My dear William, — Many thanks for your letter of the 24th of April and for all the trouble you have taken on my account relative to my wish to rejoin my regiment, which, at the time I wrote, I was most anxious to do, and had been for some time. Indeed, I still think I am to blame to some extent for not having taken more decisive measures to that end. It was not the nature of the service I wished to get away from — far from it — but the manner in which it was carried on. However, I have a great dislike to talk about these matters, and will merely add that affairs are being conducted in a more satisfactory manner and that I am quite content to stdiy on. Since I last wrote, thinking then that the Chinese question was virtually settled, affairs have assumed a very unsatisfactory appearance, and I now see no end to the business. On the 20th May, after the usual futile attempts at negotiation with the Chinese had been made, and the old story of attempting to delay coming to the point had been duly enacted, the Plenipotentiaries decided upon forcing the mouth of the Pei-ho. Two of our dispatch-boats and six gunboats, together with four French gunboats, attacked the forts on both banks which mounted about 60 guns, which they silenced after about an hour's fighting. About 1400 men were then landed in the boats of the fleet and took possession of them, advanced afterwards to the capture of an entrenched camp and two more batteries situated higher up the river, the whole of which fell into our
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hands, including 150 guns, mostly brass. Our loss was 5 killed and 16 wounded; the French lost upwards of 60 killed and wounded, of which more than 40 were from an accidental explosion of their own making. The Tartars stood well to their guns and made a very good fight; they were about 8000 or 10,000, and retreated to another position higher up the river. We were on the point of following them and pushing up to Tien-tsin, when the dispatch from the North left. The Chinese may possibly come to terms, as we continue to threaten them nearer Pekin, but if they still persist in refusing to come to terms there is no doubt we shall be in a fix.... In that case the Plenipotentiaries cannot stay any longer in the North, and will have to come back with their tails between their legs; and then what prospect have we of being able to renew operations with an adequate force? None that I can see, for we have just been told that the 77th, the only European regiment that has been promised us, is not to come to China at all, but is ordered to go to India; and that only in November next are we to get a European battalion, viz. the 2nd battalion of the Royals. But these are not the only difficulties; the Plenipotentiaries and the Admirals do not at all hit it off together, and very serious misunderstandings exist between them. Lord Elgin and Baron Gros on one side are the best possible friends, and so are the English and French Admirals on the other, but the two departments are almost at open feud. Lord Elgin complains that Sir M. Seymour has been dilatory in assembling his vessels off the Pei-ho, and that we ought to have been at Tien-tsin and the Treaty signed long ago. The Admiral complains that he is never consulted upon any single point, and is called on to undertake operations of which he highly disapproves. Then the Yankees, and especially the Russians, are acting the part of very doubtful Allies, if of Allies at all. The Chinese had offered them, evidently to alienate them from us, almost everything they could wish; but there was one point the Yankees could not get out of them and
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