Again the Bogue forts were captured, and Canton would have been occupied but for another promised treaty, the terms of which were accepted by Sir Henry Pottinger, who now superseded Elliot.

At this juncture the British fleet sailed northwards, capturing Amoy and Ningpo, and occupying the island of Chusan.

The further capture of Chapu, where munitions of war in huge quantities were destroyed, was followed by similar successes at Shanghai and Chinkiang.
At the last-mentioned, a desperate resistance was offered by the Manchu garrison, who fought heroically against certain defeat, and who, when all hope was gone, committed suicide in large numbers rather than fall into the hands of the enemy, from whom, in accordance with prevailing ideas and with what would have been their own practice, they expected no quarter.

The Chinese troops, as distinguished from the Manchus, behaved differently; they took to their heels before a shot had been fired.
This behaviour, which seems to be nothing more than arrant cowardice, is nevertheless open to a more favourable interpretation.

The yoke of the Manchu dynasty was already beginning to press heavily, and these men felt that they had no particular cause to fight for, certainly not such a personal cause as then stared the Manchus in the face.