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Admiral Bonard had 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. He captured Bien-Hoa in December 1861 and then took the key Mekong Delta town of My Tho after a three-day siege. Emperor Tu-Duc was forced to cede the provinces from Saigon to the Cambodian border as permanent French possessions at the Treaty of Saigon on June 5, 1862. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
The American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1862 ... (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1869), II: 224.