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MC, while he was a prisoner of war in Japan. Captain Shigeru was later tried and executed for war crimes.

Not connected with the last war is a mirror on which are painted the colours and battle honours of the regiment and which is set in a carved wooden frame. This mirror was originally the property of the Sergeants' Mess of the third battalion and it was used in the ante room of the mess from 1906 when the battalion served in Hong Kong, Tientsin and Peking, up until its disbandment in 1922.

There is, finally, a waist-high Chinese vase decorated with blossoms and birds about which little is known.

My final stop was at the excellent museum of the Royal Engineers, at Chatham, where there are many interesting China-related items.

A whole case contains objects relating to General Charles 'Chinese' Gordon, who was an RE officer. Gorgeous embroidered robes feature dragons, there is a white silk jacket, panels and hangings, a Mandarin's hat with a long pigtail seemingly attached, a silver cup and other items.

A name that crops up in the early history of Hong Kong is John Ouchterlony; he wrote a book "The Chinese War" which was published in 1844. The RE museum has his epaulettes, those of the Madras Engineers, on display.

There is also an executioner's strangling cord, bullets, a fung shui compass, a series of gods from the Summer Palace, a Chinese crossbow, knives and swords. Probably most of these items date from the time of the Second China War, in 1860.

Anyone who can visit Chatham should note that the Royal Engineers library has a large store of information just waiting to be mined. The Engineers left their mark throughout Hong Kong and their projects are well documented and recorded in the reports, journals and other papers held in the library.

I am sure that in each of the establishments mentioned there are other items which I missed; most visits were in and out affairs with a pregnant wife waiting patiently in the car and a not-so-patient two-year-old keeping her company.
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leading their men to an attack.

5 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 138.

6 Lord Jocelyn. Six Months with the Chinese Expedition. London, 1841, p. 41.

7

Although the benefits of rifling to give more consistent trajectories were known, no one had yet been able to come up with a practical means of taking advantage of it in a cannon.

8 Lieutenant John Ouchterlony, The Chinese War: An Account of all the Operations of the British Forces from the Commencement to the Treaty of Nanking, London 1844, p. 98 notes that at Tycocktow the Gunboat Nemesis "threw shells into the upper fort."

D. Bonner-Smith & E.W.R.Lumby. The Second China War 1856-1860. London, 1965, p.53 records that Rear Admiral Seymour reports that "The Barracuta at the same time also shelled the troops in the hills at the back of the city, from a position at the head of Sulphur Creek."

19 D. Bonner-Smith, op. cit., p. 173 records that Commander Forsyth of the Hornet reports "..commenced firing grape and shrapnel, with ricochet shot,into the whole mass of junks, which must have done dreadful execution, as they were crowded with men to excess."

Ouchterlony, op. cit., p. 239.

12 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 23 reports "a Congreve rocket, which was fired at the Admiral's junk, went through the deck into the magazine, upon which she immediately blew up."

13 Loch, op. cit., p. 40.

14 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 149 notes "In artillery they are very backward, their guns being of enormous weight in proportion to their calibre; some of the pieces of ordinance which we captured weighing seven ton, although only 42 pdrs; yet notwithstanding the immense thickness of metal in many cases the guns burst."

15 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 157 notes "in the great arsenal at Amoy, a large two-decked junk was found nearly ready for sea with guns, as well as something bearing a resemblance to gun-carriages."
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must have been dreadful. For whenever they were wounded and fell, the match-lock set fire to their cotton clothes, and I saw several instances of their being literally burnt alive.

33 C.Worswick & J.Spence. Imperial China, Photographs 1850-1912. London, 1979,

p.36 shows a photograph by Felix Beato.

Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 144 reports that "The Tartars and Chinese troops use bows of different sizes and strengths, the Tartars use a peculiar kind of cross-bow, throwing three arrows.."

35 John Henry Gray. Walks in the City of Canton. Hong Kong, 1875, p.527.

36 Ouchterlony, op. cit., p. 98 reporting the taking of the fort of Tycocktow says "More resistance, however, was offered here than at Chuenpee, for the Chinese were not forced from their ramparts until the boats' crews had gained the summit, and the bayonet and cutlass had clashed with the spear and the broadsword. Several of the assailants received wounds from the cold steel, a rare occurrence in the Chinese war."

37 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 151.

38 Lt. Colonel Fisher, C.B. Personal Narrative of Three Years' Service in China. London 1863. p.383.
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Force conceded that there were reasons for beginning hostilities against China, whilst others were openly critical of a war opened on behalf of opium traders, badly treated or not.

An anonymous military writer in Colburn's United Service Magazine observed bitterly at the time that "the poor Chinese - with their painted paste-board boats - must submit to be poisoned, or must be massacred by the thousand, for supporting their own laws in their own land." Another military officer, Lieutenant John Ouchterlony of the Madras Engineers in his history of the War, conceded: "That the quarrel was an unhappy one and for many reasons to be deeply deplored, does not admit of a doubt."

At the same time, Ouchterlony introduced a wider consideration for his readers. However plausible the view taken in England by those opposed to a war which, as they thought, was being undertaken to enforce the opium traffic, it was, he said, “on our part just and unavoidable" due to the "vindictiveness and insufferable arrogance of the Chinese government" during the past half-century. "The opium question," to his mind, was to be "regarded merely as a spark blown into a mine, and no more to be considered the primary cause of the war than the match which ignites the train..." This was a view shared by another young officer, Lieut. Wyndham Charles Baker of the Madras Engineers, as we see from one of his published home letters.

