English and Foreign.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VII, Issue 448, 18 February 1857, Page 4

English and Foreign.

. LATEST. FROM CHINA. EUPTTTRE BETWEEN BRITISH AND CHINESE' By way of Adelaide we (Melbourne Age) have papers from Hong Kong to November 10; and intelligence to the 11th of the same month. There has .been a serious affair at' Canton, between the British and Chinese authorities, and Admiral Seymour has found it necessary, in order to bring the Chinese to reason, to bombard the town. The disagreement arose, in the first instance, out of the seizure by the Chinese of some seamen of-the British lorcha Arrow, as detailed in the following extract of a communication from Mr. H. S. . Parkes, her Britannic Majesty's' officiating consul at Canton, dated 21st October. "On the morning of the Bth instant, the British lorcha Arrow, when lying among the shipping anchored before the city, was boarded, without any previous reference being made to the British Consul, by a large force of -Chinese officers and soldiers in uniform, who, in'face of the remonstrance of the master, an Englishman, seized, bound, and carried away twelve Chinese out of her crew of fourteen, and .hauled down , her colours. I reported all the ; particulars of this public insult to the British flag, and .grave, violation of the ninth article of the Supplementary Treaty, to your Excellency the same day, and appealed to.you to afford satisfaction for the insult, and to cause, the provision of the treaty to be in this- case faithfully observed... But your Excellency, with a strange jdisregardboth to justice and treaty engagement, has offered no reparation or apology for the injury ; and by retaining the men you' have seized in your custody, signify ymir approval of' this violation of the treaty, and ( leave. H.M. Govern - ment without" assurance that a similar aggression shall not again occur." . The Consul concludes by giving his Excellency Yeh, " the Governor-General of the Two Kwang," twenty-four hours to accede to certain demands made in-previous letters, otherwise her Majesty's naval officers would have recourse to force to compel satisfaction. ' The Chinese authorities not having acceded to the demands made by the British Consul, coercive measures were adopted. The following is a narative of the events from the * China • Mail' of the 30th October:— • " On the 22nd (last Wednesday) the factories. were guarded by a body of bluejackets and marines from H.M. steamer .Encounter'and the U.S. sloop Portsmouth, but everything remained quiet, the fleet being scattered, —some vessels at Second Bar, some at Whampoa, and some quietly at anchor, off the factories, at Can ton. ~ The same evening, however, the Coromandel, with four armed boats in tow, took (possession of the Barrier Forts, spiked the guns, destroyed the ammunition, and set fire to'the buildings inside; and the following day (Thursday) the Samson and the Barracouta attacked and took the two forts at the upper entrance to the Macao Passage, together with the three Sarmeenries. All these, with the exception of five Chinese killed at the Barrier Forts, having been taken without bloodshed on either .side. "On the 24bh nothing would seem to have been done; but on the forenoon of the 25th (Saturday,) the Dutch Folly, was quietly taken possession of by the Encounter and the Barracouta; and the same day some ' braves,'who had been annoying a guard of marines, placed at the top of Old China-street, by capering and dancing about, and challenging them to fight, and "who had continued their antics notwithstanding repeated warnings from Consul Parkes and others, were fired upon, two lulled and one :or two wounded; , ! "On the 26th (Sunday) all operations were suspended,'and the admiral. attended church, having previously dispatched an application to Hong Kong for a party of artillerymen sufficient to work two guns, to be mounted on Dutch Folly, and intended to bear upon the city walls opposite the Governor - General's • palace. ", "On the 27th (Monday) at one p.m., the Barracouta and Encounter opened fire with ishot and shell upon the palace, which was much ; damaged, and the flags upon which were lowered i about an hour and[j a-half after the bombardment commenced. The fire was .kept up till night. On the. evening of that day a strong addition was made to the British force by the

