Some people delight in terming the Ti-pings bloodthirsty monsters, &c.; but the following extract proves that the French not only excelled the rebels, but even surpassed the Imperialists in wanton cruelty. In "Twelve Years in China,"[25] by John Scarth, Esq., we find the following episode of the blockade by the civilized and most Christian allies of the Manchoo:--
"The French proclaimed a strict blockade, and shot down all that attempted to hold communication with the rebels. We _saw_ one evening a poor old woman that had been attempting to take a basket of food for some poor person in the city, struck by a ball from the French lines; her thigh was broken, and she lay helpless on the ground. How horrible did war appear, when the sentry levelled his rifle again, and fired at the poor old creature, driving up a shower of earth close to her side. Another shot, and another, were fired; at last she was hit again in the back! she cried to us for help, but we could render no assistance, except by sending to report the circumstance at head-quarters. Shot after shot was fired. There were some rebels watching the butchery from the walls; they could see us distinctly. We were within rifle distance; and feeling that if I were in their position, I would shoot at every foreigner I saw, while foreigners were committing such acts, I went away really for safety's sake, sick at heart to see such monstrous cruelty. The woman, it was afterwards reported, lay on the spot moaning till nearly midnight, when her cries ceased, and it was supposed _some of the rebels_ had got her into the city out of the way of further immediate harm."
The French eventually breached the walls, and with their creditable allies assaulted the city, only, however, to be beaten back with a loss of one-fifth their number. The Triads were at last starved out, and upon the Chinese New Year's night (17th February, 1855) evacuated Shanghae, and cut their way through the Imperialist lines. Three hundred, who had surrendered themselves to Admiral La Guerre, were by that officer given up to the Mandarins, and tortured to death. During three days every atrocity was perpetrated by the Imperialists upon the unfortunate inhabitants caught within the city, or the rebels who were hunted down in the country. Upwards of 2,000 were barbarously put to death within three days. As Messrs. J. Scarth, Sillar, and others have written,--"The Imperialist soldiers even burst open the coffins in the burial-grounds, and dragged out the rebel corpses and beheaded them." Women were horribly mutilated and put to death; rebels were crucified and tortured with red-hot irons; some were starved to death in the streets of the city; others were disembowelled, and very many slowly cut to pieces. When the Triads captured the city, they killed only _two_ men, tortured none, and respected private property. The papers at Shanghae stated,--"When the French and Imperialists got possession of the city, however, there was something like slaughter. Heads were hung round the city walls in bunches; the Pagoda Bridge had nineteen on it, and in some places they were piled up in heaps!"