So when Admiral Courbet, who was in command
of the French forces in the Far East, after declaring
a blockade of Formosa sailed up the Min River to
Pagoda Anchorage, ten miles below the treaty
port of Foochow, he found no preparations to resist
him. A fleet of about a dozen Chinese wooden war
vessels lay at the Anchorage. Courbet, who had nine
warships under him, on August 23rd demanded the
surrender of the Chinese fleet and the forts along the
Min River. The Chinese not complying, Courbet
opened fire, sank nine of their vessels (which were
even less of a match for the French than the Spaniards
in Manila Bay were for Admiral Dewey's squadron),
and reduced the principal fort at the Anchorage to
ruins. On the following days he sank twelve more
ships in the river, and wrecked four more forts. He
then sailed back to Formosa, leaving about three
thousand Chinese dead behind him.
This affair, called by Pierre Lpti " the crowning
glory of Foochow," did not appeal to the taste of all
foreigners in China. One of them-* describes the
results of France's victory with considerable candour.
" The bodies of the dead floated out to sea on the
tide, many of them being borne back on the return-

1 The missionary George B. Smyth, President of the Foochow
Anglo-Chinese College, in the North American Review, quoted in
A. H. Smith's China in Convulsion, pp. 24-5.
