ANSON BURLINGAME AND THE FIRST CHINESE MISSION TO FOREIGN POWERS

FREDERICK WELLS WILLIAMS

” SMITHSONIAN {NSTITUTION

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ANSON BURLINGAME AND THE FIRST CHINESE MISSION TO FOREIGN POWERS

ANSON BURLINGAME

AND THE FIRST CHINESE MISSION TO FOREIGN POWERS

BY FREDERICK WELLS WILLIAMS

Assistant Professor of Oriental History in Yale University

NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

1912 ‘eer Gallery of Art

snington, D. C.

CopryrriGcutT, 1912, By CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

Published September, 1912

PREFACE

Tuis is a study of a career and of an enter- prise that were misconstrued by their own gen- eration. They demand requital from generations that are to come. As a romance in the stirring period of American history the life of Anson Burlingame deserves a biographer capable of giving its epic movement lasting literary form. My purpose in these pages has been less ambi- tious. So far as the character of the man is con- cerned I have tried to show that it was justly estimated by few even of those who admired him; that the work he set out to perform was left un- completed but did not end in failure. Yet the real importance of Anson Burlingame lies not so much in the man or in the endeavour as in the use of an idea which he made the guiding prin- ciple of his service abroad. He believed in the practical application to the business of diplo- macy of one of those commandments upon which hang all the law and the prophets: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” With this pre- cept in control I have endeavoured to show how

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he secured first a hearing, then attention, and at last the conversion of the most disdainful group of civilised officials in Asia. Once won to a belief in his adherence to the Confucian maxim of trying to place one’s self in the other side’s position, these self-opinioned statesmen determined to engage his co-operation in setting their country right before the world, while they addressed themselves to the herculean labour of bringing a recreant court to reason and of leading the Chinese Empire out of its isolation.

The far-reaching wisdom of the Burlingame policy of awaiting a natural reversal in China instead of pressing her refractory people by force of arms is acknowledged by the great powers to-day. As a policy it appears to be the only provident prophylaxis against the evils involved in the alternative of interference and subjection. Fifty years ago, when the white man recognised no limit to the prevalence of newly perfected weapons which he alone em- ployed, this was not generally perceived. With such advantages on their side it was natural that representatives of the Western world should clamour for a physical conquest that seemed easily within their reach. I have tried to treat

PREFACE vil

the exponents of this element of our own civili- sation with justice and even with consideration. It has been shown, I think, that their attitude was the same among all the Nationals repre- sented in the Far East. But the fact must not be obscured that the cupidity of this group of foreigners, when alarmed for the safety of their commercial profits, was the chief cause of the defeat of the Burlingame doctrine and its rele- gation for a generation to the limbo of exploded theories.

The begetter of this great idea has suffered in reputation under its eclipse. A worse thing has befallen. Though his plan has been re- vived the dignity of his name has never been vindicated. His idea has become the professed policy of the nations during China’s present turmoil, but his clear right to its authorship and the splendid spontaneity of his champion- ship of a discredited people in the hour of their abasement has been obscured and even denied. It was he who first declared abroad the neces- sity of assisting China to find herself, and of elevating the diplomacy of Western powers in Asia to something higher than securing for their traders the largest possible advantages in a sec-

vill PREFACE

ular struggle for profits. He recognised, what the merchants themselves could not compre- hend, that there was danger to China in sum- marily accepting the materialism of the West; and danger to China meant and still means the cancellation of every political equation in the arrangement of civilised society. In this sense it appears to me that Mr. Burlingame can properly be called the father of the open-door principle which Mr. Hay proposed as a symbol for the unification of outside interests when China threatened, in a moment of aberration, to become a derelict among nations.

The power of urbanity, its importance as an international asset, especially when dealing with exotic peoples, is not sufficiently realised by Western states. Mr. Burlingame’s credit in China, secured by the exercise of his unfailing courtesy, needs to be studied as a lesson by the men of our race. His personal popularity was too lightly dismissed by his countrymen as a thing apart from the real work of diplomacy; his affability and his enthusiasm led them to under- rate a quick inventive brain. And while he was not taken seriously enough by contemporaries during life, after his untimely death he was dis-

PREFACE Ix

credited by a suddenly aroused fear of Chinese immigration associated with his treaty, and loaded with obloquy by orators of the sand-lot type. Those who had submitted to the persua- sive spell of his eloquence forgot then the pur- port of his great idea. He had published noth- ing, therefore it had no visible expression in print and was only to be found buried among official documents. For these reasons, therefore, the significance of his demeanour has been forgot- ten, the true value of his work effaced. But now that the antagonisms of the past are allayed he should be returned to our knowledge and his purpose of peace and goodwill, his lofty prin- ciple of forbearance, and his method of perse- vering suavity appreciated.

It is time to disabuse ourselves of the notion that the Chinese are a stupid and unchangeable folk because they have evolved a philosophy of life that, unlike our own, does not find its su- premest satisfaction in wealth and in war. We must credit them with intellectual powers that only need proper direction to accomplish great things. If they erred in the past through exces- sive caution they promise in the near future to make good any defect of this sort by too great

% PREFACE

temerity in change. The effect of any untoward transition in an enormous mass of people pos- sessing the qualities of the Chinese cannot be disregarded by intelligent minds. Mr. Burlin- game understood the risks involved both to oth- ers and to themselves in such a lapse; and to the welfare of the Christian world as well as to the task of serving China in the interests of her own revival he gave his heart and soul with a devotion that ended in the sacrifice of his life. As an embodiment of the true missionary spirit he stands among the foremost public men of his generation, and it is a spirit which is still effi- cient. Professor William Garrott Brown has ad- mirably appraised the influence thus cut short but not concluded: “‘If Burlingame’s name be not forever associated with an epochal readjust- ment of the world’s civilisations, then few names

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have missed immortality more narrowly.

New Haven, ConneEcTICcUT, August, 1912.

1 Atlantic Monthly, June, 1905, p. 32.

CONTENTS

Tur EvoLutTION oF A DIPLOMATIST . Tue GENESIS OF THE MISSION . Tue Mission In AMERICA

Tue CLARENDON LETTER AND BRITISH PoLicy

Tue OPposiITION IN CHINA THe ENpD ofr THE MISSION APPENDICES

BIBLIOGRAPHY .

INDEX

5 ee tol tee Se eek Se He bon ya sre

ANSON BURLINGAME

AND THE FIRST CHINESE MISSION TO FOREIGN POWERS

ANSON BURLINGAME

AND THE FIRST CHINESE MISSION TO FOREIGN POWERS

THE EVOLUTION OF A DIPLOMATIST s ee BURLINGAME was pre-eminently

a man of his generation in America.

From both lineage and training he de- rived qualities that in his maturity revealed him as a product of the formative period when the United States was passing from the position of a remote agricultural community to assume, through expansion of territory and the develop- ment of its natural resources, a place among the great nations of the world. Like most of the men who became leaders in this time of transi- tion, he was descended from the early English settlers in America, inheriting from that sturdy stock a temper which made for independence in action and ideas. His ancestors, who first came in the Puritan period to Rhode Island, had their share in the French-Indian War on this continent, and subsequently fought in the

3

4 ANSON BURLINGAME AND

War of American Independence, his mother’s grandfather being Colonel Israel Angell, of Wash- ington’s army. The son of Joel Burlingame, a settler and farmer on the frontier, he was born in New Berlin, Chenango County, New York, November 14, 1820. Before he was three years old his father removed to Seneca County, Ohio, to occupy a farm in what was, a century ago, the forest country of the Western Reserve. Joel Burlingame is described by one of his neighbours there as ‘“‘a devout Methodist, an earnest free- mason, a school teacher, ambitious but impracti- cable. He spent his time attending two-day meet- ings, quarterly meetings, and camp-meetings, and had little love for the hard work required to improve a farm in the wilderness. He was a man of fine personal appearance, and his gen- eral knowledge and fine conversational powers gave him favour in every cabin, while his ve- hement prayers and eloquent exhortations gave him notoriety among the pioneer Christians. I think he was instrumental in building the first school, as I know he was active in the erection of the first church in Seneca County.” !

Anson is described by the same writer, who was his playmate in these early days, as “‘hand-

1 Personal Recollections of Anson Burlingame,” by General W. H. Gibson, in the Toledo Commercial, March 1, 1870.

THE FIRST CHINESE MISSION’ 5

some, jolly, and lovable in childhood, as he was earnest, energetic, and devoted in manhood. The first ten years generally determine future character. Anson Burlingame during these years was a poor boy surrounded by Christian influences and guided by the spirit of a father full of love toward God and all men. In recur- ring to these days I am unable to recall a single act of meanness, unkindness, or cruelty on the part of little Anson.” <A boy of his genial yet ardent temperament would readily become the companion of such a father—whose predilection for preaching was not, however, unaccompanied by an appreciation of discipline which restrained that companion from going wild. The youth par- ticipated in various expeditions about Lake Su- perior and the upper Mississippi, some of them made for purposes of surveying in the Northwest Territory, and others to negotiate compacts with the Indians beyond the border. His schooling, therefore, was supplemented by a close com- panionship with nature and with men. When the family removed to Detroit he attended the academy in that town, and subsequently the Branch University of Michigan, located in the county of that name, where he chiefly shone in lyceum debates.

The attraction of a professional career in

6 ANSON BURLINGAME AND

which he might exercise mental powers that were distinctly above the average brought him in 1843 to the Harvard Law School, from which he was graduated as Bachelor in 1846. He began at once to practise at the Massachusetts bar in association with an older partner, Mr. Briggs,’ and, already confident of support from the friends he had made in Boston, entered im- mediately into the public life of the city of his adoption. He rose rapidly to local prominence as a ready speaker, and became through this gift a political factor of importance in the State. These were the palmy days of stump oratory in America, when some reputation for eloquence was deemed essential to political success. Amongst the multitude of vigorous orators it required ability of a high order to be recognised as the spokesman of a party on the platform. “It was the magnetism of Mr. Burlingame,” wrote Mr. Blaine, who first knew him at this period, “that made him pre-eminently effective before an assemblage of the people. What we mean precisely by magnetism it might be diffi- cult to define, but it is undoubtedly true that

1A son of George Nixon Briggs, who, after serving six terms in Congress, was elected seven times successively (1843-50) governor of Massachusetts. He was the “Governor B.” of the “‘ Biglow Papers,”’ who

“is a sensible man; He stays to his home an’ looks arter his folks.”

THE FIRST CHINESE MISSION 7

Mr. Burlingame possessed an immense reserve of that subtle, forceful, overwhelming power which the word magnetism is used to signify. . . . What he believed he believed with such intensity, what he spoke he spoke with such fervour, that the unbidden impulse was to be- lieve and assent to be convinced.” !

A leader by force of character as well as of per- sonal attraction, he was made president of the Young Men’s Whig Republican Association, and thus early connected with a political group which he consistently supported to the end of his career. It was a notable triumph of personality over di- verse elements of opposition, for this association was composed of two incongruous components —the ‘North Enders,’ the most obstreperous campaigners of Boston, who were bitterly hostile to “high-brow” domination in politics, and a small but eminent band of Whigs belonging to the aristocratic class, whose opinions were at vari- ance with those of their kind. From the time of his marriage, in 1847, with Miss Livermore, a member of one of the old Cambridge families, he began to make his way into the influential ele- ment of the community, amongst whom he made many enduring friendships. But his political

1 James G. Blaine, ‘Mr. Burlingame as an Orator,”’ Atlantic Monthly, November, 1870.

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battles were fought against the majority of these conservatives, and in alliance with a few who, like Sumner, Dana, and the older Charles Francis Adams, had resolutely abandoned that company to join the Free Soil party. That he should end by becoming the accredited representative of those who began by violently opposing his ideas was a presage of the kind of success against great odds he achieved in after life, the significance of which is not only personal but moral. After re- turning from a trip to Europe, in 1852, he was elected to the State senate, where his chief act, characteristic of his independent spirit, was his opposition to the Maine liquor law in defiance of the platform of the party that elected him. In the following year he became a member of the convention for revising the State constitution. The reputation he gained in this body secured for him a nomination by the American party and an election to Congress.

In his three successive terms as congressman he served on the committee on foreign affairs, but his chief claim to distinction was his rec- ognised place among the foremost anti-slavery controvertists in the House. His famous achieve- ment was a speech entitled ““A Defence of Mas- sachusetts,” pronounced June 21, 1856. The incident inspiring it was one of the most dra-

THE FIRST CHINESE MISSION 9

matic in the history of our national legislature. Senator Sumner, a month before this date, had addressed the Senate upon the Kansas Resolu- tion in a speech the virulence of which, rather than its trenchant argument, exasperated the Southern members beyond endurance. Unable to await a reply in kind, a congressman, Preston Brooks, a kinsman of Andrew Pickens Butler, senator from South Carolina,—one of the Dem- ocrats upon whom Sumner had poured the acid accumulation of his contumely,—undertook the task of vindicating the honour of his family and State by entering the Senate chamber when the Massachusetts statesman was engrossed in writ- ing at his desk, and beating him senseless with a stick. An intimate defended the champion from interruption, while the few senators present, all Southern men, delicately refrained from dis- turbing the assailant until his victim fell help- less to the floor. It was thought at first that Sumner’s extraordinary physique might be equal to sustaining without grave danger an assault which in the case of an ordinary man would have been an assassination; but after some days the spine was found to have been injured. Four years passed before he regained vigour suf- ficient to enable him to resume his seat in the chamber.

10 ANSON BURLINGAME AND

The Northern States, and especially their rep- resentatives in Congress, were naturally indig- nant at the outrage. It is but slight palliation to the sensitive patriot to be told that this was the single instance in which the courtesies of Congress were violated during the trying decade before our Civil War;' but the rough-hewn nature of our social behaviour at that period is revealed, and the arbitrary character of the ‘Southern oligarchy” appraised, by the fact that the House failed to expel Brooks for his ruffianly conduct and murderous intention, and no other power on earth could punish this stark assassin. It is a sufficient commentary upon the culture and condition of South Carolina to add that, ‘upon resigning his seat, he was justified in the opinion of his native State by being immedi- ately returned by a unanimous vote to Congress. As spokesman for outraged Massachusetts, Mr. Burlingame was admirably fitted both by tem- per and ability. Upon rising, after Brooks’s re-

1“°The Sumner assault became a leading event in the great slavery contest between North and South. . . . In result the incident was ex- tremely damaging to the South, for it tended more than any single border-ruffian crime in Kansas to unite hesitating and wavering opinion in the North against the alarming flood of lawlessness and violence which as a rule found its origin and its defence in the pro-slavery party. Certainly no phase of the transaction was received with such popular favour as some of the bolder avowals by the Northern representatives of their readiness to fight, and especially by Burlingame’s actual accept- ance of the challenge by Brooks.” (Hay and Nicolay, “Abraham Lincoln,” vol. II, p. 55.)

