[ { "id": 207017, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 88, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "82\n\nROBIN MCLACHLAN\n\nthen a junior officer in Orlando's regiment but later to become the British Minister at Peking and Sir Thomas, was to teach Orlando to play the flute.17 But as Wade was busy with his Chinese language studies the flute lessons had to be postponed indefinitely. About the same time the music lessons were being considered, Orlando met Elijah Coleman Bridgman.18 This Bridgman was the first American missionary in China, arriving in Canton in 1829, and is probably best remembered for his part in the founding and editing of the Chinese Repository. Although the American spelt his name without an \"e\", Orlando still considered it a rare event to meet someone of the same name who was not a relation. It is unlikely though that he would have been anxious to claim a relationship with a man he described in his letter as a \"beast\".\n\nWhen writing of his commander in the war, General Hugh Gough, and the naval commander, Admiral William Parker, Bridgeman was equally caustic in his remarks. Writing in October from Chusan, where the British force had collected before proceeding on to Hong Kong, he commented:\n\nThe whole force is collected here now, with the exception of the Genl. and Admiral who are delaying as long as they can because they are each putting £30 a day into their pocket and as soon as they get to Hong Kong they will cease to receive this.19\n\nUnfortunately, there are very few comments, either favourable or unfavourable, on the Chinese people and their way of life. In his first letter home from China, he complained that he didn't get to see anything of Nanking and the Chinese people he had seen were only the \"lowest of the low.\"20 Later he confessed that what \"pity\" he had for the Chinese, on account of their heavy losses in battle (\"The slaughter was frightful ... .”), was lost \"since they proved so dreadfully treacherous\" with their kidnapping on Chusan.21\n\nDuring his time at Hong Kong, Bridgeman continued this lack of interest in things Chinese and only occasionally commented on Chinese customs and ways. For example, his interest in Chinese tea led him to describe to his sister the Chinese tea stands that dotted the colony and how, according to his observations, no Chinese could pass one without having several tiny cupfuls of tea.22 But such sketches of Chinese life in the colony are rare in his letters; the Chinese inhabitants of Hong Kong seemed scarcely to exist for Bridgeman.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209960, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 219, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "197\n\nFrom 1860 there is, firstly, a collection of China Medals and related items and eight drawings by a Royal Marines Light Infantry officer who served in the Second China War. There is also a vase and a gilded, seated, Buddha which were taken from the Summer Palace in that year.\n\nThe Marines were involved in the fighting occasioned by the Boxer uprising in 1900, and the Museum holds a number of relics of this involvement. A Boxer flag is, for instance, on display. This was captured by Sgt. Preston, Royal Marines Light Infantry, on the walls of Peking on July 14, 1900, an act for which he was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal. The notes explain that Preston kept the Boxers at bay while an American Marine seized the flag.\n\nA Victoria Cross was won at about the same date which is commemorated by the display of a large pike. This was captured by the RMLI detachment during the siege of the Legations. Captain L.S.T. Holliday led a sortie during which he had half a lung shot away. He later became Adjutant General of the Royal Marines and when he died in 1966 at the age of 95 he was the oldest holder of the VC. A squat, gape-mouthed, mortar about two feet high is also on show. This was seized at the capture of the Taku forts in 1900. A large brass shell case used by the Quick Firing guns at the Taku Forts is mounted in the museum as a gong. The case has the name Berndorfer stamped upon it, an Austrian firm.\n\nNext came a quick visit to the National Army Museum, in Chelsea, London. Among the items which I spotted there were the following, and I am sure there must be others which I missed.\n\nThere is a large, full-length, portrait of Sir Hugh Gough, by an unknown artist. He is shown with what looks to be an Indian servant buckling on his sword and is impressively bemedalled. A tall, slim, figure, with a white moustache, the General was in his fifties or sixties when the picture was painted. A silver model pagoda commemorating the Treaty of Nanking, August 1860, is on loan from the present Viscount Gough. It was made by Richard Hennell and is hallmarked London 1860-61.