12 March 1841 Waghorn Cover

12 March 1841

Postal cover from waghorn (), bearing Unknown handstamp in unknown. Scarce example of postal history from this office. Corinphila - 1841 (March 12): Entire letter from "Canton River", China to Lady Anstruther in London, with fi ne content concerning the First Opium War and written six days prior to the British Naval and Land forces defeating the Chinese Qing forces at Canton; the entire endorsed at top "Care of Messrs. Waghorn & Co., via Suez and Marseilles" in, it appears, Thomas Waghorn's own hand. Mailed at Bombay with framed "To the care of / Mr. Waghorn" in black (Sidebottom type 10), carried on the EIC "Berenice" (May 1) to Suez (May 18); thence on "HMS Polythemus" from Malta with circular "PURIFIÉ AU LAZARET / MALTE" handstamp in black and London arrival (July 2) in red and charged "1/8d." due to pay. A very rare and most unusual entire from this confl ict. Note 1: Journey time 112 days. Note 2: Content "I wrote a hurried letter when the HMS Conway (see Note 3) was standing out of the bay (by overland) to tell you all of my being free...we sailed next day but being obliged to go slow to keep the convoy together we were too late for the fi ghting at this place...as we stood into the River we met dozens of corpses fl oating dowen the stream and saw the Forst which are people were actively demolishing. I have since been on shore at that work myself - it is good practice in mining... My Colonel is to go away sick and this will leave me in command of the Artillery with the Expedition so that if there is any more fi ghting (and we expect plenty at Amoy, Ningpo, Nanking and perhaps Peking!) I shall be in orders and perhaps get a C.B. ship. I am made a great lion of now because of my long imprisonment as people call it and I am much thinner; everybody supposes I suff ered awful hardship - it is a pity to undeceive them...We had dreadfully cold weather in prison, severe frost for three weeks, thick ice and the snow lying 8 inches deep for 10 days...so we set to and snowballed the Chinese who pronounces us mad...not one letter did come (for us). They were all in the Golconda which as been lost with 5 Offi cers and 200 sepys on board...I rather hope Lord Auckland will come as Admiral Elliott is gone and Charles Elliott is such a fool that, most seriously, I think the Naval & Military chiefs ought to, and will, suspend his power on account of madness! He burned a ship, the Cambridge, which our people had sold to the Chinese and had recaptured. She was loaded with good stores worth £15'000 at least (and all the ships want stores) and this idiot burned it all "to strike a panic in Canton". Note 3: The "HMS Conway" accompanied the "Beagle" on Charles Darwin's voyage in Chile and the Galapagos in 1835. Note 4: The writer, Philip Anstruther (1807-1884) entered the Madras Artillery as second lieutenant in 1824. He served in India, being made Captain in 1839. He then served in the fi rst Chinese Opium War from 1840-1843, where he commanded the Artillery under Lord Gough at the battles of Canton, Amoy, Chusan and others. He was captured in 1840 while on a survey near Ningpo, and kept in a cage 3 feet by 3 feet for part of his 6 month captivity. He became a Brevet Major in 1841 and was mentioned in dispatches. He received the Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1842. Provenance: Collection Max Uehlinger, Christie's, London, 12 March 1997, lot 24

Max Uehlinger "Camellia"