Page:Chinese account of the Opium war (IA chineseaccountof00parkrich).pdf/32

 and the Swatow merchants. He also extended a chain barrier and a system of rafts across the Bogue, and set up on both banks over 200 guns which he had purchased from the different European countries. He further hired sixty boats of various sorts, which he equipped for fighting, and also prepared 20 fireships and over 100 smaller boats to attack the foreign ships. Besides all this, he purchased an old foreign ship, and practised his men in the art of taking her by assault from the windward with the neap tides in their favour, reviewed his fleet in person, and offered $200 for each white man, with half the amount for each black man killed. For 's head $20,000 was offered, with graduated amounts, according to rank, for those of the military officers under him. Every man-of-war captured would be prize to the captors, with the exception of the arms and ammunition, which would be surrendered to the viceregal government. The result of this action was, that the traitorous Chinese became objects of suspicion to the English, and were all sent away.

The river inlets west of Macao and cast of the Bogue were guarded by strong detachments of troops; and, as all the other passages were too rocky and shallow for the foreign ships, they went cruising along the coasts of China. Thirty-one of them appeared off the Chê Kiang coasts, and five made an attack upon Amoy, but one of the largest [? the