LIEUTENANT OUCHTERLO NY ' S CHINESE WAR.

LIEUTENANT OUCHTERLONY appears to have joined the expedition against China at an early period, and to have continued with it till the termination of the war ; after which he remained for some time as Acting Engineer at Hong-kong. The design of this volume, however, is rather to give a complete account of the whole opera- tions of the war, with a sketch of the circumstances which led to it, than a personal, narrative of what fell under the author's imme- diate observation ; although he introduces several accounts of this nature during the suspension of active operations, like an interlude between the acts, and there are many passages whose exact and particular description betoken the presence of the writer. Except upon such occasions, The Chinese War exhibits little novelty, at all events to those who have perused most of the works published upon the subject, fromLordJOCELTN'S rapid and animated sketches, to the bald narrative of the imprisonment and sufferings of Messrs. DENHAM and GULLY. The principal characteristic of Mr. OUCHTERLONY'S book is its completeness. It contains the whole story, whilst other publications deal in detached incidents, or stop short of the end ; and, though each of them narrates par- ticular parts more fully than our author, and often with incidents and traits which historical compilation must omit, none of them present so entire a view. We think, too, the Engineer-officer brings a more critical judgment to his task. He is less swayed by the popular impression of the army, the brilliant character of the projected affair, or even the recorded opinions of the principal officers. Thus, he doubts whether Captain ELLIOT did not ex- ercise a sound discretion at Canton in allowing the ransom, rather than proceed to the extremities of an assault.

"The considerations which influenced Captain Elliot were of great weight, and may be thus stated. The total numerical strength of the force under arms before Canton, on the morning of the 27th May, did not exceed 2,200 men of all arms, while within the city there were not less than 20,000 men, after making a very large allowance for exaggerations by the confidential agents,'—fearful odds to be encountered in the pent-up space of a closely built city, where a knowledge of the localities would have given the Chinese abundant opportunity to molest our troops. Sickness, consequent upon the dreadful weather to which the troops were exposed, as well as disorder from the temptations of plunder and intoxicating liquors, which would have beset them on every side, were also much to be dreaded in any prolonged occupation of the city ; and though the avowed confidence of Sir Hugh Gough in the discipline of his officers and men was great and well-founded, yet it must be admitted that his Excellency's position in terrorem, within an assaulted but yet un- conquered city, filled with a rancorous and vindictive populace, and opposed in front by a regular force, and in rear by the armed population of the surround- ing villages, would have been a most difficult one to maintain, without the risk of a loss which, with the small force at his command, would have been fatal. It should, moreover, he borne in mind, that in the confusion which a bombard- ment of the town would have created, all public order must have been over- thrown, and in all probability the greater part of the city destroyed by fire, and its treasuries plundered by the mob."

The same quality of judgment operates throughout the narra- tive; and, though chiefly exercised on professional matters, we think it contributes to convey a clearer idea of the science of the hostilities than the other narratives, and certainly presents a better notion of the progress of the Chinese in the mechanical arts, both in their application to the business of life and of war. This criti- cism occasionally shows what a narrow escape we had. Chin- keang-foo, for example, was not carried without difficulty, through the desperate courage of the Tartar troops. A few Engineer- ofECers, by directing the men how to meet the novel mode of attack and keep the assailants from the walls, would probably have made it end in a repulse. The common principles of science, and a superintendence of the whole, is what the Tartar troops require.

The style of Mr. OCCHTERLONY is clear, but not distinguished for any other quality in the compiled parts ; though it is more varied and lively when he is presenting the results of original ob- servation; and when the subject requires, it rises to vigour if not to eloquence.

The confidence in his troops, expressed at Canton by Sir HUGH GOUGH, if permitted to assault the city, was no doubt felt by that officer. It may be doubted, however, whether that confidence would have been responded to. Lieutenant OUCLITERLONY dis- tinctly states, what has been intimated by others, that marauding was practised by our soldiers as well as by the natives ; and, but for the heat of the climate, the fewness of the British, and the previous removal of the bulk of the inhabitants, the atrocities of Badajoz would probably have been repeated. The following destruction of property at Nanking took place during the negotiations and after the peace; the military justification being, we suppose, that the owners had deserted their property, or, as a lawyer would phrase it, waived their rights. "It may easily be conceived, as the troors had little to do while quartered before Nanking, and as their mischievous an1 marauding propensities were confined by the Provost-Guard to the limits of the walls within which their particular billet lay, that the mansions appropriated by the advance-brigade were thoroughly ransacked before they came again into the peaceful possession of their owners.

"So rapid had been Lord Saltoun's advance towards the walls, that the in- habitants of Makur-Keow, when first apprised of the close proximity of their invaders by the appearance of the dark uniforms of the rifles among their out- buildings, bad only time to close their doors and make their escape towards the city by back-ways, carrying with them, of course, very little of their moveable property, and leaving their clothes, furniture, and valuables, to the rapacity of the invaders, and of their own more desperate countrymen. The majority of the proprietors of these large houses appeared to be silk-merchants or manu- facturers; as many looms, some in employment and with the web in progress, as also a considerable quantity of raw silk, were found in the out-offices. Those who know the usual value of this costly production, will be shocked to learn that hanks of it were twisted together by the men, and used as swabs to dry the floors of the barrack-rooms."

