An event of superior, and, indeed, supreme importance occurred to arrest the movement of the expedition to Canton. When Lord Elgin reached Singapore, on June 3, 1857, he found a letter waiting for him from Lord Canning, then Governor-general of India, informing him of the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny, and imploring him to send all his troops to Calcutta in order to avert the overthrow of our authority in the valley of the Ganges, where, "for a length of 750 miles, there were barely 1,000 European soldiers." To such an urgent appeal there could only be one answer, and the men who were to have chastised Commissioner Yeh followed Havelock to Cawnpore and Lucknow. But while Lord Elgin sent his main force to Calcutta, he himself proceeded to Hongkong, where he arrived in the first week of July, and found that hostilities had proceeded to a still more advanced stage than when Sir Michael Seymour wrote for re-enforcements. The Chinese had become so confident during the winter that that officer felt bound to resume offensive measures against them, and having been joined by a few more men-of-war, and having also armed some merchant ships of light draught, he attacked a main portion of the Chinese fleet occupying a very strong position in Escape Creek. The attack was intrusted to Commodore Elliott, who, with five gunboats and the galleys of the larger men-of-war, carried out with complete success and little loss the orders of his superior officer. Twenty-seven armed junks were destroyed, and the thirteen that escaped were burned the next day. It was then determined to follow up this success by attacking the headquarters of Yeh's army at Fatshan, the place already referred to as being some distance from Canton. By road it is six and by water twelve miles from that city. The remainder of the Chinese fleet was drawn up in Fatshan Channel, and the Chinese had made such extensive preparations for its defense, both on land and on the river, that they were convinced of the impregnability of its position.