Bombardment of Muckie and Landing of a Force to Burn the Town.
From an engraving by Osborne in “The Flagship,” published, 1840, by D. Appleton & Co.
From Muckie the squadron returned to Quallah Battoo. The chief, known as Po Chute Abdullah, gave his note for $2,000, the sum that he confessed had been distributed among his people, after the assault on the Eclipse, and so escaped the ravages of a landing party.
“The women,” said Po Adam, “cry, and the men, too, when the big ships come again.”
The whole town had been bombarded for the misdeed of one man. The women and children had to face the cannon as well as the men. It was necessary, very likely, to teach the natives to respect the lives and property under the American flag. But there was no guarantee that the wily Yankee skipper would deal honestly with the natives. And there was no count of the women and children killed and mangled when the cannon were used to enforce the American demand.
Treaties were afterward made with a number of the chiefs who pledged themselves to protect Americans from all robbery and assault.
There is little doubt that the naval officers regarded it as a very sorry piece of duty that had to be attended to.
Much more stirring were the adventures of the Yankee seamen in the Chinese waters during the time that England was compelling the unfortunate orientals to buy British-India opium. The Chinese did not make the distinction between the two English-speaking nations which circumstances required, and in consequence they received some severe punishment from the Americans. The most interesting event was in 1856. Captain Andrew Hull Foote of the Portsmouth, who, under Commodore Armstrong, was engaged in the work of protecting the Americans in Canton, established a number of fortified posts in the city, but beyond this did everything possible to keep the Americans clear of the “English and Chinese imbroglio.” But there was fighting a-plenty all around the Americans, both afloat and ashore; and it happened, on November 15, 1856, while Foote was rowing past one of the forts of the city, that the Chinese fired on him. The American flag was waved vigorously toward the fort, and Foote fired his revolver toward it by way of protest, but the firing continued until Foote was out of bearing of the guns. Another fort had still to be passed, and this one opened with grape-shot at a range of two hundred yards.
The next day the forts were bombarded by the Portsmouth. On the 20th the San Jacinto, the Portsmouth, and the Levant bombarded the fort that had been first guilty of assault, and then Foote with four howitzers and a force of two hundred and eighty-seven men, all told, landed. Crossing the rice-fields and wading a creek waist-deep, they attacked the fort in the rear, when the Chinese fled, although the fort was a massive stone structure with walls several feet thick, and contained fifty-three cannon. The marines killed more than forty of the Celestial soldiers who fled, and so completed the rout.