In accordance with the urgent resolutions unamimously passed by this meeting, Sir John boldly departed from Elgin’s line of policy and issued (July 31, 1858) a proclamation emphatically threatening the Heungshan and Sanon Districts with the retributive vengeance of the British Government if servants and food supplies were withheld any longer. Copies of this proclamation were successfully delivered at Heungshan by a party of British marines, but when H.M.S. Starling conveyed copies of the same proclamation to Sanon, a boat’s crew, while under a flag of truce, were fired upon by the braves of Namtao.