arrival of Captain Stewart, of the Nankin, with eighty seamen: and marines, and twenty-two artillerymen, under Captain Rotten from Hong "On Tuesday the cannonading commenced about 9 o'clock from the steamers, and about 2 p.m'. the Governor's Yamun and neighbouring houses were observed'to be in flames, and the fire spread over a space of eight or ten acres, the wind blowing fresh from the north ward, 1 the guns from the Dutch Folly, manned by the Artillery, had begun playing upon the walls; and at 3 p.m. yesterday (Wednesday), the rubbish having been cleared away so as to admit of free access to a breach which '■ had been made, Commodore Elliot, at the head of 250 seamen and marines, passed into the city, after encountering a slight 'resistance,, in which six of his men; were wounded, and took possession of the ruins of'the, Governor General's palace, over which the British flag was hoisted by the Commodore, the force retiring towards dusk. The inhabitants, who had previously displayed the utmost apathy, were seen hurrying from the city in thousands, and the Lily was actually detained' for some time by the crowd of boats crossing the river with their live freight. " Comparatively little private property has been destroyed or even injured, the most serious loss being the destruction by fire of some Chinchew hongs in front of Dutch Folly. Hoglane has been demolished—a measure rendered imperative for the safety of the foreign-hongs. The servants have nearly all left the factories ; and in one solitary instance,'Messrs; W. H. tWardley and Co., they stole the plate, and endeavoured to set fire to the house." The ' China; of the 6th November, follows up the narrative of events of the previous week by the following statement:— " The summary of events at Canton given by us last week contained tw o mistakes —the first being the statement that no casualty had occurred in the British force during the operations, whereas we ascertained, in the course of Friday, that three men had been killed, and twelve or fifteen wounded, several of them mortally, and two of whom are since dead. The other mistake was rather a premature report of the destruction of the Governor-Gene-ral's Yamun, which may have been on 'fiie, but certainly not destroyed; and the British flag was therefore hoisted on the Palace itself, and not on its ruins; and we omitted mention of Captain Bate, of the Bittern, as the officer who planted the flag on the breach in the city walls." Some correspondence took place after the operations above detailed between Admiral Seymour and Yeh, the Imperial High Commissioner. Admiral Seymour observes in his letter to Yeh:— "Were the right of access to the authorities within the city that which has been invariably conceded at the other ports, similarly in force at Canton, no such contingency could arise as the present, in which the impossibility of otherwise effecting any satisfactory arrangements had rendered necessary the proceedings of the last few days. What I had now to insist upon was simply this, that the foreign representatives should have here .the same access to the authorities at the other ports. ""Your EKcellency sent no reply to my message, and, according to the intention of which I had given notice? to your deputy, I breached the wall of the city, and thus obtained access to your Excellency's official residence, which I , visited yesterday afternoon. This object accomplished, I withdrew my troops. "I may observe that if has been wholly with anew to preservation of life that my "operations have been hitherto so deliberately conducted. Even yesterday, when entering the «it}% no blood was shed save where my men were •assailed, and the property of the people was in £ very case respected. The fires which have broken out ■ during the last two days were not either designedly caused by us. They were but: a lamentable consequence of the measures to which your Excellency's conduct has compelled me reluctantly to resort. "I have one.remark to make, to which I request yourr Excellency's particular attention. J-ne lives and property of the entire of the population are now at my mercy, and could be destroyed by me at any moment that any event nught. impose upon me so sad a necessity. The • P*'eventiori of any such necessity is entirely in we hands of your Excellency. I have been

constrained to . move onward, proceeding from one step to a. farther, by the pertinacity and discourtesy with with your Excellency has persisted m evading the just and simple claims advanced by us in the first instance.. It is now for your Excellency, by immediate consultation with me, to determine a condition of things of which.the present evil is not slight, but which, •if not amended, can scarcely fail to be productive of the most serious calamities." This plain statement of the British Admiral was met by an evasive and unsatisfactory statement from the Imperial High Commissioner. On Saturday, Ist November, the Admiral having replied to Yeh's letter, made preparations for shelling the Government buildings within the city walls, and sent the Barracouta to Hong Kong for supplies, and on Monday at noon, no answer having been received at the consulate, the first gun was discharged, and the shelling. was continued until about 4 p.m., from the Dutch Folly, Encounter, and Lamson, the fire being directed against the Governor's. house, and what was said to be the treasury. At half-past four in the afternoon an answer was at length received from Yeh, which was not of a more satisfactory nature than the previous .one. On Tuesday, 4th November,' the Barracouta having meanwhile arrived from Hong Kong, with, large _ supplies of ammunition and provisions, firing was recommenced about 1 p.m., with shell and red-hot shot, and repeated on the sth, but with what effect could not be seen from the factories. On the morning of the 6th, about 7 o'clock, the Barracouta and Coromandel, with boats in tow, dropped abreast of French Folly, which was crowded with Chinese, and near which 28 war junks were at anchor : and after about an hour's hard fighting, the forts and junks were were taken possession of, and the latter destroyed. The Barracouta had one man killed'and three wounded, her steam-pipe fcut, and several shots in her side. The attack was supported by the fire from the Dutch Folly. The ' South Australian Register,' in its issue of the 13th instant, thus reverts to the subject: The arrival of the Bernicia from Hong Kong brings us intelligence of a somewhat formidable outbreak between "the Chinese authorities at Canton and the British squadron stationed at that port. We supplied the detailed particulars in our impression of yesterday; but as the affair is of a serious character, we are induced to call attentipn more particularly to the subject. The chief thing that arrests our notice in connection with this business,.is the rapidity,, and, we might almost add,, the nonchalance with which the proceedings are initiated by the British Admiral. A dispute arises ; a few hasty despatches are forwarded to. " Governor Yeh;" the replies are not considered . satisfactory. Four-and -twenty hours are then graciously allowed to that unhappy potentate, and as his answer is still "unsatisfactory," the twentyfifth hour witnesses the bombardment of. his palace and the firing of his capital. No doubt Governor Yeh was in the wrong and Admiral Seymour in the right. No doubt it was sufficiently provoking that " the demands made by the British Council" were not conceded within " four-and-twenty hours." No doubt, therefore, the bombardment of Canton under such circumstances was perfectly " regular." We do not complain of it. We only contrast such extraordinary promptitude in the Chinese waters with the dilatory policy that suffered a whole season to elapse m the Euxine and in the Baltic. We only contrast the four-and-twenty-hours' warning granted by Admiral Seymour to Governor Yeh- with the weeks and months of precious time frittered away in the elegant amenities of our Parisian and Viennese diplomatists. It is, however, no trifle to bombard Canton, especially when the red-hot shot is directed, in the first instance, toward the palace, and;" what appeared to be the Treasury." Itis'no trifle to pour in upon a.crowded city like Canton, and almost without a warning, a storm of iron hail, causing conflagrations in every direction, and compelling the unfortunate inhabitants to abandon their property, and to "hurry from the city in thousands." We should call this rather sharp practice, as occurring upon twenty-four hours' notice, and especially as compared with the policy that spared Odessa.when both right and might availed for its downfall. The origin of the misunderstanding between the Chinese authorities and the British Admiral

