an officer who had seen service in the Bengal Fusiliers, undertook to drill the small force, and to superintend the measures for holding the settlement if attacked. Captain Fishbourne, the senior naval officer in charge of the war-ships at the station, assumed the supreme command and direction of these military preparations. At a subsequent meeting the other foreigners agreed to combine with the English Consul and community, and thus the whole of the foreign settlement at Shanghai presented a united front to whatever danger might betide from either the weakness of the Imperialists or the hostility of the insurgents.*

The first symptom of popular excitement on the sea-coast was manifested at Amoy, where there had been a disturbed feeling for some time. In May, 1853, a strong body of the lower orders, incited, as it was believed, by the members of the Triad society, rose under the command of one Magay, who styled himself an admiral, but who had gained all his experience of war and seamanship from serving the English garrison at Kulangsu with spirits, and from a brief cruise with a renegade Neapolitan in a lorcha. The rebels, or, more correctly, the marauders, remained in possession of the town until the following November, when the Imperial forces, having collected from the neighbouring garrisons, appeared in such overwhelming strength that the insurgents hastily put off to sea, and many of them succeeded in escaping to Singapore or Formosa. Magay was among those who fled, but he was accidentally shot whilst off Macao. The assertion of the Emperor's authority at Amoy was unfortunately followed by terrible scenes of official cruelty and bloodthirstiness. The guilty had escaped, but Hienfung's officials

* Even the missionaries were not blind at last to the personal danger from the Taepings. Dr. Medhurst, in a report which puts forward prominently their alleged virtues and laudable objects, wrote that "foreigners should be prepared to resist with a sufficient force any attack which the insurgents may be induced to make on them." He had said in an earlier passage, "It would be sad to see Christian nations engage in putting down the movement, as the insurgents possess an energy and a tendency to improvement and general reform which the Imperialists never have exhibited and never can be expected to display."-Parliamentary Papers for 1853.

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wreaked their rage on the helpless and unoffending townspeople. Thousands of both sexes were slaughtered in cold blood, and on more than one occasion English officers and seamen interfered to protect the weak, and to arrest the progress of an undiscriminating and insensate massacre.

Mr. Alcock's precautions at Shanghai had not been taken a day too soon; for of all the subsidiary rebellions, none attained such a dangerous height or endured so long as that which broke out there in the month of September, 1853. There had been mutterings of coming trouble for some time, and the Taotai Wou had implored the English authorities to announce their intention to co-operate with him in maintaining order in the great Chinese city under his charge. Had Mr. Alcock been at liberty to give this promise there would have been no disturbance at Shanghai; but he was not free to even so much as consider the possibility of such a breach of the strict neutrality to which his Government had pledged itself. The disaffected were restrained for a time by a doubt as to the part which the Europeans intended to play, for as a matter of course Wou had confidently declared that they were on the side of the Government; but as soon as they saw that their neutrality was assured, and it was shown as clearly by the preparations to defend only the settlement, and not the whole of the town, as by the protestations of the English Consul, the last barrier to their breaking out was removed.

The rising at Shanghai was the work of the Triads. They seized the Taotai's quarters without resistance, as Wou's body-guard deserted him, and that official barely escaped with his life. Other officials, not so fortunate, were slain by the rebels, but on the whole the seizure of Shanghai was accomplished with little bloodshed. The rebels numbered about fifteen hundred Triads, who were joined by two or three thousand of the townspeople. On the 7th of September, 1853, Shanghai had passed out of the hands of the Imperial Government into those of an independent and lawless body of men who lived upon the plunder of the city. The foreign settlement was placed in a state of siege. The broadsides of the men-of-war covered the approaches to the factories,

VOL. II.

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and Captain Tronson's volunteers diligently patrolled the quarters of the European residents.

This state of affairs continued up to and after the arrival of an Imperialist force sent to recover the city. While the batteries were constructed at a very short distance from the walls, and the bombardment went on all day, the foreign merchants were the spectators of a siege which of its kind was unsurpassed in absurdity. Never were ignorance of the military art and the possession of that discreet valour in which Sir John Falstaff excelled, more conspicuously revealed. And yet some evidence of a possible higher skill was afforded, and a few acts of valour might have been recorded. The Imperialists carried their mines to the wall and under the deep moat surrounding the town; and a body of Cantonese braves stormed the breach in gallant style. But the former was a slow and costly proceeding; and in the latter act the courage of the handful of brave men was thrown uselessly away by the treachery or the folly of their more craven comrades who removed the bridge by which they had crossed the moat. The siege dragged its slow length along. The Imperialists were unable to direct with any skill their superior resources and numbers; and the insurgents made up by their vigilance and desperation for their natural deficiencies and inferiority.