THE FIRST CHINESE MISSION 11

turn to the House, to denounce the malignant spirit which had usurped the place of reason in the South, he assailed the record of South Caro- lina with vehemence fairly supported by historic fact, and concluded in a burst of old-fashioned eloquence which served its turn many years thereafter as a favourite piece for declamation in the schools of the North.

So much for the occasion of the speech. <A word, and I shall be pardoned, about the speaker himself. He is my friend; for many and many a year I have looked to him for guidance and light, and I never looked in vain; he never had a personal enemy in his life; his character is as pure as the snow that falls on his native hills; his heart overflows with kind- ness for every being having the upright form of man; he is a ripe scholar, a chivalric gentleman, and a warm-hearted, true friend. He sat at the feet of Channing and drank in the sentiments of that noble soul. He bathed in the learning and undying love of the great jurist, Story; and the hand of Jackson, with its honours and its offices, sought him early in life, but he shrank from them with instinctive mod- esty. Sir, he is the pride of Massachusetts. His mother Commonwealth found him adorning the highest walks of literature and law, and she bade him go and grace somewhat the rough character of political life. The people of Massachusetts—the old and the young and the middle-aged—now pay their full homage to the beauty of his public and private character.

Such is Charles Sumner. On the twenty-second

12 ANSON BURLINGAME AND

day of May, when the Senate and the House had clothed themselves in mourning for a brother fallen in the battle of life in the distant State of Missouri, the senator from Massachusetts sat in the silence of the Senate chamber, engaged in the employments appertaining to his office, when a member from this House, who had taken an oath to sustain the Con- stitution, stole into the Senate, that place which had hitherto been held sacred against violence, and smote him as Cain smote his brother. . . . Sir, the act was brief, and my comments on it shall be brief also. I denounce it in the name of the sovereignty of Massachusetts, which was stricken down by the blow. I denounce it in the name of humanity. I denounce it in the name of that fair play which bullies and prize-fighters respect. What! strike a man when he is pinioned—when he cannot respond to a blow! Call you that chivalry? In what code of honour did you get your authority for that? I do not believe that member has a friend so dear who must not, in his heart of hearts, condemn the act*

1The speech was reprinted for private distribution in Cambridge, 1856. Senator Wilson, Sumner’s colleague in the Senate, writes of the assault: ‘Standing as it does in its relation to the irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery, it was a revelation of a state of feeling and sentiment, especially at the South, which both startled and surprised the nation and the world, though it has since lost much of its special significance looked at by the side of the more horrible demonstrations of rebellion and civil war. Thus considered it shows Mr. Brooks as only a fit representative of the dominating influences of the slave- holding States, where not only did their leading men and presses indorse the deed as their own, and defend it by voice and vote, but the people generally seemed ready to vie with each other in their professed admira- tion of his course.” (‘Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America,” II, p. 484. See also Rhodes’s “History of the United States,” I, pp. 145-7, and Pierce, ‘“‘Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner,” Boston, 1893, vol. III, pp. 460-524, a most detailed account.)

THE FIRST CHINESE MISSION 13

Brooks, who had in vain challenged Senator Wilson for calling the assault “brutal, murder- ous, and cowardly,” took action at once after Burlingame’s speech, and was met by a prompt acceptance of his challenge, the latter proposing rifles as weapons and Deer Island, near Niagara Falls, as the place of meeting. The chivalry of the South recoiled at the suggestion of such instruments of precision on the field of honour, and “Bully” Brooks declined to meet his op- ponent, on the ground that to reach the place designated he would have to travel “through the enemy’s country.” He was glorified for months thereafter by complimentary banquets and pres- ents of various kinds of clubs suitably inscribed.'

Mr. Burlingame was returned with increased prestige to the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses during the administration of Pres- ident Buchanan, but failed in securing a re- election in 1860, though ardently supporting Lin- coln and his triumphant party by speeches in the campaign. Asa reward for faithful political

1 Both Brooks and Butler died within a year of this incident, the former confessing to a friend that he was “heartsick of being the recog- nised representative of bullies, the recipient of their ostentatious gifts and officious testimonials of admiration and regard.” A detailed account of the challenge, by Colonel James, Mr. Burlingame’s second, was given to the Washington Post, October 27, 1901, by W. A. Crofutt, and is to be found in full in John Bigelow’s “‘Retrospections of an Active Life,” vol. I, pp. 165-170. It is the most authoritative document on the subject.

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service he received an appointment as minister to Austria, but learned while in Paris on his way to Vienna that the Austrian court objected to him as too outspoken a champion of Kossuth and of Sardinian independence! to be persona grata at that capital. The Chinese legation being offered, he at once accepted the post, probably with rather vague ideas as to the past history of that country, and some doubts as to whether he should even be allowed to reside in its capital when he reached it.

China in 1861 was suffering from the twofold affliction of a rebellion at home and a recent defeat of her army by foreign invaders before Peking. The latter war had opened her capital for the first time in the history of the empire to the permanent residence of Western plenipo- tentiaries, but there remained a desperate hope in the hearts of the Chinese that these might still be induced to remove in time to the treaty ports; the initial step in Mr. Burlingame’s programme was to establish an American lega- tion there upon the basis of conventions secured by Great Britain and France. Owing to the fearful disasters of the Tai-ping Insurrection during ten years, and the strain upon their re-

1He had moved while in Congress the recognition of Sardinia as a first-class power.

THE FIRST CHINESE MISSION 15

sources from the presence of the rebels in the provinces of the Yangtse, the government of China was sufficiently alarmed at the critical condition of the ruling dynasty to treat the foreigners with circumspection and, for the time at least, carry out the terms of the treaties with honesty and faithfulness.’ It reflects credit upon the spirit of the Tartar clan ruling an alien and discontented people that, despite its deca- dence and loss of morale after two centuries of occupation, it should have faced the diverse evils of this crisis with determination and with- out a suggestion of surrender. The plight of the dynasty was relieved by the death of its dissipated and cowardly monarch, Hsien-féng, in August, 1861, during his flight to Jehol from the Europeans, when the government came into the hands of his infant son, T’ung-chih, controlled by the two Empresses-Dowager and Prince Kung, a brother of the deceased sover- eign. From what has lately been made known of her career it appears that the dangerous situ- ation was met by the secondary wife, T'sz-hsi, the

1 Besides the Tai-ping, or Chang-mao, “long-haired,” rebels who held Nanking as their capital, there were at this time the so-called Pathan, or Moslem, insurrection devastating Yunnan, other Mohammedan re- volts in the north-west,— which a little later carried away the whole region from Kansu westward to Kashgaria in a revolt that was not

suppressed until 1881,—and an uprising of bandits called Nien-fei in Shantung.

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actual mother of the Emperor, then in her twenty-seventh year, who, with that extraor- dinary perception in the choice of her agents which distinguishes great rulers everywhere, made common cause with Prince Kung against a palace clique opposed to her interests, and brought the baby sovereign back to Peking to govern under a regency. It has been the cus- tom in Western accounts of this woman to call her wanton and cruel. Personally she seems to have been quite the reverse, though as indiffer- ent to human life when her own interests were critically involved as are all Asiatics. The su- preme obstacle to a fair exercise of her excep- tional ability was her utter ignorance of the outside world, the inevitable result of a tradi- tional policy of the Manchu dynasty, carefully fostered by astute Chinese officials, who tried thereby during the nineteenth century to re- duce the princes to impotence and to control the empire for their own selfish exploitation. The Empress was never easily deceived in mat- ters which came within the compass of her own observation, but it was not difficult to play upon her pride of race or upon the anxieties she ever entertained as to intrigues menacing her supremacy within the palace. From such motives she would occasionally visit the greatest

THE FIRST CHINESE MISSION 17

statesmen in the land with sudden and terrible punishment, announced in astounding bursts of passion that recall stories of Elizabeth of Eng- land. Yet her judgment was rarely long at fault, if ever it really failed, and unless misled by misapprehension of the facts relating to European interests and affairs,—a misappre- hension which seemed to Europeans themselves so unaccountable that they refused to credit its reality,—she faced the appalling difficulties sur- rounding her with bravery and sense.

Prince Kung, after his experience in conclud- ing the conventions of 1860 with Great Britain and France, appears to have wisely decided that the safety of his country depended upon a conciliatory policy as to Europeans, so long, at least, as China was weakened by open rebellions in more than half her provinces. In carrying out his plan of maintaining a consistently cor- rect attitude toward all foreigners, there was no evidence of cordiality in his conduct, or of a conviction, like that of the Japanese under sim- ilar circumstances, that China might profit by assimilating certain elements of Western cul- ture. Yet, even thus conditioned, he was the liberal partner in the executive, though rather a moderating than an active force. Had he pos- sessed the political ability of his great ancestors

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KKang-hsi and Chien-lung, he might, perhaps, have converted the Empresses-Dowager to a policy that could well have saved his country the humiliations of 1895 and 1900. His less famous colleague, Wén-siang, was a Manchu of greater energy and broader intellectual grasp, who, while at first sharing the hostility of his class toward foreigners, presently admitted his appreciation of their character and ideas, and honestly endeavoured to lead his fellows to abandon their prejudices and learn of them.! In estimating the attitude of the Western en- voys toward these men, it must be remembered that at this time none of them possessed ade- quate or accurate information of the political situation in Peking. They groped their way, and in the darkness of their ignorance it was a genius of shrewdness and common-sense rather than diplomatic training which proved to be

1Sir Rutherford Alcock described him in a review of the statesmen of China at this period as being “‘by far the most distinguished” of them all. ‘‘As a member of the Grand Secretariat, and vested with other high functions, his influence is very great, both personal and official — subject, nevertheless, to such attenuation as the active hostility of a very powerful party of anti-foreign functionaries within and without the palace can effect. This party, if party that can properly be called which is composed of nearly the whole of the educated classes of the Empire,— officials, literati, and gentry,—are unceasing in their opposi- tion to all progressive measures, whether emanating from the foreign board or elsewhere. But Wén-siang is held in especial hatred as the known advocate of a policy of progressive improvement with foreign aid and appliances.” (‘‘Chinese Statesmen and State Papers,” I, p. 333, Fraser's Magazine, March, 1871.)

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the safest guide. Kung was the first man of princely rank with whom foreigners had come into personal contact in China, and if, through their amity, he could be convinced of the desi- rability of closer and more friendly relations in the future, they were encouraged to anticipate an end to the old attitude of opposition to the West following the conversion of the court to a policy of free intercourse. They did not then realise the unbroken antipathy of the official class, nor were they aware that the Chinese people as a whole have to be convinced before they can be controlled, or that a sudden break with the ancient Manchu hermit-nation policy required the adhesion of the provincial govern- ments before it could be safely effected. If the hackneyed but handy means of securing a con- cession at the treaty ports, by employing force at the locality in issue, was deplorable on moral grounds it must be confessed that the alterna- tive process of demanding justice from the cap- ital was often futile in obtaining its necessary enforcement by the educated gentry of the place where trouble had arisen. China as a country neither liked the intruding foreigner nor feared the central authority.!

1 The dispatches of Sir Frederick Bruce and Sir R. Alcock discuss the politics and statesmen of China at this period with considerable fulness

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‘

On his arrival by the “overland” steamer in October, 1861, Mr. Burlingame found the Amer- ican legation in China located in the rented house of its chargé and secretary, S. W. Williams, in the Portuguese settlement of Macao. His de- sire to proceed at once to Peking and establish the Mission there as soon as possible after the other allies of the late war was frustrated by the lateness of the season, which made it im- possible to reach the capital before the river Peiho was frozen over and travel from the coast precluded. Until railways were built in China, Peking during the winter was almost as secure from the intrusion of travellers as Lhassa or Timbuctoo. The six months’ delay in southern and central China was, however, a useful in- troduction to the new minister’s career there, since it enabled him to obtain some personal acquaintance with the country and prosecute inquiries into the critical situation at Ningpo and Shanghai, two of the treaty ports threatened by the rebel armies. They actually captured the former city in November, but their general readily consented, upon representations from the three foreign consuls there, to spare the

in the Blue Books of this decade. Mr. A. Michie’s discursive life of Sir Rutherford Alcock, entitled ““The Englishman in China during the Victorian Era,” two vols., Edinburgh, 1900, is perhaps the most authori- tative treatment of the subject yet published.

THE FIRST CHINESE MISSION 21

property of aliens and desired them to continue their trade. The Tai-ping leaders proved them- selves to be better aware of the value of com- mercial intercourse with other countries than the imperial authorities, but their utter lack of discipline soon showed that any reliance upon their promises of protection was futile. The foreign community in Ningpo was only preserved during this winter by the presence of French and English war-vessels, and in Shanghai the menace of a rebel attack had to be met by a day’s battle undertaken by all the soldiers and volunteers the foreigners could muster. It must be recalled in this connection that the Tai-pings professed to be Christians, and had introduced a travesty of Christian doctrines to their coun- trymen as the religion of the new dynasty. Europeans had watched their course with anx- iety for several years in the hope that these professions might mean a desire to establish a new rule in China in harmony with the spirit and culture of the West. Had the masters of this extraordinary movement been of sufficient calibre to understand the full advantage of foreign counsel and co-operation, they might conceivably, by this factor alone, have swept the Manchus from China despite the very real opposition to them always shown by the entire

22 ANSON BURLINGAME AND

educated class in China. But in their igno- rance they destroyed trade and population alike, and in their conduct they belied every recog- nised doctrine of the faith which their preten- sions parodied. It required no unusual pene- tration for Mr. Burlingame to decide from his own observation during the winter that the Im- perial Government should be treated not only as the de jure power in the land, but sustained for the sake of humanity in its desperate struggle with anarchy by whatever moral support was allowable in a diplomatic agent.’

