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FATE OF TARTARS.

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sent to scour the ramparts by the west, came upon Haeling himself and his faithful band of Tartars, among some houses and gardens. Their volley killed an officer of the 18th and some men, but the force, charging down upon them, bayoneted nearly the whole number. This was the last effort. Haeling retired to his house and deliberately burned himself to death on a pile of wood and official papers, nothing being found of him but the skull and the bones of the legs and feet; with his secretary concealed in an outhouse. Had the sort of determination, of which the general gave an example, been of a more active character, and more frequently expended on the field, it would have been of more service to the Chinese cause.

The suicides and domestic immolations here perpetrated exceeded those at Chapoo in extent and barbarity. Numbers of the defeated Tartars hurried home, and, after butchering all the females of their family, destroyed themselves. In some cases, the women turned their hands upon each other and their children, drowning, hanging, poisoning, without mercy to themselves or others. The plunder by the

rabble was more desperate here than elsewhere, and the city remained a monument of death and desolation. And yet Dr. Gutzlaff says that from his personal observation the marauders were not professional robbers, but the lower order of peasantry and citizens, left without government or control, to exercise the rights of "communism," or turn their arms against each other in the contest for the spoil.

CHAPTER X.

ADVANCE ON NANKING TO CONCLUSION OF

PEACE.

IT has been seen that Eleepoo had tried measures of conciliation at Shanghae. When the news of the fate of Chinkeangfoo reached him, he was struck dumb at the loss of a place and a body of men so precious to his sovereign. In a moment of agony he addressed a despatch to the emperor that all was lost, and peace a matter of necessity for the preservation of the country, and the Tartar rule. A similar despatch proceeded from Keying, and strengthened the appeal. Both could now plead the urgency for preserving their monarch and their whole tribe from utter ruin, and few words were sufficient when facts spoke so plainly. Northern China, but especially the court, cannot subsist without supplies from the south. The empire was now severed into two parts; not only were the communications interrupted, but the southern

half left to take care of itself.

Seeing his own prætorian bands, the only force on which he could rely against the rebellious Chinese, fallen a prey to the invaders, the prestige of their invincibility destroyed, and the people disenthralled from that fear which was the foundation of the Manchow rule, no choice was left but peace on any terms. Captain White" soon reappeared as the bearer of a friendly message from the pacific commissioner, and from him Dr. Gutzlaff gathered intelligence of the terror that had seized on all.

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Conciliation became the order of the day. On the arrival of the Blonde, a rich merchant came with offers from Yangchowfoo, beyond Kwachow on the Grand Canal, a larger city than Chinkeang, and one of the richest in the empire. All seemed to be aware that the war was coming to a crisis. The former perfidy of the Chinese government fully entitled them to any amount of distrust from the British; but their fright was now sufficient to make them in earnest. In lieu of the accustomed system of subterfuge and shuffling, it was soon to appear that dire necessity had

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