BULLION

0130 Eyewitness reports of the plunder at the Yuanmingyuan appeared in British newspapers soon after the event. One noted that:

‘Many officers found large pieces of gold worth hundreds of pounds, and as a great deal of dissatisfaction was so caused, the general called in all the loot, and had everything sold by public auction.’ (3 January 1861, Nottinghamshire Guardian, p. 6.)

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0131 Early in 1861, an official French report of the plunder at the Yuanmingyuan that emphasized efforts to share spoils equitably with the British was reprinted in British newspapers, drawing criticism from those who said the French had gathered the best things for themselves before the British Army arrived at the scene:

‘FRENCH ACCOUNT OF THE SACK ... Soon after, a further search led to the discovery of a sum of about 800,000f., in small ingots of gold and silver. The commission also proceeded to make an equal division between the two armies, which gave about 80f. to each of our soldiers...’ (5 January 1861, Glasgow Saturday Post, and Paisley and Renfrewshire Reformer, p. 2.)

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0132 The Dover Express reprinted the following account of spoils from the London and China Telegraph:

‘The PRIZE MONEY AT PEKIN.—The prize money taken in the Emperor’s Summer Palace, situated some miles out of Pekin, amounts (for the troops engaged there) to about £23,000, and is made up by a sum of £14,000, in sycee silver, which the French handed over (in acccordance with the terms of the treaty) as the British share of what they had found in the Imperial treasury, and by one of £9,000, realised by the sale by auction in the camp of articles which the English had looted...’ (5 January 1861, Dover Express, p. 3.)

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0133 Lieut.-Col Sir Garnet Wolesely gave his own version of events at the Yuanmingyuan in his campaign memoir:

Subsequent to Sir Hope Grant's visit to the palaces upon the 7th of October, a room of treasure was discovered there, a small share of which was secured for our army by the active exertions of Major Anson, A.D.C., who had been appointed one of our prize agents. The treasure chiefly consisted of golden ingots, the portion falling to our lot amounting to about eight or nine thousand pounds sterling. (G. J. Wolseley, Narrative of the War in China 1860, London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts 1862, p. 238. Available online at www.archive.org.)

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0046 A silver ingot is in the archives of the 1st the Queen’s Dragoon Guards Museum at Cardiff Castle, Wales. It is mounted on a small wooden plinth with a commemorative plaque, which reads: ‘Bequeathed to the officers. King’s Dragoon Guards By Captain R.H. Crewe, Late K.D.Cs. Part of Prize money received at Pekin in October 1860.’ The 1st is an amalgamation of the King’s Dragoons and the 2nd Dragoon Guards, The Queen’s Bays, both of which were deployed in China in 1860.

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All material on this page, unless otherwise credited, was produced by Kate Hill, who asserts her authorship of the work. © Kate Hill, Yuanmingyuan Artefact Index, 2016.