drawn up as the day before, and a considerable number of spectators had assembled, no doubt from curiosity, to witness the scene. Fearing some treachery, I ordered our men to back the boat to the beach, and, in the event of the Chinese seizing me, to make the best of their way to the frigate. When about five or six yards off shore, I sat over the boat's stern, and holding out my "notice" to the mandarins, requested them to peruse it. Their fury was beyond all bounds, and seemed to be aggravated by the surrounding people reading it as well as themselves. I told them, that being most friendly disposed towards the Chinese, I had come at great hazard to speak to them words of peace and kindness, as I could not bear the idea of injuring them; they replied with threats and curses, making the well known sign of cutting off the head, &c. At this time we were scarce a couple of yards from the beach, and our men called my attention that their soldiers were wading into the water to seize the boat. Upon this I told them to pull a stroke or two, and when eight or ten yards off stood up in the boat and said with a loud voice, "I now ask you for the last time, will you receive it or not?" "No!" they all roared simultaneously, "we fear you not!" with expressions of defiance. Seeing all hopes of delivering it gone, I ordered the men to pull back to the ship, and they making the boat spring with the force of their oars, I lost my balance and fell-a most lucky fall, as just at that very moment a well-directed arrow flew over the spot I had quitted, and struck the bottom of the boat with such force as to shiver its head to pieces, one moment sooner and it had passed through my body. A matchlock bullet hit the stern of the boat a couple of inches from the coxswain's back, two or three more passed close by our heads; a couple of Chinese field pieces were discharged either at us or at the ship, and the troops were getting ready for a general discharge, which would certainly have killed the whole of us, when a circumstance took place which completely turned the tables in our favour, and most justly punished the Chinese for their cold-blooded cruelty. Captain Bourchier had been observing the hostile attitude of the mandarins and soldiers, and being apprehensive for our safety, had got the after guns of the frigate to command the beach, so that when the Chinese troops were just on the point of firing the fatal volley, a couple of 32-pound shot came bowling in among them, which soon made them quit the jolly-boat to attend to their own safety. I had scarcely recovered from the momentary stupor into which amazement at the barbarity of the Chinese had cast me, when a confused crowd of mandarins, soldiers, and spectators, each flying for his life, danced before my eyes; a few moments before they had, in defiance of the law of nations, attempted to take my life; now the same measure they had meted out to me was being amply measured out unto them again. Scarce had they finished their menaces and loud protestations of defiance ere they were scattered like chaff, every one seeking safety in flight, save some ten or a dozen, whose carcasses remained on that beach never to fly more.

On returning to the ship as many guns as possible were got to bear on the fort, and those junks which had in the morning been filled with soldiers, and we battered them at intervals for nearly a couple of hours; the fort was riddled at all points, and nearly unroofed; still, being well ENLARGED SERIES.-NO. 3.-VOL. FOR 1841.

X

built, we could not succeed in battering it down. In the meantime the noise of firing had attracted people from far and near, and the tops of the hills and all high places were now quite crowded with men, women, and children as far as the eye could reach.

By order of Captain Bourchier the following document was drawn up in Chinese :

"The English military chief

hereby addresses this to the common people of Amoy, that they may knowingly know and understand.

"Whereas, I, the said military chief, having received orders from my commanding officer to repair thither, for the purpose of delivering an important letter which they ought in their turn to hand up to His Excellency the admiral of the station, and, fearing lest they might not understand our foreign manner and customs, did first, on arrival, as among all foreign countries, hoist a white flag, as the emblem of peace, that the people making use of it were respected as good people and never injured; and that, therefore, relying upon this universally admitted law of nations, I should send some unarmed people ashore with a flag to deliver said letters, whom I expected to be treated with kindness and respect. At the same time I gave them to understand distinctly that if they dared to fire upon my flag of truce, or otherwise injure my defenceless people, I should exact at their hands a dreadful vengeance.

This, then, is to state, that yesterday, when I sent my first flag of truce it was repulsed with threats and curses, a procedure quite unworthy the majesty of a great nation. But, what is still worse, this day, when I sent an officer, in a little boat, with five unarmed men, to deliver the said letter, and speak words of peace and kindness, your mandarins fired at them, and were within an ace of murdering the whole party. This is, indeed, most detestable. I, the military chief, could not but fire in return, in order to save the lives of my own people, and avenge the unprovoked hostility of the mandarins. But I have no enmity. against you the common people of the land, and if any of you have suffered injury from the fire of my ship, most sincerely do I lament it, and you must rather impute this to the mistake of your own mandarins, than to any bad intention on my part. Had I had any wish to kill you, what difficulty should I have had in slaughtering you by tens of thousands at a time? But such is far from my wish, and you have seen with your own eyes that I have confined my fire to the fort and soldier ships. This is issued for the right information of all the Chinese common people. Taoukwang, 20th year, 6th moon, and 5th day."

