The Sun.
London, England, 1858-02-26 00:00:00

LONDON FRIDAY LITEMNG FEBRUARY 20, 18-8
.

ORIENTAL INLAND STEAM COMPANY
(Limited). Under subvention from the East India Company.
1-n reply to inauiries the Directors beg to intimate that the NEW
ISSUE of SII %REA is RESTRICTED to the existing shareho'ders.
The 3,000 shares (of 101. each) of the first issue which are alone open
to applications from the public, will be allotted MarCh Id), and these
shares will cagy all the benefits the original allotments. Pros-
pectuses, forms of application, and copies of the last report of the
directors, may be obtained at the Company's Offices, 9 Billiter-street,
E.C.—By order of the Board.

JOHN MATHEWSON, Secretary.

TONNAGE WANTED for ICURRACHEE.
WANTED, TWO fast clipper SHIPA, to convey machinery
and stores from I. verpool to Kurrachee.—For further particulars
apply to the Oriental Inland Ste 'm Company, 9, gi'liter-street, E.C.
JOHN MAT lEWSON Secretary.

ENGLISH AND
OAUSTRALIAN COPPER

No4ice is nertby Given, That the Warrants for the Third Divi-
dend on the shares of this Company, at the rate of two shillings and
sixper4ce per share, free of income tax, will be ready for &livery on
and after TUESDAY, the 2d of March next, between the hours of
Eleven and Three. BENJAMIN WILKINS, Secretary.
cortices, 17, Ilracechurch-street, London,
25th February, 1858.

COALS, 179. per ton, Yorkshire ; best Derby-
shire, 188.6 d.; Clay Cross, 205.; Silkstone, 203. 6d. ; our
Best are not to be surpassed, at 225. 6d. Give them a trial
Cash. Address T. JONES, Manager, Northern and Eastern Rail-
way Coal Company Ofllcee, 32, Great Marlboro'-street, Regent-
street, W.; er 127, Albany-street, Regent's-park, N N.

lATELSH CHARITY SCHOOL, Ashford,
V Staines. —The cost Hon. and Loyal SOCIETY of ANCIENT
BRITONS: instituted 1714: Incorporated 1846.

Patron—The QUEEN.
The HUNDRED and FORTY-TRIED ANNIVERSARY FESTI-
VAL, in Aid of the Funds of the Charity, will be celebrated at the
Freemasons' Tavern, on MONDAY, March 1. Dinner on table at
6 o'clock precisely.
President of the Day—The Lord DYNEVOR.
Vicn. eItESIDENTS.
Thomas Ram:Ler, Esq.
David Pugh, Esq., M.P.
Lieut.-Colonel Stuart. M.P.
H. B. W. Williams Wynn, Esq.
Major-General Wood. _

The Lord Raglan.
W. J. Alexander, Esq., Attorney-
General to H.R.H. the Prince
of Wales.
J. Ralph Ormsby Gore, Esq.

STIWARDS.

Tborcias Jones, Esq. William Merry May, I William Williams,Esq.
I
Robert Lewis, Esq. Esq. William Watkins. Esq.
Dinner tickets, 2 Is.; ladies' tickets, 4s. Gd.; to be had of the Secre•
tary, 43, Lincoln's-Inn-fields, and at the bar of the Tavern ; also of
Mr. Charles Everett, Old Broad-street, city.
The governor and friends of the charity will assemble at the School-
h use, sshford. Middlesex, at 11.45.
Divine service will commence at 12:
The children will dine at 1.30. •
Trains, stopping this day at Ashford, will leave Waterloo-road
Station at 10 50 and 12 45, and Windsor at 11 25 and 2 30.
43, Lincoln's-inn-fields. CHARLES SHAW, Secy.

