RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 60 for many years. Neither refer to Wm Mesny, though Sam Couling in 1917 in his Encyclopaedia Sinica does run to a short paragraph describing in very round terms, the then still living Mesny. NOTE Tcheng Ki-tong. I have been unable to find the date of publication of his first edition of Les Chinois, Peints par Eux-meme; however, in the preface to the English seventh edition of Bits of China by Tcheng, published in English in London in 1890, Tcheng writes 'The friendly welcome accorded by the English Public to my Chinese Painted by Themselves has encouraged me to publish this translation of my last work, (from the French Les Plaisirs en Chine).' Mesny publishing this book crit as late as 1905 suggests an ulterior motive, perhaps no more than an instinctive urge to highlight yet again his tireless and tenacious claim to recognition as the foreign authority on things Chinese. Appendix B Chronology as claimed by William Mesny [Extracted from details within the Miscellanies] 9 October 1842 1847 Mesny born in Jersey ? 1850 1850-1854 1854 1860 December 1861 February 1861 1861-1862 1862 February March April 1862 May 1862 Dame School National School St Anne's, Alderney Left school Worked at brick making, stone cutting with a smithy and on Channel Island fortifications. He also worked in blasting and as an architect's assistant. Left home, went to sea and sailed to Africa, Australia and the Americas Arrived on the China coast and disembarked at Shanghai Left Shanghai for Hong Kong Romantic interlude with Huang family in Hong Kong where he bore the name of Huang Chin-fu 3rd Turnkey Hong Kong Gaol Returned to Shanghai aboard the SS Aden Travelled up the Yangtze and arrived at Hankow Master of the Hat Liang-wang on the Yangtze based in Shanghai, running the Taiping blockade: Wounded and captured by Imperial Chinese gunboats at Kuan Yin Shan on the Yangtze Rescued by the gunboat HMS Banterer and secured the release of Page 75 Page 76 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 285 rowdies knew that no American official in all the ports of China has the means of checking outrages on the part of American citizens. Accordingly, whenever an English thug gets into a scrape he claims to be American. He then described a case in point 'the Captain of an American boat came to me bringing with him a Chinese who had been badly cut on the arm. He said that the wound had been inflicted by an Englishman, a passenger on his boat and that the Briton was a desperate character. I accordingly applied to Franklin, the Commander of the [British] gunboat lying here for assistance. He very soon had an armed boat alongside the Yankee craft and the swordsman was speedily hauled out and brought before me. I read the Chinaman's complaint to him and he in reply said he wanted to see the American Consul, I told him that as an American had handed him over to me as an Englishman I should deal with him unless he could prove his right to American protection. He defied me so I sent him a prisoner aboard the Banterer gunboat. On the day following I had no less than three witnesses that the scoundrel was an Englishman. At length when he saw his impudence would carry him no further he acknowledged himself to be a Britisher, He was tried accordingly and got six months in Hong Kong jail with hard labour, at the end of which, he is to be conveyed under arrest to England as being too dangerous a character for a quiet country like China'. In another letter Adkins explained that 'I am making myself obnoxious and disagreeable to certain of my countrymen who think that Treaties are made that they might have the pleasure of breaking them. I have seized and confiscated three vessels for smuggling and have given a rascal three months hard labour for trading in salt. Really the Chinese have good reason for distrusting us. We sell arms to the Rebels and teach them how to build forts after making treaties of peace and friendship with the reigning power'. When E.H. Parker was Consul in about 1877 roads were just beginning to exist and the Municipal Council had succeeded in providing a respectable walk of three or four miles for exercise. However, a gigantic, old worm-eaten coffin had been left where it lay by the builders planted squarely in the middle of the fine new road, just where it left town. Rumour said it dated from the Mongol dynasty. No one dared touch it, and it was generally supposed that the 'owners were sitting tight and waiting for their chance. The Daotai said that ================================================================================