The China Mail, in its report of the affair, terms it: "A most indiscriminate carnage on the part of our Allies at the taking of Cho-lin." The Overland Trade Report, in its issue of June 10, states:—
"Since the death of Admiral Protet the French troops have been behaving like fiends, killing indiscriminately men, women, and children. Truth demands the confession that British sailors have likewise been guilty of the commission of similar revolting barbarities—not only on the Taepings, but upon the inoffensive helpless country people. It is a most singular circumstance, but no less strange than true, that the Taepings have never yet committed an act of retaliation upon any European who may have fallen into their hands."
Cho-lin captured and the loot safely packed up, the conquerors, who only lost one killed and four slightly wounded, proceeded to destroy the town itself.
The correspondent of the North China Herald, in his report, says:—
"At two o'clock the order was given to set the city on fire, which was executed with such rapidity that the Sikhs had hardly time to get the ponies out of the town, and most of the last collected had to be abandoned."
The poor horses were admittedly roasted alive; but, when the writer goes on to state "a great many dead bodies" were left in the fired city, he forgets the wounded and "dying men" whom he found in "almost every house," and who no doubt perished in the flames.
With the destruction of Cho-lin the murderous and desolating track of the British and French was for a time arrested. Hitherto, without exception, they had, in Mohawk Indian style, surprised and captured isolated towns and villages. Nothing but the garrisons of these places had opposed them. Upon the day of their last exploit, however, intelligence reached General Staveley that the Chung-wang, with a large army, had taken the field against him, and that Kah-ding was already invested, Tsing-poo threatened, and the Imperialist troops everywhere flying like chaff before the stormy wind. Hastily returning to Shanghae, the authenticity of these reports was at once confirmed by the abject state of terror in which the Manchoo authorities were plunged. It appeared that, during General Staveley's laurel-gathering exploits, nearly the whole available force of Imperialist troops had been concentrated upon Kah-ding, and, having moved upon the next Ti-ping city, Tat-seang, had been there totally defeated; the fugitives, a few hundred out of an army nearly 20,000 strong, having been chased about thirty miles, and into the village of Woo-sung under the protection of the Allies' artillery.
In consequence of this, and the inability of the Manchoo authorities to even garrison the places captured from the patriots by the allied forces, General Staveley proceeded to the relief of Kah-ding with a strong force of British troops. Upon reaching the village of Na-zain, a few miles from the city, they were continually attacked by the Ti-ping force investing it. In all these attacks, however, the assailants were driven back by rifle and artillery fire with heavy loss, the English losing but one Sepoy killed and four wounded. It now appearing that the Ti-pings were in the field in force, that the communications of Kah-ding were in their hands, and that the towns of Tsing-poo and Soon-kong were also invested, General Staveley decided upon evacuating Kah-ding; and, pending the arrival of reinforcements, discontinuing his raids upon the Ti-ping strongholds.
We must now for a while turn to other quarters, and record the performance of another act of the Ti-ping drama. While the allied forces were violating their pledges, their orders, and the ordinary laws and usages of civilized or Christian men, the Ti-pings at Ningpo, as everywhere else, were scrupulously observing all their promises, and striving to enter into friendly and commercial relations with foreigners.
It will be remembered that the withdrawal of British missionaries from Ningpo, upon the capture of that city by the Ti-pings, has already been noticed; also Mr. Consul Harvey's sinister reason: "This step will tend to simplify considerably our future relations with the Taepings at Ningpo." We will now proceed to notice what those "future relations" were.