Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 310

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Journal of Occurrences.

combustibles being thrown into the boat, and the raft set on fire, the boat drew off; but the fire seeming not to take, the boat returned and on reaching the raft an explosion took place, throwing combustibles and cinders into the air, some of which fell into the boat causing the powder there to explode: eighteen men were injured, of whom three or four are dead.

On Monday, the 24th, sir Hugh Gough and sir Le Fleming Sen- house, having the preceding day come up with their forces, move- ments commenced for general attack and bombardment. Full and exact details of these, it is not now in our power to give-but our rea- ders shall have them in our next. The course of the river is nearly due east from Canton to Whampoa; and a few rods west of the fac tories, which are say 150 yards from the southwest corner of the city, is the Macao Passage running due south; a little farther west there is a bend, and you may ascend one branch of the river in a northerly direction, while the other branch leads off to Fatshan. Up this northern branch, the land forces, about 2000 strong, with some ten or twelve pieces of artillery, chiefly in native boats, were moved by the Nemesis from the Macao passage; and during the same night, or early on Tuesday, they took possession of the heights on the north in the rear of the city-a position commanding the whole plain on which Canton and its suburbs are built. While this was being done, the forces for the attack on the south side had got into position at proper distances on the river from one extreme of the suburbs to the other. Attacked nearly at the same time both on the north and south, the Chinese troops soon fled from the hills and the suburbs into the city. Once on Tuesday the prefect came out to the Hyacinth with a flag of truce, but his proposals could not be accepted, and the cannonading continued during the 25th. The report is that $1,000,000 were delivered on board the Hyacinth on the 27th, and that similar payments were to be made on seven more days in suc- cession as a ransom for the city. Of the losses sustained, and of the arrangements for the captured, we are as yet uninformed. The numbers of killed and wounded, on the part of the Chinese must have been great. Some of the English troops have also fallen.

Future operations, on the part of the British government, must now needs be pushed on with all possible dispatch and decision-the forces stopping nothing short of the walls of the capital. "China must bend or break,” The exclusive spirit of the government, and the false and treacherous conduct of its officers, are incompatible with every principle of right and reason. Strong reinforcements are, we suppose; near at hand, and the world has now just reason to ex- pect that Great Britain will do what is necessary to establish free and friendly relations between this empire and the other nations of the earth. The principles and usages common among other states, se- curing free intercourse with reciprocal rites and privileges, must be acknowledged and established here. Nothing short of this will an- swer the demands of the age, or the expectations of the many millions of spectators of the British expedition to China.

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