Not all their brother officers were convinced. The naval surgeon Edward Cree, was more concerned with the results of the War. Noting in his journal for Monday 29th [August] 1842 that "the articles of the treaty [were] signed this day," he commented:

“So ends the Chinese War. About the justice and policy of it I leave to more competent judges, but one thing I dislike in connection with it is the opium question. It has cost the lives of many thousands of human beings, and great destruction of property and misery and sorrow to many.

Waging War in European Style

11

In official circles in Britain, China's Court and Government were blamed for bringing on the War. Perhaps because of this, the British
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NOTES

Not all the materials for this study are available in Sydney libraries, and I have been obliged to take extracts from secondary sources where it has not been possible to consult the originals.

2 William C. Milne, Life in China (London, Routledge, Warnes & Routledge, New Edition, 1859), p. 1.

3 Davis had been a long-serving member of the Honourable East India Committee's Select Committee at Canton, and was a skilled linguist and translator.

5 Sir John himself provided a light-hearted anecdote in the Introduction to a revised and augmented edition of another of his books, The Poetry of the Chinese, published in 1870. This tells its own story. "When this Treatise was first printed (now more than forty years ago), with types brought from China, in the quarto Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, the foreign [i.e. Chinese written] character was so little known in England, that Lord Palmerston, with his usual pleasantry, said he took it 'at first sight for a work on Entomology'." (Sir John Francis Davis, The Poetry of the Chinese (Paragon Book Reprint Corp. New York, 1969 of the original, London 1870, p.v)

Concerning the Chinese statecraft reformer Wei Yuan, Jane Kate Leonard comments, "Never for a moment did he conceive of the West as a new and unique center of culture and civilization in any sense comparable with China": in Wei Yuan and China's Rediscovery of the Maritime World (Harvard University Press, 1984), pp.3-4.

6 George Henry Mason, The Costume of the Chinese (London, William Miller, 1804), preface.

7 "An Observer" in Vol II of this publication, p.111.

8 Lieutenant John Ouchterlony, The Chinese War: An Account of All the Operations of the British Forces from the Commencement to the Treaty of Nanking (London, Saunders and Otley, 1844), p.37.

9 Ouchterlony, pp.37-8.

10 Wyndham Baker wrote home: "I have read every work I can get hold of
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26 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.

27

Wyndham 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.

Laurence Shadwell, Life and Campaigns of Lord Clyde (London, 1881), p.120-1.

29 Shadwell, p. 138.

30 Shadwell, p.132. See also Sir John Francis Davis, Chinese Miscellanies: A Collection of Essays and Notes (London, John Murray, 1865), p.161n.

Bingham, Vol.II, p.86.

Belcher, 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.

33 Holt, p.112.

34 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.

35 Ouchterlony, p.225.

36 "Oh for the Joys of England! Lt Orlando Bridgeman's Letters From China and
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Routledge, New Edition, 1859)

George Henry Mason, The Costume of the Chinese (London, William Miller, 1804)

Lieutenant John Ouchterlony, The Chinese War: An Account of All the Operations of the British Forces from the Commencement to the Treaty of Nanking (London, Saunders and Otley, 1844)

"An Artillery Officer in China, 1840-1842," Blackwood's, 1964.

The Cree Journals, The Voyages of Edward H. Cree, Surgeon R. N., as Related in his Private Journals, 1837-1856 Edited and with an Introduction by Michael Levien. (Exeter, Webb & Bower, 1981)

Jack Beeching, The Chinese Opium Wars (Hutchinson of London, 1975)

Captain Sir Edward Belcher, Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, performed in Her Majesty's Ship Sulphur, During the Years 1836-1842. Including details of the Naval Operations in China, From Dec. 1840, to Nov. 1841 (London 1843, Dawsons of Pall Mall reprint, 1970)

Stanley Lane-Poole, Sir Harry Parkes in China (London, Methuen & Co., 1901)

Edgar Holt, The Opium Wars in China (London, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1964)

Sir Henry Keppel, A Sailor's Life under Four Sovereigns (London, 3 vols., 1899)

1881)

Laurence Shadwell, Life and Campaigns of Lord Clyde (London, 1881)

"Oh for the Joys of England! Lt Rolando Bridgman's Letters From China and Hong Kong, 1842-1843", in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society Vol.14 (1974)

Sir John Francis Davis, Chinese Miscellanies: A Collection of
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80 Macartney's Journal, January 1794. See (editor) Cranmer-Byng, J.L.(1962). An Embassy to China, Being the Journal kept by Lord Macartney during his Embassy to the Emperor Ch'ien-lung 1793-1794. London, Longmans, p.215.

#1

Ouchterlony, Lieutenant John (1844). The Chinese War: An Account of All the Operations of the British Forces from the Commencement to the Treaty of Nanking (London, Saunders and Otley, p.37. Wyndham Baker of the Madras Engineers wrote home: "I have read every work I can get hold of concerning the Opium Question and have come to the conclusion that we have no right to date the present eruption to that cause, as we have been insulted, our Trade interfered with, and British subjects have been maltreated long before Opium was mentioned and we have only been too tardy in seeking redress". Letter of August 21st 1840 from Chusan, from (1964) An Artillery Officer in China, 1840-1842, Blackwood's, p. 80.

$2 Levien, Michael Levien. (Edited and with an Introduction by). The Cree Journals, The Voyages of Edward H. Cree, Surgeon R.N., as Related in his Private Journals, 1837-1856. Exeter, Webb & Bower, 1981, p.117.

* This section should be read in conjunction with my article (1999-2000). "That Singular and Hitherto Almost Unknown Country': Opinions on China, the Chinese, and the ‘Opium War' among British Naval and Military Officers who Served During Hostilities There, in JHKBRAS Vol.39, pp.211-233.
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