By this means the
resolution of the English at the fire, and their trustiness and
punctuality elsewhere, was the subject of general conversation amongst
the Chinese, and the next morning many of the principal inhabitants
waited on the Commodore to thank him for his assistance, frankly owning
to him that they could never have extinguished the fire of themselves,
and that he had saved their city from being totally consumed. And soon
after a message came to the Commodore from the Viceroy, appointing the
30th of November for his audience, which sudden resolution of the
Viceroy, in a matter that had been so long agitated in vain, was also
owing to the signal services performed by Mr. Anson and his people at the
fire, of which the Viceroy himself had been in some measure an
eye-witness. The fixing this business of the audience was, on all
accounts, a circumstance which Mr. Anson was much pleased with, as he was
satisfied that the Chinese Government would not have determined this
point without having agreed among themselves to give up their pretensions
to the duties they claimed, and to grant him all he could reasonably ask;
for, as they well knew the Commodore's sentiments, it would have been a
piece of imprudence not consistent with the refined cunning of the
Chinese to have admitted him to an audience only to have contested with
him.
CHAPTER 40.
ANSON RECEIVED BY THE VICEROY--CENTURION SETS SAIL--TABLE BAY--SPITHEAD.
THE VICEROY.
At ten o'clock in the morning, on the day appointed, a mandarin came to
the Commodore to let him know that the Viceroy was ready to receive him,
on which the Commodore and his retinue immediately set out.
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