This document was sent by the second lieutenant, with two armed cutters, to be pasted upon the wall of the fort, but before it could be done the party who landed were attacked by the Chinese soldiers, and Captain Bourchier, feeling anxious lest the boats' crews should be cut off, hoisted the signal for their recall. They came back bringing with them the shields and spears of those who had been killed, and the above notice was afterwards put into a bottle and cast overboard, when a fisherman was observed to pick it up. An armed boat was next lespatched to cut the cable of a large junk lying near us, (one of those

had been taken up for their troops) and set her on fire. This was

done, but the fire went out ere she had drifted half way up the harbour. The ship was ordered to be got underway, and about 4 P.M. we resigned the large town of Amoy once more to its amazed and panicstruck inhabitants.

- I consider this affair, which took place off Amoy, as likely to produce several important consequences. The common people witnessed our pacific but ineffectual attempts to deliver the letter intrusted to our charge, and they also witnessed their own mandarins and soldiers fire upon our unarmed boat's crew. They heard the loud note of defiance set up by their own troops and officers, and next moment they saw them flying before a despised barbarian ship, each more anxious than the other to save his life. They saw their immense town at the mercy of the foreigners, and the perfect inability of their own soldiers to drive them away, and yet they saw the victorious foreigners spare the town, and confine their vengeance to the cruel mandarins who commenced the affray. It is only to be regretted that we had not had a steamer, which by being lashed to the Blonde might have taken her up in front of the town, when selecting the different public offices or mandarin courts, we might have battered them down one by one or blown them up. This 'would have served still more strongly to show the people that our quarrel was with the mandarins alone, and not with them. Perhaps, however, this is not absolutely necessary in our case, for it was no deed done in a corner, having been witnessed by at least 100,000 spectators. Moreover, the quarrel having originated concerning "a white flag," this will be recognized all over the empire as the foreign emblem of peace.

As to the wisdom or propriety of delivering a communication of the kind at Amoy, that is not my province to discuss; but as to the necessity of doing what we did, I hereby solemnly declare and aver, that but for the merciful providence of Almighty God, and well timed and well directed fire of her Majesty's ship Blonde, myself and the individuals in the jolly-boat had without doubt been most barbarously murdered.

The above narrative is true according to the best of my knowledge. and belief.

On board her Majesty's frigate Blonde, 7th July, 1840.

R. THOM.

SHINGLE OF THE BRITISH CHANNEL.

MR. EDITOR.-It is satisfactory to find that the important subject of the shingle of the coast of the English channel has engaged the attenton of your intelligent correspondent of Ramsgate. I agree with him that, different opinions may be of use in throwing light on matters of this sort; but when "doctors disagree," experience generally settles the question. With reference to this particular subject, it appears that, experience, which is the test of truth, has, after a lapse-may I not say-of centuries, decided against piers, &c., being effectual in averting the evil complained of; and does not common sense dictate that to perform a radical cure we should remove the cause ?

Your correspondent's objection to the possibility of the measure I have proposed, appears to me to be founded on misconception, and is not sustained by his own argument, as he considers the shingle to be local in position, and not migrant: each particular store, therefore, upon that assumption, however, great in quantity, would in time yield to the labour of man in clearing it from its space of action, as induced by the surge; "Dame Nature" herself delighting (to speak figuratively) in assisting the good work, by performing vigorously much the most difficult portion of the labour.

I cannot, Sir, comprehend how the measure proposed of securing by artificial means the banks of shingle, is to become effective in remedying the evil, or that, it would be easier to secure and consolidate a bank of shingle, where the efforts of Nature are incessant in forming those deposits, and her supplies comparatively inexhaustible, than in removing the pebbles as fast as they are hove up, or by machine, with reference to a cure, for that is the sine quá non of any measure to be adopted. The very reverse appears to me to be agreeable to reason, because in this case we attack the cause, and get rid of it; in the former, we should only be advancing barriers against the effect, the cause of the evil still remaining a repetition in due time of such barriers would be found necessary; and this operation, although it might be termed " land making," would not assuredly form permanent havens for large ships.

