Battle of Amoy

The Battle of Amoy was fought between British and Chinese forces in Amoy, China, on 26 August 1841, during the First Opium War. The British captured the forts in Amoy and Gulangyu Island.

Battle
The Qing forces had prepared defenses along the shore of Amoy and built batteries on Gulangyu Island. The British began the battle by bombarding the island's batteries for two to four hours (sources vary), with little effect. The land forces were then landed and took the batteries with little resistance from the Chinese forces. The day was noted as being very hot and fatiguing to the men. The Qing forces withdrew and the city was taken the next day. A garrison force of 550 men, mostly from the 18th and 3 ships – the Druid, Pylades, and the Algerine – was left on Gulangyu to defend Amoy.

Rosa Luxemburg provides a brief account of the battle in her magnum opus The Accumulation of Capital.
 * "On August 25, 1841, the British approached the town of Amoy, whose forts were armed with a hundred of the heaviest Chinese guns. These guns being almost useless, and the commanders lacking in resource, the capture of the harbour was child’s play. Under cover of a heavy barrage, British ships drew near the walls of Kulangau, landed their marines, and after a short stand the Chinese troops were driven out. The twenty-six battle-junks with 128 guns in the harbour were also captured, their crews having fled. One battery, manned by Tartars, heroically held out against the combined fire of three British ships, but a British landing was effected in their rear and the post wiped out." (Luxemburg, Rosa (1913) The Accumulation of Capital Routledge, 2013 p371)

Commander John Elliot Bingham (late first lieutenant of HMS Modeste) has provided a detailed first hand account of the battle from a British perspective.

British order of battle
Ships: Wellesley, 74 ; Blenheim, 74 ; Blonde, 4:4 Druid, 44; Modeste, 18; Cruiser, 18; Pylades, 18; Columhine, 16 Bintinch, 10 ; Algerine, 10 ; Sesostris, 4 ; Phlegethon, 4 ; Nemesis, 4 Queen, 4