Private letters received at Singapore mention that her Majesty's Superintendent
had taken up the Cambridge, Captain Douglas, to act as guard-ship for the protection of British property. She was said to be chartered at 6,000/. for four months. It is added, that, in the event of the Commissioner taking hostile measures with regard to Macao, British residents there will find it neccssary to seek shelter on board ship, as the Portuguese do not possess the power to protect them. Sales of the drug at 750 to 780 dollars per chest were reported, and the trade was still going on along the coast. There were about sixty sail of shipping detained outside already, independently of the numbers that had still to arrive. There was only one British merchant residing at Canton at the date of the last accounts.
According to the letter of a correspondent of the Bengal Hurkaru, it appears a report was prevalent that Commissioner Lin had required that the opium bonded at Manilla should likewise be brought over to be condemned, and, with a view to enforce the demand, had, threatened to cut off the supplies of provisions from Macao. Although, in corroboration of the report, Captain Stayers, of the ship Cowasjee, is personally referred to, it arose most probably out of some misunderstanding; as the advices from Canton, on which it was apparently founded in the first instance, were only to the 11th of June, and in subsequent advices to the 27th the rumour does not appear to be referred to.
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