_January 20th._--I hinted at my ideas as to the evacuation of the city, and it has had an excellent effect.... There is a notable progress towards quiet in the city. Still, I fear the tide of emigration is going on. Parkes is exerting himself with considerable effect, and he is really very clever. There were a great many more shops open in the streets yesterday than I had seen before.... What a thing it is to have to deal with a sober population! I have wandered about the streets of Canton for some seven or eight days since the capture, and I have not seen one drunken man. In any Christian town we should have had numbers of rows by this time arising out of drunkenness, however cowed the population might have been. The Tribunal convicted a Chinaman the other day for selling 'samshoo' to the soldiers. I requested Parkes to hand him over to the Governor Pehkwei for punishment. This was done, and the arrangement answered admirably. The Governor was pleased, he presented himself before the Chinese as the executor of our judgments, and at the same time we, to a certain extent, seemed to be conceding to the Chinese the principle of exterritoriality which we assert as against them.... I have no 'responsible ministers' here, though the presence of a colleague, and, since military operations began, the position of the naval and military Commanders-in-Chief, have required me to act with some caution, in order to make the wheels of the machine work smoothly and keep on the rails. For this reason it was that I suggested a few days ago the plan of evacuation. The maintenance of order in a city under martial law was, I felt, an affair rather for the Commander-in-Chief than for me, therefore I was in a false position when I meddled with it directly. But the question of remaining in the city or not was a political one. By letting it be known that I had there my lines of Torres Vedras, upon which I should fall back if necessary, I obtained the influence I required for insuring, as far as possible, the adoption of satisfactory arrangements within the city. I must add that this evacuation plan was not intended by me to be a mere threat. I have it clearly matured in my mind as a thing feasible, and which would be under certain circumstances an advisable plan to adopt. In taking Canton we had, as I understand it, two objects in view: the one to prove that we could take it; the other to have in our hands something to give up when we come to terms with the Emperor,--'a material guarantee.' I believe that the capture of the city, followed by the capture of Yeh, has settled the former point. Indeed, from all that I hear, I infer that the capture of Yeh has had more effect on the Chinese mind than the capture of the city. I believe, therefore,