on the other hand, had been unusually great, not from any protection or facilities afforded by the Imperial authorities, but a desire on the part of holders of goods to realize."
While the Triad insurgents continued to manifest the most friendly feeling towards the European residents at Shanghae, the Imperialist troops collecting to the siege of the Chinese city, in their usual style, became very dangerous and hostile. It was reported by Captain Fishbourne:—
"Thus the Imperial troops made it a habit to place their targets for ball practice, so that the riding-course and principal place of resort for all foreigners, should be rendered dangerous, or impassable."
Several times the European settlement was attacked by them, and was once attempted to be fired; and, at last, so outrageous had they become, that the British and French forces—in all less than three hundred men—were compelled to attack their camp, and drive them further away from the settlement, inflicting a loss, it is said, of three hundred killed; losing themselves only two killed and fifteen wounded.
As it is universally known these Triad rebels were in every way inferior to the Ti-pings, and as they were allowed to capture the treaty ports, and their conduct was always so friendly to Europeans, and so far superior to that of the Imperialists, it does seem a little extraordinary that the British public have not penetrated the falsity of the statement subsequently urged against the Ti-pings, in order to attempt the palliation of the infamous policy of driving them from Shanghae and Ningpo—that the treaty ports must be held against the Ti-pings, because, if the latter were to capture them, an immense amount of British property and British lives would be destroyed, &c.
During the Triads' occupation of Shanghae, a formidable, though at first secret, opposition was insidiously at work against them among the European community—the hostile intrigues of the Jesuits. These priests, with a constancy and perseverance worthy a better cause, are found plotting and making converts to a pseudo sort of Christianity all over the country. It so happens, that to propitiate the Chinese, or not to shock them by too great a departure from "old custom," they are allowed to retain most of their idolatrous forms of worship, to which are added the usual figures of the manifold saints, &c., of the Romish church. Now the Ti-pings, who are strict iconoclasts, having several times fallen foul of Roman Catholic establishments in the interior, and in each case mistaken the figure of the Virgin Mary with a male child in her arms for the very similar idol of Budha, have naturally confounded Jesuitism with the Budhism it resembles. Consequently, the Tartar-worshipping Jesuits are the most bitter enemies the Ti-pings have ever had, knowing, as they do, that the success of the latter would entirely destroy their work, and drive them from the many positions they hold throughout China. Therefore, when the Jesuits ascertained the Triads not only announced themselves as being about to join the Tien-wang, but had actually sent deputations to, and received instructors from him, they at once commenced intriguing for their overthrow. The French consul and the French senior officer on the station were both priest-ridden and bigoted men, and eventually, for certain valuable considerations, assistance was afforded to the Imperialists, and the Triads were driven out of a Chinese city without the slightest shadow of justice or reason.
Both the English and French authorities deprived the Triads of the duties they were justly entitled to levy on all export or import trade. At last the French admiral, appropriately named La Guerre, determined that the time had arrived to fulfil his own and his Jesuitical colleagues' peculiarly unrighteous intentions. The Triads were suddenly attacked (December, 1854) without having given the slightest provocation, and several of their men, who were engaged constructing a battery outside one of the city gates, murdered by the French sailors. A few days later they surprised fifteen poor rebels asleep in the same battery, and these were also butchered. Two days previous to this, Admiral La Guerre savagely bombarded the city, although it contained upwards of 20,000 innocent inhabitants, among whom the shot and shell committed much slaughter. Allied to the ferocious Manchoo, the French closely blockaded the city, and cut off all communication.
Some people delight in terming the Ti-pings bloodthirsty monsters, &c.; but the following extract proves that the French not only excelled the rebels, but even surpassed the Imperialists in wanton cruelty. In "Twelve Years in China,"25 by John Scarth, Esq., we find the following episode of the blockade by the civilized and most Christian allies of the Manchoo:—
"The French proclaimed a strict blockade, and shot down all that attempted to hold communication with the rebels. We saw one evening a poor old woman that had been attempting to take a basket of food for some poor person in the city, struck by a ball from the French lines; her thigh was broken, and she lay helpless on the ground. How horrible did war appear, when the sentry levelled his rifle again, and fired at the poor old creature, driving up a shower of earth close to her side. Another shot, and another, were fired; at last she was hit again in the back! she cried to us for help, but we could render no assistance, except by sending to report the circumstance at head-quarters. Shot after shot was fired. There were some rebels watching the butchery from the walls; they could see us distinctly. We were within rifle distance; and feeling that if I were in their position, I would shoot at every foreigner I saw, while foreigners were committing such acts, I went away really for safety's sake, sick at heart to see such monstrous cruelty. The woman, it was afterwards reported, lay on the spot moaning till nearly midnight, when her cries ceased, and it was supposed some of the rebels had got her into the city out of the way of further immediate harm."
The French eventually breached the walls, and with their creditable allies assaulted the city, only, however, to be beaten back with a loss of one-fifth their number. The Triads were at last starved out, and upon the Chinese New Year's night (17th February, 1855) evacuated Shanghae, and cut their way through the Imperialist lines. Three hundred, who had surrendered themselves to Admiral La Guerre, were by that officer given up to the Mandarins, and tortured to death. During three days every atrocity was perpetrated by the Imperialists upon the unfortunate inhabitants caught within the city, or the rebels who were hunted down in the country. Upwards of 2,000 were barbarously put to death within three days. As Messrs. J. Scarth, Sillar, and others have written—"The Imperialist soldiers even burst open the coffins in the burial-grounds, and dragged out the rebel corpses and beheaded them." Women were horribly mutilated and put to death; rebels were crucified and tortured with red-hot irons; some were starved to death in the streets of the city; others were disembowelled, and very many slowly cut to pieces. When the Triads captured the city, they killed only two men, tortured none, and respected private property. The papers at Shanghae stated—"When the French and Imperialists got possession of the city, however, there was something like slaughter. Heads were hung round the city walls in bunches; the Pagoda Bridge had nineteen on it, and in some places they were piled up in heaps!"
The conduct of those British officials who seemed anxious to carry out the Manchoo-assisting policy of Sir John Bowring, Admiral Stirling, and others, is thus severely reflected on by Mr. Scarth, who was present:—
"The very inconsiderate zeal which characterized the conduct of Mr. Lay, the then acting Vice-Consul, and Mr. Wade, at that time one of the officials in the Chinese Custom-house service, and the open manner in which these gentlemen lent their aid to the Mandarins, was strongly commented on by nearly all the foreign community."
At page 217 of his interesting work he says:—
"A schooner going from Woo-sung to Hung-kong was suspected of being about to take Chin-ah-Lin26 and several other of the city people; a force consisting of Chinese troops and some English marines, accompanied by the acting Vice-Consul (who seemed to be imbued with some extraordinary motives), went down to search the vessel. This was discovered; but those desirous of preventing further bloodshed quietly continued, notwithstanding, in the work they were determined upon, getting the unfortunate men away from danger."
Some who are acquainted with such matters may understand this "extraordinary" exploit, while those who know little of Chinese affairs may naturally wonder whether the "15,000 dollars" offered for Chin-ah-Lin's head by the Vice-Consul's Mandarin friends had anything to do with it.