\n\nA long rampart gingall, manufactured at South Tientsin Arsenal in 1895 slants diagonally across a case which also features", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213317, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 139, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "120\n\nThe First China War was the culmination of many years of irksome restraint. The British, as did other nations, objected strongly to being treated and listed with Burma, Vietnam and Korea as tribute bearers. The immediate cause was the destruction of all the opium in Canton brought in by foreigners and in 1840 the Chinese fleet attacked a British warship, followed by, amongst other incidents, Canton being bombarded by the British, and the war was on. Palmerston was Prime Minister in Britain during this, the First China War, now possibly better known as the first of the two Opium Wars. It began with a desultory naval engagement and little further happened until Major General Sir Hugh Gough arrived from Madras in March of 1841. The British plan was, first, to capture Chusan island off the coast of Chekiang to use as a pawn in the demand for Chinese agreements to British demands. This proved to be a futile gesture and during 1841 and 1842 British forces, with the continued aim of pressuring the Chinese into legitimising foreign trade within China, proceeded to attack several ports one after the other up the China coast, creeping ever further north towards the capital of Peking, causing the Chinese greater apprehension about the future. The campaign eventually ended with the imminent attack on Nanking, the former capital situated on the Yangtze in central China, avoided last minute by the agreement by the Chinese finally to the terms of a treaty signed in August 1842. One of the attacks on the China coast was on the then city of Chapu, which was to be followed up with an attack on Hangchou.\n\nChapu had a tolerable harbour, with a great rise and fall of tide, so much so that the smaller junks were left high and dry at low water. Together with its suburbs the town, perhaps five miles in circuit built in a square and intersected by numerous canals, lay about half a mile from the coast. The Reverend Gutzlaff in his third voyage up the China coast in January 1833 arrived in Chapu and described the surrounding countryside as the Chinese Arcadia with nothing able to exceed its beautiful and picturesque appearance. He further described the canals, neat roads, plantations and conspicuous buildings, adding that the whole country (of China) from the Yellow River south was flat until one came to the high lands which formed the harbour of Chapu city. The sea, he added, was receding from the land and flats had formed along the shore, visible at low water and constituting a barrier to the whole coast. Gutzlaff found nowhere so much openness and kindness, the (residents') intelligent questions respecting Britain were endless with them never seeming to be satiated with (British) company.\n\nI", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213318, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 140, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "121\n\nWhen Gutzlaff had first landed at Chapu an armed force of Chinese was drawn up along the shore. The Chinese soldiers had matchlocks and burning matches ready for a charge, and a Tatar general had placed himself in a temple to superintend the operation; however, wrote Gutzlaff, \"being accustomed to the fire of Chinese batteries which seldom do hurt, and knowing their matchlocks cannot hit, we passed through their line of defence in peace\". The soldiers retreated and crowds of people in the rear being very dense the camp was overrun and tents fell to the ground. After this nothing disagreeable happened. On one excursion Gutzlaff went to a temple on a high hill overlooking the populous region, \"with its abomination of idolatry.\"\n\nToday little remains of old Chapu. The harbour, still used by fishing boats, is overlooked by a broken wall pierced for cannon, with three old cannon still mounted but on modern concrete bases, two being breech loaders and one a comparatively old muzzle loader. There is no sign now of the old city walls, nor of the old Tatar Quarter. It is a sleepy rural town on a former main road now left more or less isolated by the modern highway between Hangchou and Shanghai, by-passing Chapu by some fifteen miles.\n\nThe British Expeditionary Force began the 1842 campaigning season by evacuating Ningpo and Chinghai in early May to raise sufficient troops for the attack on Chapu. The force left Ningpo on 7 May for Chapu where some six thousand Chinese Green Standard troops and some seventeen hundred Manchu soldiers held the beaches and the adjacent heights and were waiting for the British to land and attack. It took the wooden-sided troop transports nine days under sail to cover the sixty miles from Chinhai to Chapu. Theoretically Chapu was strongly fortified but, as had happened before, the Chinese proved unprepared for anything but frontal attack.