The Tartar troops fought with desperation at Chin Kiang, and, according to a barbarous custom, based possibly on dread of ill-treatment to prisoners, they murdered their wives and children before retreating. One deep draw-well was full to the brim of drowned Tartar girls, some well dressed and of the higher class. The fall of Chin Kiang, and the threat to advance upon Nankin, had brought the emperor to his senses, though probably he had been deceived up to that time as to the result of the invaders’ efforts. He sued for peace, therefore, and obtained it at the expense of the cession of Hong Kong, the opening of five ports to trade, and the payment of an indemnity of four and a quarter millions sterling. For this campaign the regiments engaged bear the dragon, with “China,” among their badges. There was a further small ebullition of hostility to the “Fan Kwei,” or “foreign devils,” in 1847, in which the 18th was employed to quell the disturbance, but it was not of much military interest. But in 1856 hostilities again broke out on a more serious scale. The Chinese had seized the _Arrow_, a small trading vessel, and taken a man out of her, on the ground that he was a pirate. The insult to the flag could not be permitted, and the refusal of apology led to a second declaration of war. The 59th Regiment was already on the China station, and with the assistance of the Royal Marines, early in 1857, bombarded and stormed Canton; it also served in the expedition to the White Cloud Mountains and at the capture of Nantow in 1858. But the gravity of the situation in India was too profound to admit of the despatch of reinforcements to the far East until the great Mutiny was quelled. It was not until 1859, therefore, that active operations were resumed, and these met with a disastrous check at the first move; for the fleet, in attempting to destroy the forts which the Chinese had erected at the mouth of the Peiho, was decidedly repulsed. In 1860, therefore, a serious combined naval and military expedition was planned. The former was commanded by Admiral Hope; the latter by Sir Hope Grant, and consisted of the 1st Dragoon Guards, a battalion of the 1st Royals, the 2nd Queen’s, the 3rd Buffs, and the 31st, 44th, 60th, 67th, and 99th Regiments, together with the Royal Marines and Indian troops, including the famous “Fane’s” and “Probyn’s” Horse. But, in addition, we were allied with a French force under General Montauban, and, as is not uncommon in such allied operations, the small French contingent was often rather a drag than an assistance, totally unprovided as it was with regular cavalry.