China.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XII, Issue 1283, 18 November 1857, Page 3

China.

DESTRUCTION OF THE CHINESE FLEET. [From the Maitland Mbreury, October 20.] The Chinese war junks, which may be taken to represent the effective naval force of the Cantonese authorities, have be*n destroyed by the <ailors and marines of the British fleet, and the •brert passage from Hong Kong to the city of Canton itst If rendered as open as the Thames from 'he Nnre to London bridge. This result was trr-'.m/li.ned the acts. The operations were .••andu< led on the first occasion by Commodore Edi.-tt ; on the second by the Admiral himself, *•♦*ll backed by the gallant Keupel, and the principal Hfic-ts of the fleet. The first affair is a« the BATTLE OF ESCAPE CREEK. I* tir creeks run from the Canton river eastward. The non hern of these is Escape Creek ; i?x» to (ho south, i« T zekee Creek, which is, in ! ic . but part of Escape Creek ; about four miles ■ urtl.pr to the south is an entrance called Second Bar Creek ; nnd four miles still southwards is a :ar/rr inlet called Sawsliee Channel. In Escape Creek, a large fleet of Mandarin junks bad lain for some time, and here it was that the operations were commenced. On the morning of Monday, the 25th of May, Commodore Ellio’t, in the Hong King gunboat, followed by the Bustard, the Stanch, the Starling, and Forbes, and towing the boats and boats, of the Inflexible, the Horner, and the Tribune, steamed into the creek. When the little flotilla had advarced about five miles up the creek, the “.’ar junks of the Chinese, about loriy-one in number, were descried. They were moored across the stream, with their boats towards the assailants. Each junk carried a 32-lb - ,jn forward, and, besides this, each was armed with from 4 io 6 9-pcunders. The gunboats opened their fire, which for a time was returned with considerable spirit from the junks. In fact, the first shot fired after she got into range struck he H«ng Kong. At length confusion prevailed, and the Chinese fled. Id so doing they became almost powerless, ftr in their flight tne action of the 32-pounder forward was neutralised, and their s ern guns were of smaller calibre and were not well served. The steamers pressed on in pursuit ; but the waters shoaled. The gun-boats draw from seven feet to seven feet six inches ; he flat bottomed Mat darin junks can float in; •hfee feel. One by one ihe srerim gun-hoars grounded, but still the Commodore pushed on. As soon as a steamer gat fast in the mud the men swarmed into her boats, manned the gun in her bow?, and rowed off in pursuit. At last there was not a steamer afloat, the junks were in full flight up the creek, the row boats were in hot pursuit. It was hard work, for the junks are >w»fr, and, wi'h forty men pulling for dear life, ■ hey pass deftly through the shallow and treacherous cha-nels. The guns* however, in the bows • f she pursuers, told heavily, and the result was •bat six een junks were taken, and destroyed in 'he main creek ; thirteen escaped by swift rowing, and ten uere burnt in a narrow creek through which they were endeavouring to makegood their flight.

I lie Commodore, however, would not resign •he hope of completing his work. The next day he left the Hornet to guard Escape Creek; the Inflexible to stop the enhance to Second Bar C/etk ; while he Ttibune brought her broadside •’o bear on the mouth of the Sawsbee Channel, Having 'bus st.p;>«-d ell the outlets cf this uet-w.-.rk of streams, Elliott took his flotilla up the Sawshes Channel, where be hoped to find some junks not yet accounted for. For a considerable • itne his labour proved vain; but at length leaving the flotilla behind, am! attended only by his armed beats* he pulled for a pagoda, which had been made out in the distance. Suddenly he fiinnd himself dose in with the to'.vn of Tong-koon, defended by u fleet of junks (one of them of great size end splendour), and under a battery. The Chinese were unprepared for this sudden meeting. The English boats fired all their gons—gave a cheer—*ind mp.<ie rush. The Chinese jumped oveiboard without firing a shot. It was necessaiy to destroy these junk*, and it was desirable to take away the chief junk, but the boats were in the midst of a city. The crews nf the junks established themselves in houses, and fired upon the sailors. The mnrines were obliged to form and charge in the streets* The Mandarin junk was found to have powder upon her deck* and trains communicating betw> en her and the streets. Then a bouse close to her wes set on fire, and op she went, nearly carrying an English pinnace with her. Twelve large junks were here lestioyed. The sailors, who had no sails iu their row boats, having now done their work, hardly cared to puli back again. Sails therefore were improvised out of the mats and other spoil of the junks, ami they came sailing down Sawshee Channel in such guise that the master of each ship would have been puzzled to recognise his own boat. In this affair, one man out of every ten en. gaged was hit—a large average even in European warfare. Such was the result of the expedition of Escape Creek. THE BATTLE OF FATSHAN. The battle of Fair-ban was a far more serious affair. Two miles from the mouth of the Fatshan branch of the Canton river, there is a long island called the Hyacinth Island. On the left bank, opposite to that island, there is a steep hill, and upon that hill there is or was a fort. Higher up than the island there are two smaller tributariee

°f the Fatshan branch, which go away right and left.