\n\nThe British Order of Battle consisted of the Force Headquarters under Lieutenant General Sir Hugh Gough, a fleet of seven ships of war, four steamers and troop transports, a naval brigade of some two hundred and fifty men, and four regiments.\n\nThe plan called for three columns, with the Left Column under Lieutenant Colonel Morris, consisting of the 18th Royal Irish under Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas R. Tomlinson (consisting of 492 all ranks),", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214841, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 256, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "223\n\ndid the spirit of the British and native troops falter. No such weakness characterized the leadership in the China Expedition.\n\nThe General Orders\n\nThe \"General Orders - No.I\" for the Force assembled in the Canton River for the capture of Canton, issued on behalf of Sir Hugh Gough and dated 24 May 1841, set the general tone for the operations and the expectations of its General.\n\nThey speak of \"proving what can be done by discipline and bravery,\" of \"the assurance that every man will do his duty,\" and of \"devotedness to our country's honour and our professional character.\" They refer to \"the cunning and artifice\" of the Chinese military system, which is \"not one to which the British soldier is accustomed\" but \"which must fail before the steady advance of disciplined soldiers.\"\n\nIn conclusion, the Orders state that \"Britain having gained as much of fame by her mercy and forbearance, as by the gallantry of her troops\" and reminds the Force that whilst \"an enemy in arms is always a legitimate foe...the unarmed or suppliant for mercy, of whatever country or colour, a true British soldier will always spare.\n\nSuccess Moderated by Respect\n\n48\n\n**47\n\nBritain's victories in China may be attributed to its well-trained, disciplined troops and seamen, superior weaponry, good leadership and a high morale. British officers were proud of their successes, achieved in the face of high sickness rates due to disease and unfamiliarity with the country.\"\n\nHowever, they were well aware that success in imposing Britain's demands on the Chinese Court was also due to another important factor, recognizing that China's outmoded military techniques and equipment did not allow her commanders and their men, however brave and resourceful they might be, to match their Western foes.\n\nYet British officers were not dismissive of China's ancient civilization and attainments, and their superiors were punctilious in paying formal respects where due. British naval ships were ever prompt, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214846, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 261, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "228\n\n26 But war is war, as I have said. Captain Henry Keppel, RN, recently arrived at the war, went ashore at Woosung after its capture in June 1842. \"18 June 1842. Waterloo Day. General Sir Hugh Gough landed in my gig, when I witnessed the horrors of war. Mutilated carcasses of men and horses by hundreds. Houses burning, villages deserted, etc. Struck by the prevalent feeling so strong for destruction\". Sir Henry Keppel, A Sailor's Life under Four Sovereigns (London, 3 vols., 1899), Vol.I, p.\n\n27\n\nWyndham Baker wrote from Amoy, \"The troops in the city have picked up a considerable quantity of plunder and some quantity of silver, but of course it would not really do for officers to set them an example, though I have seen the most splendid and elegant satin dresses in possession of some of them.\" Blackwood's 1964, p.86.\n\nLaurence Shadwell, Life and Campaigns of Lord Clyde (London, 1881), p.120-1.\n\n29 Shadwell, p. 138.\n\n30 Shadwell, p.132. See also Sir John Francis Davis, Chinese Miscellanies: A Collection of Essays and Notes (London, John Murray, 1865), p.161n.\n\nBingham, Vol.II, p.86.\n\nBelcher, Vol II, pp.213-4. Sir Hugh Gough was particularly angry on this occasion. “You have placed me in a most critical situation,\" he wrote to Elliot, \"My men of all arms are dreadfully harassed, my communications with the rear constantly threatened and escorts attacked. My men must suffer dreadfully from the necessity of continued watchfulness; for however you may put confidence in the Chinese I do not, nor should be justified in relaxing in the least.” Cited in Holt, pp.128-9.\n\n33 Holt, p.112.\n\n34 Holt, p. 108. This step was apparently taken on the advice of the British interpreters to the expedition, who thought it was better to let the town be stripped and deserted than to coerce the civilian population.\n\n35 Ouchterlony, p.225.\n\n36 \"Oh for the Joys of England! Lt Orlando Bridgeman's Letters From China and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 } ]