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.
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—大沽炮台, in Chinese, or dàgū pàotái—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, but according to reports in The Times, one Private John Moyse, of the 3rd (East Kent) Regiment (commonly known as "the Buffs") refused to kowtow to his captors.[1] Apparently he had "declared he would not prostrate himself before any Chinaman alive," and as a result, he was summarily executed. The poem refers to Moyse as a young Kentish farmboy; however it is unknown for certain. However, the poem was written on the strength of newspaper reports, and it is likely that Doyle was unaware of the discrepancies.
