CHAPTER VII.

CAPTAIN DEW'S OPERATIONS IN CHEKIANG.

BRITISH NEUTRALITY AT NINGPO-HOSTILE ATTITUDE OF THE TAIPINGS-ADMIRAL HOPE SENDS CAPTAIN DEW, R.N., TO NINGPO— REASONS FOR OUR INTERFERENCE THERE-APAK, THE EX-PIRATE -CAPTAIN DEW TAKES NINGPO BY ASSAULT-DEATH OF LIEUTENANTS KENNEY AND CORNEWALL-ORDER RESTORED IN THE CITY-FORMATION OF FRENCH AND ENGLISH CORPS OF DISCIPLINED CHINESE-DESCRIPTION OF THE SURROUNDING COUNTRY, AND EFFECTS OF TAI-PING OCCUPATION-CLEARING A THIRTYMILE RADIUS-TAKING OF YUYOW AND TSEKI-DEATH OF GENERAL WARD-REPULSE AT FUNGWHA-COMMANDER JONES IN A FIX-A BISHOP'S SPOIL-HALF OF CHEKIANG RESTORED TO IMPERIAL RULE-PAY OF THE ANGLO-CHINESE CONTINGENT-REBEL DEFEAT AT PIKWAN-CAPTAIN DEW GOES BEYOND THE THIRTYMILE RADIUS-ADVANCE ON SHOWSHING-DEATH OF CAPTAIN LE BRETHON DE COLIGNY- -DESCRIPTION OF SHOWSHING-DEATHS OF CAPTAIN TARDIFF AND LIEUTENANT TINLING CAPTAIN DEW UNDERTAKES THE SIEGE-FALL OF SHOWSHING-DASHING NATURE OF CAPTAIN DEW'S EXPLOITS.

THE operations against the Tai-pings which were carried on at Ningpo and in its neighbourhood by Captain Roderick Dew of the Royal Navy afford material for a very noteworthy chapter in the history of our relations with China. With very scanty materials, and by as dashing exploits as the annals of the British navy have to record, this officer not only drove the Rebels away

from the port where he was stationed, and had to protect, but also managed, by assisting in getting up a disciplined Chinese force, and by pushing his expeditions into the interior, to restore almost the entire province of Chekiang to Imperialist rule.

For some time previous to his advent on the scene, the Rebels had had very much their own way in Chekiang, but now met there with a severe check from the hostility, which they wantonly provoked, of the naval forces of Great Britain and France. This rich province had been entered in the autumn of 1861 by an army of 100,000 Tai-pings, who established themselves in the city and at the open port of Ningpo, the city of the "Peaceful Wave." Our policy at this place was at first strictly neutral; and though Captain Corbett in H.M.S. Scout was at Ningpo, he had the most positive orders not to interfere with the Tai-pings unless they insulted our people or attempted to occupy the Foreign settlement. They took good care, however, to be on their best behaviour, and remained so till they had exhausted the supplies of guns, other arms, and ammunition, which Foreigners of nearly all nations hastened to sell them. They then began to be insolent, and had a greedy eye on the Foreign settlement, intending, no doubt, if they had not been turned out of Ningpo, to have visited the Kampo (the name of our settlement), and, with their arms, to have got back the dollars they had bartered for them. Commander Craigie of H.M.S. Ringdove, senior officer at Ningpo, writing about the middle of April to his Admiral, Sir James Hope, informed him of the hostile and alarming attitude the Tai-pings in Ningpo were assuming towards Foreigners. His ship, which lay at anchor off the British Consulate, and within pistol-shot of the walls, had been fired on several times

CAUSES OF OUR INTERFERENCE IN CHEKIANG. 97

by the lawless soldiery, and many Chinese in the British settlement had been killed by bullets from the city. Expostulations with the Chiefs having failed to prevent recurrence of such insults, Admiral Sir J. Hope instructed Captain Dew to proceed to Ningpo, to use his best endeavours to bring the Tai-ping Chiefs to reason, and to warn them that, while on the one hand we had every wish to remain neutral, such neutrality depended solely on themselves, and that the Western nations would not brook insults to their flags and people. On the 24th April this officer entered the river Yung in the Encounter, passed the walled city of Chinhai, and, after steaming six miles, anchored off Ningpo.