Upon his arrival in Peking, July 20, 1862, Mr. Burlingame was resolved not merely to main- tain a correct attitude toward the government of the infant Emperor, but to win its confidence, if possible, by an exhibition of candour and cordiality. This done he might hope for some return in kind, though he could not actually

1 That Mr. Burlingame had to make up his own mind upon this matter is fairly evident from the instructions he received from the secretary of state in re the Ningpo situation. ‘‘ You ought not to be trammelled with arbitrary instructions, especially in view of the peculiar character and habits of the Chinese people and government. In a different case the President would certainly instruct you to refrain most carefully from adopting any means which might disturb the confidence of the Imperial Government or give it any cause of solicitude, even though it might seem to be required for the safety of the property and interests of American citizens. But how can we know here what ability the Imperial Government may have, or even what disposition, to extend protection to foreigners which it had stipulated? Nevertheless, I think that it is your duty to act in the spirit which governs us in our intercourse with all friendly nations, and especially to lend no aid, encouragement,

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expect it to abandon its ancient prejudices and consider the practicability of availing itself of the political wisdom of the West. For this end he also employed all the resources of his genial disposition and courageous optimism to secure the co-operation of his colleagues in the British, French, and Russian legations. It was a gallant programme, but the odds were decidedly against him. The United States—no longer united in fact—were for the moment discredited before the European world by the disasters of the first year of a civil war; their demands in Asia could not be supported by a single gunboat. The desire of foreign merchants and adventurers in the ports of China was to push the policy of grab as far as it could be conveniently carried against the Chinese authorities while they were hum- bled by the defeat of their army before Peking and harried by the depredations of the rebels. The doom of the reigning dynasty seemed to be

or countenance to sedition or rebellion against the imperial authority. This direction, however, must not be followed so far as to put in jeopardy the lives or property of American citizens in China. Great Britain and France are not only represented in China by diplomatic agents, but their agents are supported by land and nayal forces, while, unfortunately, you are not. The interests of this country in China, so far as I under- stand them, are identical with those of the two other nations I have mentioned. ‘There is no reason to doubt that the British and French ministers are acting in such a manner as will best promote the interests of all the Western nations. You are, therefore, instructed to consult and co-operate with them, unless in special cases there shall be very satisfactory reasons for separating from them.” (Seward to Burlingame, March 6, 1862, ‘Diplomatic Correspondence,” 1862, p. 839.)

24 ANSON BURLINGAME AND

at hand, and in the impending anarchy the for- eign element, demurely confident of its invin- cibility against Asiatics, saw no advantage in abiding by the treaties, but imagined, rather, another India prostrate before the first Euro- pean captain who was resolute enough to con- quer the capital and then the empire. The ignorant court, discredited by a long succes- sion of defeats, and fearful of the consequences of every act, wavered and temporised, but showed little inclination to address itself to those reforms in its institutions through which alone it might expect to escape from the immi- nent peril.

Sincere friends of China, who from that day to this have deplored the apparently shiftless indirection of her policy, have not sufficiently realised that reforms of this sort could not be expected at once, or even from one generation of men; they involve not only a machinery of government but an intellectual point of view based upon the time-honoured models of Con- fucius. The system of control organised before the time of Christ had become so intimately a part of the life of China that none of its closely articulated parts could be materially altered without changing its whole economy. It is a fundamental of government as understood in the

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West that official prerogative should be defined and the nature of its duties expressed. This entire conception was as repugnant to the typical Oriental mind of a generation ago as would be the definition of parental authority by a written contract. If the “modern” idea was to be ap- plied to a highly wrought paternalism like that of China, it meant, to begin with, the incon- ceivable indignity of limiting the Emperor him- self, the Solitary Man, who was the fountain not only of honour but of every function in the state, and relating every underling in the off- cial hierarchy not to his natural chief but to a philosophic creation called law. The principle once admitted contradicts the accepted theory of a patriarchal government. We are watching, at last, the reconstruction of a polity that has withstood every havoc from Asiatics for twenty centuries, but which promises to succumb to the more virulent disintegrating influences gener- ated in Europe. The change is far more radical than most of us appreciate or than any of the earlier Western observers of Chinese affairs an- ticipated. Because the gigantic nature of this task has never been comprehended, Western literature upon Chinese politics has become, in great part, an issue of polemics against a people saturated with the spirit of a primi-

26 ANSON BURLINGAME AND

tive age and honourably, if stubbornly, devoted to other ideals than those of our own civilisa- tion.

Yet the situation did not appear to be hope- less to a man inclined to estimate the Chinese character without prejudice and to credit peo- ple of every race and colour with the possession of feeling and common-sense. Indeed, the anti- slavery advocate could not hold consistently any less liberal views. Happily, it was now upon the imperial officials about the throne that the direct responsibility of meeting a difficult situation was imposed; they could no longer re- sort to the favourite device employed upon for- eigners for two centuries by provincial mandarins and shelve all questions for indefinite periods by reference to a higher authority. The location of the foreign legations in Peking had actually brought to the Manchu rulers their first lesson in the meaning of the term “diplomatic inter- course.” As to the reputation of America in China, though she did not impress the Chinese imagination as a mighty power, she enjoyed a fairly clean record for probity and civility dur- ing the score of years since international treaty relations had begun; and good manners in the Orient constitute an asset of emphatic political importance. Had we as a nation sufficiently

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considered the worth of this quality during the past half-century, we might have less cause to- day for anxiety in contemplating the problems of the Far East.!

Mr. Burlingame’s personal charm spelled good manners in any language spoken by civilised men. He, whose political experience at home was lightly flaunted by critics as his only recom- mendation for an appointment abroad, proved as soon as he entered upon his duties in China that it was precisely such training in the knowl- edge of human nature which, coupled with native ability and elevation of character, fitted him

eyond his foreign coadjutors for success in dealing with unusual propositions in diplomacy. Being without prejudice, his generosity proved often to be a better guide than the circumspec- tion of some of those about him who were tech- nically trained in the profession. In Sir Fred- erick Bruce, the British minister, however, who had succeeded to the mission of his brother, Lord Elgin, in China, he found a man of his own cheerful temperament and breadth of view. Bruce had already reached the conclusion re- specting the Tai-pings at which Burlingame had

1*The root trouble with our relations with China, and more recently with Japan, is the contemptuous disregard of their point of view and the childish insistence upon our own.” (A. H. Smith, “China and America To-day,” New York, 1907, p. 178.)

28 ANSON BURLINGAME AND

arrived before reaching Peking.1 He approved of the plan of strengthening the hand of the government by encouraging the organisation of a volunteer military troop under foreign officers, begun by Ward’s “‘Ever-Victorious Force,” near Shanghai, considering any risk to be feared from the introduction of an improved military system into China “‘less serious than the danger, com- mercial and political, we incur from the un- checked growth of anarchy,” and being also convinced “that we, who neither seek territory nor promote by arms religious conversion, have little to apprehend from any success that may attend our efforts to raise the Chinese execu- tive out of its present helpless condition. .. . Nor do I consider,” he adds, “that it will be a matter of regret or hostile to our interests that China should be encouraged, by a consciousness of her strength, to use bolder language in de- fence of her just rights. The weakness of China, rather than her strength, is likely to create a fresh Eastern question in these seas. In pro- portion, also, as the Chinese are obliged to resort to us for instruction, the policy of isolation and contempt for the outer world, from which our

1“ | | that the rebels must be disabused of the notion unfortunately instilled into them by missionaries and others that the sympathy of Western nations was enlisted in favour of this system of blasphemy, massacre, and pillage.” (Bruce to Lord Russell, March 26, 1862.)

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difficulties have mainly arisen, must be aban- doned.”! Furthermore, the British minister was disposed to check as far as possible the aggressive attitude of his countrymen engaged in trade in China, being impressed by the diplo- matic difficulties involved in their assumptions. A serious obstacle to restraining clandestine trading and illegal establishments set up by lawless foreigners was the reluctance of the Chinese Government to assert its own rights under the treaties.

The greater the progress [writes Bruce], the more essential it is that the Chinese Government should be roused from this apathy and compelled to act in defence of its rights. For it is quite impossible that this duty can be accomplished for them. On the other hand, it is a false position and very incon- venient that the foreign minister should be con- stantly urging the Chinese Government to act against his own people, or against other foreigners, in its own defence. This branch of their international education must be undertaken by competent per- sons in their own service if it is to be effectually done. ... In a country like China commercial enterprise, if abandoned to its unchecked impulses,

1 [bid., ‘Parliamentary Papers,” “‘Further Papers Relating to the Rebellion in China,” 1862, p. 9. The dispatch is written four months before Bruce and Burlingame met. His ideas were diametrically op- posed to the opportunist programme of the merchants, who objected to his broad altruism for much the same reason that the moon disapproves of the sun’s appearing at midnight in the classic of ““The Walrus and the Carpenter.”

30 ANSON BURLINGAME AND

will either lead to a suicidal catastrophe or become the herald of war.!

A few months’ residence in Peking showed the new American minister that in this remote cap- ital, inaccessible to steam and telegraphic com- munication, it was easy, in the absence of daily interpellation from interested parties, to cement friendships among the small coterie of foreigners thus inevitably thrown into intimate social re- lations. The diplomatic and missionary circles, constituting the only classes of foreigners resi- dent in Peking, numbering less than fifty souls in all, were alike inspired by a real desire to benefit the Chinese by their presence and influ- ence. In the wholesome detachment of such agreeable surroundings a man of Mr. Burlin- game’s temperament and ideals would naturally prefer a magnanimous attitude toward the Im- perial Government as offering in the end the best chance for furthering the objects of his mission. Statesmen like Prince Kung and Wén-siang, as leaders of the only pro-foreign party in the em-

' Bruce to Earl Russell, October 13, 1862. (“Further Papers,” pre- sented 1863, p. 132.) In another dispatch he writes: ‘As far as I can judge from Mr. Burlingame’s language, he entirely concurs in the two main principles which I think should guide us in our deliberations, namely, that our true interest consists in the suppression of rebellion and in the restoration of order, and that the opening of ports and the formation of settlements, without the presence of consular authority, will lead to quarrels and misunderstandings with the people and be ulti- mately disadvantageous to our position in China.” (Ibid., p. 80.)

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pire, whatever their secret sentiments toward the white races, were at least committed by this time to a course of honourable dealing with them. This fact had rather isolated these few men. They needed assistance against the reac- — tionary party in the country, which was known or suspected to be awaiting a favourable oppor- tunity to overthrow the reigning dynasty. To support them by reducing to a minimum causes of misunderstanding and complaint was obvi- ously better for the foreigners than anything now to be secured from making common cause with the discredited Tai-pings, or to be expected from constraining those conservatives who pre- served an attitude of unvarying hostility toward Western peoples. It cannot be alleged that the Prince and his followers were sincere, but unless the Christian world was prepared to undertake the conquest of China it is difficult to see how its representatives could advance their legiti- mate aims at this juncture better than by ac- cepting their assurances and insisting in turn upon a policy of candour and truth for the future.!

On his way to Peking, Mr. Burlingame had written (June 2, 1862) to the secretary of state

1 Some account of Peking fifty years ago may be found in Dr. Rennie’s **Pekin and the Pekinese,”’ two vols., London, 1863, and in Michie’s “The Englishman in China,” vol. IT.

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that “if the treaty powers could agree among themselves to the neutrality of China, and to- gether secure order in the treaty ports, and give their moral support to that party in China in favour of order, the interests of humanity would be subserved.”* After reaching the capital he found the other ministers to be in accord with him in this general principle. He obtained their support in negotiations for regulating trade on the Yangtse, in relation to the employment of foreign officers in operations against the Tai- pings, and in the difficult matter of concessions and independent authority demanded by for- eign merchants in the treaty ports. The British and French envoys readily appreciated “the advantage that would flow from the casting down of all jealousies and by a co-operation on every material question in China.” In view of collateral changes in policy before the end of the century, it is interesting to note that Mr. Burlingame “found Mr. Balluzeck, the Russian minister, prompt to answer, in the spirit of the Russian treaty, that his government did not de- sire to menace at any time the territorial integ- rity of China, but on the contrary wished to bring it more and more into the family of nations,

1 Quoted in his own dispatch to Seward, June 20, 1863. (“‘Diplo- matic Correspondence,” 1864, part I, p. 859.)

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subject in its relations with foreign powers to the obligations of international law; that he was but too happy to co-operate in a policy that would ingraft Western upon Eastern civilisation without a disruption of the Chinese Empire.” ! The text of the proposition constituting Mr. Burlingame’s principle of action in China is embodied in a portion of this same dispatch:

The policy upon which we agreed is briefly this: that while we claim our treaty right to buy and sell and hire in the treaty ports, subject, in respect to our rights of property and person, to the jurisdiction of our own governments, we will not ask for, nor take concessions of, territory in the treaty ports, or in any way interfere with the jurisdiction of the Chinese Government over its own people, nor ever menace the territorial integrity of the Chinese Em- pire. That we will not take part in the internal struggles in China beyond what is necessary to main- tain our treaty rights. That the latter we will unitedly sustain against all who may violate them. To this end we are now clear in the policy of defend- ing the treaty ports against the Tai-pings, or rebels; but in such a way as not to make war upon that considerable body of the Chinese people by follow- ing them into the interior of their country. In this connection, while we feel desirous, from what we know of it, to have the rebellion put down, still we have become (sic) to question the policy of lending government officers to lead the Chinese in the field, for fear of complications among ourselves, grow-

1 Burlingame to Seward, June 20, 1863.

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ing out of the relative number to be employed, ete. That while we wish to give our moral support to the government, at the present time the power in the country which seems disposed to maintain order and our treaty rights, we should prefer that it organise its own defence, taking only foreigners for instruc- tion in the arts of peace and war, and these, as far as possible, from the smaller treaty powers. .. .

I need not attempt to prove the advantages which must flow from co-operation; that we should do so, all must admit. By the favoured-nation clause in the treaties, no nation can gain, by any sharp act of diplomacy, any privilege not secured to all. The circumstances conspire to make this a fortunate moment in which to inaugurate the co-operative policy. The treaty powers are represented here by men of modern ideas, by men who, in this land where everything is to be done, do not choose to embarrass each other by sowing distrust in the Chinese mind, but who, with an open policy and common action, deepen each other’s confidence and win the respect of the Chinese. That the too sanguine hopes in relation to China of our more advanced civilisation may be fully realised by any action we may take, ought not to be expected. .. .

The trouble here now is that we are dealing with a regency which, in a few years, must hand over its doings to the Emperor and those he may call around him. The regency dare not depart in the smallest particular from the old traditions, and yet these will not do for these times. They are distrustful of us, and are afraid of their censors and distant local authorities. Besides, there is a large anti-foreign party here. There are members of the Foreign Board who, if left to themselves, would at once

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place China in perfect international relations with us; but sitting with them are spies, who paralyse them in their action with us, to fall, as they fre- quently do, far short of their promises. In their weakness they resort to tergiversations to such an extent as to menace, and to cause us in our passion- ate moods, almost to despair of holding, with dig- nity, any relations at all with them. Our only hope is in forbearance and perfect union among ourselves; if these are maintained, and our government sus- tains us in the policy we have adopted, I cannot but be hopeful of the future, and feel that a great step has been taken in the right direction in China.