It soon became obvious to the representatives of the Foreign States that the rebels at Shanghai were not fighting for any definite purpose; and that being the case, it was clear that in the interests of everybody the sooner the Imperial authorities were reinstated the better it would be for all. While the influence of several English residents was exerted to induce the rebels to surrender by throwing themselves on the consideration of the European Consulates, that of the French admiral was more openly asserted with a view to ensuring the military triumph of the Imperialists. The French settlement, which consisted of the consulate, one house, and a cathedral, was nearest the walls. There was no great difficulty, under the circumstances, in showing that it stood in danger from the bombardment; and in December, 1854, Admiral Laguerre, impatient at the prolongation of a siege which gave no indication of closing, availed himself of

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the excuse afforded by several shots passing over or near the French position to turn his broadsides on the city. The rebels were, therefore, cannonaded on one side by the French and on the other by the Imperialists, who were naturally elated at having obtained that foreign assistance which they had previously entreated so often and without avail.

The Shanghai insurgents, to do them justice, presented a bold front to this accumulation of dangers. The bombardment did much damage to the walls, but inflicted hardly any loss on the garrison, which kept well under the cover of an inner earthwork. While the other Europeans were pitying them for their useless devotion and fortitude, the Triad leaders were making their preparations to defend the city against assault, and their followers were eagerly asking the question when the French intended to come on. They were not merely boasters. A breach was at last declared to be practicable, and 400 French sailors and marines were landed. On their side the Imperialists, wearing blue sashes to distinguish them from the rebels, advanced in serried bodies to attack the north gate. The French made their way through the breach, the Celestial soldiers over the walls at another point. But although they gained the inside of the fortification, they could not advance. The insurgents fought desperately in the streets, and after four hours' fighting they compelled the Imperialists to take to flight. The French were carried along by their disheartened allies, who even fired upon them, and when Admiral Laguerre counted up the cost of that day's adventure he found that he had lost four officers and sixty men killed and wounded. Such was the French attack on Shanghai, and it left the lesson that even good European troops cannot ignore the recognized rules and precautions of war, and that a number of desperate men may sometimes be more than a match for the picked soldiers of a great Power.

After this the siege languished. The French abstained from any further direct participation in it, but the Imperialists pressed the attack with greater vigour than before. At last the insurgents, having failed in some attempts to surrender on terms, made a desperate sortie. Some cut

their way through, and a few found safety in the foreign settlement, but by far the greater number perished by the sword of the Imperialists. The fugitives were pursued along the country roads, and in a few days more than fifteen hundred rebels had fallen by the knife of the executioner. The two leaders, Lew and Chin-ah-Lin, escaped, strange to say, for the large price of £3000 was placed upon each of their heads. The latter turned up at a later period at Hongkong, where he offered assistance against Commissioner Yeh; but on his offer being refused he left for Siam, where he acquired in worldly prosperity the position he had failed to gain as a political personage at Shanghai. At Shanghai as at Amoy the Imperialists sullied victory by their excesses; and the unfortunate townspeople, impoverished by supplying the rebels with their wants during more than a year and a half, were reduced to the brink of ruin by their belongings being given over to the Emperor's soldiers to pillage. These painful occurrences, over which we hasten to pass as briefly as we may, should serve as a warning to those who have so lightly encouraged rebellion in a country constituted like China for the sake of trade advantages and the propagation of Christianity; for however much we may identify those objects with the name of civilization, the cost has had to be paid by the Chinese people in suffering which would surpass all powers of description.

What had happened at Amoy and Shanghai had occurred on a somewhat different scale near Canton, where in June, 1854, the Triads, who it must be remembered were strongest of all in the province of Kwantung, seized the manufacturing town of Fatshan, and from that place threatened to oust the Viceroy from Canton itself. They approached the city walls on several occasions, and as they numbered some twenty or thirty thousand men, it may even be said that they held Canton in siege. But the merchants and shopkeepers of Canton had too much at stake to remain apathetic in face of a danger that threatened their lives and property. They took braves into their pay who made most efficient soldiers, and gradually their numbers increased so much that the city walls were well and efficiently guarded. There was