The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-03 00:00:00

TACK ON A BRITISH CONSUL BY
CHINESE PIRATES.

The following is an account received from Mr.
The,s. Taylor Meadows, her Majesty's Consul at
inghai, of the recent attack made on him by
pis ates on the Yangtsze :
I believe I shall satisfy a common wish among
any friends here, and possibly impart to foreigners
generally some information useful in these times,
by giving a detailed narrative of some portions of
a recent excursion on the Great River, and more
particularly of an attack made on me by pirates on
Saturday, the 20th inst.
I had left Shanghai in my own yacht, or Anglo-
Chinese schooner-rigged excursion craft, on the
evening of Tuesday, the 16th, wits the intention of
proceeding up the Great River as far as Chin-
keang, and of visiting, either on the way there or
back, various places on teach bank. A strong
north-west gale having driven me back during the
night of Wednesday, and forced me to spend 30
hours in the Lew (Lew-ho), I found myself at
daybreak of the following morning moving along
the left (northerly) bank of the Great River, about
opposite to Kea-shan Point, and still only abort
75 (sea) miles from Shanghai. I was close in shore,
going against an ebb tide with an E.S.E. wind
nearly aft, but a little on the port quarter. It was
so light that the crew had to scull from time to
time to keep the craft moving over the ground. In
an hour or two we heard a firing of guns in the
direction of lieang-yin, and though the distance
seemed too great, I thought it must be the sound of
Imperialist and Taeping cannonading at that city.
Afterwards, between 8 and 9 o'cock, the firing
recommenced nearer; and we then descried some
miles in advance, but in the middle of the stream,
two or three craft, which my boatmen at once de-
clared to be pirates, firing at and chasing a trading
junk which was escaping first from one and then
from another by rapid changes of her course. In
this way the junk and the pirates disappeared
behind one of the long reedy islands which have
formed themselves in that part of the river. As we
continued skirting the bank, we passed a pretty
large n o-rth ern afftuent,something like the Lew river,
the month of which was staked across, leaving in
the middle a narrow passage for small boats only,
and on both sides of which earthen batteries had
had been newly thrown up. On these a number of
the country people were standing, looking at the
doings of tho pirates.
For some time before we neared the place where
we had seen the pirate craft I was busy in the
cabin, when I was told that two were approaching
us. I took my Jacob's rifle and went out on to the
fore deok, when I saw, broad on the port beam, and
making directly for us, two two-masted craft, both
less than my own, but the houses or main cabins
of which were much smaller, and the fore deck
much larger in proportion, and one of which
had a gun in the bows, while the other had one gun
in the bows, and a second amidships between the
two masts. They each pulled eight oars, and be-
sides the pullers had, the smaller some six or eight
men, the larger some twelve or fifteen men, evi-
dently set apart for working the guns, throwing
powder bags, &c., and boarding. They were dressed
uniformly in light blue jackets, of native cotton
cloth apparently, and with red caps on, or red
handkerchiefs tied round their heads. When I
emerged from the cabin they were about two hun-
dred yards off and pulling hard. I shouted to
them to be off, and as they still continued advanc-
ing, was bringing my Jacob up to the present when
a man on the craft most on our bows answered
a word or two in a tone of assent, and the craft
herself at the same time turned toward her comrade.
In the meantime my recently engaged European
servant, Andrew INlTutchem (a Belfast man), had
also appeared on the fore deck, and my Chinese
servants, were bringing out the remainder of my
guns and pointing them at the pirates, who, after a
little clamorous consultation, made off towards the
middle of the river. About a quarter of a mile fur-
ther on, when the pirates were still less than a mile
distant, we met two " white topped" Nigpo traders,
to each of which my people shouted that the craft
in advance of them were pirates, &c. They thereon
both turned back, one firing a couple of useless
shots. They ran into a small affluent, the mouth of
which we just then passed. The country people there
asked us togo out and attack the pirates, saying that
they were ready to help as. I may mention here
that, during the excursion, I found a greater or less
number of trading junks in the mouths of all the
affluents, where the front that they showed as a
body, the guns some had, and the certain backing
of the rural volunteers, was sufficient to deter
pirates from attacking them. My yacht was at
some distance from the nearest affluent when the
pirates approached as above, and as I was in the
mai❑ cabin, and my servant was in the cooking
room behind it, they thought they were going to
make an easy prey of an unmanned trader.
There are now on the Great River a number of
Chinese merchant craft of the same partially acci-
dentallised appearance as those used here by
foreigners for yachts, and coasting traders. After
events showed that the sole reason for the pirates
making off was their not being at the moment pre-
pared to engage the two foreigners who suddenly
appeared.

I anchored to await the flood, and while doing
so employed myself in taking to pieces and clean-
ing the lobk of my Sharpe's breech-loader, which I
had found out of order on leaving Shanghai. I
then handed it with a stock of cartridges to my
English servant as his weapon in case of an attack,
giving him at the same time some instructions
as to the loading and firing of the rather
peculiar arm. Though too short in the stock for
me to use conveniently, it is in itself a very effi-
cient weapon. I also gave instructions to my
Chinese servants and boatmen as to the duty each
was, in case of attack, to perform as regarded the
handing to me of the guns and the re-loading of
t,hem, and the handling of the vessel.
At about noon we weighed again, and continued
our course with the wind in the same quarter, and
now a steady though very light breeze. Our course
being at this time about S.W. by W., slanting
across the river toward the Keang-yin Hills, on its
right bank, the wind was just a little abaft the port
beam.
We had not proceeded above a mile, when we
descried, about two or three miles ahead, the two
pirates whose acquaintance we had made in the
morning, and another of the same build. They
were moving in the same direction as ourselves,
but in a very irregular manner, running along-
side of each other, and crossing each other's courses
as if to speak. They were in time joined by a
fourth from the left bank of the river; and similar
movements were kept up. At one time, one
parted dompany, and keeping close to the wind
went off at right angles to our (course, but he soon
after returned and rejoined his companions. Their
motions became at length so very suspicious—they
shortened sail, for instance, so as to allow us to
gain more rapidly on them, while they were carefu,
to keep to windward of course—that I deemed it
best to nuke at once my last preparations. I had,
therefore, ray arms brought out and placed on the
raised hatch iii, the foredeck. These were as fol-
lows :—A JaCob's single-barrelled 32-gange rifle ;
two long single-barrelled shoulder wild-fowl guns
(Col. Hawker's kind); two double-barrelled shot
guns with longish barrels, two deuble-barrelled
shot guns of the usual length ; and, lastly, a pair of
holster and a pair of belt revolvers, of the London
Armoury Company (Adams's patent), making in all,
of guns and pistols, 31 barrels, exclusive of the
breech-loader handed to my servant. When these
preparations were made I seated myself comfort-
ably on a rattan arm-chair on the port (the pirate's)
side of the foredeck, stretching my legs out on the
bulwark, and thereby screening from view the
guns, swords, Brc., that were arranged on the hatehb
I sat about an hour in this way, watching, with
my people, the motions of the pirates ahead. As
we gradually neared them, and when we were
about half a mile astern, one of them lulled, and,
keeping close to the wind, went altogether away in
the direction of the right bank. The other three

then formed in a line parallel to our course, ;;thai
we should have to pass them, one after the other, at

a distance of about 100 yards to leeward. I had

previously, when we first observed their strange