It was eventually decided to petition the Throne, but after considerable discussion, it was resolved to wait until the 9th of June, as it was deemed inadvisable to demand an audience until the ministers had received the necessary authority from the home governments, to insist upon compliance. On the 8th June there was no change for the better in the situation, and Sir Claude telegraphed to Admiral Seymour to ask him for a further detachment of seventy-five men. It was on this day that definite news was received that General Nieh had withdrawn his troops to Lu-Tai, where there were immense stores of rice, and that the Boxers, finding themselves unopposed, had reached Yangtsun, an important walled town on the river, about 30 miles from Tientsin. Here they burnt the bridges, and began to tear up the rails, and it was finally realised that all hope of further communication with Tientsin was delayed for weeks. On this same day a massacre of native Christians took place at Tung-Chow, and some students were attacked out by the racecourse. In consequence of these acts, and sundry trustworthy rumours that Tung-fu-Hsiang, the general commanding the Kansu troops then in the district, had given out in public that he was only waiting for orders from his superiors—meaning the Empress,—on receipt of which he would proceed to treat the foreigners in the same fashion as he had treated the unfortunate Mohammedans some four years previously, the ministers immediately telegraphed to the Admiral, and informed him that the situation was extremely critical, and that unless reinforcements immediately advanced on Pekin, it was within the bounds of probability they might arrive too late to save the Europeans. Even at this stage, the foreign ministers strove to put off the inevitable, and at a meeting that afternoon the majority of them supported the view that all available news pointed to a more favourable issue than Sir Claude Macdonald had been led at first to suppose. They agreed, however, to telegraph to their respective Admirals at 2 o’clock on the following afternoon, if no signs were forthcoming that the ferment was subsiding. Sir Claude, on his part, telegraphed to Sir Edward Seymour to inform him of the decision of his colleagues; but so certain was he about the turn of events, that he sent another telegram at 8 p.m. to Mr Carles, the British consul at Tientsin, which informed him of the deadly peril of the situation, and begging him to urge the senior naval officer to make all arrangements for an immediate advance on Pekin.