The Private of the Buffs

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The Private of the Buffs (or The British Soldier In China) is a ballad by Sir Francis Hastings Doyle describing the execution of a British infantryman by Chinese soldiers in 1860.

[edit] Background

During the Second Opium War, an Anglo-French expedition landed in China and marched towards Peking in order to force the compliance of the Treaty of Tientsin. On 13 August 1860, during the attack on the Taku Forts, Chinese troops captured two British soldiers and a group of coolies. (Some contemporary accounts record the latter as Sikh soldiers from India, and indeed the poem refers to "dusky Indians")

The details of the subsequent events are not well-recorded - the only witness to report it was one of the two captured soldiers, a sergeant of the 44th (East Essex) Regiment - but it seems that one Private John Moyse, of the 3rd (East Kent) Regiment (commonly known as "the Buffs") refused to kowtow to his captors. It was said in the press at the time that he "declared he would not prostrate himself before any Chinaman alive" (the Times); as a result, he was summarially executed. The poem refers to Moyse as a young Kentish farmboy; it is quite possible that he was, in fact, a middle-aged Irishman. However, the poem was written on the strength of newspaper reports, and it is likely that Doyle was unaware of the discrepancies.