were
huddled up on the edge of the mud-bank, it would have been
inconvenient. Our enemy, however, had no notion of doing anything so
ungenerous; so the landing went on uninterruptedly, the French
carrying almost all they wanted on their backs, our men employing
coolies, &c., for that purpose. We saw nothing of the enemy except the
movements of a few Tartar horsemen out of and into the town, galloping
along the narrow causeway on which our troops were to march. At
midnight eight gunboats--six English and two French--steamed past the
Forts. It was a moment of some excitement, because we did not know
whether or not they would be fired at. However, nothing of the kind
took place; and, about an hour after they had started, three rockets
that soared and burst over the village intimated that they had reached
the place appointed to them. Having witnessed this part of the
proceedings I lay down on the deck with my great-coat over me; but not
for long, for at half-past two, Captain Dew (my old friend)[1] arrived
with the announcement that, having been on an errand to the lines of
the troops, he had met a party of French soldiers who were obliging
some Chinese to carry a wooden gun which they had captured in the
fort, declaring that they had entered it, found it deserted, and
possessed of no defences but two wooden guns. It turned out that they
had not entered first, but that an English party, headed by Mr.
Parkes, had preceded them. This rather promised to diminish the
interest of the attack on the forts which had been fixed for half-past
four in the morning. But there was another fort on the opposite side
of the river, perhaps there might be some resistance there. Alas! vain
hope. Three shots were fired at it from the gunboats which had passed
through during the night, and some twenty labourers walked out of it
to seek a more secure field for their industry in some neighbouring
village. Afterwards our troops went in and found it empty as the
other; so ended the capture of Pey-tang.

We came over the bar in the evening, and I went to see Hope Grant at
the captured fort, where he has fixed his abode. While there we
discovered a strongish body of Tartar cavalry, at a distance of about
four miles along the causeway which leads from this to Tientsin and
Taku. I urged the General to send out a par