Page:China and the Manchus.djvu/94

78 with prevailing ideas and with what would have been their own practice, they expected no quarter. The Chinese troops, as distinguished from the Manchus, behaved differently; they took to their heels before a shot had been fired. This behaviour, which seems to be nothing more than arrant cowardice, is nevertheless open to a more favourable interpretation. The yoke of the Manchu dynasty was already beginning to press heavily, and these men felt that they had no particular cause to fight for, certainly not such a personal cause as then stared the Manchus in the face. The Manchu soldiers were fighting for their all: their very supremacy was at stake; while many of the Chinese troops were members of the Triad Society, the chief object of which was to get rid of the alien dynasty. It is thus, too, that we can readily explain the assistance afforded to the enemy by numerous Cantonese, and the presence of many as servants on board the vessels of our fleet; they did not help us or accompany us from any lack of patriotism, of which virtue Chinese annals have many striking examples to show, but because they were entirely out of sympathy with their rulers, and would have been glad to see them overthrown, coupled of course with the tempting pay and good treatment offered by the barbarian.