DOINGS AT CHIN-KEANG.

Short as was the time since the capture of Chin-keang, it had been made a terrible example of before our departure. No description, indeed, can convey an adequate idea of the utter desolation, ruin, and abomination, which it pre- sented on the seventh day only of our occupation, after the troops had with- drawn from their quarters near the gates. It was a city of the dead ; and a silence the most dismal and profound rested on its deserted streets and tenant- less, ruined houses, as though the blight of pestilence had swept but lately over them.

In many parts where, from there having been no troops quartered, the inter- ring party had not been very diligently employed, the air was poisoned by the bodies of Tartar soldiers, lying where they had dragged themselves to die, or where they had been thrown down by their comrades who had borne them from the field, blackened by exposure to the sun, and swollen to a prodigious size. Wild, miserable-looking dogs, flitting about the streets when disturbed from their hideous banquet, were to be seen by scores, appearing to be the only things alive which remained to haunt the abodes of the departed, save where gang of native plunderers might be discerned prowling about in pursuit of spoil. Scarcely a single dwelling-house, shop, temple, or public building, had escaped; all had their doors wrenched off, or their windows and walls beaten in ; many were roofless, others half destroyed by fire; and the interior of most presented a mingled mass of furniture, wearing-apparel, porcelain, arms, books, and every description of household goods, all torn, broken, or trodden under foot, which heaped the floors of their chambers and halls in melancholy and disgusting confusion. Every effort was made by the military authorities to put a stop to the spo- liation and plunder which were thus reducing the city to irremediable ruin: but they proceeded, in spite of the denunciations of the officers, and the ener- getic appeals of the Provost-Marshal and his Guard; for while the front en- trances of housea were preserved unharmed by our patrols, they were entered by passages and inlets in the rear, and entirely gutted by the plunderers who swarmed into the city after the assault, long before a suspicion was raised as to their proceedings. Indeed, what with soldiers, camp-followers, sailors, Lascara, and Chinamen, (the latter of whom secreted themselves during the day, and issued forth at night like beasts of prey,) there was seldom wanting some active agent of destruction to complete the ruin commenced the night after the

• • • storm.

Revolting, however, as the scene was in the city, that presented by the suburb was a hundredfold worse ; for there, from its great extent, and the endless ramification of its lanes and alleys, it was impossible to maintain the least check upon the maraudings alike of friend and foe; and the juris- diction and sphere of utility of the active and able Sergeant Baxter, the Provost- Marshal to the force, were in consequence bounded by the city-walls. Utter licence, therefore, prevailed in the unfortunate suburb; and not a boat's crew of Lascars or Europeans bringing provisions ashore for the troops returned to the transports until after they had made a dive into some fresh, untouched-looking corner, or had carried a foray through a whole side of some once flourishing street. Chinamen and Europeans, Indians, Africans, and Malays, were to be seen mixed up together, jostling one another in the common chase, and gene- rally with the greatest good-humour ; although, when a cargo of " loot " bad been collected, it was the general practice to press a gavg of Chinamen, to carry it off to its destination, by means of persuasion not always the most gentle. It was curious, too, to observe with what patience and submission the Chinese lower orders bore all this domineering and rough usage ; for it was a common spectacle to see a couple of Indians, or two or three ship's boys, with nothing but cutlasses by their sides, driving before them a score of brawny fellows, laden with bags of sugar, boxes of tea, fruits, &c., and belabouring them without mercy whenever they proved refractory.

SCIENTIFIC OPERATIONS: NING-PO.

A party of Artillerymen, under Lieutenant Molesworth, pushed forward a few hundred yards into the suburb, to ascertain the direction they bad taken, and see what was going forward. They soon found themselves in front of a dense mass of troops, drawn up along the main street ; upon whom Lieutenant Molesworth, although accompanied by a mere handful of men, instantly opened a smart fire of musketry, which the Chinese returned with much spirit, and showed a disposition to advance upon their assailants. At this juncture, Cap- tain Moore's howitzer came up ; and, being run to the front, immediately opened upon the living wall before them with case-shot, at a distance not exceeding twenty to thirty yards. The effect was terrific ; for the street was perfectly straight, and the enemy's rear, not aware of the miserable fate which was being dealt out to their comrades in the front, continued to press the mass forward, so as to force fresh victims upon the mound of dead and dying which already barri- caded the street. The head of the column fell literally "like the mower's swath at the close of day"; and the howitzer only discontinued its fire from the impossibility of directing its shot upon a living foe, clear of the writhing and abrieking hecatomb which it had already piled up. It had, however, been only fired three times, and the destruction would have been far greater had not the short distance prevented the grape-shot from

spreading. •a S•

Upon no occasion during the war had such terrible slaughter been inflicted either in so shorts period of action or in so confined a space. The corpses of the slain lay heaped across the narrow street for a distance of many yards; and, after the fight had terminated, a pony, which had been ridden by a Mandarin, was extricated unhurt from the ghastly mass, in which it had been entombed SO completely as to have at first escaped observation.

The illustrations consist chiefly of views of various places, and the scenes that occurred, cut on wood, in a coarse and homely man- ner, but suggestive of those characteristics that are only to be con- veyed by delineation.