deliberate upon the matter; that the official body, civil and military, were in favour of war, whilst the mercantile interest was for peace; that discussion went on for several days without any definite result; but that at last lots were drawn in the Lo Chan-sze Temple and three tickets were found in favour of war which was therefore resolved on; that Pak-mak (Bremer), the Queen's relative by marriage, was ordered to take a dozen or so of war-ships under his command, to which were added twenty or thirty guardships from India.' The Emperor replied, after reading this report, 'What can they do, if we quietly wait on the defensive and watch their movememts?' Soon after, when Lin was asked (June 1, 1840) by some American merchants in Canton to allow their ships to clear with their cargoes as quickly as possible because the British expedition would soon arrive and blockade the port, Lin sneered at the idea of the English being daring enough or able to effectively blockade the Canton River.
Lin, however, was too hot-tempered a man to wait quietly. Early in the year (January 16, 1840) he strengthened the defences of Tsimshatsui by building a new fort on the site of the present Water-police Station, and supplied the Bogue forts with some 200 new cannons of foreign construction, which he had no difficulty in buying in Canton from friendly foreign merchants. He was anxious to set foreigners to fight the English but could not manage it. He then purchased several foreign ships and had junks built in foreign style, fitted them up like men-of-war, and ordered their crews to be drilled in foreign fashion. But he was quick-witted enough to see, on witnessing some trial manoeuvres, that this plan would not work, and gave it up. So he turned all his attention to the plan he had commenced long before, in August, 1839, by starting a volunteer fleet, formed by engaging fishermen and pirates at $6 a month each, with $6 extra for each of their families, the funds being provided in the way common in China, viz. by compelling well-to-do people to give 'voluntary' subscriptions for public purposes. But this volunteer fleet, let loose to