A review of the correspondence between Mr. Burlingame and the secretary of state, during the five years which followed this dispatch, reveals both his loyalty to the principle here propounded and his chivalrous faith in the regeneration of China brought to pass by the exercise of patience and fair play. Whatever the obstacles contrived by the duplicity of officials, the criticisms directed upon him and his coadjutors by designing and disreputable Europeans at the ports, or the temptations brought up by hope long delayed to revert to the old practice of bullying China, the minister maintained his attitude consistently. Secure in his confidence of moral support from his three confréres in the other legations, he was content to let the disappointed traders cavil and to

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await the work of time. As the representative, during this period, of the only foreign power which had never fought China, the only one, moreover, which at this time was unable to bring a single soldier across the ocean to enforce its demands, his control of the situation based upon a firm moral conviction was extraordinary. Under his monition the “‘ Four B’s,”’ as they were called, — Balluzeck, Berthemy, Bruce, and Bur- lingame, — constituted a self-appointed com- mittee of safety for China, and insured her passage into a peaceful period of internal re- construction which endured for twenty years. The conservatism of an empire which had never in its long history consciously received any contribution from Western culture proved ob- durate, indeed, and disappointed the expecta- tions of its well-wishers; but the proper measure of the Burlingame plan is to be sought rather in a consideration of the alternatives involved. Had the exasperations comprehended in a policy of pin-pricks and exaggerated claims for in- demnity been allowed to drive the Chinese once more to armed resistance, another European invasion of China would inevitably have brought other powers — notably Prussia — to claim a share in the spoils of conquest; and in the parti- tion of the empire amongst them it is hard to

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see how an ultimate conflict between the de- spoilers could have been avoided. And in such an issue what of the share of the United States? It has always professed a peculiar aversion to harpy nations; but in the exhaustion of a civil war it could not have either restrained or joined the harpies if it would. The partition of China meant then, as it would mean to-day, the end of equal opportunity for foreign commercial states, and America would have been compelled to retire empty-handed. With no ulterior pur- pose beyond that of a common benefit, Mr. Burlingame’s manhood and urbanity gained more, in the most selfish estimate, for his coun- try than could have derived from any other policy.'

A few topics may be taken from his published correspondence during his residence in China as illustrations of Mr. Burlingame’s diplomatic activities. In the spring of 1863, he protests against the attempt of a French consul at Ningpo to acquire the concession of a part of the city for the French Government. This was a method of filching property and control from Oriental

1 “The foreign ministers,” says Mr. H. N. Lay, at that time inspector- general of the Chinese customs service, “‘met frequently at the house of Mr. Burlingame as upon neutral territory, and there we discussed over our cigars Chinese policy past and present, and in our stroll, which usually closed the afternoon’s confab, the policy that should be pursued in the future was the constant theme.” (‘Our Interests in China,” p. 40.)

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governments then in vogue. It was a favourite claim among foreigners in China that in such concessions the Europeans could exercise juris- diction not only over their nationals, but over the Chinese, an assumption which naturally would inspire competition between the stronger and more ambitious powers as to which of them could secure the most without seeming to im- pinge overtly upon the rights of others. The possibilities of friction from this source were serious. Upon Mr. Burlingame’s representations to the Tsung-li Yamén and to his colleagues the disruptive character of such proceedings was recognised, the Chinese officials encouraged to resist such aggressions, and the newly arrived French minister persuaded to repress the efforts of his consul.'' To establish the principle, he obtained from Mr. Bruce in the following year the publication of a circular to the British con- suls defining the limits of British jurisdiction over leased territory in China, a declaration of the first importance in creating a precedent for rulings under extraterritorial control.2. The set- tlement of Shanghai, at present the most im- portant European community in Asia, received during his term of service its charter of mu-

“United States Diplomatic Correspondence,” 1864, part I, p. 851. 2 Tbid., 1865, part IIT, p. 380.

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nicipal government, based upon the principles propounded by the foreign ministers as follows: That whatever territorial authority is estab- lished shall be derived directly from the Imperial Government; that it shall not extend beyond simple municipal matters; that Chinese not actually in foreign employ shall be wholly under the control of their own officials; that each consul shall have the government over his own nationals, the municipal police simply arresting offenders and handing them over to the proper authorities; that a reference shall be made to the Chinese element in the municipal system in measures affecting them.!

It was recognised in this outline that the jurisdiction covering cases between natives and foreigners under extraterritoriality was imper- fect. In such an untried branch of jurispru- dence, however, the ablest lawyers of Christendom were disposed to await the results of experience. In 1879, under Mr. G. F. Seward as United States minister, the subject of mixed courts was thoroughly discussed, and a general policy adopted in accord with that initiated by his predecessor, which has continued to the present. Chinese law courts provided no adequate rem-

1 Ibid., 1864, part I, p. 857. The first international agreement cover- ing the control of this municipality seems to have been that of July 5, 1854.

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edies in settlement of claims against Chinese debtors, nor would they allow the presence of foreigners as parties, witnesses, or attorneys; a consul, therefore, had usually to instruct the Chinese magistrate as to the proper judgment, despite the treaty provision that the decision be made by the judge of the defendant’s nation- ality. From this practice arose the system of mixed courts at present in operation, based upon the international tribunals in Egypt as examples, but deemed at that time impracticable for China.'

Mr. Burlingame’s concern in the incident known as that of the “‘Lay-Osborn Flotilla,” was only that of a mediator, but his tact and the close personal friendship he had cemented with the British minister enabled him to bring the Chinese to an amicable agreement in an embarrassing matter, where under less amiable guidance a rupture might have ensued. An Englishman, Horatio Nelson Lay, the first inspector-general of the imperial customs ser- vice, was allowed to order a number of gunboats to be constructed in England for a Chinese coast patrol against pirates and smugglers. He greatly exceeded his instructions in executing the

1F, E. Hinckley, “American Consular Jurisdiction in the Orient,” 1906, p. 159. Mr. Hinckley was the first, so far as I know, to call the co-operative policy one and the same thing as the “more recently called open-door policy.”

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order, and in 1863 the Chinese found themselves confronted by a fleet of eight powerful steamers, in charge of English officers and crews, who were engaged to man them for a term of four years, to serve only under their English com- manders and receive pay through Mr. Lay’s hands. The Chinese naturally declined to ratify an arrangement which actually involved an ab- dication of sovereignty in their own country. But in refusing to accept them, the vessels re- mained a menace to the peace of the Far East, either from pirates who might obtain them for use off the China coast, or for those feudal nobles in Japan who were upon the verge of rebellion, or for agents of the American Con- federacy in Asia who were on the lookout for just such swift cruisers as these to prey upon American shipping. Mr. Burlingame, conscious of the gravity of the crisis, and quickened by the risk to his own country, advised the Chinese, “Ist, to give their reasons fully for not ratifying the offensive articles of the agreement; 2d, to thank the British Government and Captain Os- born for what they had done for them; and 3d, that inasmuch as there was a misunderstanding between them and their agent which could not be reconciled, they should request the British minister to have the flotilla returned to England

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under the direction of Captain Osborn, the ships sold, the men paid off and discharged, and the proceeds remitted to them. They fol- lowed this advice to the letter.”’

Perhaps no single event in his life in China illustrates better than this the kind of hazards confronting a foreign minister dealing with Asi- atics uninured to the affairs of a new world, or the risks devolving which may bring a group of nations into jeopardy. “‘Had Captain Osborn,”’ observes Mr. Burlingame, “‘thought more of his pecuniary interests and less of his own and his country’s honour, he would have taken com- mand on the Chinese conditions — have made an attack upon Nanking, won a temporary noto- riety, and left his country involved in a mortal struggle with the rebels and subject to the taunts of the civilised world.” ' The quotation

1 Burlingame to Seward, November 7, 1863. The two chief documents on this incident are “‘ Parliamentary Papers, China, no. 2 (1864),” “The Lay-Osborn Flotilla Papers,” and H. N. Lay’s “Our Interests in China. A Letter to Earl Russell,” London, 1865, 71 pages. Lay was, of course, dismissed from Chinese employ. The effect of this contretemps upon the progressive party in Peking was disastrous. Sir Rutherford Alcock alludes to it thus in a letter to Lord Stanley, January 1, 1868: “‘Our own dealings with the Osborn Flotilla left deep traces of discouragement in the official mind, and paralysed by far the most advanced and progressive among the leading ministers of the Yamén and Grand Secretariat. It went far also to destroy his influence, especially in regard to progress or reforms by foreign agencies. . . . The whole burden of the fiasco fell upon the Yamén and the progressive party in the state, and notably upon Wén-siang, with whom the scheme had originated. However unavoidable at last, the results were deplorable.” (“Parliamentary Papers, China, no. 5 (1871),” p. 114.)

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is significant as illustrating Mr. Burlingame’s characteristic magnanimity in awarding praise to others whom his own services as mediator had brought into agreement. An indirect re- sult of this episode was the establishment of Robert Hart in the place of the discredited Lay — an appointment which was to develop in the next forty years the most remarkable and cred- itable career of any European, perhaps, in Asia during the century.

Before his departure from Shanghai the American minister made the acquaintance of General Frederick T. Ward, “‘an American sol- dier of fortune, but one who reflected extraor- dinary credit upon American valour and mili- tary skill.’ + The career of this remarkable but little-known Yankee in the Far East, to whom was due the creation of the famous “‘Ever- Victorious Army,” renders Mr. Burlingame’s accounts of him in two letters to Mr. Seward of some value historically. In intrusting his younger brother, H. G. Ward, with letters of introduction to the President and the secretary of state, he writes (March 7, 1862): “‘Colonel Ward, now, I believe, a general in the Chinese service, is an American to whom my attention was first called by Admiral Sir James Hope,

1 General J. W. Foster, ‘‘ Diplomatic Memoirs,” vol. II, p. 294.

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who wanted to introduce him to me, and who commended him warmly for his courage and skill. He is instructing the Chinese in the use of European weapons, and has about two thou- sand of them trained, whom he has led in a most desperate manner, successfully, in several recent battles. I know nothing of him since what I have learned from Sir J. Hope, the Chinese, and himself. He says he was born in Salem, Massachusetts, went to sea when a boy, became mate of a ship, and then was a Texas ranger, Californian gold-miner, instructor in the Mexican service, was with Walker — for which he was outlawed by his government — at the Crimea, and then joined the Chinese, among whom he has gradually risen to influence and power. He is now their best officer, and for his recent suc- cesses has been recommended by the Chinese and English for still greater promotion. He says he is a loyal American, and, though a Chinese by adoption, he desires above all things that his country shall have its full weight in the affairs of China. I have felt it to be my duty to write all these things that you may have all the light I have.”

The second letter, written after Ward had been killed in battle, shows his patriotism. October 26, 1862. . . . ““General Ward was a

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man of great wealth, and in a letter to me, the last, probably, he ever wrote, he proposed through me to contribute ten thousand taels to the Government of the United States to aid in maintaining the Union; but before I could re- spond to this patriotic letter he died. Let this wish, though unexecuted, find worthy record in the archives of his native land, to show that neither self-exile, nor foreign service, nor the incidents of a stormy life could extinguish from the breast of this wandering child of the republic the fires of a truly loyal heart. After Ward’s death, fearing that his force might dissolve and be lost to the cause of order, I hastened by ex- press to inform the Chinese Government of my desire that an American might be selected to fill his place, and was so fortunate, against con- siderable opposition, as to secure the appoint- ment of Colonel Burgevine, Ward’s second in command, and an American. He had taken part in all the conflicts with Ward, and common fame spoke well of him. Mr. Bruce, the British minister, as far as I know, did not antagonise me, and the gallant Sir James Hope favoured the selection of Burgevine. Others did not. I felt that it was no more than fair that an Ameri- can should command the foreign-trained Chinese on land, as the English through Osborn would

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command the same quality of force on sea. Do not understand by the above that I have pushed the American interests to the extent of angry disagreement. On the contrary, by the avowal of an open and a friendly policy, and proceed- ing on the declaration that the interests of the Western nations are identical, I have been met by the representatives of the other treaty powers in a corresponding spirit, and we are now work- ing together in a sincere effort to strengthen the cause of civilisation in the East.” !

The incident involved Mr. Burlingame’s par- ticular attention at this time, and resulted, rather curiously, in the employment by the Chinese Government of another famous English- man, General Charles George Gordon. Upon the death of General Ward, and after Mr. Bur- lingame’s proposal, Captain Burgevine, an ex- Confederate officer, took charge of the Ever- Victorious Force, but presently, falling foul of one of Li Hung-chang’s agents in Shanghai, was denounced as a robber of public money. He appealed to the minister at Peking, who dis- covered on presenting his case to the Tsung-li Yamén that a varied assortment of charges had been there arrayed against the American by his

1 Burlingame to Seward, nos. 11 and 27. United States State Depart- ment Archives, ‘‘China,”’ vol. 20.

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personal enemies; also that the government arro- gated its right to execute him after due process of Chinese law. The claim had to be denied as being directly contrary to treaty stipulations, and in this point the foreign envoys supported the American minister unanimously. The charges themselves were found upon investigation to be spurious, and the Yamén showed its will- ingness to quash them, but two of the most prominent provincial officials in the empire, Tséng Kwo-fan and Li Hung-chang, were impli- cated in this plot to suppress an undesirable foreigner, and “the sum to do was to restore Burgevine without offending these local author- ities.’ After protracted correspondence, which must have by its firmness surprised the Chinese statesmen who had counted upon Mr. Burlin- game’s good-nature, the accusations were with- drawn as based upon false evidence, and Burge- vine was cleared. Unhappily he considered his grievances sufficient justification, a short time thereafter, to go over with a part of his regiment to the rebels at Soochow. Deserting these in turn, after Gordon’s appointment to his old place, he actually, through the latter’s good offices, secured pardon from Li and was rein- stated in the Ever-Victorious Force. Then, ap- parently in sheer bravado, he openly declared his

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hostility to the imperial cause and his intention to rejoin the Tai-pings when he could. For this the American consul at Shanghai promptly confined him, in order to prevent further complications, and compelled him to choose between an imme- diate departure from China or a trial in the consular court. He chose deportation, which the Chinese allowed with some pardonable re- luctance. It was a galling case, in relation of which the Chinese were undoubtedly very deeply stirred. They were aware that no state in Christendom was so impotent as to be unable to punish a proved rebel and traitor when fairly apprehended; but Prince Kung writes (May 1, 1864) to Mr. Burlingame that “in consideration of our present amicable relations, and desirous to show more than ordinary regard, I will waive all further investigation in this matter if your excellency will deport him to his own country.” !

