Headquarters, s.s. Granada, Tai-lien Bay, July 12, i860. — I have received your letter by the mail of May 12, but all those that were sent by the previous mail which brought out Lord Elgin have been lost. The steamer with the mail ran upon a rock in Galle harbour... and almost everything on board was lost. The only thing that was saved belonging to me was the present Fanny sent me of William's portrait. Pray give her my best thanks for it; the likeness is admirable, and it is a great pleasure to have it to look at now and then, in the absence of the original. I only wish your own had accompanied it.... We are waiting for the French, who have been keeping us waiting for a long time.... The business, I think, cannot be a long one, and would in fact have been over by this time, if the French had not been here. Nobody wanted them, and their presence only serves as an encumbrance. The climate of this part of China is quite lovely, I never felt a more delightful one; we are all consequently in the best health, and have hardly any sickness whatever amongst the men.... I paid a visit to Lord Elgin yesterday, and he thinks very lightly of the resistance we are likely to meet with, and does not reckon upon the whole affair lasting beyond the autumn. He did not tell me this positively, but it was easily gathered from what he said. I must say I shall rejoice if his views prove correct, and we are saved from passing this winter out here.... I must return the compliment you have been pleased to make me about writing so often, and I trust we shall respectively keep up the good characters we have given each other.... — Ever your affectionate son, Fredk. Stephenson.
To his Brother
S.s. Granada, Tai-lien Bay, July 12, i860.
My dear William, —... It is a thousand pities they {the French'] were ever allowed to meddle with
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
our affairs out here; they have nothing to do with China, having no interests commercially in the country whatever. They can't colonise, therefore the Saigon expedition is a farce, and setting their missionaries aside, for whom neither Government nor people care very much I should imagine, they have no business here whatever. There is not a Frenchman can tell you what they have come here to fight for; the result is they have done nothing but hamper and delay us. You can't imagine what a fine little force we have got; so well equipped and taken care of (perhaps rather too much so), in such good health, and behaving so well. I trust they will get through their work before rain and sickness set in..,. I cannot tell you how much I like our General; we all live with him more like a comrade than anything else, and yet with all that no one would be wanting in respect to him in the slightest degree. He is firm, decided, and evidently a first-rate soldier, but so mild and gentle in his manner when giving reproof. He is very serious in his ideas on religious subjects, and every morning after breakfast, as regularly as clockwork, we have prayers and a chapter from the Bible read by the chaplain in the saloon (for we are still on board ship), at which all the staff, about fourteen in number, and the European servants attend. I never heard of any other General doing this. I shall be sorry when we part, though it will be on my way home..., — Ever, my dear William, your affectionate brother,
Fredk. Stephenson.
To Lady Stephenson
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
My dear Mother, — I am writing to you from Peh-tang, on the river of that name, about 8 miles north of the Pei-ho. I am writing in my tent, pitched in the middle of one of the forts in company with the General and Headquarters Staff and Probyn's regiment of irregular cavalry, the horses being picketed in the centre,
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]