consisted in the seizure by the former of twelve Chinamen who had engaged to act as seamen in a British lorcha. It appears that, amongst these Chinese sailors were several escaped pirates, to secure whom Governor Teh sanctioned the arrest of the twelve Chinamen. The effect of their seizure upon the temper of the British Admiral is plainly manifest: fie immediately despatched to the Chinese Governor special remonstrances, accompanied by certain demands for apology, and twenty-four hours were finally conceded as the utmost limits of forbearance. Within the term specified the twelve men were returned; but as they were not returned with "the same publicity with which they were removed," the Admiral refused to receive them, and the bombardment was ordered to commence. Whatever may be the opinion formed as to the, offence; there can be no doubt as to the nature of the retribution taken; and we think it will be admitted, that to bombard with red-hot shot such a city as Canton, and that upon twenty-four hours' notice, could only be justified on the occurrence of some very great emergency. The whole of Canton is now at the mercy of the British Admiral. Thousands of the inhabitants have fled from the city. Ports have been taken, guns have been spiked, a fleet of warjunks captured, and upon the ruins of Governor Yeh's palace the flag of Admiral Seymour floats. This may certainly be regarded as a very decisive operation, but as British Admirals manoeuvring against Canton are not held in leading ■strings by Austria and France, their policy is that of a word and a blow, with as little time wasted between the two as possible. : At the date of our last advices the affair was still pending; Governor. Ydi's letters not being satisfactory, and Admiral Seymour-conjuring his Excellency to spare the city from inevitable ruin by submitting to demands that would |not, and could not be modified. The following is the" Chinese version, of the quarrel. PUBLIC STATEMENT. The banditti that formerly'existed : in the interior having been swept .away by our officers and soldiers, native and foreign merchants have acquired peace to transact their 'affairs—what can be so good ? A few days ago -we hear that the English authorities have suddenly brought their steamers and war-vessels tc enter the river, fire on* and injure the forts, and kill the soldiers—(which is) exceedingly perverse and unreasonable: Fortunately, our officers and soldiers in the. forts did not resist: thereby avoiding the infringement of the treaty. Having enquired^ (we learn that) for some time many of the.iorchas that have traded on the Canton river Jiave infringed the laws very much—-smuggled,and sold salt; instances of their infringements are piled up. ISTot one of the native officials and people but has been much provoked.- Now this No. 27 lorcha boldly dared to shelter the robbers -lee Ming Tae and others, and to enter Canton. The English officials are bound in accordance with the treaty, to find out vagabonds and hand them over to the Chinese officers for punishment. But in this affair the captain of the lorcha has deceived the English Consul;, the wrong, therefore, rests with him (the captain), and not with our military authorities. This lorcha was employed by a native called Soo Asing; the register was dishonestly procured by the captain; it is not an English, lorcha,— there is a great difference between it and the foreign man-of-war, and ships that are' of an honest character. " The duty of our military is only to find out and capture robbers : they do not understand ■ the treaty, at which we need not be astonished. Our officials have heard (of this affair), and being very merciful, have liberated the 12 men (who were taken from the lorcha) —(in accordance) with all love and reason. But, unexpectedly, the English officers, distinctly against the treaty, have fired on and injured the forts, killing the soldiers. . We wish to ask if there is any love or reason in such conduct ? We recollect that the forts on the banks of the river were formerly made for the protection of the people; now they being suddenly injured, 'the (neighbouring) country suffers also. Not one who has blood and breath but will be enraged: We can only expose this perverse and unreasonable infringement of the treaty by the English officers, universally informing the officials and merchants of all the honorable coun-

tries, as well as the large English merchants, (requesting them) altogether to investigate, and not to say we men of China speak against human principles. Public Statement by the gentry of Ktoantung.

From Canton, Oct. 23rd, 1856. H. JM. ships Baracoiita and Samson captured the forts in Macao Passage, and spiked the guns. H. M. S. Coromandel landed 60 marines to protect the Factories. The Sir Charles Forbes was detained to convey treasure to Hong Kong. Forts taken—two in Macao Passage, three on the Sha-Ming, on the Honan side. H. M. steamer Hornet arrived at this place *at 3 p.m., and having completed with provisions, shot, shell, &c, proceeded almost immediately to join the Commander-in-chief at Whampoa.