In another matter, of considerable importance to this country, the American minister secured from the Chinese Government an order to the

1“T)iplomatic Correspondence,” part I, 1864, pp. 864-875, and part III, 1865, pp. 421-5. Burgevine’s end has really nothing to do with the subject in hand. - He met his death rather mysteriously after returning to China about a year later (June, 1865), while a prisoner of Li Hung- chang’s troops, when the viceroy had no intention of letting his prey slip a second time through the meshes of diplomacy. His fate was palpably the result of his own imprudence; he was but one of an assortment of adventurers who infested the Far East inspired by hopes like his of making their fortunes in the disorders which assailed China during

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governors of the maritime provinces forbidding the Alabama, “‘and every other vessel with sim- ilar designs, from entering our ports,” or to ap- proach the coast of China. “Such an order,” declares General Foster, “enforced by the gov- ernments of Europe, would have saved the American commercial marine from destruction and shortened the Civil War. It was a striking evidence of the influence of the minister and of the friendship of the Chinese Government.” ! The dispatch, hitherto unpublished, advises the department of his action as follows:

(Confidential.) In my regular dispatch I have informed you of the action of the Chinese Govern- ment adverse to the rebel cruisers. I was led to act from the near approach of the steamer Alabama. My first step was to secure for my plan the good-will of my colleagues. Accordingly I carefully presented the whole question to them and, happily, with much success. Mr. Vlangaly, the Russian minister, pro- posed, if necessary, to aid me in urging my views upon the Chinese. Sir Frederick Bruce, the British minister, permitted his able interpreter, J. McLeavy Brown, Esq., to act with Dr. Williams in the later these parlous years. Prince Kung’s comment on conveying the intel- ligence of his decease to Mr. Williams is characteristic: “‘Burgevine himself was a man who, by his frequent connection with the rebels, had, as you formerly remarked, acted so as to lose the countenance of his own country. It would have been right, therefore, to have regarded him as amenable to the laws of China; but as he has now met his death by the upsetting of the boat, there need be no further discussion about

him.” (Ibid., part I, 1867, pp. 462-478.) 1 American Diplomacy in the Orient,” p. 159.

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discussions. Mr. Berthemy, the French minister, was equally friendly.

The next step was to bring the question before the Chinese in such a way as to succeed. This was first done by conversation; then by an elaborate unofficial memorandum containing reasons for action which might be used among themselves. Finally, it was agreed that I should address to the Prince a formal request which might become the basis of a proclamation. This I did, as you will learn from the enclosed. . . . The proclamation secures to us such aid as the Chinese may have. They have near Shanghai a few small steamers besides Ward’s old force, now under Gordon, well supplied with artil- lery. Guns may be so placed at the mouths of the harbours as to prevent the cruisers from getting in to take our splendid steamers on the Yangtse or, if they once obtain entrance, from getting out again. If they should go into Whampoa to dock, or to Canton, a gun or two placed at the old Bogue forts would make it dangerous for them. The Chinese custom-house officers are intelligent Europeans who, in conjunction with the Americans at the ports, may be able to do something. I shall set all the machi- nery at work that I can against the privateers.!

A few examples of Mr. Burlingame’s apprecia- tion of Chinese interests and of his courtesy toward their public men may be adduced to explain the sincere regard for him which en- gendered their remarkable proposal at the end of his term of office. By temperament disposed

1 Burlingame to Seward. United States State Department, “China,” vol. 21, March 17, 1864.

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to augur well from even the smallest signs of progress, he was called fatuous by unkindly European critics, but there was justification at the time for a policy of optimism when China seemed willing to respond to more generous diplomatic relations. Soon after arriving at his post he reports the adoption by China of a national flag in a sentence which, to old resi- dents weary of waiting for a real change of the Chinese heart, must have been little less than irritating. “Surely,” he exclaims, “the words im- movable Chinese civilisation have lost their sig- nificance. By this act the Imperial Government, casting down the last shred of its exclusiveness, confronts us with a symbol of its power and demands a place among the nations.” ! Of course they were themselves unaware of any such intention, yet it is true that in consenting to this innovation the Chinese implied their de- sire to be ranked with other nations in at least one practice common to the rest of mankind. The appointment to a seat in the Tsung-li Yamén of Siu Ki-yu, a former provincial gov- ernor, who had been degraded in 1842 because of a favourable notice of America in a published book, suggested to Mr. Burlingame the gift of a portrait of Washington by the United States

1 Burlingame to Seward, October 27, 1862.

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Government, as a fitting recognition of his tribute to that great statesman. When the picture was presented with due ceremony the impression produced may be fairly said to have affected the whole of educated China.

A greater service to the enlightenment and wel- fare of that land, but one less appreciated by its inhabitants, was the minister’s proposal, which found favour with the officials, to employ Pro- fessor Raphael Pumpelly — visiting Peking dur- ing the autumn of 1863, after completing a geological investigation in Japan — to make a report on the coal measures near the capital. The significance of the permission thus ob- tained can be understood only when we remem- ber that the conservatives were most jealous and fearful of allowing foreigners to secure pre- cisely such information as this upon the mineral resources of the empire. It was Mr. Burlin- game’s plan to interest the high officials in ex- ploiting these resources for the profit of the state and involve them logically in the necessity of applying railways and engines, when they should see for themselves that their business demanded such things. This expectation was not justi- fied, indeed, because those officials had no loyal conception of advantages to the empire as dis- tinguished from their personal benefit; but the

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eagerness of foreigners to exploit their mines at once alarmed the native mind, none too anxious at best to tamper with the mysteries of science and nature, and pushed them in their terror into increasing obstinacy of refusal. It may be contended that Mr. Burlingame was deceived, and that the mandarins were playing upon his abounding good-nature, but the fact remains true that, judged merely from the lower motive of a quid pro quo, his trust in their sincerity secured greater concessions from the govern- ment in five years than came to foreigners by peaceful means in the following forty.

His insight was less apt to err than the learn- ing and experience of others on many occasions where the personal factor was predominant. The sentiment of personal dignity — “‘saving the face,” as it is called in China — has a more serious meaning there than elsewhere. Realising this, he was ever ready to assuage the feelings of the men with whom he was called to deal, and, if need be, to avoid pressing an unpleasant point until unpleasant language became neces- sary. Had proper attention been given by other foreigners to the susceptibilities of people of old- fashioned culture, the paths of diplomacy might have been pleasanter and have led, perhaps, to more profitable results in the Far East during

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the past half-century. Mr. Burlingame’s benign consideration, though temperamental in its ori- gin, was an essential factor in his diplomacy, and it paid. As the American people have lately been reminded by Dr. Wu Ting-fang’s intrepid sarcasm, “China is not like America, England, or any part of Europe. We have been thought to be a peculiar people. We are pecu- liar in some ways — in politeness, civility, and in manners.” !

As objections to Mr. Burlingame’s work in China were chiefly based upon the charge that he was much too easy with a people deeply versed in the arts of chicanery, it is proper here to quote a characteristic letter in which his prin- ciples of action are briefly set forth:

I have the honour to enclose a correspondence in relation to smuggling and arrests on the Yangtse. The strictures of the Prince upon Mr. Seward are alluded to in dignified language in my reply, and were subsequently made the subject of satisfactory explanations. . . . The trouble here is that the lo- cal authorities, desiring to make a show of activity, send up the most exaggerated statements in relation to everybody and everything. The consuls form a fruitful subject of their attack; but learning at length that their statements are not permitted to go unchallenged, the local Chinese officials are be-

1 Speech at the annual dinner of the American Asiatic Association in New York, September 20, 1909. (Journal American Asiatic Association, vol. 9, p. 266.)

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coming more cautious. The authorities here, exas- perated at the undeniable violations of the treaty by lawless parties, are too apt to confound respect- able merchants with smugglers and rebels and to use the same language in reference to all. Time and patience alone are required to correct these things. I do not reply in kind: if I did, the controversy would be endless and fruitless. My practice is to corre- spond as little as possible, and then to make my letters brief and plain. This course gradually wins their respect and leads them into more respectful style. Nothing confuses these men more than to let them know that you think they have been want- ing in politeness. I am trying with my colleagues to secure a mixed commission, which will at least collect evidence not to be denied by either party. Now both parties send up the most confusing and contradictory statements. From these I say one thing and the Chinese another; from this unprom- ising attitude we seek an equitable solution of ques- tions. In the interests of justice I sometimes go to the verge of diplomatic propriety in seeking to con- trovert what I may deem the false statements of their officials.

The Chinese feel sensitive when I give more weight to our people’s statements than to those of their people. In an enclosure you will find a significant illustration of this feeling, where they express the hope that as they believed my statements in the Scotland case, that I will believe theirs as unques- tionably in turn. I write the above to show the difficulties of the situation and to explain the corre- spondence which I sometimes send you. I believe my relations with them were never better than they are at present. Our frequent interviews have made

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us well acquainted and strengthened our faith in each other.’

During an absence on leave in America be- tween the spring of 1865 and the autumn of 1866, Mr. Burlingame was able to advise the department of state upon the condition of affairs and to discuss with the secretary some proposals for future activity in China. Mr. Seward was personally a cordial supporter of his policy there, but in the turmoil of recon- struction after the Civil War little interest in the East could be enlisted from Congress or the politicians of America, and nothing was accomplished. One suggestion embodied in a dispatch of the secretary, dated December 15, 1865, may, however, be noted as a promoting cause of the first essay made by China to ex- amine into and report upon foreign nations through an agent of her own.

Str: The harmonious condition of the relations between the United States and China, and the im- portance of the commerce between them, would make it agreeable to this government to receive

1 Burlingame to Seward, May 26, 1864. “Diplomatic Correspon- dence,” 1865, part III, p. 382. ‘‘While such are our obligations with respect to the foreign representatives in China,” he writes Consul G. F. Seward at another time, “they are equally strong toward the Chinese officials, whether native or foreign; for it is through these that we main- tain our relations with China, and any want of courtesy or consideration at once reacts upon ourselves and destroys our power for usefulness,” (Ibid., p. 430.)

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from the Emperor a diplomatic representative of a grade corresponding with your own. It is true that this would be a novel, if not an unprecedented step on the part of that government. As treaties, how- ever, have for many years been in force between China and Christian nations, and as the empire may now be disposed to respect the obligations of public law, it strikes us that the Emperor’s Government would be consulting their own interest, and would be reciprocating that which, to a degree, at least, is a courtesy on our part, by having a diplomatic agent here, whose province it would be to see that our obligations toward China, under the treaties and law of nations, are fulfilled, and who might re- port to his government upon that and other inter- esting topics. China also may be said to have spe- cial reasons for the measure in respect to the United States, as her subjects are so numerous in this country, particularly in California. You will conse- quently bring this matter to the attention of that government, and may say that, if the suggestion should be adopted, it would be peculiarly gratifying to the President.!

“This document was obviously intended to be shown to the Tsung-li Yamén, and was for- warded to Mr. Williams, the chargé in Peking, who could be trusted to soften in translation its slightly patronising tone. It may have quick- ened the resolve of that body to accede to a proposal which had often before been made to them, though, as Mr. Williams reports:

1Seward to Burlingame, ‘United States Foreign Relations,” 1866, part I, p. 487.

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They have acted in it now without any urging, and apparently from a conviction of the benefits which they may derive; so that, being quite volun- tary on their part, the step is regarded by the diplo- matic body here as an advance in the right direction. The delegate sent on this mission is Pin-Chun (ad- dressed as Pin-tajin), who has been acting for two or three years as revisor of custom-house returns, in connection with the foreign inspectorate, and has thus been brought into contact with foreigners and learned as much of their countries as his opportu- nities allowed. Before leaving the capital he was raised to the third rank, and formally introduced by Prince Kung to the foreign ministers on their New Year’s visit as his agent to their respective countries, sent on the part of the Foreign Office. His instructions require him to make careful notes on the customs, peoples, and all objects of interest in the lands he visits. . . .

This mission from China to the West will be of great benefit to this government, if Pin-tajin brings back such an account as will encourage it in its for- eign policy. It is, perhaps, better in some respects that the first attempt to break through the policy of the empire should be by sending a private agent, who can report without further committing the gov- ernment; see other lands, as it were, with his own eyes, and test, in some degree, the descriptions that have been given it of those regions. It seems to me desirable, therefore, that while the party sees whatever is deemed most worthy its inspection, no great éclat should be made during its short stay in America. Since the appointment was made the Foreign Office has been much pleased at the appro- bation unexpectedly evinced by other high officials

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in Peking at the move, and consequently their in- terest in its result will be increased.!

But China was in no real sense ready for the results of such an adventure. An infinitesimal minority of her governing class had profited, indeed, by the instructions of a few foreigners and adjusted themselves to their novel position in relation to Western countries; yet there was no such agreement between Oriental and Occi- dental as these friendly interviews at the for- eign office seemed to imply. Even if there had been, the essentially democratic nature of Chi- nese control would have made it impossible for the central authority at Peking to impose a totally new policy upon the empire — as Japan was doing at the time — without first converting the literati class throughout the country. Pin, as it transpired, was a mere pawn pushed for- ward upon the chess-board of Chinese politics; he was not even allowed by the obscurantists to publish a report upon what he had seen. His interest to us lies solely in the fact that in sending him abroad the government admitted that it could do such a thing; but his “‘mission”’ was hailed at the time by foreigners as the har-

1 Williams to Seward, March 10, 1866. One of the attachés of this party, Chang Teh-ming, served subsequently as Chinese minister to Great Britain. The “mission” is described in Miss Bredon’s “Sir Robert Hart,’”’ London, 1909, pp. 112 ff.

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binger of a new era, and ‘‘commended so warmly by the foreign ministers to their governments that the emissary was received like the Queen of Sheba by King Solomon, and shown — at least in Great Britain — everything that was admirable from the Western point of view. He was as far, however, from appreciating the tri- umphs of science as was Cetewayo the Zulu, whose admiration of England focussed itself on the elephant Jumbo at the Zoological Gardens.”’!

It is easier, however, to philosophise upon the vanity of expectation a generation after the event than to foresee the sterility of a hope before it is proved to be baseless. The time had not yet come to despair, although on Mr. Bur- lingame’s return to Peking the foreign envoys there had begun to realise that it was useless to anticipate great results from their attempts to infuse vigour into the Central Government. Its policy of inertia seemed at once the easiest and most effective means of withstanding the de- mands of those preposterous outsiders. “The stimulus or the fear (writes Mr. Williams, August 10, 1866), caused by the approach of foreign troops to Peking six years ago is losing its former potency. It is very wearisome to be obliged to constantly urge the memhers of the ? 1 Michie, “The Englishman in China,” II, p. 137.

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Foreign Office to do their duty, and oblige the local authorities to fulfil treaty stipulations whenever our citizens suffer wrong, while, at the same time, one feels that they either cannot, or will not, or dare not, act efficiently. I think sometimes that they have become utterly dis- couraged with the multiplicity and urgency of the questions and grievances brought before them for settlement and reparation.” If the few officials friendly to foreigners had fallen away from their earlier rapprochement during Mr. Burlingame’s absence, it was true conversely that a growing indifference was shown by his confréres in the legations toward his idea of co-operation. The practical disability of this idea arose from its moral elevation; it was, in a way, a counsel of perfection requiring not only patience, but repression, to effect its perfect work, and repression involved the restraint of impatient groups of merchants at the ports, who had from the outset flouted any notions of morality in dealing with Asiatics.

