THE HANOO BUTCHERY.

New Zealander, Volume 11, Issue 989, 6 October 1855, Page 3

THE HANOO BUTCHERY.

[From tho Times.] It lias never fallen to our lot, in the course of a long experience to comment upon anyone event so distressing to the feelings of this nation, so disgraceful to the enemy with whom weave at war, so shameful to Immunity, as the massacre coinmitcil by the Russians, on the boat’s crew of n British man-of-war, on the hih of June, at liango Not only do we mourn the loss of sixteen gallant young fellows, whose fate would have been glorious if they had fallen by any of the common accidents of war; not only are we revolted hy the treachery which first allowed this boat to reach the shore under a flag of irucc, and then butchered the crew—unarmed, unresisting—with an overwhelming force of troops, who sprang up (rom their lurking (Tacos in the rocks ; hut. while we deplore I lie passion and violence which so bis-. 1 and ferocious an action will ini pari, to every future encounter in this war, we participate in tire con iction that no effort is too great, and no measure too strong to bring the authors of this crime to the condign punishment they deserve. War, no doubr, is fit!! of horrors, and if marked by it long track of devastation and of blood ; but it i- also the school of honour, and no laws are more saeicd than those which regulate its excesses. A Hag of truce, visible from the shore, was flying all the lime on the ship, and on approaching the Jetty the officer in command of the boat again waved the same ensign of peace. Il is however, apparent from the result that the approach of this boat on its friendly errand had been deliberately used by the Russian officers in command at liango to organise one of the most detestable and bloody stratagems recorded in history. Five hundred armed men lay concealed in the immediate neighbourhood of the landing place. The liberated prisoners and the officers jumped out of the boat; they were immediately surrounded by this overwhelming force. The miscreant commanding the partv seems to have been a man of some education, for iie spoke English —enough, at least, io utter a brutal oath upon that flag of truce which ho was about to violate. By his order the rillemcu opened a sharp fire immediately and indsicrimiuately on the officers who had landed, on the men in the boat, and even on the Finnish prisoners who had just been set. on shove a.nd who foil to a man under the merciless hulcts of their own tyrants. One wounded man was drugged out of the bottom of the bout, where he had fallen, and bayoneted upon the jetty. One sole survivor marvellously escaped by feigning death as soon as he was hit, and ultimately cutting the boat adrift. This awful crime wat not therefore, left without a living witness to relate and attest the tale, and to denounce to mankind and to posterity, in tho strongest language of indigatioa and horror, the atrocious cruelty of this unmanly deed. Among the dacoits who infest* the hanks of tin* Inawaddy, or the. savage and practical tribes of the Eastern Archipelago, our seamen are on their gua. d against every stratagem bloodthirsty and faithless barbarians ; but in what is termed Christian warfare, at a spot to which oulers can he forwarded in a few hours from the scat of government, separated only by a few miles of inland sen from tho capital of the Russian empire, and consequently under the direct control oftho supreme authority in that country, we certainly were not prepared for a breadi of military honor and of common humanity which would disgrace the remotest settlement aud tha most haiharous savages of the habitable globe. Had tho authorities of liango had any motive to prevent the boat from entering their port, or for refusing to receive the flag of truce, nothing was easier than to have stopped the approach of our men by firing a shol across the how o' the boat. Had they even attempted to take them prisoners for any a leged misconduct or breach of the privileges of a ling of truce ,nothing was mote easy for the pa-ty wore unarmed and the disproportion of nnqihcrs on the side of the Russians quite ii resistible. But such were not their intentions. Such is the nation which barely half a century ago wrested the ptovince of Finland, the scene oi this tragedy, from the mild and free government of the Crown of Sweden. A crime, of this nature—ft violation of aT that is held sacred and honourable and bra ve among men—leaves an indelible trace upon the annals of a nation. A period of 227 years has not effaced from the memory of the people of England the atrocity at the Amboyea massacre, when an English sea captain nine ot his | men were sacrificed to the suspicious policy of the Dutch ; and a century has not diminished (he infamy which tho night of the Black Hole ot Calcutta left upon the memory of ihe ruler of Bengal As long as the annals of this memorable year arc recorded in tho pages of history the massacre of Hango will rank with these minister achievements, foruoparalcl can be found to it save in the worst and most perfidious actions which have disgraced humanity*. Indeed, this surprise exceeds them all, for our gallant countrymen were cut off in the very performance of an act of courtesy and kindness, and under the shelter ol an ensign "which every nation but the Russian knows how to respect - Throughout tho world, wherever this talc is told, the compassion felt for the untimely end of these* brave young fellows will bo filled with a thrill of horror of the guilt of heir murderers. Throngout the world, whorov. r the British navy can ca*twits flag or points its guns, an avenging spirit will w'a k the deep ; and not a British Seaman afloat but will remember the boat’s crew of the Cossack in Ihe hour of battle. It is not the least of the evils of such had actions that they invest Justice herself with the fiercer passions, and render war move pitiless and destructive; hut, on the other hand, they show us more clearly with what an adversary wo have to deal — how false, how cruel, how unscrupulous! They prove how impossible it is to hind the Russians even to the observances held sacred among enemies, excepted by the influence of fear and of superior, force.