INDIA. AND CHINA.

more interested about their men than about their
own creature comforts. They are asking for gun-
boats and troops of Coolies to get their men's kits
over from Honao ; they might as well invoke Her-
cules and Neptune. The French are already
passing in strong belies, carrying up their heavy
baggage to the front. Ever and anon some gaping
Chinamen is urged by curiosity to approach the
crowd. Quick as lightning,
Johnny Frenchman
seizes him by the ear, peps the end of a bamboo
pole upon his shonlder, gives him a kick in the rear,
and makes him trot off, a pressed porter, amid the
jeers of our Commissariat Coolies. When a long
pile of baggage carriers has been formed an escort
is given, and away they go through the dangerous
debris of wracked houses which intervene between
the landing-place and the East-gate. During this
transit of about a mile and a-half the men are fired
upon from odd corners, slugs and gingall balls come
down from the roofs of those square fortresses, the
pawnbrokers' warehouses; and the escort keeps up
a constant fusillade in return. The line of 'march
crosses a creek, and the southern parade-ground,
and through a long silent street, and at last reaches
Colonel Graham's post at the East-gate, whence-
forward there is a now safe passage along the city
wall, held as this is by constant posts of riflemen,
who allow no Chinese head to show itself on the
rooftops. Inone of these transits, whereof I had
occasion to make five in one day, I was near being
witness to a bloody battle. As we debouched from
the parade-ground a Chinese banner was seen
flaunting above the ruins a-head, and a tramp of a
large body of men was heard. .Quick as lightning,
the rifles were at the shoulders-of-our men, and
every.revolver was pointed. -The officers shouted
and struck up the weapons just in time—it turned
out to be a body of bluejackets-marching down,
imprudently demonstrative of their trophies:-
If I try to paint these scenes it is with no idea of
imputing blame—for no blame. is due. Immedi-
ately aftetthe taking of a city of a million of inhabi-
tants we cannot expect the single landing-plaae to
be more ord,rly than the door of the Opera-house
or the Epsom entrance to a railway station. The
men had four days' provision in their haversacks,
so they did not suffer ; and there were
officers of willing energy present trying to
gradually mould the chsos into order—men
who made no difficulties, who appeared übiquitous
and indefatigable, fertile in expedients, and never
out of heart or out of temper. As I sat for hours
watching my opportunity to furtively slip my cases
among some heap destined for head-quarters, I had
full leisure to note bow much may be done by indi-
vidual tact and firmness. During this time Capt.
Hall, of the Calcutta, Major Crealock, Deputy-
Assistant Quartermaster-General ;
Mr. Power, of
the Commissariat ; Major Clifford, Assistant Quar-
termaster-General ; and Captain Temple, " the
King of the Coolies," were the presiding genii of
order. After I left I doubt not that others of
equal vigour succeeded them. But having slipt
my last article in among the Government stores I
lost my interest in the scene, quietly followed the
convoy till it got to Magazine-hill, and then inno-
cently reclaimed my property as having been car-
ried off by mis ake by the Coolies. Any virtuous
M.P. who may bap to be indignant at this ruse
must recollect that the Commons of England have
solemnly decided that a Times correspondent shall
not draw rations, and shall. starve if he cannot
forage for himself. My mess that evening had soup
and capital sherry for dinner, while the
was dining on bissuit and tea.
There is, however, a lesson to be learnt from
this experience.
eePxra'aplt° erience. The system is still bad. That
landing-place scene still proves that a British regi.
ment, as now constructed, cannot take the field.
The first object and duty of a General is to secure
his position. For this he employs in guards or
fatigue parties all the men who are returned to him
as fit for duty. Every regiment should have
attached to it a transport train, not retained for
military duty, but under command of the regi-
mental quarter-master, and confined to the trans-
port of baggage and provisions. Without this we

Can never march ten- miles iuland without renew-

ing the sePnes of the Crimea.

.taf, or the time of which I have been Apeakin3 70
hours of rain fell. It was an unlook,d-tor event,
but the misery it calmed was incalculable. No tents

had been brought from the depot on the river, the
Coolies were knocked up, and Colonel Lemon's
battalion of Marines were in the open nearly all the
time. The loss of efficient men by sickness was
almost as great as that effected by all the Chinese
guns and spears and rockets. _ _