In the important matter of amending the scandal of coolie emigration from China, the foreign ministers found a comprehensive national agreement difficult at first, but they pursued, on the whole, a consistent and creditable policy, which after some years stopped the evils of

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kidnapping and deporting Chinese labourers. Other questions were not so obviously deter- mined by plain ethical principles. The regula- tion of pilotage at the open ports, for example, had been rendered difficult by jealousies among European pilots, the English especially claim- ing, with the consent of their minister, that British ships should be brought in only by Brit- ish pilots, while these were also to be allowed to serve the ships of other nations. Here again, after some friendly discussion, the business was not only amicably concluded, but was made the basis of a larger determination. Mr. Bur- lingame

opposed these regulations as illegal and unjust. This view was entertained by the French, Prussian, and Russian representatives, as well as by Sir Ed- mond Hornby, the British chief-justice at Shanghai. Sir Rutherford finally suspended the regulations from operation. We thereupon entered into rela- tions with the Chinese Government with the view of adopting a uniform system which might be sup- ported by all. Mr. Hart, inspector-general of cus- toms, had previously suggested that all matters relating to pilotage should be placed under the con- trol of the commissioner of Chinese customs. This suggestion was, after much discussion, unanimously adopted — first as a matter of right to the Chinese, and second as a matter of convenience to our- selves. The result was the preparation and adop- tion of the fifteen regulations herewith sent. These

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were mainly drawn by Mr. Bellonet, French chargé d’affaires.'

Mr. Hart’s sensible proposal, that all matters pertaining to the conduct of foreign shipping in Chinese waters be placed in charge of the im- perial customs service, comprised as a corollary relegating the tonnage dues for building light- houses, setting buoys, dredging, ete., the results of which have been the present admirably marked and lighted harbour entrances along the China coast — an illustration of the justice of Mr. Burlingame’s contention that a “‘matter of right to the Chinese” involved a “‘convenience to ourselves.” ?

The inevitable conclusion had been forced upon his mind during six years of close obser-

1 Burlingame to Seward, May 1, 1867.

? His uniform agreement with and approval of all that Mr. Hart advo- cated for the betterment of China’s position is rather striking. He saw nothing necessarily inimical to his own country that conveyed an ad- vantage to China. In conjuction with his colleagues he urged upon the Chinese the importance of telegraphs and railways, but he wisely re- fused to press the matter against their scruples, however inconsequent these seemed. In their gratitude for his services in the Lay-Osborn Flotilla affair the Tsung-li Yamén assented verbally (in March, 1865) to the laying of an American cable along the coast from Canton to Shanghai, touching at the various treaty ports. “This is the only thing,” he writes, “resembling a grant ever made to any one. It should be understood that a grant to me, under the favoured-nation clause, is a grant to all. The first to occupy the ground will have the advantage, but more than this I cannot say. I have persistently refused to advise the company, or any one else, to risk money; and however much J should be pleased as a patriot to have Americans build the first line, I must still respectfully hold that position.” (Burlingame to Seward, May 22, 1867.)

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vation, that no real revolution in Chinese polity could be expected except from the slow process of education. Wars and “object lessons”’ had driven the government only so far as fear could force them; they had failed to convict them of unsound or discreditable conceptions of states- craft. For this reason he reports with charac- teristic enthusiasm two memorials to the throne, recommending the establishment of a govern- ment college for instruction in the arts and sci- ences of the West. The proposition owed its inception to Mr. Hart, and contemplated at first merely the expansion of the Tung-Wén Kwan, a school of languages instituted in 1862, and con- ducted by the distinguished American Sinologue, Dr. W. A. P. Martin. Like other promising projects in China it failed, through the rancour and obstruction of the literati, to meet the ex- pectations of its sponsors or to develop, as was hoped, into a true university where Chinese and Western courses of instruction could be merged into the same curriculum. It is un- necessary to enter here into the history of the Tung-Wén Kwan until its suppression at the crisis of the Boxer outbreak; it accomplished all that was possible in the face of official an- tagonism and lack of support from even those who pretended to be friendly, but the argu-

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ments advanced in the memorial advocating its enlargement in 1867 are the same which China has since acknowledged to be the founda- tion for her existing educational policy. These arguments, revealing the better side of Chinese character, to which Mr. Burlingame was always quick to respond, were welcomed by him as an indication of the success already achieved by the line of conduct he advocated.

Could there be a greater evidence of progress than is disclosed by these papers? I marvel as I read them, and call your attention to them with infinite pleasure. When I came to China, in 1861, the force policy was the rule. It was said: “the Chinese are conceited barbarians, and must be forced into our civilisation’’; or, in the energetic language of the time, it was said, ““you must take them by the throat.”” Fortunately, the representatives of the treaty powers did not listen to this view. Conspicu- ous among these was Sir Frederick Bruce, the Brit- ish minister, who with his colleagues said that if force was ever necessary the day for it was over; that we were in relations for the first time with the chiefs of the government, and that it was necessary to proffer fair diplomatic action as a substitute for the old views, and to so bear ourselves as to secure the confidence of this people. Accordingly, the pol- icy was adopted of which you have been advised so often, and which you have approved so fully. Under this policy great development has occurred, missions have extended, trade has increased three- fold, scientific men have been employed, “‘ Wheaton’s

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International Law”’ translated and adopted, mili- tary instruction accepted, nearly one hundred able men received into the civil service, steam-boats mul- tiplied, the way slowly opened for future telegraphs and railroads, and now we have this great movement for education. Against this movement there has been continued opposition among the Chinese, and it has been frequently endangered by the inconsid- erate action of foreigners impatient of delay; but there has been no successful reaction, and the inten- tion of those now in authority is to go cautiously and steadily forward.

There has never been a moment since these hopeful lines were written when some of her own earnest and patriotic sons did not desire China to “go cautiously and steadily forward.” Could they have counted upon the author of this dis- patch during the years of reaction that were to follow, when new antagonisms and well-founded fears of partition by European powers paralysed their plans for reform, it is not impossible that, under the egis of this man’s influence, China might have accepted their leadership and accom- plished her great task without incurring chastise- ment at the hands of friend and foe alike.

Of the missionary problem — called by Sir Rutherford Alcock “the main cause of disturb-

1 Burlingame to Seward, April 10, 1867. The memorials referred to are printed in full after the dispatch and are abundantly worth perusal as specimens of sound reasoning applied to meet the arguments of the opposition,

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ance in our relations with China, and of danger to the Chinese Government itself no less than to all the foreigners resident in the country”? — little is seen in Mr. Burlingame’s published cor- respondence. ‘The reason for this may be con- sidered to be the same as that which renders the history of most happy states dull; in this decade of planting new missionary stations in the empire the suspicions and collisions inevita- ble in a religious propaganda had not developed into a recognised opposition. The first revela- tion to the Chinese mind of possible dangers involved in militant Christianity appears to have come with the French punitive expedition to Korea, in 1866, when M. de Bellonet, the chargé, demanded that China, as suzerain of that state, should punish her ruler for the slaughter of Catholic priests and converts there, failing which he declared his resolve to take the affair into his own hands and annex the Hermit King- dom to France.

The Tientsin massacre of 1870 may not un- justly be accounted a sequel to this stroke of French policy. In their first efforts to secure

1The expedition was a melancholy failure by which France may be said to have “‘messed things” for Europeans of all nationalities in the Far East. “It revealed,” says Mr. Michie, “the innermost hearts of the foreigners with a vividness not to be forgotten; it was the whole missionary question, from the Eastern point of view, in a nut-shell. To violate the laws and teach the natives to do so, and then appeal to

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redress for this outrage, which occurred, it will be remembered, in the opening month of the Franco-Prussian War, the French appealed to the co-operative principle; but in their action since that time there has been no further sign of their acceptance of that plan so far as mis- sionary activities are concerned. This, however, was a development of international relations with China subsequent to Mr. Burlingame’s career. It may be an idle speculation to guess what his presence in Peking might have effected in influencing Chinese policy after 1871, but what his attitude would have been toward ““aggressive”’ apostles of the faith may be in- ferred from his statement to Mr. Seward (May 27, 1867): “You will observe that in my dis- patch to the members of the Foreign Office I disclaim the right to interfere between the Chinese and their own authorities in questions submitted to the Chinese legal tribunals, and that in my letter to our consul, Mr. Lord, while I propose to maintain treaty stipulations, I in- timate that the Chinese Christians should not

foreign governments to back them in this insidious form of rebellion — that was the function of the missionaries. The foreign government thereupon lays claim to the territory, and so the conspiracy is crowned. In the face of such an unveiling of motives, the chance of the Chinese statesmen being led by the friendly counsel poured constantly into their ears by the foreign ministers in Peking must have been small indeed.” (A. Michie, ““The Englishman in China,” vol. II, p. 177. See also ‘United States Diplomatic Correspondence,” 1867, II, p. 419.)

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be encouraged to expect protection by forcible intervention on the part of the United States. This is the only course to pursue unless we are prepared to enter in China upon armed propa- gandism.”” The American missionaries in Ningpo had in this case appealed through their consul to the minister to check by his interference a rising anti-foreign spirit, as shown there in the persecution of converts in secular charges by local authorities. The aggravations arising out of such cases are certainly very great. The question is too complex to be dismissed by the historian with the easy reflection that the minister’s advice, render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar’s, would, if consistently followed, have been the cure-all for thirty years of trouble which ensued. Yet experience in China has on the whole justified the Burlingame position as the right one — that native converts cannot be profitably protected from their own officials by foreigners, even when they suffer unjustly for the truth’s sake.

From this summary of his official relations it is scarcely an exaggerated estimate to discern in Mr. Burlingame the adviser who, more than any other, saved China in the period of her greatest peril from the sort of national shipwreck which Korea has met in recent years through similar

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recalcitrance and ignorance of foreign states and their power. In defence of this contention it is not necessary to call him a negotiator in- tellectually supreme above his fellows; he had, as it happened, just the qualities adapted to his task. Such genius as he possessed was ap- plied to the highest advantage where a policy depended for its success upon certain principles clearly conceived and persistently maintained. He was effective, as has been shown, through proclivities of mind and disposition rather than by reason of training in the traditions of diplo- matic intercourse between the states of Christen- dom; but, for the manner in which he reached conclusions well justified by subsequent experi- ence, and in dealing with novel and unexpected conditions, he deserves the title of a diplomatist of original and constructive talent. His success was secured by the exercise of patience and re- serve under circumstances that were often diffi- cult and almost always aggravating. His in- fluence endured because he was determined to allow nothing to disturb the confidence already won from the statesmen with whom he was commissioned to deal, and never greatly to an- ticipate their desires. He perceived that their reluctance was not necessarily the result of bigotry, that the habits and conservatism of

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centuries could not be reversed in an hour. If China was to remain an independent power, there was really no legitimate alternative to his plan; if she was not, America had little to hope and everything to lose from a contrary policy of armed intervention and subjugation by Eu- ropean rivals. And if from motives of sym- pathy and sagacity Mr. Burlingame became sponsor for this policy, the logic of his reason- ing was discreetly acknowledged by the repre- sentatives of Great Britain.

If foreign powers (writes Sir Rutherford Alcock, the British minister) would guide and not coerce this people, they must begin by convincing and persuad- ing them. If it be a question of compulsion, and forcing upon them changes in their system of govern- ment and administration, backed by such foreign appliances as railroads and telegraphs, the treaty powers should be prepared to take upon themselves the whole responsibility of the measures and pro- vide their own machinery for governing the huge empire under a protectorate, or a general dismember- ment and division of the fragments. Conquest and occupation have been spoken of; but it is difficult to see to what uses — political, military, or com- mercial — any portion of China could be applied by European powers; and if not prepared to enter upon an enterprise of this kind, they should be slow to adopt a policy paralysing all national develop- ment and directly leading to such an issue."

1 Alcock to Lord Stanley, December 23, 1867. (‘Parliamentary Papers, China, no. 5 (1871),” p. 84.)

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At the time of Mr. Burlingame’s arrival in China the foreign envoys had, as we have seen, decided to stand by the Imperial Government in its efforts to check the Tai-ping insurrection, an uprising which was manifestly a revolt against law and order. Had they decided otherwise and let anarchy have its way for a time — losing in the turmoil their trade and all other interests in the empire for perhaps a generation — they might have had at last a tabula rasa upon which to write a new constitution for another China. But in electing to support the old régime, clogged as it was with corruption and irrational miscon- ceptions, they were logically bound to await the slow process of regeneration to be effected by educating a people, and by the gradual intro- duction without violence of new methods which would commend themselves to an awakened nation. This postulate the Western traders, anxious as to cash profits, could not understand, nor would they credit the grievous disabilities under which the government laboured. Influ- enced by selfish desires, Europeans were, for the most part, as blind to the real issues as were the Chinese to the advantages offered them from abroad. It required a man of uncommon equa- nimity to stand firmly against the aggressiveness of one party and the repugnance of the other.

THE GENESIS OF THE MISSION

OME understanding of the cross-currents and conflicting purposes inevitable in the conduct of such a governmental system as

that of China may be derived from a perusal of the correspondence already examined. Since the opening of Peking the government and dom- inant class in China had striven tenaciously against foreign aggression, and if little had been gained, in their estimation, the foreigners had, at all events, been halted in their advance and secured no further concessions of territory or privilege. But while the Chinese were a unit in opposing any advent of foreign control, there were variations both in attitude and purpose among their parties. As Prince Kung and his coadjutors in the Tsung-li Yamén had received enlightenment through personal intercourse with the official representatives of foreign states, so the tradesmen at the ports, through a profitable interchange of commodities, had acquired some appreciation of the value of the foreigner’s trade,

and even some toleration for his mechanical con- 73

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trivances and standards of material comfort. Between these two groups lay the vast bolus of an educated but unenlightened China, ignorant alike of the substantive weakness of their own country and of the strength of others, satisfied with a culture which had dominated half a con- tinent for thirty centuries, as fiercely jealous of the native who conceded a single point to the adversary as of the enemy himself and his hate- ful conceits. And as far above all of these as the inscrutable proletariat was below, stood the palace, invisible to the eye of the outsider as it was inviolable to every new idea, a nursery of corruption, powerful in exalting or demolishing individuals, but incapable, through its ignorance of real conditions, of pursuing a consistent policy. The actual governing power was thus rendered impersonal, and shuffled from hand to hand, with no one who could be held specifically re-- sponsible for its effectiveness.

