The Chinese Called Out All
Their Armed Forces, And Incited Their People Along The Canton River To
Attack The Foreigners Wherever Found.
An official notice said, "Produce
arms and weapons; join together the stoutest of your villagers, and thus
be prepared to defend yourselves.
If any of the said foreigners be found
going on shore to cause trouble, all and every of the people are permitted
to fire upon them, to withstand and drive them back, or to make prisoners
of them." This appeal to a force which the Chinese did not possess was an
act of indiscretion that betrayed an overweening confidence or a singular
depth of ignorance. When the mandarins refused to supply the ships with
water and other necessaries they carried their animosity to a length which
the English naval officers at once defined as a declaration of open
hostilities. They retaliated by ordering their men to seize by force
whatever was necessary, and thus began a state of things which may be
termed one of absolute warfare. The two men-of-war on the station had
several encounters with the forts in the Bogue, and on November 3, 1839,
they fought a regular engagement with a Chinese fleet of twenty-nine junks
off Chuenpee. The Chinese showed more courage than skill, and four of
their junks were sunk. It is worth noting that the English sailors
pronounced both their guns and their powder to be excellent. While this
action deterred the Chinese fleet from coming to close quarters, it also
imbittered the contest, and there was no longer room to doubt that if the
Chinese were to be brought to take a more reasonable view of foreign trade
it would have to be by the disagreeable lesson of force.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 361 of 704
Words from 98007 to 98299
of 191255
