CHINA.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 18, 30 September 1842, Page 4

CHINA.

(From the Standard.)

“ To Her Britannic Majesty’s Subjects in China.

“ Her Majesty’s Plenipotentiary in China has the pleasure to announce to her Majesty’s subjects in China, that the district cities ofYuYao, Tsikee, and Funghwa, distant respectively 40, 20, and 30 miles from Ningpo, have been lately visited and temporarily occupied by detachments of her Majesty’s combined forces. “ The Chinese government having thrown garrisons into the cities in question, and given out that the object in so doing was to encourage (or perhaps, more correctly speaking, to intimidate) the inhabitants of Ningpo and the surrounding districts to withhold obedience to the British authorities, and likewise to deter them, as far as possible, from furnishing provisions and supplies, it was resolved by their Excellencies the naval and military Commanders-in-Chief to take an early opportunity of dislodging those garrisons; and on the weather (which had been extremely wet in the early part of December) becoming frosty and favorable for operations, the necessary arrangements were completed for carrying that resolution into effect. “ The Sesostris, Nemesis, and Phlegethon steamers, carrying about 700 men of all arms, and towing a number of boats, weighed from their positions at Ningpo on the morning of the 27th December, and proceeded up the river. The former ship, owing to her greater draught of water, was obliged to bring up about twothirds of the way to Yu-Yao, off which place the two smaller vessels anchored late in the afternoon, when the troops landed immediately under the personal directions of his Excellency Lieutenant General Sir Hugh Gough, K.C.8., and having taken possession of a small battery mounting four guns (which the Chinese had thrown up to enfilade the approaching reach of the river, but which they did not venture to defend), were lodged for the night in a large temple, or josshouse, situated on a hill which overlooked the town at the distance of less than half a mile. At daylight on the morning of the 28th, his Excellency the naval Commander-in-Chief disembarked with the seamen and marines, and were made for escalading, when some of the people came out and declared that the garrison (stated to have consisted of 1200 regulars, and an equal number of militia) had quitted the town during the night, and that the gates were open. Our troops in one division, and the seamen and marines in another, accordingly marched in, and seperated at the •southern gate, to go round the town along the rampart. When the naval division had advanced part of the way, a fire of jinjalls and matchlocks was opened on it by a considerable body of Chinese soldiers, which had taken post outside the walls, at a spot near the north-west angle, where they were covered by a deep canal. It unavoidably occupied some little time for her Majesty’s forces to gain egress from the town by the northern gate, leading over the canal, and in the interim the enemy had decamped across the country. They were hotly pursued for seven or eight miles, during which numbers of them threw away their arms and heavy clothes. A military position on which they retreated, about five miles from Yu-Yao, was burned, and a very extensive barrack (temple), close to that town, containing a magazine of gunpowder, and great quantities of arms, clothing, and other munitions of war, was subsequently set fire to and utterly destroyed. 28 prisoners were taken, amongst whom were several subordinate officers, and it ia believed that from 75 to 100 of the enemy were killed and wounded during the affair. Had they only stood to allow her Majesty’s forces to close with them, not a man could have escaped; but their local knowledge of the roads, combined wiffi the fact of the whole country being knee-deep with frozen snow (which covered up and concealed the paths), gave them a decided advantage over their pursuers in their flight. “ On the 29th the city was examined, and an immense public granary of rice discovered, and given to-the inhabitants to carry away. On the 30th the small steamer descended the river, and rejoined the Sesostris; the three vessels anchored that afternoon on the nearest point to the city of Tsikee, which lies between four and five miles from the left bank, and which was found on the following morning (the 31st) to be deserted by the Chinese troops, and all the civil authorities. The public buildings were here destroyed, as far as that could be done without endangering the towu. The population were permitted to take the grain from the government granary, which was very large and quite full of rice ; and, the combined forces having re-embarked, the steamers returned to Ningpo on the evening of the 31st of December.

“ It affords her Majesty’s Plenipotentiary extreme gratification to add, that not a single casualty occurred during these movements. Mr. Midshipman Lock, of her Majesty’s ship Blenheim, was struck on the foot by a spent jinjal ball, but fortunately escaped with a slight contusion. The cold was intense during the whole period; the thermometer ranging at night 10 and 12 degrees below the freezing point; but, notwithstanding this fact, and the unavoidable exposure, the troops, seamen, and

marines, all came back in the highest health and spirits. “An unfavourable break in the weather, pte-

Ivented the intended movement onFiinghwq [being put into, execution until the 10thifi§t&ntl On that morning,, the Phlegethon and from Ningpo, and were, brought, lip hy a abridge across/ the river about, noon. The littjcl forces, with the lieutenant-general commanding here , landed,, whilst the seamen, and marines; under his Excellency, the admiral, went miles further up the river in boats. . The two divisions arrived simultaneously at the city of Funghwa about dusk, and found it deserted by the Chinese authorities and troops. The satne steps as were adopted at Tsikee with regard to the public buildings and granaries were next morning adopted here, and the combined forces returned to the steamers on, the afternoon of the 11th, and to Ningpo early on the 12th instant.

“ Although these operations are of no moment considered in a military point of view, yet their moral and political effect is highly important, and on that account her Majesty’s Plenipotentiary deems it expedient .to make the result of them public. They .evince our, irresistible power, as well as extraordinary forbearance as far as the people are concerned; and it lias been ascertained, that such was the consternation on the news of the descent on Yu-Yao reaching the provincial capital of Hong-chow-foo (distant above 100 miles), that imperial commissioners and other high Chinese officers fled from that city to Soochow, 90 miles further north. “ The Phlegethon steamer, and Bentinck brig of war, have just proceeded to examine and reconnoitre the Bay of Hong-chow-foo jmd the port of Chapoo.

God save the Queen, “ Dated on board her Majesty’s ship Blenheim , at sea, on the 24th of January, 1842. (Signed) “ Henry Pottinger, , H. M. Plenipotentiary.”

A messenger sent to Hong-chow-foo with a chop has been strangled, and 65 of the principal merchants of Ningpo have been murdered for holding traitorous communication with the barbarians —otherwise no attempt has been made to open a communication with the Chinese authorities. Blundell was the nom de guerre of the messenger —the same person who last year communicated with the English prisoners confined at Ningpo.

Last month the body of the poor man, mate of a brig, who fell into the hands of the Chinese near Chusan, was disinterred. The arms were found denuded of flesh, and his head missing. Captain Stead’s body was also found and headless ; the heads of both these persons had been fixed over the gate of Chinghae. The former was tortured by stripping the flesh from his arms, and the latter given to the soldiery for a target. The Tartar general Yuchan who commanded at Chinghae ordered the atrocities in his presence; on his defeat at Chirighae, he drowned himself. The Emperor has ordered posthumous honours to be paid him, and his body to be interred in a mausoleum of faithful ministers.— Standard.