page_title: Nerbudda incident
section_title: Execution
hierarchical_section_title: Nerbudda incident / Execution
caption_attribution_description: Granary where British subjects from the Nerbudda and Ann were imprisoned before execution in Taiwanfoo in 1842.
context_page_description: The Nerbudda incident was the execution of 197 personnel of the British transport ship Nerbudda and brig Ann in Taiwan on 10 August 1842 during the First Opium War. An additional 87 prisoners died from ill-treatment in captivity. In September 1841, the Nerbudda became shipwrecked off northern Taiwan near Keelung. In March 1842, the Ann became shipwrecked at Da'an harbour. Survivors from both ships—primarily Indian camp followers and lascars—were captured and marched south to the capital of Taiwan Prefecture, where they were imprisoned before being beheaded. Out of the nearly 300 castaways who landed or attempted to land in Taiwan, only 11 survived captivity and execution. The Daoguang Emperor ordered the execution on 14 May 1842, after the Chinese defeat in Zhejiang.
context_section_description: After the Nerbudda survivors were captured, Dahonga and Yao Ying solicited permission from Beijing to execute them as invaders. On 14 May 1842, the Daoguang Emperor released an edict after British forces repulsed the Chinese attempt to recapture Ningbo in Zhejiang province. With regards to the Ann prisoners, he ordered: "after acquiring their confessions, only the leaders of the rebellious yi [barbarians] should be imprisoned. The remaining rebellious yi and the 130-odd that were captured last year shall all be immediately executed in order to release our anger and enliven our hearts." On 10 August, the captives were taken two or three miles outside the city walls. Their execution was reported in The Chinese Repository:
  All the rest—one hundred and ninety-seven [prisoners]—were placed at small distances from each other on their knees, their feet in irons and hands manacled behind their backs, thus waiting for the executioners, who went round, and with a kind of two-handed sword cut off their heads without being laid on a block. Afterwards their bodies were all thrown into one grave, and their heads stuck up in cages on the seashore.
  87 other prisoners died from ill-treatment while in captivity. Merchant Robert Gully and Captain Frank Denham wrote a journal while they were imprisoned. Gully was executed while Denham survived. On 25 October, one of the freed survivors Mr. Newman received a "leaf" of Gully's log from a Chinese soldier who said it was obtained from Gully's shirt, which was stripped off him at the hour of execution. It contained his last known diary entry, dated 10 August. The journals of Gully and Denham were published in London in 1844. In 1876, a memoir by Dan Patridge, a survivor of the Ann, was also published in London.
caption: Granary where the prisoners were held captive
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