Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/95

officers with reference to their experiences during China's first foreign war in 1839-1842:———

The Chinese showed more courage than skill. The English sailors pronounced both their guns and their powder to be excellent. (Engagement of November 3, 1839, off Chuen-pi).

The English officers described the Chinese defence of the Bogue Forts on January 7, 1841, as "obstinate and honourable."

"The batteries [at Amoy, 1841] were admirably constructed and, manned by Europeans, no force could have stood before them. They were never completely silenced by the ships' guns and, it is believed, they never would have been. Let the Chinese be trained, and well found with European implements and munitions, and depend upon it they will prove themselves no con- temptible foe."

"Many of the Chinese, seeing our new advance into the battery, quickly turned and a very smart affair followed. They assembled in great numbers close to some brass guns and then fought like Turks. Their conduct, in fact, was noble. Nothing could have surpassed it." (Tinghai, 1841.)

"The main body of the Chinese was routed without much difficulty, but 300 desperate men shut themselves up in a walled enclosure and made an obstinate resist- ance. They held out until three-quarters of them were slain, when the survivors, fifty wounded men, accepted the quarter offered them from the first." (Chefoo, 1841.)

"The Chinese were the worst equipped and the most innocent of military knowledge in the long list of Asiatic foes with whom the British had come into contact. Often they were no better than a badly armed mob, and even the Manchus had no more formidable