Mu. Wave to te Eant oF Charespox.
Pekin, July 3, 1870.
My Lonp,—T have the honour to enclose copy of a despatch (A) I have addressed to Mr. W. H. Lay, in which, while heartily approving his proceedings as Acting Consul turing the Into troubles at Tientsin, I have expressed very decidedly my dissent from his opinion regarding the primary cause of those troubles.
Thave felt bound to speak very plainly on this latter point, but itis not less my duty to recommend' to your Lordship's attention the very admirable conduct of Mr. ordinary peril and dificaty. For seven Lay under circumstances of more than
days the port was without a gun-boat, and the foreign community in general, horror-stricken at the events of June Zist, and unprotected, were, as was natural, in the most serious alarm lest their settlement should be attacked. All the ladies, except Mrs. Lay and two others, were embarked on board the merchant steamer" Manchu," prepared for flight, Mr. Lay, as his despatches show, was fully alive to the danger surrounding him, but he opposed every proposition made him to quit his post, and it is in chief part to his fixmn that I attribute the security of the forei residents during a period im which any movement indicative of fear would undoubtedly have compromised their safety. He left nothing undone on behalf either of the living or the dead, and his coolness and humanity have won him the praise of every foreign Representative in Peking, Thave, &e.,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.