Rear Admiral Louis-Adolph Bonard replaced Vice Admiral Léonard Charner as the head of French forces colonizing in south-east Asia. Charner had already secured three provinces in Cochinchina and Bonard continued this energetic action. Despite not being able completely to succeed militarily, Bonard was able to intimidate Vietnamese Emperor Tu-Duc into permanently ceding these provinces, from Saigon to the Cambodian border, as permanent French possessions at the Treaty of Saigon on June 5, 1862. (By John Osborne)