode about like a man. She was staying wdth the French Admiral for a few days, and never appeared in any other dress. She had her hair dressed as like a man's as possible, and with her dand^'^-like frock-coat reminded me of the women on the stage acting the parts of young men. I sat next her at dinner one day, and we got such good friends that I was within an ace of patting her on the back when we parted.... — Yours affectionately,
Fredk. Stephenson.
To Lady Stephenson
Canton, April 12. My dear Mother, —... You will know my answer to your doubts by this time as to whether I intend to leave the Guards or not — it is the very last thing I think of doing, and therefore you will in all probability see me home, as I told you, early in the autumn. Cameron is very well and is an admirable servant. You have no idea what a comfort it is to have such a good fellow about one.... — Ever j^our affectionate son, Fredk. Stephenson.
To his Brother
My dear William, —... Your information of my promotion was very welcome, and would have been
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