No proper apology was offered, and matters were in an unsatisfactory state, when Captain Dew received intelligence that the late Tautai of Ningpo, Chang, had arrived with a fleet of war-junks, under the command of one Apak, formerly a pirate, but who now, with all his followers, had received pardon, and had become a good subject of the Emperor. Commander Kenney, of the French gunboat Etoile, joined Captain Dew on board the Hardy, and they visited this Imperial force. The Mandarins requested assistance in attacking Ningpo, but this was declined; at the same time they were informed that if shots were fired either by them or by the Tai-pings in the direction of the settlement, the Allies would return fire. The Imperialist leaders Chang and Apak then stated that it was their intention to attack Ningpo, but were requested to delay for forty-eight hours, till Captain Dew had communicated with the Tai-ping Chiefs, after which time permission would be granted or refused. The latter had built a formidable granite battery, armed with 68-pounders, which both commanded our settlement and the reach of the river up which the Imperial

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ists would have to advance. Moreover, fresh guns had been mounted in the embrasures opposite the English vessels, masked in a crafty manner by loose bricks. Thus it was now quite evident that mischief was intended by the Tai-pings, and that if the Imperialists advanced, our own ships and the settlement would suffer from the fire of both parties. Foreseeing this, Captain Dew wrote a despatch to the Tai-ping Chiefs, in which he informed them that, if they would remove their guns form the walls and battery opposite the settlement, he would guarantee that no attack should be made by the Imperialists by the river, an offer which was positively doing the Imperialists an injustice. Captain Dew also sent a letter to the Tai-ping Chiefs on the 8th May, in which he said :

"ENCOUNTER, NINGPO, 8th May 1862.-This is to inform you, on the part of the English and French senior naval officers, that had you agreed to their demands, and removed your guns from the battery and walls, they should have felt bound in honour to have acted up to their promise, and have prevented an attack from the river on the settlement side by the Imperialists who now advance to attack you. We inform you that we wish to maintain a perfect neutrality; but if you fire guns or musketry from the battlements or walls opposite our ships or settlement on the advancing Imperialists, thereby endangering the lives of our men and people in the Foreign settlement, we shall then feel it our duty to return the fire and bombard the city."

The Imperialists were then informed that they were at liberty to attack the city, if they did not fire upon the settlement or the ships in the river, among which were of English vessels, the Encounter, 14 guns, 175 men, Captain Dew; Ringdove, 4 guns, 90 men, Captain

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Craigie; gunboats Kestrel and Hardy, 40 men each, commanded by Lieutenants Huxham and Bogle; and of French (who were placed under Captain Dew's orders by Admiral Protet), the Etoile, 1 gun, 30 men, Lieutenant de Vaisseau Kenney; and Confucius, 3 guns, 40 men, Enseigne de Vaisseau Le Brethon de Coligny.

On the morning of the 10th May, Apak's Imperialist junks shaved clear of the point below the Foreign vessels, and a heavy fire was opened on them by the Tai-ping Point Battery. At the same time a volley of musketry was poured into H.M.S. Encounter by the Rebels, and so, in mere self-defence, Captain Dew was forced to take part in the engagement. A general fire began from ships and walls. The bastions, guns, and guard-house at the Salt Gate were soon smashed up by the Moorsom shells of the Encounter, while the Ringdove silenced the guns at the North Gate. Lieutenant Bogle, in the gunboat Hardy, did good service, steaming up and down before the walls on the river face, shutting up gun after gun; and the Etoile, Kestrel, and Confucius were smashing the Point Battery. Apak and Chang, with their Imperialist war-junks, let down their anchors at the first shot, being satisfied with the honour of opening the ball. As the running spring-tide effectually prevented them coming up the river, the Kestrel was sent to tow them up; but this aid they steadily declined, urging paltry excuses, such as having no powder. Captain Dew felt at this moment in rather a dilemma; he knew he had no aid to expect from the Imperialists, and it seemed almost too much to hope for success in an assault on Ningpo with the two or three hundred men he could count on, against a garrison of between 20,000 and 30,000, who had been well supplied with arms by their friends in the Foreign settlement. Experienced,