Although all regular resistance had been overcome, the greater part of the city remained in possession of the Chinese and of Yeh in person. That official, although in the lowest straits, had lost neither his fortitude nor his ferocity. He made not the least sign of surrender, and his last act of authority was to order the execution of 400 citizens, whom he denounced as traitors to their country. From his yamen in the interior of the city, when he found that the English hesitated to advance beyond the walls, he incited the populace to fresh efforts of hostility, and, in order to check their increasing audacity, it was resolved to send a force into the city to effect the capture of Yeh. On January 5, 1858, three detachments were sent into the native city, and they advanced at once upon the official residences of Yeh and Pihkwei, the governor. The Chinese were quite unprepared for this move, and being taken unawares they offered scarcely any resistance. The yamen was occupied and the treasury captured, while Pihkwei was made prisoner in his own house. The French at the same time attacked and occupied the Tartar city--a vast stone-built suburb which had been long allowed to fall into decay, and which, instead of being occupied, as was believed, by 7,000 Manchu warriors, was the residence of bats and nauseous creatures. But the great object of the attack was unattained, for Yeh still remained at large, and no one seemed to know where he ought to be sought, for all the official buildings had been searched in vain. But Mr. Parkes, by indefatigable inquiry, at last gained a clew from a poor scholar whom he found poring over an ancient classic at the library, undisturbed in the midst of the turmoil. From him he learned that Yeh would probably be found in a yamen situated in the southwest quarter of the city. Mr. Parkes hastened thither with Captain (afterward Admiral) Cooper Key and a party of sailors. They arrived just in time, for all the preparations for flight had been made, and Captain Key caught Yeh with his own hand as he was escaping over the wall. One of his assistants came forward with praiseworthy devotion and declared himself to be Yeh, in the hope of saving his superior; but the deception was at once detected by Mr. Parkes, who assured Yeh that no harm would be done him. The capture of Yeh completed the effect of the occupation of Canton, and the disappearance of the most fanatical opponent of the foreigners insured the tranquillity of the Canton region, which had been the main seat of disorder, during the remainder of the war. The government of Canton was then intrusted to Pihkwei and a commission of one Frenchman and two Englishmen, and the Chinese admitted it had never been better governed. Yeh himself was sent to Calcutta, where he died two years later, and, considering the abundant evidence of his cruel treatment of defenseless prisoners, he had every reason to consider his punishment lenient.