The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-01 00:00:00

CHINA.

THE news from China is confirmed. General Ash-
burnham and his staff had arrived. Lord Elgin
remained at Singapore. The entire junk fleet before
Canton has been destroyed. The Chinese appear to
have selected their positions with great skill, and to
have fought their guns with remarkable precision
and bravery. The Times correspondent gives the
following graphic account of that hero Captain
Keppel. His boats had just arrived at the entrance
of a nano* passage in the Fatshan Creek, deieoded
17 twenty junks of war;•

751

One of these funnel passages has been staked and
is impassable. The other has not &water to carry
two boats abreast. At this perilous passage Keppel
and his crew now dashed. The three boomboata took
the ground in attempting to follow. The base of
this triangular island consists of high land which
the grounded boomboats could not fire over, so their
guns were useless ; the apex, or, to use my more
familiar illustration, the knuckle part, was low, paddy
fields, which the junks' guns could not sweep across.
It was a position worthy of a Carthaginian—locus
insidiis natus.

No sooner did the boats appear in the narrow pas-
sage than twenty 32-poundersisent twenty round shot,
and a hundred smaller guns sent their full charges
of grape and canister at a range of 500 yards right
among them. The effect was terrible. Keppel was
sounding with the boathook for water for the boom-
boats, and went back amid the storm to get them up.
They start afresh, and make another effort to get
through. The Commodore pushes on ahead. There
was Captain Leckie in his galley, with Major Kear-
ney by his side. There was Captain Rolland in the
launch of the Calcutta, and Lieutenant Seymour in
the barge of the same ship. The Tribune's cutter
was in among them. The Hongkong, who had worked
herself up through the mud to within 500 yards. of the
scene of action, had sent her gig. Perhaps there
were others, but amid so much smoke and fire even
those who were in it cannot agree as to minute de-
tails. If the gunners of the Excellent bad been in
those Chinese junks, and had worked those 32-
pounder guns, they could hardly have thrown the
round shot straighter. Keppel's galley, not a large
mark, is hit three times lin two minutes; a 32-
pounder shot strikes Major Kearney in the breast,
tearing him to pieces. He must have died without
a sensation. Young Barker, a midshipman of the
Tribune, who wore upon his finger a ring bequeathed
to him by his brother, who was killed at Inkermann,
is down, mortally wounded. The Commodore's cox-
swain is killed, and every man'of his crew is wounded.
But the miracle is not that the men are falling, but
that any escape. The God of Battles is there,
and wonderful are the instances of His merciful pro-
tection. Captain Cochrane has the sleeve of his
coat torn away by a shot, which leaves him unharmed.
A round shot enters the Tribune's boat and passes
along her line of keel, from stem to stern, without
touching a man. " That was close, Victor," said
Keppel to his flag-lieutenant, as a cannon shot
passed between their heads. Fortunately for him-
self, Victor (Prince Victor of Hohenlohe, as thorough
and as unpretending a British seaman as if his name
were Drake or Jervis) was leaning forwards, and
using his handkerchief as a tourniquet to stop the
bleeding of a seaman whose hand bad just been
shot off, otherwise that ball must have taken Victor's
head off. At this time the galley was disabled, and
she was drifting down under the guns of the junks.
Even Keppel saw that it would not do. The matter
was, however, settled for him, for the next shot; tore
away the stern sheets of his galley while he was
fortunately standing up with the tiller ropes in his
baud, " Seymour, you must take me in," and he
stepped from his sinking galley into the barge of the
Calcutta. All the other occupants of the galley
were also removed into the barge; all except the
mangled corpse of the coxswain and the favourite
dog of the commodore, who had been accustomed to
be tended by that man, and would not leave his body.
With this freight the wreck of the galley drifted
with the rising tide up towards the junks.

That same afternoon, upon the junks getting
under weigh, he pursues them, captures five, de-
stroys the rest, and then, arriving off a town at the
head of the creek, proposed " to land his howitzers
and pass the night in the city":—

A daring scheme which might have produced a
ransom of half a million of dollars or utter destruc-
tion, as the fortune of war might incline. A message
from the admiral, however, recalled him. He had
his five junks towed out before him, and as he left
the city he stood up in the stern-sheets of his boat,
and shook his 'fist' good-humouredly, saying, "You
rascals, I'll come back again to you soon ;" and those
extraordinary Chinese, they too laughed—a broad,
good-humoured grin—and so they parted.
Now the boats retired amid a sounding of gongs,
strange shouts of triumph, and a redoubled fire.
They retired to the Hongkong, which was aground
astern ; , but„ supported by the Starling, threw shot
and shell up among the junks, and received from
them a full equivalent for their fire.
lilt, was three o'clock when Commodore Keppel re-
turned to the flagship, which was now anchored
where the Chinese admiral's junks had been moored
at the commencement of the engagement. As be
came down his lost dog recognised the yellow Rebeigh
boat, and swam off to his master.

The death of Mr. Delane, so long connected with
the Times, is reported. Mr. Delane died at the house
of his son, near Norwich, oi) tl. 2144 i 4 *5.
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tlitb year of his age,

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