And forthwith the Boxers arranged that disturbances should commence at once. They commenced with pillages and robberies. The Empress launched edicts against the rising, while secretly she encouraged it. Soon a direct attack was made on all Christians; missionaries were tortured and murdered. Churches set on fire and houses torn down. One or two Legations in Pekin were destroyed. On May the 1st the German Minister, Baron von Kettener, was assassinated. This was the signal for a general rising, and all the Legations in Pekin were besieged, the Imperial troops joining in the attack. Sir Claude MacDonald had been assured that there was no danger whatsoever. He was appointed commander of the Legation Quarter by the foreign representatives, and a plucky resistance was made. Early in June he sent a telegram to Sir Edward Seymour, Commander of the China Station, informing him the situation was perilous, and warning him that unless the Legations were soon relieved a general massacre would take place. Seymour acted as quickly as possible, and with a force of two thousand men he started to the relief of Pekin. This little army was composed of men and guns drawn from the ships of the eight Great Powers then in Chinese waters. Great Britain--who provided nearly a thousand men--France, Italy, Russia, the United States, Japan, Austria and Germany. Their combined artillery consisted only of nineteen guns. Captain Jellicoe was given command of the British Naval Contingent, and the whole force was under the command of Admiral Seymour. Mr. Whittall, Reuter's correspondent, accompanied the column, and he gave, in the diary which he kept, a very graphic account of the fighting of the allied forces, their failure to relieve Pekin, their attempt to get back to Tientsin, Jellicoe's bad luck in getting dangerously wounded--it was feared, fatally, at the time--and the narrow escape of the whole force from annihilation. "We left Laufang at dawn on June the 13th," he wrote, "and arrived at Tientsin at 12.30 p.m. without incident. "We left Tientsin again at 2 a.m., but the Marines were at Yangtsun, and the Chinese officials declined to take the responsibility of affording protection, so we took them on with us. At Lofa we found three trucks derailed, and so remained there all night outside 'Fort Endymion.' We moved out from Lofa about midnight on June 14th for headquarters, but found that they had been removed further up the line. A party of Americans, foraging, ran across a band of 150 Boxers and fired on them, killing six and wounding many others. The _Aurora's_ advance party was attacked about six-and-a-half miles up the line by a large force of the Boxers, who tried to rush them, but the bluejackets kept them off, killing and wounding some 150.