Sketches of China, 1861
With a tub, a glass of beer and a cheroot – and remember, 'thinking swear' only!
This week I’m sharing a small extract from a fascinating book I’ve been helping with as editor and designer, Sailing for the Empire – it is published this week.1 Its author is retired senior servant David Peretz and it tells the story of his great-grandfather, Admiral Sir John Corbett (1822–1893). And what makes it particularly interesting is that Corbett’s life is explored directly through both his letters and his own, very accomplished drawings and paintings, many of them created while he was on board ship or ashore in the many countries his career took him to.
Corbett emerges firmly as a very likeable character. He took part in British naval actions which might well be seen as complicated or controversial today, but he also played a significant role in bringing the slave trade to an end. His father and grandfather (a friend of William Wilberforce) were abolitionists, and in the early 1850s, Corbett was patrolling the Atlantic to stop slave ships (long after Britain had made the practice illegal).
John Corbett was born near Wolverhampton in 1822 into the landed gentry, his father Uvedale a barrister and his mother Mary from a wealthy Norfolk family. In 1835, John embarked upon a career in the Royal Navy, starting his training at Portsmouth Naval College and becoming a midshipman in 1836. He would rise steadily through the ranks, gaining his first command (of HMS Wolverene) in 1854 and his first captaincy, of HMS Scout, in 1857. He retired as an admiral in 1887 after a 50-year career.
There isn’t scope here to follow his many adventures, through injury, shipwreck and financial difficulties, and in travels across the world from the Mediterranean to the Middle East, to India, Japan and China. If you’re interested in 19th century naval history or travel, read the book! Instead I’m going to focus on a particular account (on land) of a trip to the Chinese capital. Some of Corbett’s best writing (and fine painting) is in fact away from the scenes of war.
Corbett first arrived in China in 1857, as captain of the steamship Inflexible and towing a gunboat to Hong Kong – this was during what we now call the Second Opium War, when the West sought to force trade, including the legalizing of opium. In a week when everyone is talking about China’s DeepSeek AI model, it’s worth remembering that these trade wars of the mid-19th century ricochet down to today.
At the end of 1860, he was sent on to Japan, then back to Shanghai for a few months. And in April 1861, he returned to the River Peiho (the Hai River today) and took advantage of a trip to up the river to Peking (he calls it Pekin, and we call it Beijing now). He describes the journey in detail in a series of letters to his wife, Grace, and he had his paintbrushes on hand…
April 17th at 6 am the Admiral, Mr Parkes, 2nd and 3rd Lieutenants of Scout, the assistant surgeon and myself left for Tientsin on board the Clown gunboat… we steamed over the bar and in a couple of hours we were further up the river than I had ever been before… I should tell you that we found from the Brigadier that Mr Bruce was desirous that no one should go to Pekin but the Admiral was not going to let that stop him. He had come up for the purpose and so he would. He took me with him instead of the flag lieutenant… Parkes of course went as interpreter and besides we had heard that Mr Wade the Chinese secretary was ill and it was supposed Parkes would have to take his place.
