608 THE CHINO-JAPANESE WAR, 1894—93.

advisability of thus disabling some of the guns but all the samehe set to work to carry out the admiral's orders. In the first two forts he succeeded ingetting possession of the fittings of the He sent one of these British naval men, a seaman gunner named Thomas, to the eastern mainland forts, with orders to bring away the breechblocks, sights and elevating gear of heavy ADMIRAL TING. {Photo: Mendelssohn, Xewctiitie.)

dangerous guns,but when he reached the third, Liu's soldiers assumed such a threatening attitude that Thomas and his party retired to their boats. Liu telegraphed to Pekin that Ting was treacherously disarming the forts in order to facilitate their capture by the Japanese, The result was a peremptory order for the immediate restoration of all the gear that had guns bearing on the harbour. He took this coursebecause he judged that they were more likely tobe trained on hisown fleet by Japanese gunners than to be used against Admiral Ito's fleet, and they were so mounted that they could not be of any possible use against the land attack. Thomas failed to make General Liu, who commanded the garrison, understand the