of the cession of Hongkong (which, he no doubt supposed,, required no further confirmation), or compensation for the opium surrendered to Lin (which he considered settled by his drafts on the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury). As to a war indemnity, he no doubt reserved that for the reckoning yet to be made with the Imperial Government, the real instigators of the war. The Manchu Annals incorrectly state that Elliot demanded and obtained 'the opium money' in addition to a 'war indemnity,' and make the further doubtful assertion that Elliot first proposed to Yikshan to exchange Tsimshatsui and Kowloon for the Island of Hongkong, but that, when Yikshan pointed out that the Emperor had not yet been invited to agree to the cession of Hongkong, Elliot consented to let the question of Hongkong stand over for discussion (with the Imperial Government). The Annalist accordingly blames the Commissioners for omitting, in their reports to the Throne, all reference to the payment of the opium indemnity and to the cession of Hongkong.
The advantages gained by this ten days' campaign and the consequent Treaty of Canton were very great. The removal from the scene of those troops which alone had stood the British fire, and which had drawn upon themselves the ill-feeling of the Cantonese so as to cause danger of civil war in the city, was a decided advantage. The expulsion of the Imperial Commissioners, who had been the prime movers in all hostilities, was calculated to make them comparatively harmless, while the temporary crippling of the provincial exchequer deprived them, at least for a time, of the sinews of war. But the greatest advantage gained by the Canton Treaty was the speedy termination of the campaign which, within a few weeks after the first blow was struck, set the British troops free, just when the summer was coming on, to operate in the North.
On the day after the conclusion of peace (May 28, 1841), it happened that the third company of the 37th Madras Native Infantry, under Lieutenant Hadfield and two subalterns, Devereux and Berkeley, having lost their way, were surrounded,