[The admiral was James Hope, a leading figure in the war; Frederick Bruce was British minister in Peking; Harry Parkes was a British diplomat, and I’ll be telling a dramatic story about him in two weeks’ time…]
April 18th. We started after an early breakfast from Hoosinoo and as our horses had to carry us some 45 miles that day we rode very quickly. About noon we halted at a village or town on the Peiho called Yang-tun and refreshed ourselves with tea whilst the horses waited in a Chinese temple… Arrived at Hoosinoo dreadfully tired with our ride about 6 pm. Cold water applied externally and beef and beer internally brought us round and I can answer for myself that although I slept on a board with a fur cloak for bedding I never slept sounder or better in my life…
April 19th set in dark and gloomy so we arranged ourselves for wet weather and as the cart only started half an hour before ourselves we could not trust to being able to dress for dinner at Pekin from its resources… I found myself on a mad horse that first tried to knock my head off and then to throw itself down it failed in both operations I’m glad to say but I honestly confess that I never had such a ride in my life as I had one from Hosinoo to Chankiawan. How my back aches and how unamiable I felt I won’t tell you… but I’m afraid I did not confine myself to “thinking swear” only as it is said the ladies do…
Nothing can be seen of Pekin until you are actually at the gates and then nothing is to be seen but the enormous wall 40 feet high with its great towers. We met some Tartar soldiers in the suburbs who didn’t look very amiably at our Sikh escort and some small boys shouted “wilu” which means “be off” but otherwise we were entirely unmolested…
A dusty ride of some 2 miles through the Tartar city brought us to the British legation which is as near as possible in the centre of Pekin and close alongside the wall surrounding the emperor’s Winter Palace [now the Forbidden City]. To give you some idea of the scale of an Emperor of China’s residence I may as well say here that the outer wall of the Winter Palace is some 7 miles in extent and this in the middle of a city. No Chinaman or European is allowed inside of this wall nor are we allowed to walk on the city walls as they say they overlook the Emperor’s grounds. Mr Bruce was very savage I’m sure at our invading him in this matter but as we had come he was obliged to make the best of it and thanks to his English housekeeper we all of us were very snugly accommodated with every comfort we could require the principal one being a large tub of water to get rid of the dust that had fairly smothered us all day. I never want another 45 mile ride in the face of a dust storm as long as I live but a tub, a glass of bass beer and a cheroot very soon smoothed over all our difficulties…
I found that Wyndham one of the attachés sketched a bit so I stuck to him and at 6.30 next morning (the 20th) he carried me off to the best view of Pekin for a sketch before breakfast. The weather was beautiful bright clear and no dust and when we got to the spot which was on a bridge I suggested that we should be better off if we got to the bottom of it and sat under one of the arches. We accordingly went there and were quiet enough for half an hour although a dense crowd gathered on the bridge immediately over us. At last the temptation I suppose was too great and one after another the mob got over the bridge and joined us to our great disgust. This however did not last long for some park keepers came up making a terrible outcry and capturing some of the mob… It seems that we had been innocently sitting on the Emperor’s private grounds and were liable to all sorts of penalties in consequence. As I had got my sketch in to shape I didn’t much care and finished it up as well as I could from the top of the bridge surrounded by 2 or 300 Pekinese all of whom wanted to see what the Barbarian was at and in spite of my digging them in the ribs with my elbows to get room behaved with greatest civility to me.
This first sketch of mine took me most of the day to colour but in the afternoon a party of us went to visit the curio shops and I spent 5 dollars… but that is about all. I saw several things that I should have liked to have bought but they were far too expensive for me…
21st April being Sunday we staid at home all that morning… this day I made a sketch of the entrance to the Legation… [see picture above]
…on the Monday I went out by myself before breakfast and made a couple of sketches much to the delight of the populace for I was regularly besieged by onlookers…
After luncheon the Admiral, Parkes, Wade… and myself attended by a party of troopers started off to pay a visit to Prince Cong [Yixin (1833–1898), aka Prince Kung, of the Qing dynasty and regent at the time]. He received us at his official residence and a very poky place it was but I presume they thought it’s sufficiently good to transact business with Barbarians at. The Prince came out into the court to receive the Admiral, and Wade introduced us all to him by name my name it seems in Chinese is “Caw” or “Cor” for they leave out the last syllable and after the introduction was over we followed the Prince into a shabby sort of chamber where we were accommodated with very indifferent seats… Sweetmeats were then served and the usual tea and at the expiration of 20 minutes or half an hour we took our departure… Prince Cong is a young man some 28 years of age apparently who finds it an awful bore to occupy himself with public business when he would rather be hunting still he was very civil in his manner… I suppose I ought to tell you what the Prince was dressed in, well it was a long sort of dressing gown of flowered drab silk with blue cuffs and collar a waistbelt clasped in front with some handsome pearls and in the centre a peculiar stone only allowed to be worn by the imperial family. The only other ornament he had on was a green jade stone seal on his thumb… The Prince accompanied us halfway back to our horses the rest of the officials came the whole way and saw us off and we took a long ride through the town to show the Admiral Hope the sites as he had not been out of the Legation house since his arrival.
Next morning was occupied in packing up and but I found time to go into the Curiosity Street in the Chinese city and buy two pieces of China one for the Admiral and one for myself which we presented in due form to Mrs Reynolds the old housekeeper. I think she was very much pleased and I’m sure the old lady deserved it for she had made us very comfortable indeed. After lunch and we mounted our horses and started on the homeward journey…
Sounds wonderful. So passersby stopping to ask the artist "what you painting?" has always been a happy diversion and draw!