In removing the pebbles, so far from thwarting the operations of "Dame Nature," we should be strictly aiding them. This is an important question for consideration in such an undertaking as I have proposed, and I shall endeavour to prove what I advance. I do not therefore, agree with the philosophy of your correspondent on this particular point. As well may he argue that the surgeon when he uses his knife in severing an excrescence, or wen, is contravening nature, as to suppose that the removal of the shingle, which in the cases alluded to, is a positive evil, would be going contrary to her course. Would he suffer a limb to remain, after gangrene had made great ravages on the part, and try the hopeless expedient of caustic plasters, &c., or at once cut it off, and so rid the patient of the cause and effect of his suffering? Are not the cases in a great measure analogous ?

It appears to me indisputable that in some instances where banks of pebbles line the strand, they are extraneous, and have been conveyed thither by the efforts of nature to rid herself of an incumbrance: this appears obvious in those breaks of a coast which are not breasted by cliffs; and from the fact that, the bed of the sea along the channel line of coast is not sufficiently precipitous to admit of the stones being cast into deep water, to assist in the general course of operation which philosophers point out as existing; namely, the gradual degradation of the land, and the rising of the bed of the ocean. Indeed it appears to me that in those deposits upon the strands and sub-marine knolls, nature herself proclaims in her usual significant language that the assistance of man is required to aid her for his own benefit. Can any stronger evidence be required of this, than that of our ports being obstructed by accumulations of shingle, which, if left to the natural operation, under the concurrence of adverse circumstances which they appear unequal to obviate, would fill them up altogether?

All endeavours to remedy the evil by constructing piers, &c. have failed; and in my humble opinion will always fail, carry them out as far as you please, whilst the cause of the existing evil remains unsubdued.

I may more pointedly advert to the acknowledged necessity which exists in rivers and close-ports, of assisting nature by the removal of the alluvium which the floods bring down and deposit in positions that render the free navigation of such places difficult; and which, if left to accumulate, would ultimately render it altogether impracticable. Are the conservators of such waters to be told that they are acting against the course of the natural agencies by removing these obsta cles to free navigation? On the contrary, whenever the natural agencies are insufficient from a concurrence of adverse circumstances to fulfil a general law designed by the Creator, man must make use of that intelligence and common sense which are his gift, if he would prosper in his worldly affairs. Half measures ought ever to be deprecated and contemned to conquer an evil we must strike at the root of it-cast it away altogether. All "penny wise, and pound foolish" notions are utterly unworthy a great people, and the theorem is strictly applicable, in the case we are contemplating, to the British nation, or to a company, body corporate, &c. of Englishmen.

Artificial contrivances may afford a partial relief it is true, but nothing short of removing the cause of the obstructions can effect a cure. Any detriment to the land by the removal of the shingle from the beaches or sub-marine banks where requisite, I believe, if entertained seriously, would prove an illusion on trial; besides precautions may be taken to prevent injury. I argue from known facts. Within the tropics where the surf rises incomparably higher than it does in temperate latitudes, the beaches are for the most part composed of sand, and these have stood the test of ages. I am aware that the action of the tide when combined with the surge, and falling obliquely on a beach would be more likely to occasion abrasion, than when the direction of the billows is direct upon a strand; nevertheless it is a fact, in physical nature, that high margins where the strata of the cliffs are intersected by layers of softer materials, suffer degradation in a greater degree than level or flat shores, which oftener increase by deposits, on account of the difference of the action of the flood and ebb.

The deposits of gravel, sand, and rollers, which are found inland, and to the latter of which, your correspondent is inclined to attribute the shingle upon the coast of the channel, as these are found upon, and in fissures, faults, or lanes in the chalk formation which spreads over an extensive area from Beer in the south, to Flamborough Head in the north, it is not improbable that a portion of such detritus is brought down to the sea by floods; but I am inclined to think that, as the chalk is three or four hundred feet in depth, and the "diluvian" deposits lie in the soft or upper stratum of chalk, that we are not to expect their presence under water. The deposits which your correspondent mentions as protruding through the coating of the soil in Stone-arr-marsb, may probably be found also in those of Pevensey, Romney, and others along the coasts subject to the pebbly visitation, and which may have been hove up from the sea gradually, and in conjunction with lesser