N.B.—It is to be remarked that the company of Bengal Volunteers, comprising one hundred and twelve men, had only two European officers.
[49] Names of officers:—Captain Hall, Mr. Whitehurst, and Mr. Gaunt, Nemesis; Mr. Goss and Mr. Hooper, H.M.S. Sulphur; Mr. Holland and Mr. Lambert, H.M.S. Blonde.
[50] Only two of the percussion-muskets of the marines missed fire, although they had been loaded two or three days before, without having been discharged since. The men belonged principally to the Blenheim, under Lieutenant Whiting.
[51] It is impossible for us to know exactly what communication was made by the Chinese officer, to the heads of these patriotic bands, but it was thought that the people did not withdraw altogether owing to the conviction that their efforts would be useless against us, but because they were bound to obey the orders of the prefect. At the same time, they really believed that they had been betrayed by their own authorities, and were ready to unite again whenever occasion offered with some confidence of success.
[52] Lieut. C. Fox, R.N., and Mr. Kendall had each a leg shot off; the former died.
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
In the first week in June, all our ships of war and transports had left the Canton River, and were again assembled at Hong-Kong. All the forts from Chuenpee upwards had been restored to the Chinese, without any other stipulation except that all those below Whampoa should be suffered to remain in statu quo.
The emperor seems to have been much displeased with the latter part of this agreement; and, in reply to the memorial of Yih-shan upon the subject, his majesty directed that "secret means of defence should be prepared as soon as the foreign ships had withdrawn from the river, and that they were then to build new and strong forts, and repair the old ones." On our side, however, nothing of this kind was permitted below Whampoa; so that, until the ratifications of the treaty of peace had been actually exchanged, the whole of the defences of the Bogue remained in the same dilapidated state in which they were left when our squadron quitted the river in June, 1841.
Sickness had already begun to prevail among our troops before they had reached Hong-Kong. The eight days' exposure which they had endured upon the heights of Canton sowed the seeds of ague and dysentery, which proved far more formidable energies to us than any troops the Chinese could bring against us. After the lapse of a few days, and when the excitement of active operations on shore, and the cheering influence of hope and novelty had subsided, the sickness spread among the men with alarming rapidity, so that, at length, out of our small force, no less than eleven hundred men were upon the sick-list at Hong-Kong. Part of this alarming state of things must be attributed certainly to the pernicious influence of the atmosphere of Hong-Kong itself at that season of the year. But every allowance must be made for the exposure which the men had undergone at Canton, and for the susceptibility of constitution produced by long confinement on board ship. The germs of disease were planted in their bodies before the men returned to the harbour of Hong-Kong; and, therefore, an undue stress was laid at the time upon the unhealthiness of Hong-Kong itself. It is worth while here to mention, that the three imperial commissioners laid particular stress upon the known unhealthiness of the neighbourhood of Canton at that season, as a ground for the impossibility of keeping any large body of troops long together; and it happened, remarkably enough, that two of the high officers died as nearly as possible at the same time—one on the part of the Chinese, and one on our side. Lung-Wan, one of the imperial commissioners, died of fever at Canton about the middle of June; and Sir Le Fleming Senhouse, the senior naval officer, also died of fever at Hong-Kong on the 13th of that month.