A Letter from China
The following letter was written to William Fairfax (later 2nd Bart.) from his friend John Hammer, on board HMS Pique at Shanghai dated Feb 7th 1857. I think I told you in my last of the origin of the row at Canton. I must tell you now of the attempt to poison the whole colony of Hong Kong on the 21st of last month. E-Sing who supplied all the people, both civil and military with bread, poisoned the whole batch with arsenic, 3 grains poison to every ounce of bread. The loaves found their way on board the ships in harbour, to the governor’s house, the barracks and houses of the merchants. Just before the time of issuing the bread, Mr. E-Sing took a passage to Macau in one of the daily steamers. The first who discovered the poison was one of the merchants who at once suspected E-Sing, went to his shop and found him gone to Macau. He immediately chartered a small steamer and went to Macau in her himself, arrived there three hours later than the other steamer but found E-Sing had been detained by her captain on suspicion as the steamer’s bread had also been poisoned. E-Sing was taken back to Hong Kong and shoved into prison and stands a good chance of swinging. Lady Bowring and several other ladies and gentlemen were nearly killed; indeed, they were only saved by the extreme strength of the dose, 3 grains in one oz, which immediately caused vomiting. Had less been used it would have been all up with them. The best of the fun is that we owe Mr. E-Sing 140$ which we shall weather, I suppose. Had he succeeded in his enterprise he was to have had a button. Don’t quite understand this? On the admiral hearing of it, he burnt the western suburb of Canton, in setting fire to which 60 men of the 89th took the wrong turning and found themselves under the city walls, the people on which peppered them nicely with gingals, brickbats, stones etc- they had only two men killed by a round shot during an attack made by 60 Pinks on a fort held by our men on their way to which they had to pass the ships. They selected the time of low water when our vessels could not move. Our fellows on shore waited until the Pinks got within 400 yards of shore and opened fire on them with mini rifles. God knows how many were killed; a ---- number at all accounts as there were said to be 1000 men in the 60 junks; 2 or 3 sunk by the fire from our ships. Of course, you have heard of the factories---- the letter goes on about other things but I wanted to highlight the poisoning incident. From a subsequent long letter dated Mar 21st 1857, John Hammer writes: - E-Sing, the baker at Hong Kong has been acquitted but ordered to quit the colony. Fancy trying such a blackguard by our laws? Half the jury in trying a foreigner must be his own countrymen and to imagine Chinese to speak the truth in a case like E-Sing’s is absurd. It was morally certain he that he was guilty but not legally so the blackguard gets off. Frank Storr, reproduced by kind permission of Sir Edmund. Charlecote Extras No.4. This story was well documented at the time, however the baker in question was not E-Sing, (the name of the company) but the company’s founder, Cheung Ah Lum. Interesting links below. http://www.nondog.com/plim/pages/eSing.htm . https://industrialhistoryhk.org/cheong-alum .htm |