- _
MONDAY EVENING.
In a few days we settled down in our now posi-
tion. "Hall's-terrace" is now complete, and we
can walk about in tolerable security and revisit the
scenes of Tuesday's struggle.
The men are cooking their food upon the walls,
and there appears to bo great affluence of pork and
fowls. Never was an army kept under stricter dis-
cipline. The eccentricities of the British sailor are
held under strong repression by Captain Morrison,
he Provost-Marshal, and his assistants ; and if a
man is found ten yards in front of the outposts he is
flogged incontinently, unless he happen to be a
Frenchman. Yet somehow pig is very abundant.
" Where did you loot that pig,
Jack I"
" Loot, Sir, we never loot ; there's an order
against looting, and it's pretty strict, as we knows."
?"
" But how do you get all these pigs •
" Why, d'ye see, we lights our fires o'nights and
I thinks the pigs must all come to the light, and the
sentries must take 'em for Chinamen and fire at
'em, for we generally finds two or three with their
throats cut in the morning."
I hope Captain Morrison and the Chinese find
this explanation satisfactory. It was alll could get.
There was also a great quantity of fine carp fry-
ing and stewing, but these were better accounted
for. A Chinese magazine blew up under very sus-
picious circutnatancte, dreadfully burning 16 of
our mesa Another was F oo u discovered, and the
powder was emptied into a pond
adjoining to a
joss-house. Many thousands of pounds were thrown
into this pond, and a few minutes after many hun-
dreds of great gasping carp came floundering to the
surface. Upon those sacred carp the irreverent mem-
bers of the British force are now feasting.
About half a mile to the north of the East-gate we
come to a part of the wall where the embrasures are
knocked down. This was where the men of the 59th
and the French, With
the English Engineers and
Sappers attached to the French, escaladed. There
is a bastion here—a protruding half square tower—.
and on either side of this the scaling ladders were
fixed. The wall rests upon a bank of earth about 20
feet below, and at the foot of this bank runs the
wide, shallow ditch. There is still a village not
greatly damaged on the other side.
On the moriling of the 29th this village was occu-
pied by the French and. by
svoinillelgeemwpearne ba
companies
of
59th, which, although forming the
covering party,
p
had crept up to the front. CA t.
Retton's guns,
and four French field-pieces under Lieut. de Vais-
so to Veriot, from behind the ; tertiiiiige
away at the walls, and had knocks I over the parapet
for a distance of thirty feet.,
and the ships in the
and the shells and
rockets from the Dut'll Folly
river were from an unseen, distance bursting along
the whole line of fortifications. The orders (agreed
to by all the chiefs, bath French and English) were
that the assault should be made at nine o'clock, but
the men had been all night in the open ; they were
drawn up at daybreak in position, and the emula-
tion between the French and English added to their
nag,
cdoeuspraisgeetthoe
cCohnitni ensuee,
their hidden assailants
on
soe s
walls, ma Howeverl l a
amnwodiet
plyat I It
ol
with guns and gingals and spear rockets, while
it
alto
requiredcpraot iwe crowd cteh.
those shells were bursting over their heads, and
those guns were crumbling 'heir embrasures, and
the riflemen were dinging their deadly bulletsi
through the loop-holes. Twenty minutes before
the appointed time the French advanced, and of
course the English could not be kept back. They
had crossed the ditch, and were clustered under the
wall before the scaling ladders could be brought up. I
A dare-devil young Frenchman laid taken off his
shoes and gaiters, and was trying to work himself
up the southern angle of the bastion aided by Major
Luard, who was propping him up with the muzzle of
the Frenchman's own firelock, when a ladder was
and Luard leaping upon it
placed, stood first upon
the wall. He was followed by a Frenchman, the
bandmaster of the 59th, and Col. Hope Graham.
At the same instant of time Stuart, of the Enginec.,rs,
was balancing in air upon a breaking ladder at the
north side of the bastion ; but, although he sprang
to another and got upon that, I believe that two or
three Frenchmen springing to the wall from the
breaking ladder got up before him. Let me men-
tion, also, Corpo: al Perkins and Daniel Donovan,
both volunteer Sappers, who held their place well
among the French assailants, and were among the
first over the wall. Meanwhile, the Chinese had
been tuwbiing down all sorts of missiles, but when
the allies were once upon the wall the great body of
them retired. They poured down into the city and
fired from the streets, they dodged behind the build-
ings on the ramparts, and aimed their cumbrous
matchlocks from behind there. A few single en-
counters took place, and Luard's revolver disposed
of one lingerer, but the general move was to fire
right and left, and hurry to the right to sweep tiro

