leave Canton for good and all, after living here for upwards of two years, on Wednesday next. I shall then have plenty to do, so that if you duly hear from me once a month instead of once a fortnight you will know that it is not owing to sickness. The appointment, together with the cold weather, has completely set me upon my legs again, and as I am now soon going to the north of China the change of climate will, I hope, eradicate all remnants of fever. I am sure you will be pleased with my appointment, although it will delay my return for a few months, because it would have been so very easy to have passed me over if they had wished it, and have placed me in the same boat with our ex-Chief, which would only have been the natural thing to expect; besides that, my position in the regiment offered an admirable plea for recalling me without the slightest slur being thereby cast upon me; so that I am sure you will view my detention here in its true light, and not allow yourself to be outdone by the garrison of Canton in offering your congratulations. I shall hope soon to merit them with the rest of our little army upon higher grounds than at present.... What an enormous distance we shall be from England I It really looks quite awful on the map, if you trace the route by the Cape, which, after all, was the way I came, though not the way I hope to return by. Fancy getting up to the Great Wall, which one used to read of as a child with such wonder! If I do get up there I will certainly bring you back a brick, which I will previously throw at a Chinaman's head to enhance its interest. If I can only manage to visit Japan on my way back I shall then have plenty to talk to you about.... I want you to send me some ribbon for each of my orders, four in number.... If you could get me, at the same time, a diminutive cross of the Legion d'Honneur (chevalier's rank) I should be much obliged. If you will kindly ask William he will give you the money for it from me.... — Your affectionate son,
Fredk. Stephenson.
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To his Brother
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Many thanks, my dear William, for your letter... you have probably heard by this time that I am appointed Deputy Adjutant-General to the force going to the north. The rise from Assistant to Deputy Adjutant- General is a great one, and, of course, very gratifying also, at least you would think so if you heard all the congratulations I have been receiving out here.... We shall, I believe, have a fine force out here... it will consist, I am told, of 10 or 11 English regiments, 3000 Sikhs, and 5 or 6 batteries of artillery, with probably 800 or 900 cavalry. I have no doubt the allied force that will be employed on shore will reach to 20,000 men and 70 guns, an army sufficient for anything if only the work is done quickly before sickness sets in. It will give me plenty to do, but I hope I shall be equal to it.... I do not suppose we shall leave here before May, that is to say, the General and Headquarter Staff, though some troops must shortly be sent on to secure some intermediate base for collecting our stores, means of transport, etc., which will be on an immense scale, because it is hard to say what supplies the country we are going to campaign in will produce, and therefore we must make provision ourselves for everything. Imagine the amount of forage that must be collected for some 7000 animals. The Commissariat will have plenty of work to do. What will be the length of time that will elapse before the Chinese come to terms is more than anyone can guess having to deal with such a wily, slippery people, who act upon no principle, but are guided solely by events as they happen, and then submit to what they call fate. All the information, however, which we receive tends to show that they are making great preparations to receive us, and I think myself that they will make a good fight of it.... — Ever yours affectionately, Fredk. Stephenson.
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To Lady Stephenson
Hong Kong, February 27, i860.
My dear Mother, —... Your account of Fan is most cheering, and so is the prospect you hold out to me of being Hkely to get my battaHon soon. I shall be ready to return whenever they send for me. The French General de Montauban,** with his staff, has just arrived; their troops cannot be here before the middle of April, nor do I think the whole of ours will either, so I think we are here for another six weeks.... Whether there is much fighting or not one thing is quite certain, that there must be an army of occupation for a considerable time at all events... but happen what will, you must look to my promotion and not to the termination of this forthcoming war as being most likely to bring me home....