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Lay-Osborn Flotilla

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• Horatio Nelson Lay - see section on Lay-Osborn Flotilla
• Sherard Osborn
• Rosario class sloop
• Vigilant class gunvessel
• List of gunboat and gunvessel classes of the Royal Navy
• Hugh Talbot Burgoyne, CO of Pekin
• Taiping Rebellion
• Li Hongzhang
• Allen Young

Time line

• 1854 - Inspectorate of customs formed at Shanghai, with Lay assisting while serving as Vice-Consul in Shanghai
• 1855 - Lay appointed as IG of Imperial Customs
• 1856 - 1860 - Second Opium War - Treaties of Tientsin opened Chinese ports to foreign trade and established freedom of navigation along the Yangtse River
• 18 August 1860 - Taiping rebels arrive at Shanghai(Clowes)
• 1860/1 - Shanghai defended by foreign forces against Taiping rebels led by Li Xiucheng
• July 1861 - Chinese government agreed to a proposal presented by British ambassador Sir Frederic Bruce in July 1861
• ? - Lay (IG of Imperial Customs) orders flotilla for coast patrol against smugglers and pirates (exceeding authority) (Williams p.40)
• 14 March 1862 - Lay left China for England with written instructions from Prince Gong. China committed to a naval force for the Yangtse River manned by British Officers
• 30 August 1862 - British government suspends the Foreign Enlistment Act, passing an Order in Council which authorised the fitting out and manning of vessels of war for the service of the Emperor of China.(Clowes)
• 2 September 1862 - Queen Victoria agreed to the proposal and gave permission to equip the vessels and hire crews.
• September 1862 - Lay appointed Captain Sherard Osborn as Commander of the flotilla.
• 13 February 1863 - Flotilla sails from England
• September 1863(FOTW) - Lay-Osborn flotilla arrives in China, with crews engaged for four years (Williams p.41)
• 18 October 1863 - Osborn refuses to be subordinated to a Chinese officer, stating that he is only to receive his orders from the Emperor via Lay (FOTW)
• 9 November 1863 - Osborn resigns at T'ien-tsin.(FOTW) Flotilla disbanded and returns to England.(FOTW)
• 1863 - Lay dismissed. Robert Hart IG of Imperial Customs (until 1907).

The U.S. Minister to China, Anson Burlingame recommended to the Chinese Government that the ships should be returned to England and the crews paid off - this avoided the ships being sold in China, and potentially falling into the hands of pirates, rebellious Japanese nobles, or the Confederate States of America.(Williams)

“ Had Captain Osborn thought more of his pecuniary interests and less of his own and his country's honour, he would have taken command on the Chinese conditions — have made an attack upon Nanking, won a temporary notoriety, and left his country involved in a mortal struggle with the rebels and subject to the taunts of the civilised world. ” — Anson Burlingame

"During the brief stay of the flotilla in Chinese waters, some of the officers and men belonging to it behaved in such a fashion that there was a general sense of relief among the European residents upon its departure. The disappearance of the "Vampires," as they were called, probably saved some of them from having to meet charges of piracy; for they had no commission whatsoever." (Clowes)

Ships

(Clowes)

Name	Type	Captain	Notes
Keangsoo	1000-ton wooden paddle steamer	Captain Charles Stuart Forbes RN	Flagship. Built at Southampton, 1862-63, for the Chinese service
Kwangtung	522-ton iron paddle steamer	Lieutenant Allen William Young RNR	Built by Lairds in 1862-63 for the Chinese service
Tientsin	445-ton iron screw steamer	Ex-Commander Beville Granville Wyndham Nicolas RN	Built by Lairds in 1862 for the Chinese service
Pekin	860-ton wooden gunvessel	Captain Hugh Talbot Burgoyne VC RN	Ex-HMS Mohawk, Vigilant-class gunvessel
Amoy	284-ton wooden screw gunboat	Lieutenant Arthur Salwey RN	Ex-HMS Jasper, Algerine-class gunboat
China	913-ton wooden screw sloop	Lieutenant Noel Osborn	Ex-HMS Africa, Rosario-class sloop
Thule	Screw schooner (store ship)	Master Stephen J W Moriarty	Tender to Keangsoo.

Choice of Ensign

• Although the Chinese had decreed that the flag was to be a yellow three-cornered flag bearing the Blue Dragon (), Lay designed a four-cornered green flag with a yellow saltire.

References

• Bio of Osborn at William Loney
• W L Clowes on the Taiping rebellion 1860 - 1862
• The Taiping rebellion
• Extracts from The Times
• Encyclopaedia Britannica]
• Lay-Osborn Flotilla
• Anson Burlingame and the First Chinese Mission to Foreign Powers By Frederick Wells Williams
• The Chinese Maritime Customs Service and the China Trade by Professor Robert Bickers, University of Bristol
• Li Hung-chang and China's early modernization By Samuel C. Chu, Kwang-Ching Liu
• Flags of the World - a useful summary
• The Diplomats Who Sank a Fleet: The Confederacy's Undelivered European Fleet and the Union Consular Service By Kevin J. Foster - argues that the Confederacy made an attempt to buy the flotilla.

• Hansard