wall upwards towards the Lill. Helter-skelter, away
they went, driving the Tartar:; down into the town
and before them along the wall, until some hundred
yards in front they came upon a new body of the
besiegers, who were - just accomplishing another
escalade.
We have followed their path thus far. Here let
us pause and contemplate. At a broken embrasure
about 200 yards south of the North-east gate' close
by a battered shed, where Commodore Elliot now
finds scanty shelter, a scaling ladder yet stands.
You can reckon the height of the wall by the rounds
of the ladder—it is 20 feet. The legs of the ladder
rest upon a bank of earth at the wall. At the base
of this bank lies the wide ditch, perhaps 40 yards
in breadth. The bottom is covered with patches
of water-loving vegetables, except in the middle,
through which a muddy streamlet ripples. Look
up the broken and shelving bank of red earth on
the other side, and you see an enormous tree,
which almost hides a village behind its branches.
Further to the left, and separated from the village
and the tree by a wide footway, is a white mud-
built cottage, its blank gable-end turned towards
us. Po haps it is distant 100 yards from this em-
brasure. It stands in a patch of vegetables, and
12 yards distant from the ditob. There is a low
earthen fence and bunches of high reeds, which
must prevent your seeing from this cottage down
into the ditch. That bunch of reeds is the scene
of poor Bate's death. This broken embrasure is
-where the bluejackets and the Marines scaled the
wail. In that cottage in earl) morning of the 29th
the chiefs of the British force were assembled—the
Admiral, the General, and the members of their
staff. On the overhanging hill just beyond, by no
means out of fire, but out of the fury of the fire,
were some troops and divers lookers:on. Among
others might be noticed Mr. Oliphant, Lord Elgin's
private secretary, who with other amateurs was
E °mai nie3 -intrusted with-messages. from ,the-Gena7,
ral, which brought him into dangerous proximity
with round shot and rockets. As to the white
cottage, where the chiefs round refuge, five large
holes made by round shot still show the attention
it received. A storm of balls and rockets from
the wall hurtled all round this spot, and no
one could cross the footway to the tree and the
village without imminent danger. It was neces-
sary, however, that some ono should cross that
open patch of vegetables, and look down into the
ditch to see where the best point for placing the
ladders would be. Captain Bate as once volun-
teered to go, and Captain Mann, of the Engineers,
accompanied him. Bate was one of the most
scientific of our naval surveying service, a right
good officer, and a popular commander. He was,
moreover, an eminently religious man. "My
pluck," as I heard a eery gallant officer say some
weeks before this event, "is quite a different tiling
from Bate's. Igo ahead because I never think
of danger; Bate is always ready for a desperate
service because he is always prepared for death."
Bate had run across the open patch, and was lock-
ing down into the ditch, when a shot traversed his
body. Dr. Andersen, who saw him fall, rushed
out through a fire from which some who saw it
feared he would not return, and a seaman, I think
Bate's own coxswain, accompanied him, but the
striken man never spake.
Meanwhile a gun had been brought to bear from
behinda house in the village, and it was worked by
Major Csealoch, and Major Clifford, and Colin
Campbell, of the Opossum, and the other members
of the Staff Captains Blake and Cooke had brought
up their Marines and kept up a fire at the embra-
sures. How hot the fire was may be judged from
this, that Captain Blake out of his half-company,
firing from under cover, had ono man killed and
six wounded in a few minutes. When the fire was
a little quelled the scaling ladders were advanced,
and of the blae jaekers Commander Fellowes stood
first upon the wall—just in time to meet the
party which was advancing after their success-
ful escalade to the south. Others came
tumbling up, and we may be sure that the
Admiral and the General were not far behind.
Commodore Elliot was well iu front. The hurrah
was now along the wall to the height, as I described
it in my former letter, and the pace was tremen-
dous. There wereseveral hand-to-hand encounters,
and it is said that oven the General had to use his
revolver to disembarrass himself of a pertinacious
Tartar. However, they ran, and rallied only at
distant points and for short conflicts, until they
were obliged to form and attack the 111:agazine-hill
with more deliberation. Lieut. Davison, of the
Furious, had the satisfectiost of firing the first Chi-
nese) gun from the battery on Magazine hill. It
was about this time that the flank fire from the
streets grow hottest, and that Lord Gifford and, 1
