Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 552

512

Journal of Occurrences.

Kwang-1], and that they have behaved with horrible cruelty to the people of the villages and farins which they have pillaged. In the district of Sitien-hwa, one Chang Kia-siang had collected a gang of some 2,000; in the department of King-yuen, he and his young. er brother Chang Kia-fuh had openly set up standards and banners, styling themselves Ta Wang (their Majesties). In the district of Kwei-ping again, there was another gang of a thousand men or more. In the first and second moon (Feb. Mar.) they plundered Luh Chung-ming, a military graduate, and some scores of families besides, in the dis- trict of Yung-fun, and at the town of Luh han in the district of Loh-vung, the tsin-sz' Wu Ting-yuen, and upwards of a hundred families; in the village of Píh-koh, in the dis- trict of Sil-jin, a ku-jin named Wei King-jú and some scores of families; and in the vil- lage of Tsz', a graduate named Wei Kwang-han, and some scores of families. They had upwards of a hundred chiefs, wearing red buttons and blue, riding in chairs or ou horse- back with red and white standards and banners, and wall-pieces and small artillery, it is not known how many stand. The population of the villages they passed through, old and young, all alike suffered the worst; the women were banished in large numbers; houses and cottages were burned and destroyed. In the Linng-chau country inore than 500 villages had been reported [to the authorities] as plundered. The houses of the military graduate Wei Kwoh-sisng, and of Wei Tung-han, a military kä-jin in the village of Ta-shan, had been burned and all their property carried off, and the village of Ta- thing was robbed four times running, and Peh-shih thrice. In Wa-chau again, the village of Chih-shui had been burned and utterly ransacked, and forty-five trading vessels had been plundered on the rivers. But the local authorities merely reported that some strig- glers had entered their jurisdictions, disguising the real state of the case, while the Go- vernor's representation was equally false, as it went to show that the protection of his frontier against the banditti of Hu-nan, put it out of his power to take other steps re- quired in his province, and he confined himself to deputing officers to make search for and apprehend these banditti. [Those of Hú-nàan] have now found their way into the district of Vung, and should the several gangs unite themselves in one body, their ex- terinination will be even a more difficult task to achieve than at present. If advantage were taken of their reverses, and no tine lost in making the most of the valor of the troops, their adlrents would be dispersed, and by the one move (viz. the suppression of the Hu-nan party) a victory would be gained over the whole of them. On the other hand, apathy, connivance, or cowardice on the part of officers will only tend to increase the confidence of these banditti, the black-haired flock will be daily subjected to greater horrors; where will they end? This is not the will of the Sacred Lord, whose chief de- light it is to love his people. The Governor in question has had the honor to be known to two sovereigns as the recipient of their excessive bounty. It was his duty to be to the utmost both fathful and diligent in his conduct, that he might fillfil the duties of his post; he has dared notwithstanding to make a confused and partial representation [to the Throne]; his offence against what is naturally right is most grave, his worthlessness is not to be borne; but seeing that were he at once to be cashiered and punished, it would but have the effect of enabling him to escape from his present difficulty to the embar- rassment of his successor, it is the duty of the memorialist to request your Majesty to direct that the case of this governor be submitted to the Board for their most serious consideration, but that he be charged to continue his inquiries, and to devote his whole altention to ascertaining the facts of the incursion of these robbers; giving orders to the local authorities, civil and military, to co-operate together and earnestly exert themselves to anihilate them; that the retributive justice of Heaven be made inanifest, and pro- tection of life afforded the people; and that, if he farther show himself unequal to the Batisfactory administration of the matter, another memorial be thereupon laid before your Majesty.

The above having come to the knowledge of your servant, he ventures not to avoid the odium fattaching to his denunciation of the Governor] by remaining silent and so conniving at his guilt. Prostrate he requests your Majesty to glance upon what he has written, and decide whether his address be or not sucli as he should present. A respect- ful memorial.

The body of insurgents now in the district towns of Yingtel and Tsingyuen, is generally asserted to be formed by the union of maranders from this and the adjoining provinces of Kwangsí and Hunán. They have marched from one town to another in the eastern parts of Kwangsi, and in the southwest of Kwangtung. The citizens of Canton have taken some precautions in the pros- pect of an attack, such as drilling the braves, making new and stronger gateways, establishing night patrols, preparing buckets of water on the housetops, and forbidding persons to pass unchallenged in the night. They have been incited to this energy by a descent of two boats-full of the insurgents, one night near Shamien; no damage was done at the time, but the results were salutary. About five thousand troops have been sent against the insurgents, and the last accounts are that they have been induced to retire.