THE BOMBARDMENT OF FOOCHOW.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 661, 24 October 1884, Page 16

THE BOMBARDMENT OF FOOCHOW.

The following account of the bombardment of Pagoda Anchorage was sent by an eye-witness to the North China News : —Prom on board the Taku, on Saturday morning. August 23, we observed the French guns being cast loose, and their men at gun-stations aloft and below, and also the Chinese crews standing by. The Tabu got up steam and singled her moorings, and at 12.30 p.m., being in the line of fire from a Chinese gunboat, and athwart a French ram, she shifted berth. Except that _ they were discharging into a solitary lighter and shifting the steamer, all was quiet — very quiet ; it seemed like a Scotch Sabbath. At about 1 p.m., the crews of the merchant ships began to resume their usual duties, when suddenly, at 1.50 p.m., three French guns were hired in rapid succession, within a second in fact, and instantly the French fleet fired their broadsides into the frail Chinese war vessels, recharging their guns and firing as quickly as possible. The Chinese bravely returned fire, but the close quarters, the first broadsides, and the rapid firing of the French were so effective, that at 2.5 p.m. three Chinese gunboats were disabled and sinking, the shot tearing x'iglit through them. The Shrapnel shell aud chill shot were flying over and about the Taku. As two of the sinking Chinese gunboats were drifted by the current down the river, passing about a quarter of a mile from us, the guns were exploded in the burning ships, from which the men were still dropping, while the ensign were still floating. About fi-/e minutes after the battle began—l cannot call it a naval fight—the Triomphante steamed up from the pass, filing her very powerful guns as she came, and some ‘of the shot appeared to come dangerously near to us and the British cruisers. The Yang-wu, Chinese corvette, was blown up, partly by a torpedo, after sustaining a very heavy angular fire from three of the French fleet. At 2.45 one of the eighteen-ton Chinese gunboats sank close to the bow of the Glenfiulas, and another sank shortly afterwards. Aftero p.m. the firing became slack and desultory, but numerous and dangerous fire-ships, laden with inflammable material such as kerosene oil, sulphur, Ac., with stink-pots at the mastwere drifting in full blaze from the shipping on the ebb-tide. A Chinese gunboat oii°fire drifted by the Glenfinlas, and swept down upon the Taku, but our ship saved herself with the loss of an anchor, and let it pass a few feet oft. The steamers were kept at single anchor, with the steam up, ready for sheering order to clear the fire-ships. About 6 p.m. a fire-ship got athwart the hawse oftae Sin Kolga“ but by the aid of the British steam-launch and other boats she was towed clear after doing but uomina damage, thanks to the speedy aid ancl play of water. About 7-30 p.m. a large gun-boat was seen coming round Pagoda Point in a read heat. The French guns wore driving shot after shot into her, but with no effect beyond creating brilliant clouds of sparks aud flames, until it drifted athwart the bows of the Glen-

finlas, where it broke in two and sank. Tfie fire-junks kept dropping down and up with the tide until 2 a.m. on the 24th, when the last sank.

There were nine French ships and two torpedo-boats engaged, and eleven Chinese ships, but most of the lather, except for their armament, were more like ill-kept steam-yachts than men-of-war. The number of killed amongst the Chinese is variously estimated, but the general calculation seems to be about 2000 to 3000. The French are reported to have three killed —one of these an Englishman —and seven wounded.

The whole scene was comprised of most harrowing details from the very commencement of the action. It was pitiable to see the little Chinese ships —some with their clumsily improvised and useless torpedo - boats towing astern —with their crews standing by almost under the Frenchmen’s guns, patiently waiting to be massacred. It seemed almost like suicide on the part of the Chinese to stand by their ships at all—or like men awaiting an immense execution. In about 30 minutes, after the slaughter began, numerous clusters of Chinese seamen were seen swimming or drifting with the ebb, some shrieking in the agony of their wounds, and most of them calling out to the neutral vessels for aid as they drifted past them. Many seemed resigned to their fate, and many were seen to sink, not to reappear. We could at that time render them no assistance, as the set of the strong ebb carried the victims into a line of the fire apparently directed at two of the gun-boats which were drifting towards the village—let us hope not directed at the miserable wretches in the water. Soon the British and American steam launches appeared on the scene, saving a number of men. As one fire-ship, an immense mass of flame and red heat, was drifting past, we saw two holding on to her rigging frame under her stern, at the water’s edge. The Champion’s steam launch stuck bravely close to them ; but though the heaving line was hove several times within their reach they refused to be saved, and their places were soon seen to be vacant. As a burning gunboat was drifting close by, some men were seen holding on to her shattered rudder and stern-post, making signs and calling for aid, one of them showing his mutilated thigh ; but though there was an American steam launch on one side and a disabled French torpedo-boat between two steam launches on the other, they could not be saved. A number of sampans hanging on to the. Taku’s stern were cut adrift so as to give some of the sinking men a chance ; but at this time the attention and efforts of the crew of the Taku were fully occupied in manoeuvring the steamer clear of the floating dangers about her.