The end of the decade was to bring with it the date upon which a general revision of the com- mercial provisions of the British treaty of Tien- tsin might be demanded.!' The British Govern- ment does not appear to have been eager to

1 The French treaty gave twelve years from the date of its ratification, which would have made its revision due in 1873. Of course the most- favoured-nation clause made any advantages secured by one nation the common possession of all. In this case the others proposed to stand by and let her Majesty’s representative negotiate.

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attack a problem hedged about with difficulties, nor did its envoy, Sir Rutherford Alcock, advo- cate the attempt. “The question arises,” he argues, ‘if nothing is to be gained by demanding a revision which may not be as well obtained without — whether much would not be lost, and an opportunity thrown away which might, by reserving the right, be turned to better ac- count when the Emperor’s majority is declared. I believe the true policy of foreign powers would be to wait.” !

Such revision as the foreigners contemplated necessarily involved correction of abuses and further privileges that implicated the provincial governments and affected the settled polity of China. No great constitutional change can be rightly estimated from one stand-point alone. There are always at least two aspects: its imme- diate effects, which may be partially foreseen, and the indirect results of the new forces set in motion, which no one can measure. The mat- ter is further complicated if cognisance must be taken of extraneous pressure. In the case of

1 Alcock to Lord Stanley, November 15, 1867. “Correspondence Re- specting the Revision of the Treaty of Tientsin,”’ 1871, p. 56 — a dis- patch full of wisdom. ‘‘No nation,” he declares in the same paper, “likes the interference of a foreign power in its internal affairs, however well-intentioned it may be, and China is no exception to the rule. On the contrary, their pride of race, and what they conceive to be a real superiority in civilisation to all outside nations, renders them peculiarly restive under the goad of foreign impulsion.”

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China the uncertainty of any fundamental alter- ation brought about through foreign dictation has been greatly increased by their ignorance of her real needs and their indifference to the sensibilities of the people. However imperfect their administrative system in the eyes of Euro- peans, the fact remains that it has served its purpose and its people extraordinarily well. Its service and long continuance are not, indeed, reasons for leaving it untouched by new influ- ences, but the gravity of altering the relations between rulers and people in such a vast com- monwealth demands extreme precautions. First among these would seem to be the necessity of recognising the fact that despite her autocratic forms China is really ruled with the consent of the governed. The mass of the common popu- lation believe profoundly in their ancient tradi- tions and in customs and “superstitions”? which Western peoples deride. In view of their inde- pendence and of the enormous resisting power of this mass the imposition of great innovations against its desire induces fierce and persistent opposition directly menacing the existence of the government. The small group of enlightened officials who were willing to encourage the in- troduction of such foreign inventions as might be adapted to the needs of China found them-

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selves, then, confronted not by a theory but by a situation. To force these changes upon the economic and social life of the Emperor’s sub- jects before either rulers or people were prepared for them was to court revolution. Not only was the reluctance of these advanced officials justi- fied, but it became the duty of the representa- tives of those foreign nations who wished to see the unity of China preserved, to assist them in withstanding proposals that might discredit and ruin the empire. Short of this the diplomatic body in Peking could not stop consistently, with the Burlingame policy of “let alone” openly avowed by the Four B’s and approved by their governments. To act otherwise was to plunge China once more into the abyss of anarchy from which their own statesmanship in the Tai-ping rebellion had rescued her.

If, however, the alternative of a break-up of China was discarded — as it had been — there remained the other course, that of intervention to secure necessary reforms. As official cor- ruption and popular prejudices were the under- lying obstacles to a proper observance of the treaties, the domestic politics of the empire be- came an object of concern to the foreign powers. Success in so delicate a business as this, con- fronted as they were by the superciliousness of

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the palace and the precipitancy of the treaty ports, demanded harmony among the foreign governments upon the principles at issue. This was the other element of the Burlingame policy, the co-operative idea, seen to be more and more essential if China was to be preserved intact. Race antagonism and a certain contempt for Asiatics entertained by most Caucasians had de- veloped a predilection for arbitrary methods on the part of the European mercantile class in the Far East, but the attitude of their governments had thus far been favourable to maintaining a fair field for the independent governments of China and Japan. Happily no question of fron- tiers in the remoter parts of Asia had become acute at that time, as in the case of the Near East, and the number of powers intimately involved was limited. Their merchants could easily be made to recognise the inexpediency of imperilling business by bringing on anarchy. The political situation could be saved if the two policies identified with Mr. Burlingame could be faithfully continued and the merchants shown that another course meant loss. Complications which the future would bring, with its increased facilities for transportation and more numerous competitors in the trade, might destroy forever such an opportunity for co-operation as this.

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The author of these policies became thus their logical exponent before the world.

Some indecision is evident on the part both of China and Great Britain during the year 1867. But in facing the unknown in human affairs the most difficult thing to do is to wait. Unhappily, while Mr. Burlingame had been absent from his post there was no advocate either in London or Peking of the let-alone policy sufficiently exalted to enforce the admirable reasoning of Sir Ruth- erford and compel a course on the one hand of refraining from meddling and dictation, and on the other, of submitting Western culture to con- siderate study. Pandora’s box was opened on the very inadequate premise that “it was time something was done.” To prepare for a discus- sion that was not necessarily immanent memo- rials on the subject of their grievances were in- vited by the British legation from its nationals in the open ports; the minds of all Europeans and of the watchful Chinese became tense. An analysis of their wants showed “three or four cardinal defects, not of the treaties so much, as in their execution.” ‘These pertained to inland and local taxes on foreign goods, facilities of access and communication with the interior of China, — which involved, of course, pleas for the intro- duction of steam locomotion and telegraphs, —

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privileges for working mines, and the establish- ment of an international tribunal with securities for execution of awards against Chinese debtors or defaulters. Anticipating, now, some formal consideration of these desires, British merchants naturally exerted all the pressure they could to bring about a general revisal of those checks and restraints under which trade had been conducted since the Arrow War. By the end of 1867 the Chinese and foreign elements engaged in com- merce were profoundly stirred by the hopes and fears involved in a rearrangement of the status quo.

In the complex and delicate situation of parties — if such they may be called — in China at this time, it is impossible to deny that this bouleversement was an unfortunate hazard for her more progressive statesmen. It gave fresh am- munition to their opponents, the ““Old Guard”’ of Chinese politics, and renewed former appre- hensions that the foreigners proposed to bring about a rupture which should involve new con- quests and further control. To the more re- sponsible among them this was a dreadful crisis. They credited all foreign nations alike with in- satiable avarice; they had really never under- stood why the invasions of 1840 and 1858 had been hurled against them; they saw that they

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were as helpless before Western attack now as ever before; they realised that the foreigners — “barbarians who never considered justice” — had everything to gain and nothing to lose by instigating afresh war. Goaded on by their fears and by the recriminations of their repulsive crit- ics, they called upon the satraps in the provinces for advice. All China, native and foreign alike, was agog.

The secret circular addressed by the Tsung-li Yamén to the higher civil and military officials upon the barbarian question is of interest as ex- hibiting their view of the difficulties and dangers of the situation. They describe the foreigners as united in interest, while there was no one in the empire who could create disunion among them. It was necessary to be patient and humour them until such time as China might be vigorous enough to drive them all out of the country and return to her old isolation. Mean- time, a rupture must be avoided at all hazards, and to this end suggestions were required upon the topics likely to be discussed at the confer- ences upon a treaty revision. These points were: the demand for imperial audience, for an embassy or permanent missions to foreign coun- tries, telegraphs and railways, residence of Euro- pean merchants in the interior, mining and salt privileges, and Christian missions. All of the

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memorials received in answer to this invitation were characterised by sense and frankness, not unmixed, however, with fantastic proposals, the natural result of ignorance of the outer world. The replies of two viceroys may be briefly noted here as representing the best intelligence of China at this conjuncture.

That of Tséng Kwo-fan begged “to suggest that in all our intercourse with foreign nations the most important things to be regarded are good faith and what is right, and perhaps even above these should be placed decision. ‘Those things which we cannot yield should, from first to last, be firmly declared and not retracted under any circumstances; but those privileges which we can liberally yield might be made known to them in direct and plain terms.” Against steamers, railways, and telegraphs he advanced the economic objection that native carriers and boatmen would be driven to star- vation, but he approved of opening mines and employing foreign machinery. As to the audi- ence, he rises to a position far in advance of his class and of the clique that controlled the Empresses-Dowager: “Our sacred dynasty, in its love of virtue and kindness to those from afar, has no desire to arrogate to itself the sway over the lands within the boundless oceans, or require that their ministers should render homage; and

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it will be suitable if, when your Majesty yourself takes the reins of government, they request an audience to grant it. The suitable presents and ceremonies can be settled at the time; for, as the envoys represent nations of equal rank, they need not be forced to do what is difficult.” He also advocated sending embassies abroad if fit envoys could be found; “seeing that this point has for its object the honour and prosperity of his Majesty, and the smoothing over of diffi- culties, it seems best, on the whole, to accede to it.” Christianity, he thought, would never secure many converts in China, and might there- fore be discussed without bitterness or appre- hension for thefuture. ‘Should the day come,” he concludes, “‘when China gets the ascendant and foreign nations decay and grow weak, we then should only seek to protect our own black- haired people, and have no wish to get mili- tary glory beyond the seas. Although they are crooked and deceitful, they yet know that reason and right cannot be gainsaid, and that the wrath of a people cannot be resisted. By employing a frank sincerity on our part we can, no doubt, move them to good ways, and then everything will be easily arranged to satisfaction.” !

1“ United States Diplomatic Correspondence,” 1868, I, p. 519. This and the following memorial were never published, but came into the hands of foreigners through yamén runners. Sir R. Alcock subsequently

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Li Hung-chang, at that time viceroy of the Hu-Kwang, reported even more favourably than his colleague at Nanking upon the propositions submitted. He conceded the audience, envoys abroad, and the use of steam and electricity, as requests that might with propriety be granted, and considered the matter of extending mission- ary activity beset with greater difficulties than the rest, but not beyond settlement. He was, in fact, disposed to regard none of the questions as outside of the scope of amicable discussion, the danger in the situation being that foreigners might use force to extort concessions if not handled carefully. Yet he credited none of the nations (except Russia) with a desire to divide and occupy China, “for the reason that, with the exception of Russia, foreign countries are all too distant from China, and the acquisition of its territory would be nothing but an em- barrassment to them.” 1! Perhaps the most sig-

wrote some valuable comments upon them in his articles entitled “Chinese Statesmen and State Papers.” “It goes far to prove the authenticity of this document, although it cannot be strictly vouched for, that the negotiations which followed for the revision of the treaty the year after were carried on by the Tsung-li Yamén very much in the spirit here recommended, and otherwise in perfect accordance with the advice tendered. On all matters not involving, as they conceived, the peace and security of the people, either by their startling novelty or sudden displacement of capital and labour, they yielded with a good grace; on others, such as railroads, telegraphs, the admission of salt, and unrestricted residence in the interior, they resisted steadily, and were immovable.” (Fortnightly Review, May, 1871.) 1 He learned better before he died.

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nificant item in Li’s memorial was his advice to Chinese officials to cultivate intimacies with foreigners. This had been his own practice; “he has found that no matter what they are engaged in, they act honourably without deceit or falsehood. But, although it is possible to acquire a general knowledge of their own affairs, yet there is no means of becoming thoroughly acquainted with the details and motives of their conduct.” ?

The sense and candour of these two memorials, though characterising only the most advanced thought of the time, reveal the sagacity to be found among Chinese statesmen of the higher class and give the lie at once to aspersions — still too common — upon their “childishness”’ and deceit. Their tone is quite that of memo- rials which were presented to the government of Japan at that time, and ultimately acted upon to her great advantage. So far from being *‘hide-bound in their arrogance,”’ these officials acknowledged the physical superiority of for- eign nations, and upon that knowledge they based their advocacy of regeneration to save themselves from foreign conquest. They show that a true education in affairs vital to their

1 The document is very freely translated in Michie’s “Englishman in China,” II, pp. 185-191,

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interests had been progressing since 1860, and that time alone was needed for men of this type to convert the recalcitrant majority of Chinese officialdom to their views. The same leaven which was to work the wonder of the nineteenth century in centralised Japan was fermenting in decentralised China, where it was necessary to carry conviction to the minds of all her educated classes before the empire could be aroused to action. Because the foreigners did not under- stand this, because they were too impatient to wait, they abandoned a policy which had been advocated with such tenacity and purpose by Mr. Burlingame and his associates, and presently drove the conservative opposition to assume a new lease of control over China. The visible sign of this reversion among the people was an epidemic of anti-foreign demonstrations in the provinces;! its manifestation on the part of the Tsung-li officials was their sudden and rather desperate decision to send an embassy to the Christian powers, and entreat their further pa- tience for a slowly awakening nation.

1 These occurred during the ensuing years, culminating in the famous Tientsin massacre of June, 1870. One in Yangchow, in September, 1868, instigated by the literati, one in Taiwan, Formosa, in December, an attack on missionary buildings at Nanking by students in the same month, another upon a British boat’s crew by villagers near Swatow, in

January, 1869, and another at the same time on a Catholic community in the province of Szechwan.

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Conjecture was rife among foreigners in China at the time as to her probable reason for cre- ating such an embassy. The fact that it was quickly resolved made them conclude the exist- ence of some fresh and impelling motive. They did not reflect that with autocratic rulers such decisions are not infrequently the outcome of sudden inspirations, and that it is only the long debate demanded by constitutionally governed states which prohibits an impulsive venture. Suggestions to this end had been made often enough both by foreigners and their own offi- cials, so that the project itself could hardly be a novelty to the Imperial Government. The Empress-Dowager Tsz Hsi was impulsive by temperament and quick to act when mastered by anew resolve. Her confidence in Prince Kung was at the time complete. We have seen that his feeling toward Mr. Burlingame was rather more kindly than toward any other foreigner at the capital, and that he looked upon him as a friend of China. In the absence of any docu- mentary evidence upon the court view of the incident, it does not require much subtlety to infer that when the Prince proposed sending such an advocate of China to foreign countries, the Empress acquiesced in the suggestion as a ven- ture in which there could be little risk of loss

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and might be a handsome prospect of gain. To one of smaller intellectual calibre such a step would have been repugnant merely because it was unprecedented, but we know now that the master-mind of China during the past half- century repeatedly acted in this way.

