This winter there occurred the demand for the Formosa prisoners. The year before and the next year happened the breaking of faith on the part of the Nepaulese, French, and Americans, and the burning of the factory at Canton by volunteers. The For- mosa prisoner case arose out of two reconnoitring visits paid by foreign ships to Formosa in the autumn of 1841 and the spring[1] of 1842. One was wrecked during a storm at Tamsui, and the other was led upon the shallows by native fishing-craft at Ta-an.[2] In both cases the local volunteers surrounded and made prisoners of the crews; captured one large three-masted ship, two sampans, twenty-four white, and a hundred and sixty-five black barbarians, twenty guns, a number of small-arms, and a quantity of Government property taken by the said pirates at Ningpo and Chên-hai. The Brigadier TAHUNGA[3] and the taotai YAO YING[4] had sent several memorials to the Emperor on the subject,[5] and in the spring of 1842 nineteen of the enemy's ships went to Formosa to take revenge. They were piloted in by native pirates; but, our troops having destroyed the pirate junks, the enemy fired a few
- ↑ March 10th.—Repository, 1842.
- ↑ 大安
- ↑ 達洪阿
- ↑ 姚瑩
- ↑ These were the cases of the ship "Nerbudda" and the brig "Ann," the defenceless crews of which were kept in miserable captivity, and finally massacred in cold blood by the order of the authorities, Sir HENRY POTTINGER'S correspondence upon the subject is contained in the Repository for 1843.