On the Ist of June—-a date not unknown in the annals of the British Navy—Admiral Seymour and his followers found that nineteen large guns had beer, mounted on the forti A six-gun battery had been erected on the right bank of the River. Above the island, across the channel, and along the two small creeks, seventy-two junks were moored, in such a way that their bow guns swept the channel on either side of Hyacinth Island. It had been so arranged that, as the British advanced to the attack along these channels, the fire of the fort, of the battery, and nf the junks should be concentrated upon them. The fort was the key of the position. Ou the Ist of June, then, in the still black night, a little after three o’clock, the Coromandel, with Admiral Seymour aboard, towing the boats containing the marines, who were to land under the fort and carry it, moved on. The Coromandel was to dash in among the junks, followed by the row-boats and gunboats {Haughty, Plover, Rorester, Opossum, Hong Kong, Bustard, Tribune, &c.) When the steamer bad arrived at somewhat less than a mile from the fort, her advance was noted by the enemy. A rocket shot up into the air, and the action began. When the Coromandel had made her way up to Hyacinth Island, in the face of the fire, and was drawing near to the fort, she grounded upon a line of junks sunk across the channel. As soon as the Chinese saw this, they redoubled their fire. The boats were now cast off, and told to row quietly under the land while the fort was occupied with firing at the Coromandel. Meanwhile, Commodore Keppel, who followed in the Hong and who was like “ a man thoroughly enjoying himself/* passed through between the Coromandel and the bank by a narrow pass which the Chinese had left for their own convenience. Then came the Haughty, with the boats of various large steamers in tow. The Bustard the Tribune next attempted to pass, but they ran hopelessly aground, which was all the more unfortunate, because the Hong Kong had by this lime been brought up by some slakes planted in the channel, and was a mark for the fire of the junks, ihe range of which bad been carefully calculated beforehand. "While these trings were going on in the left channel, tint which runs on the right bank of the island was also attacked. The Opossum deshed into the fire. Several of the other gunboats were aground astern, but the ships’ boats took to their oars. Crowded with men, and cheering lustily, galley and gig, pinnace, launch, and barge came racing up. The scene was like a regatta, but death picked bis victims as they passed. Meanwhile the Coromandel had got afloat, and moored up abreast of the fort ; die marines landed from the boats, and carried it by storm. They mounted the most precipitous face of the hill, which the Chinese had not calculated upon, and tried in vain to depress their guns ao as to sweep their assailants with grape. Failing that, they rolled down 32-lb. shot upon them, and threw slink puts which did not explode, and three-pronged spears ; this part of the affair, however, was soon over. The gunners sulkily retired as the storming party arrived* but they fired their guns within fifty yards of their assailants. Tne Admiral himself formed one of the storming party, just to see how things were going on, for he was unarmed. AH this while the junks continued to receive due attention. Our men palled clean up alongside them—for the tide wax now up ag&io—the Chinese discharged a storm of grape, which iu almost every 2ase was fired too late, ar.d therefore passed over the heads of the assailants, and the next minute our fellows had boarded. The Chinese then, such as were left of them, leap' into the water* made for the shore, and were lost in the paddy fit-ids. The style of the attack is explained when we mention that the Haughty drove siem on into one large junk that bad been sweeping the channel, and ” cracked her like a nutshell.” Says an eye-witness—“ The game was soon up. First came a rush of fire and a loud explosion. A pillar of white smoke rises hi;.’b into the air and swells at the top like a Doric column. Then another, and; another, and the guns cease, and the cannon smoke blows away, and the boats’ crews are rowing from junk to junk, end in two loog lines almost as far as the eye can reach, lie the junks—some kindling, some in full blaze, but all stranded and abandoned. In one of these the sailors rescued an old man and a boy, chained to 2 gun, and left to burn. In another, a woman and child were tied with wisps of bamboo to a 32-pounder. Right and left* covering an immense extent of narrow water, the jui ks lie, prizes either to the British or to the flames. V> e have leisure now to count them—they ore 7*2.’*