Narrative of a Recent Imprisonment in China after the Wreck of the Kite

by John Lee Scott

This evening the doctor came and looked at the sick man, and shortly after his visit, one of the servants brought him a dose, which he took. That night this old servant was constantly at our window, with a lantern, to look at the sick person. Towards morning the marine became much worse, and lost his senses, and soon after he died. He was no sooner dead than the servant, who had been watching very narrowly at the window, came in, and rolling the body up in a long coat, and taking it by the arms, threw it on his back, and making signs for one of the Melville's boys to keep the legs off the ground, they walked off with him through the gate, and some way into the town, till they came to an open space, where there was a shed with some straw in it. Here he laid the body down, and covering it decently with the coat, made the boy understand that it would be buried that night.

There were now only two left of the seven marines who came on board of the Kite from the Melville; and it was not long before one of these was taken ill; he soon became so bad, that he was obliged to be moved out of our room, and we hoped he might be taken down to the jail, where he would have better attendance, and the advantage of Mrs. Noble's kindness. Our jailer and attendants made signs to this effect, but they moved him only to another part of the joshouse. He had received several spear-wounds when he was taken, which had never properly healed; and when attacked by the dysentery, these wounds broke out afresh, and reduced him to a dreadful state, and it was not long before we heard of his death. There was now only one marine left.

A short time after this, a new interpreter, who had just arrived, as he said, from Canton, came up to us; he brought us two letters to read, one from Mrs. Noble, and the other from Captain Anstruther, to their friends at Chusan, requesting to have some clothes and other things sent to them. This man told us that it would most likely be peace, and that we should be released in a short time. We complained of the smallness of our room, and of our having nothing but rice to eat, and said we wished to have meat sometimes; he agreed that it was a most uncomfortable place, and promised to speak to the mandarins, and get all things put to rights for us. He then left us, I cannot say with revived hopes, for we placed but little reliance on his assurances, being by this time fully aware of the deceitfulness of the Chinese. He told us, however, that either Captain Anstruther or Lieut. Douglas would come to see us in a few days.

On this point he did not deceive us; for two or three days after his visit, Lieut. Douglas, to our great pleasure, walked in: he was very indignant at the treatment we had received, and at our being confined in such a miserable place, and said he would get it altered immediately. We learned from him, that though the mandarins pressed the officers to write to their friends at Chusan, and promised that the letters should be safely conveyed, they had never kept to their word, but had detained the letters when they had obtained possession of them; perhaps as curiosities. The officers at Chusan, finding that the prisoners at Ningpo did not write, suspected the cause to be something of this kind, and therefore bribed a Chinese to carry letters from them to Lieut. Douglas and the others; and they answered them by the same person. They asked for all they wanted, in their letters by the Chinaman, and always mentioned the same things in those that were given to the mandarins, so that these gentlemen imagined the English were conjurors, or some such thing; for with all their cunning they never found out the spy, and the things that were written for, through them, always came, although they never sent the letters. Lieut. Douglas, therefore, knew all that was passing at Chusan, and could tell us what chance there was of our being speedily released. He told us he had tried several times to get up to see us, but that the mandarins would not allow him to come. He had sent us several things, and amongst the rest a bar of soap; but none of these things arrived, I suppose the Chinese ate the soap; as they have no such article themselves, they would most likely imagine it to be some eatable; and as they are in the habit of eating far nastier things, the soap might have been rather a delicacy to them than otherwise. After some more conversation, he gave us a dollar apiece to procure us better and more substantial food, and then left us, promising to see us soon again, and to improve our situation.

Lieut. Douglas continued to supply us with money, at the rate of a dollar apiece for fourteen days; but the persons who brought it to us generally pocketed one or two dollars each time, and altogether robbed us of nine dollars; a large sum in that country, where the necessaries of life are so cheap. The proper exchange, I believe, is rather more than a thousand pice to the dollar, but we could only get nine hundred and thirty-two, or at most nine hundred and fifty.

Christmas was now close at hand, and we accordingly bought some meat and other things, that we might not eat such an un-Englishlike dinner as rice, turnips, and very small fish, our usual food; and with a little coaxing on our part, we prevailed on the old jailer to allow us to have some samshu, a liquor very like gin, and obtained from rice. We made a better Christmas of it than I had expected, and after our dinner we called our jailer in, and drank his health, to his great delight; in fact, he was so much pleased, that he ran out of our room, and immediately returned, bringing with him a haunch of goat, which he said "he gave to us;" and was going to hang it up in our room, but we deemed it expedient to place it in the outer air, so he hung it up outside, and we had it for dinner the next day. From this time we were allowed to have as much samshu as we liked; and with the exception of one Lascar getting drunk, no one ever forgot himself. The Lascar, when he came to his senses in the morning, we tried by court-martial, and sentenced him to receive three dozen, which were administered with a cat made for the purpose, of threads twisted and plaited together.

The marine was now the only Englishman in irons, and notwithstanding the mandarins had promised Lieut. Douglas, in consequence of his remonstrances, that they should be taken off, they had as usual deceived him; so one day we took them off ourselves, and lifting up one of the floor planks in a corner of the room, hid them there. This we were enabled to effect the more easily, as they had been taken off when he was at the jail, to allow him to put on a pair of flushing trousers Lieut. Douglas had given him; and therefore they were not rivetted, but merely padlocked together. The Chinese never noticed that his irons were off, and they were left in the hole as a legacy to the rats.

One evening, whilst at our supper, one of the soldiers came to the window, and amused himself by imitating our awkward attempts to eat with the chopsticks. This impertinence so incensed one of our men, that he jumped up, and filling a basin with water, dashed it through the bars into the soldier's face, taking him quite by surprise; the water streamed down his breast, inside his numerous jackets, and must have made him most uncomfortable. But his only revenge was swearing and shaking his fist at us as he ran away. Finding that no harm arose from this first attempt, we determined never to be annoyed again, regretting that we had allowed ourselves to be overlooked so long; therefore all parties that would not pay for peeping, we drove away by throwing water at them; and having a bucketful in the room, the water was always at hand. Our proceedings amused the old jailer exceedingly, and he very often brought people to see us, and then getting behind them, made signs for us to throw the water in their faces; taking care, however, always to get out of reach of the shower, and to condole with the visitors, who generally received a good ducking.

It was now January, and we had some very cold weather, and several falls of snow; our jailer, therefore, allowed us sometimes to have a small earthenware pot, in which was some mould, and on the top a few pieces of charcoal; this, of course, was soon expended, so, to keep up the fire, we tore out the bars of the door, and part of the flooring, and burnt them. These were the only things I saw in use at the joshouse in lieu of fire-places.

Our room was too crowded for us to feel the cold much, but still it was rather chilly; so, to keep ourselves warm, we ran round and round our apartment, played at leapfrog, and such other games, which kept the blood from freezing in our veins; besides, we bought pipes and tobacco, and constantly smoked, which warmed us a little, and probably prevented sickness getting in amongst us; this was a great advantage, for if any fever had broken out, we might all have been carried off, from the extreme unwholesomeness of our apartment. We could see the old officer, who lived in the room next ours, sitting, for hours together, in his yard, basking in the sun, and smoking a long pipe; wrapped up in two or three dresses, made of skins sown together, and wearing a curious kind of head-dress, resembling the cap worn by jesters in the olden time, only minus the bells.