But to go back to the work, the Chinese were given until twelve on the 13th, to give up the gate. We made a lot of batteries, and everything was ready for assault of the wall, which is a battlement, forty feet high, but of inferior masonry; at 11.30 p.m., however, the gate was opened, and we took possession; so our work was of no avail. The Chinese had then, until the 23rd, to think over our terms of treaty, and to pay up ten thousand pounds (10,000 pounds) for each Englishman, and five hundred pounds (500 pounds) for each native soldier who had died during their captivity. This they did, and the money was paid, and the treaty signed yesterday. I could not witness it, as all officers commanding companies were obliged to remain in camp, owing to the ill-treatment the prisoners experienced at the Summer Palace. The General ordered this to be destroyed, and stuck up proclamations to say why it was ordered. We accordingly went out, and after pillaging it, burned the whole magnificent palace, and destroyed most valuable property, which could not be replaced for millions of pounds. "This Palace" (wrote the author of _Our Own Times_), "covered an area of many miles. The Palace of Adrian, at Tivoli, might have been hidden in one of its courts. Gardens, temples, small lodges and pagodas, groves, grottoes, lakes, bridges, terraces, artificial hills, diversified the vast space. All the artistic treasures, all the curiosities, archaeological and other, that Chinese wealth and taste, such as it was, could bring together." Gordon notes, "This palace, with its surrounding buildings, over two hundred in number, covered an area eight by ten miles in extent." He says, "it makes one's heart burn to see such beauty destroyed; it was as if Windsor Palace, South Kensington Museum, and British Museum, all in one, were in flames: you can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the things we were bound to destroy." "These palaces were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burned, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralizing for an army: everybody was wild for plunder . . . The throne and room were lined with ebony, carved in a wonderful manner. There were huge mirrors of all shapes and sizes, clocks, watches, musical boxes with puppets on them, magnificent china of every description, heaps and heaps of silks of all colours, coral screens, large amounts of treasures, etc. The French have smashed up everything in a most shameful way. It was a scene of utter destruction which passes my description." This was not much in Gordon's line.