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4 unusual facts about The Private of the Buffs


Francis Hastings Doyle

Doyle's best work is his ballads, which include The Red Thread of Honour, The Private of the Buffs, and The Loss of the Birkenhead.

John Moyse

This alleged act of defiance was later immortalised in The Private of the Buffs, a poem by Sir Francis Hastings Doyle.

The Private of the Buffs

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.

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.



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