think, poor Bowen and several others were hit.
This oscalado was accomplished under the fire of
our own ships. Some men were wounded by our
shell, one Frenchman was killed, and Captain Bush
was twice obliged to halt his company because the
line of our own fire was across their path. The loss
would have been greater had not Major Schom-
berg, from his crow's-nest on the Dutch Folly,
seen our men on the walls and discontinued the
mortar and rocket firing. It was, however, not the
fault of the ships, but the impatience of the assault-
ing party, which caused this untoward mistake.
The ships ceased firing at the appointed hour.
General Straubenzeo was hardly upon the wall
before he was obliged to leave it. An army of
Chinese, just about the time of the assault, had
issued from the north of the city, and came forth into
the open country—bare, undulating moors, like the
come trybetween Buxton and Sheffield—waving their
banners and beating their tom-toms and brandish-
ing their shields, and, drilled to advance or halt or
wheel according to signals made by flags, they ad-
vanced threatening the flank and rear of assail-
ants. But Colonel Holloway, with his brigade of
Marines, had been stationed to the north-west of
Lin's Fort expressly to meet this very probable
emergency. Covered by the inequalities of the
ground and by the graves, the Tartars came on in
excellent skirmishing order, and many of them
exhibited grad individual bravery. The fire was
so hot that Col. Holloway's adjutant was shot by
his side, and a few minutes after the colonel him-
self was shot in the knee. The wound did not,
however, drive him from the field. His presence
and energy were required to prevent his men from
rushing in upon the scattered foe, who were firing
from under cover. The Tartars had already been
driven out of a little village and a small wood which
they had occupied in force, and the Marines were
pressing forward to convert their retreat into a
flight, when successive messages came from the
general to recall his men. This command has been
much criticised. It was difficult to obey, and had
it bad dot been given the defeat of this body of the
enemy would have been more disastrous to them,
but not, perhaps, without some loss to ourselves.
Straubenzeo's acknowledged tactics have been
throughout not to expend men against such a foe.
The general was acting up to his system, but the
Marines grumbled furiously and growl still. The
men had thrown off their knapsacks iu the heat of
the fire, and when they wore recalled Col. Hollo-
way and his Aide-de-Camp (Capt. Ellis), assisted
by a few others, were obliged to remain in front and
bring them in, while the men wore almost frantic at
being withdrawn.
There are many episodes of this siege which I
should like to tell, were I sure that the English
public would care to read them. I must, however,
rectify one error I made in my hasty sketch written
while the conflict was still going on. Although it
was upon the testimony of my own eyes that I stated
that at the same moment the English and French
colours were waved from different embrasures of
Lin's Fort, I now find that the French were in
first. It is not of much consequence, for the Chi-
nese were out before either party entered. How-
ever, let our brave and agile allies have honour due.
Our lose in killed and wounded during this short
siege does not amount to more than 96 English and
34 French, and of these the wounds are under the
average severity. The surgeons say that this is to
be accounted for by the want of propulsive power
in the Chinese weapons. When the Minie ball would
have crushed the bone, the Chinese bullet glanced,
and lost its energy among the surface tissues. When
we consider the mass of missiles flying about for so
many hours, and when we h ear of the narrow escapes
which almost every individual of the force employed
had, the number of men hit seems miraculously
small. Let us not, however, undervalue the courage_
of our Chinese enemy. They have no knowledge f
the military art. The commonplaces of attack anr(ci,
defence, which every tyro subaltern knows, are
astonishing pieces of strategy which surprise
aresearid
confound them—their weapons, terrible a
among themselves, are inefficient against
with shells
sour rifles
b
and field pieces, and mortar ate
that fall and explode like mines.
.Let us
_ask,_
_hoN\f-
would European troops stand
and weapons ? Depend
discipline, and strategy',
upon it the Chinese have the stuff in them whereof
good soldiers may be made, and this is a fact which
should not be neglected when we are casting about
for a substitute for our vanished Sepoy army.
From Tuesday night until Monday night we re-
mained in position upon the heights and walls,
waiting, apparently that the city, now at our mercy,
should come to us,jvith offal of nibnaißipn ana