Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 59

42

Battle at Chaenpe.

JAN.

Chinese officers, if we may believe many concurrent reports, well sustained the part of brave men and faithful soldiers, dying at their respective posts. Some, nay many, of the raen in the ranks too, fought bravely-desperately. Such warfare the Chinese seem never before to have witnessed. The storm burst on them like a thunder- bolt, and in the space of a few minutes, their forts, their entrench- ments, their batteries, their barracks, their magazines, were all in ruins-beaten-down, set-on-fire, blown-up. In some places, the dead lay, literally, heaps upon heaps.'

The superior advantages of armed steamers were very clearly seen during the engagements of the morning. The iron steamer in par- ticular did masterly. First, she disembarked the 37th regiment; next, as already remarked, taking a good position, she threw shells with great effect into the hill fort; then she rounded the point, pouring her grape and canister, and other missiles, into the lower battery as she passed; and after this, she pushed on into the shallow water in Anson's Bay, and her first Congreve rocket "took terrific and in- stantaneous effect, blowing up one of the largest of the war junks, with all her crew," the rocket having passed through its deck into the magazine. Aided by a number of boats, she kept on in the work of destruction, and junk after junk was set on fire and blown up, until eleven were destroyed. Then, to the great astonishment of the Chinese, she pushed quite across Anson's Bay and proceeded up a creek, where two more war junks were moored to the shore, which she grappled and dragged away, without giving or receiving a single shot. This was the Nemesis.

There were 97 guns in the forts and entrenchments when they were carried-25 in Tycocktow, the others on Chuenpe, 44 mounted and 38 dismounted. There were 80 or more in the junks. These, with a variety of stores and magazines, were destroyed. It is said also, that a sum of money, about $5000, which had been brought down to the Bogue for the half-monthly pay of the troops, was blown up in one of the junks, instead of being disbursed to the officers and soldiers on that day, it being the 15th of the moon, and their pay-day.

The Chinese suffered severely from the burning of their powder flasks, and garments padded with cotton, which were set on fire by their matches, as they fell. Wearing their cartridge-boxes around their waists, some of the men were literally blown up, by the ex- plosion of the powder contained in them.

The damage and loss sustained by the attacking forces were small,