FATSHAN CREEK. June 1st., 1857.

Admiral Sir Michael Seymour having determined on attacking the Chinese main fleet in Fatshan Creek, consisting of upwards of eighty junks, manned by six thousand picked warriors, and armed with above eight hundred guns, many of them being forty-two pounders of European manufacture; on June 1st., led in person in the little “Coromandel” tender, a force of eleven gunboats, and between fifty and sixty boats of the fleet, carrying nearly two thousand men, against the enemy, at half-past three in the morning. The Chinese had constructed heavy batteries on both sides of the creek, and believed their position to be impregnable. The first point of attack was the battery on the right, which was stormed and taken by a body of seamen and marines, under Commodore Elliot, with trifling loss. Owing to the receding tide, most of the gunboats grounded, and the ships’ boats pushed on by themselves, in face of a well-directed and heavy cannonade, boarded the junks, and in a short time they were in flames. In the meantime, Commodore Hon. H. Keppel (now Admiral of the Fleet, Sir H. Keppel), in the “Hong Kong,” at the head of another division, had attacked the battery on the left side of the creek. His gunboats taking the ground, he quitted them, and in his galley led the boats against the junks and boarded the largest himself. The whole fleet was soon captured, the crews escaping to the land. Leaving some of his boats in the rear to burn the junks, he pushed on with the remainder towards another squadron visible in the distance. After a long pull he came directly upon twenty junks of the largest 288size, most of which were aground, but so compactly moored that their bow guns appeared like the broadside of a heavy frigate, which received him with a fire, the precision of which exceeded anything yet experienced in China. Almost every boat was struck, the gig of Captain Cochrane was disabled, and Keppel’s own boat and the launch of the “Calcutta” sunk. So great was the confusion, that the flotilla retired a little to re-form, while the Chinese beat their gongs and uttered loud yells of triumph. But the tide was now fast flowing, the Admiral sent up a reinforcement, and Keppel returned to the attack with such vigour, that in a quarter of an hour the junks slipped from their cables and fled up the river. They were pursued, gradually disabled and taken; and of the whole proud Chinese fleet, but three junks escaped. Eighty-nine junks were destroyed, and the loss of the enemy must have been heavy; that of the victors was thirteen men killed, and forty wounded.

An exceedingly graphic and stirring account of the action was written by the gallant Commodore himself, in a letter to his friends in England, which proceeds thus:—“When the ‘Hong Kong’ grounded, I led on the boats in my gig, but as the tide was rising, she kept following us as fast as she could. The first division of the Chinese fleet was attacked by about nineteen hundred men, and soon gave way. I did not take up more than a quarter of that number to attack the second division, which was three miles higher up the river, in a well-selected place, and evidently the élite of their fleet. They numbered exactly twenty, in one compact row, mounting from ten to fourteen guns each, two of them on stern and bow being heavy 32-pounders. I saw I had all the ‘Raleigh’s’ boats well up, and determined to push on. They fired occasional shots, as if to ascertain our exact distance, but did not open their heaviest fire until we were within six hundred yards, and then I soon saw how impossible it would be to force our way until I had reinforcements. We cheered, and I tried to get on, when a shot struck my boat quite amidships, cut one man in two, and took off the arm of another. Prince Victor (of Hohenlohe) who was with me, jumped forward to bind the man’s arm with his 289neckcloth. While he was doing so, another round shot passed through both sides of the boat, wounding two others of the crew. The boat was filling with water, and I got on one of the seats to keep my legs out of it; just as I stepped up, a third round shot went through both sides of the boat, not more than an inch below the seat on which I was standing. Many of our boats had now got huddled together, the oars of most being shot away. A boat of the ‘Calcutta’ being nearest, we got in, pulling our wounded men with us. My dog ‘Mike’ refusing to leave the body of the seaman who had been his favourite, we were obliged to leave him. I then gave the order to retire on the ‘Hong Kong,’ and re-form abreast of her. While we were going down a shot cut away all the oars on one side. I called to Lieutenant Graham to get his boat ready, as I would hoist my broad pennant, and lead the next attack in his boat. I had no sooner spoken than a shot disabled his boat, wounding him, and killing and wounding four others. I saw Graham one mass of blood, but it was from a marine who stood next to him, and part of whose skull was forced three inches into another man’s shoulder. When I reached the ‘Hong Kong’ the whole of the enemy’s fire seemed to be centred upon her. She was ‘hulled’ twelve times in a few minutes; her deck was covered with the wounded who had been taken on board from the boats. I was looking at them, when a round shot cut down a marine, and he fell among them. From our paddle-box I saw that our heavy firing was bringing up strong reinforcements. The account of my having been obliged to retire had reached them, and they were pulling up like mad. I ordered a bit of blue bunting to be got ready to represent my broad pennant; I called out: ‘Let us try the row-boats once more, boys!’ and went over the side into our cutter. At this moment there arose from the boats, as if every man took it up at the same instant, one of those British cheers so full of meaning, that I knew at once that it was all up with John Chinaman. They might sink twenty boats, but there were thirty others which would go ahead all the faster! On we went. Three more cheers, and then began an exciting chase for seven miles. As our shot told on them, they ran ashore, and their crews forsook them. Seventeen were come up with, and captured in this way; three only escaped.”

Soon afterwards the Earl of Elgin arrived at Hong Kong as the British Plenipotentiary, to negotiate with the Emperor, and if satisfactory terms were not conceded, to carry on the war with vigour. His lordship arrived at Hong Kong early in July, 1857, and the news of the terrible Indian Mutiny having reached him at Singapore, a portion of the force selected for operations in China was, with a noble patriotism, at once despatched to Calcutta, the Earl following them soon after with additional troops from Hong Kong.

Lieutenant-General the Honourable Thomas Ashburnham, C.B., who had been appointed to the military command of the force destined for China, having left for Calcutta, was succeeded by Major-General (afterwards Sir Charles) Van Straubenzee. Lord Elgin was not able to act effectively until December, in which month Commissioner Yeh was informed that the British and French governments were united in their determination to proceed against Canton until the demands required were conceded. Operations were eventually prosecuted with increased vigour, in consequence of the evasive replies of the Chinese Commissioners, which resulted in the

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