The return to Canton immediately after 'hostilities' had ceased by the departure of Lord Napier was worth making, if only to see the enormous preparations that had been made against an attempt by the boats of the frigates. We took the Junk river passage, and met with no obstructions until we had passed Houqua's Fort and got abreast of the 'Lob Creek' Pagoda. Here we were brought to and ordered to pull alongside of a large mandarin boat, crowded with a ferocious looking lot of fellows, and half-starved as well, to judge from the avidity with which they seized upon some biscuit we threw among them. We were in two boats--one with Captain Tonks, of the Bombay ship 'Lord Castlereagh,' Mr. Low, and Sampson, and my own small gig, with myself alone. A petty officer, wearing an opaque white button, got in Tonks's boat and directed him to a junk, on board of which was a Linguist, and I followed. We reached the Factories four and a half hours from Whampoa. Correspondence between the Hong merchants (as intermediaries of the Viceroy) and Lord Napier, which his lordship would not comply with, was the only mode that could be expected under the existing foreign and Chinese relations. The Viceroy could not set aside that yet unrepealed system, nor enter into personal communication with any foreign representative. To do so, special authority from the Imperial Government was indispensable. The entire difficulty therefore was caused by Her Majesty's representative persisting in requiring of the Viceroy that which the latter could not grant. Naturally, the 'Napier War,' or, as locally called, the 'Napier fizzle,' was the result. It was coupled, too, with an entire stoppage of all foreign trade from September 2 to September 24, which was a very serious thing, and entirely unjustifiable in the absence of a declaration of war. The mortifying result was that Lord Napier had to renounce his expressed determination to remain at Canton. The British Government should either have obtained official recognition from Pekin for their representative, or simply have appointed a Consul whose dignity could not have been infringed upon by his being placed on the same footing as Consuls of other foreign nations. On September 21 Lord Napier quitted Canton with his suite for Macao. As the frigates proceeded towards the Bogue and Lintin, so did the two chop-boats of Lord Napier, _pari passu_, towards his destination by the inner passage. He was convoyed by several Chinese men-of-war boats. At length his Lordship arrived on the 26th. The humiliating end of his ineffectual attempt to correspond directly with the local government aggravated an illness brought on by the vexation and excitement he had undergone from the day of his landing from the 'Fort William's' boat, and on October 11 his Lordship died at Macao. * * * * *