The genesis of the Chinese Mission to the for- eign powers is best set forth in the documents published in the “Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States,’ and presently to be quoted. After resigning his post as American minister by telegram to the secretary of state *“‘in the interests of my country and civilisa- tion,”” on November 21, 1867, Mr. Burlingame proceeded by cart with his family and a few friends on the 25th to Tientsin. It was char- acteristic of the disordered state of China at that time that the party should be threatened by a band of mounted brigands, and compelled to find safety in a village en route; it was equally characteristic of the habits of foreign- ers living in China that help should be sought from the legations in Peking and from a British

1 Two recent biographies enable us to make some historical estimate of her: Bland and Backhouse, ‘‘China Under the Empress Dowager,” and P. W. Sergeant, ““The Great Empress Dowager of China.” It may have been remembered in the palace that an embassy sent by Japan to the European powers in 1861 to request a postponement of the dates

when their treaties should come in force had been successful in delay- ing the opening of Hyogo and Niigata as trade ports for five years,

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gunboat lying at Tientsin, while the Imperial Government, whose ambassador was supposed to be in personal danger, did nothing at all be- cause it was not notified of the matter. During a stay of a month in Shanghai awaiting the Chinese members of the Mission, who thought it more prudent to repair thither by mule-cart rather than by steamer, Mr. Burlingame, visited the Viceroy Tséng Kwo-fan at Nanking. Had that statesman, at the time the greatest man in China, cared to indorse the Mission he might have given it a national character. As it was, he considered it a palace experiment with which the provinces had no concern, and, while receiv- ing the ambassador with civility, gave no pub- lic indication of his approval.!. From Shanghai Mr. Burlingame sent Mr. Seward the following account of his appointment:

You will have learned from my telegram from Peking of my appointment by the Chinese Govern- ment as “envoy” to the treaty powers, and of my acceptance of the same. The facts in relation to the

1 During his absence in Nanking the edict creating the Mission was published. From a contemporary account we learn that while at Shanghai “‘the high mandarins and government officials in the region round about called on Mr. Burlingame, and manifested in every way the extreme respect in which they held him in consequence of the posi- tion in which he had been confirmed and the unprecedented dignity conferred upon him. It was found impossible to prevent them from prostrating themselves before him, and he could only remain passive and receive their attentions.” (“American Annual Cyclopeedia.’’)

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appointment are as follows: I was on the point of proceeding to the treaty ports of China to ascertain what changes our citizens desired to have made in the treaties, provided a revision should be deter- mined upon, after which it was my intention to re- sign and go home. The knowledge of this intention coming to the Chinese, Prince Kung gave a fare- well dinner, at which great regret was expressed at my resolution to leave China, and urgent requests made that I would, like Sir Frederick Bruce, state China’s difficulties, and inform the treaty powers of their sincere desire to be friendly and progressive. This I cheerfully promised to do. During the con- versation Wénsiang, a leading man of the empire, said, ““Why will you not represent us officially?” I repulsed the suggestion playfully, and the con- versation passed to other topics.

Subsequently I was informed that the Chinese were most serious, and a request was made through Mr. Brown, Chinese secretary of the British lega- tion, that I should delay my departure for a few days, until a proposition could be submitted to me. I had no further conversation with them until the proposition was made in form, requesting me to act for them as ambassador to all the treaty powers. I had in the interim thought anxiously upon the sub- ject, and, after consultation with my friends, deter- mined, in the interests of our country and civili- sation, to accept. The moment the position was formally tendered I informed my colleagues of all the facts, and am happy to say that they approved of the action of the Chinese, and did all they could to forward the interests of the Mission. J. McLeavy Brown, Esq., Chinese secretary of the British lega- tion, was persuaded, in the common interest, to

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act as first secretary to the Mission, and Mr. Des- champs, a French gentleman, who had accompanied Ping on a visit to Europe, was selected as second secretary. ‘Two Chinese gentlemen of the highest rank were selected from the Foreign Office to conduct the Chinese correspondence, and as “learners.”” My suite will number about thirty persons. I shall leave for the United States by the February steamer for California. I limit myself in this note to the above brief history of the Mission, reserving my reasons for accepting it to a personal interview at Washington.

I may be permitted to add that when the oldest nation in the world, containing one-third of the human race, seeks, for the first time, to come into relations with the West, and requests the youngest nation, through its representative, to act as the medium of such change, the mission is not one to be solicited or rejected.

Among foreigners in the open ports this un- expected action of a government which had been written down as recalcitrant in all matters affecting “progress” was at first cordially ap- proved. Opinion changed when the event be- lied their expectations, and Shanghai became subsequently the seat and centre of criticism hostile to the Mission. It is interesting, how- ever, to observe that the earlier impressions formed at that port of Chinese motives for its creation were those which are likely to be ac- cepted as the true ones. The Tsung-li officials,

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they surmised, were sincerely sorry to lose in Mr. Burlingame the last of the four foreign ministers with whom personal diplomatic inter- course had begun in the capital after the estab- lishment of peace. The Chinese were aware that their national predicament was not realised abroad, and hoped that, after some intimate acquaintance with both their circumstances and intentions, Mr. Burlingame might be able to explain to other governments the dangers which must arise in China from forcing upon her sud- den changes for which the majority of her ablest and most powerful classes were as yet unpre- pared. “The changes they had already intro- duced,” writes a well-informed Shanghai resi-. dent, “‘were really revolutionary, considering the condition of the empire; and while they were progressing, and willing to progress, they could not lose sight of the important fact that upon them devolved the responsibility of governing the empire and maintaining it in its integrity, whereas foreigners, who were free from any re- sponsibility whatever, and but very little ac- quainted with the wants and political condi- tion of China, called for changes without being themselves perfectly assured that these changes would not, as had already in some instances been the case, prove detrimental to their own

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interests. They further urged that it was not necessary, and would be very unwise, to intro- duce every possible change that foreigners could conceive within the almost momentary space of ten years; but with a steady policy of gradual progress they would be able to advance with security to the empire, and with satisfaction to foreign governments, who fairly considered the dangers and difficulties of their position.” ? That Mr. Burlingame’s quality of magnetism was not without influence even upon the for- eigners of Shanghai is evident from another paragraph by the same writer. There, as in Peking, he was the apostle of reasonableness, and the doctrine was novel enough to abate for a moment the distrust pervading the whole atti- tude of Europeans toward China. Hopes for better things to come could arouse these people to speak generously of the Chinese, but the self- ishness of these hopes entailed new bitterness in the end. “I am far from contending,” con- tinues Robertson, “‘ that there is no deceit in the Chinese heart, or that the Chinese are anxiously

1 Letter dated January 8, 1868, published in the London Daily News, February 28, 1868, by its Shanghai correspondent, James Barr Robert- son. Its value lies not alone in the fact that he admirably represented Shanghai opinion, but that this outline of the Mission’s origin was ob- tained from an interview with Mr. Burlingame, whose views he was willing at that time to publish as his own. Subsequent letters to the Daily News show Mr. Robertson and the Shanghai community in a very different temper.

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endeavouring to carry out in their integrity the views and wishes of foreigners; and I am far from thinking that foreigners should not en- deavour to secure beneficial concessions by up- right and liberal treatment of the Chinese. But considering how invariably concessions extorted by force are evaded by Europeans, and naturally and perhaps rightly so, can we expect that this haughty and egotistic nation will bend under the yoke in meek submission? If, armed with the common instincts of humanity, I were to place myself in the position of a Chinaman, I should, unless culpably negligent of my country’s honour, feel bitter hostility to intruding for- eigners who might come to impose on my coun- try conditions favourable to their own trade simply because in the superiority of their strength they could compel me to submit. I might yield from motives of expediency, but would I hasten to drink the cup of my humiliation to the very dregs? Yet, in spite of the overweening conceit of Chinese mandarins, they have taken some important steps which we are bound to interpret as signs of progress, and these probably in great measure because residence at Peking en- abled Sir Frederick Bruce and Mr. Burlingame to introduce with the ultimate depositories of power a peaceful and persuasive policy instead

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of the compulsory policy which had formerly prevailed amongst foreign powers in China. Whether these forward movements are due to foreign pressure more than to perfectly spon- taneous choice is of no very great consequence so long as they are accomplished facts brought about by peaceful means and without any need of resorting toforce. They are valuable acquisi- tions for the moment, and they are an earnest of similar concessions for which we may not have long to wait.”’

Some comments of interest to the historian of the Mission are contained in a dispatch from the American chargé, Mr. Williams, to his govern- ment. Though arrangements for its composi- tion were all made in the ten days before Mr. Burlingame’s departure from Peking, he thinks that “the Prince and other high functionaries had long debated the propriety of the step,” and that “the ample powers given to him prove the importance that they attach to the Embassy.” The mission of Pin to Europe in 1866, though otherwise barren of result,! indicated their will- ingness to consider the matter of a properly

1He made, wrote J. Ross Browne, “‘a report suited to the views of his employers condemnatory of foreign improvements, and demonstrat- ing that such things are unsuited to China. In consequence of this he was promoted.” A partial statement. Pin-Chun’s confidential report was never published or seen by foreigners. (Dr. Martin’s “Cycle of Cathay,” p. 374.)

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accredited legation abroad; it was known, indeed, to a few foreigners in Peking that a similar proposition had been made two years before to Mr. Hart. ‘Some have not entirely approved of placing a foreigner at the head of it, but it seems to me to illustrate the practical character of this people to send as its representative one who would not be liable to the mistakes which would almost certainly be committed by the fittest and best educated native living. The Prince and his associates begin to feel that, in order to maintain their position, they must, as he intimates in his dispatch, send envoys to personally state their case at foreign courts, explain their difficulties, and urge the reasons for their own policy; and they are convinced that none of their own body are qualified for this office. The selection of Mr. Burlingame indicates their persuasion, therefore, that he will do for them better than they can yet do for them- selves. The proposed revision of the treaties next year is likely to bring up for consideration many important subjects for discussion, and this has no doubt its weight in deciding them to send him before those points are formally presented.” Finally, in order to indicate the advance dur- ing a decade in the attitude of the imperial court toward the powers, he contrasts the terms of its

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envoy’s commission with those employed in the two missives addressed by the Emperor to the President of the United States in 1858 and in 1863. The first of these, sent by Hsien-féng to Mr. Reed, at Tientsin, begins: “I, the August Emperor, wish health to the President of the United States. Having received with profound respect the commands of Heaven to sway with tender care the entire circuit of all lands, we regard the people everywhere, within and with- out the wide sea, with the same humane be- nevolence”’; . . . concluding: “‘The minister of the United States is now at Tientsin, where he is negotiating with our high officers, and their intercourse has been mutually agreeable. As soon as their deliberations are concluded, he should return to Canton to attend to the com- mercial duties of his office as usual.” The second, dated January 23, 1863, was the infant Emperor Tung-chih’s acknowledgment of the President’s letter, conveyed by Mr. Burlingame: “His Majesty the Emperor of the Ta-Tsing Dynasty salutes his Majesty the President of the United States. On the twenty-fifth day of the seventh moon the envoy Anson Burlingame, having arrived in Peking, presented your letter, which, when we had read it, we found to be written in a spirit of cordial friendliness [breath-

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ing] nothing but a desire for relations of amity that should ever increase in strength.” !

The notification to the foreign legations of the appointment of the envoy to the treaty powers was issued by Prince Kung on November 22. The copy sent to that of the United States reads as follows:

Since the time when the treaties with foreign countries were ratified, the friendly relations between the two parties have daily strengthened. Every matter that has come up for discussion between the representatives of those nations now living at the capital and myself has been deliberated upon with so much sincerity and candour that they have in no case failed to be arranged to our mutual advantage. But all those countries are separated from this by wide oceans, and no envoy has hitherto been sent to those lands, and thus there has been no medium through whom the Chinese Government could per- sonally make known its views to their governments, or explain its policy. But now, seeing that his excellency Anson Burlingame, lately the minister residing here from your honourable country, has such thorough acquaintance with the internal and ex- ternal relations of this country, and I myself have such entire confidence and acquaintance with him, it has seemed to be feasible for this government now to adopt the customs of those countries who have sent resident ministers to this, and it would, moreover, be exceedingly agreeable to me to com-

1 Williams to Seward, December 23, 1867. (“Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs,” 1869, part I, p. 496.)

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mission him as the envoy of his Imperial Majesty’s Government to all the treaty powers, to attend to and manage whatever affairs may arise between them. I have already stated this matter in a memo- rial to the Throne, and yesterday I was honoured by receiving the following rescript:

“The envoy Anson Burlingame manages affairs in a friendly and peaceful manner, and is fully ac- quainted with the general relations between this and other countries; let him, therefore, now be sent to all the treaty powers as the high minister, empowered to attend to every question arising between China and those countries. This from the Emperor.”

A copy of this rescript has been made known to Mr. Burlingame, and this copy has also now been made to communicate to your excellency for your information and action thereon.!

The credentials of the mission, as translated by its first secretary, J. McLeavy Brown, and approved by Messrs. Williams, Martin, and

1A few days later copies of the rescripts ordering the appointment of the Chinese envoys and of the secretaries were forwarded to the legations. Much was made afterward by the opponents of the Mission of the terms employed in these and the following documents. An erudite but de- mented German, Johannes von Gumpach, who had been relieved by Mr. Hart from his position as instructor in the imperial college, compiled in 1871 an extraordinary and vituperative volume of 891 pages, entitled “The Burlingame Mission: A Political Disclosure,” which is supposed to have been financed by a number of British firms in Shanghai. The work was subsequently suppressed and is now rather rare. Dr. von Gumpach translated the rescript quoted above as follows: “The board for the general control of individual states’ affairs, having respectfully submitted that the public messenger P’u-Ngan-Ch’en [Burlingame] transacts business matters in a conciliatory spirit, and is thoroughly conversant with the fundamental relations of the central [state] and the outer [states]: it is hereby ordered, that he be appointed to proceed to the individual states bound by treaty in the capacity of a high official,

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Hart — probably at the time the three foremost sinologues in Peking — are as follows:

His Majesty the Emperor of China salutes. . . [the sovereign addressed].

In virtue of the commission we have with rever- ence received from Heaven, and as China and foreign nations are members of one family, we are cordially desirous of placing on a firm and lasting basis the relations of friendship and good understanding now existing between us and the nations at amity with China. And as a proof of our genuine desire for that object, we have specially selected an officer of worth, talents, and wisdom, Anson Burlingame, late minister at our capital for the United States of America, who is thoroughly conversant with Chinese and foreign relations, and in whom, in transacting all business in which the two empires [names given]

to manage such matters as have arisen, in reference to each individual state, out of the [commercial] intercourse between the central [state] and the outer [states]. The rest according to prevision. This from the Emperor.”

Emphasis was laid chiefly upon the unwarrantable freedom of Mr. Williams’s translation and on the derogatory terms employed for foreign countries and for envoy. There can be no question of the Emperor’s claim of universal supremacy — still a tenet of Chinese orthodoxy — or of the conventional idea of “individual” states being inferior to the middle kingdom. But this and the title of ““messenger” constituted a part of the time-honoured phraseology of Chinese diplomacy which the court could not venture to ignore without inviting a revolution on the part of the literati class of China. The California papers, for reasons of their own, evinced a very lively concern in the disparity between translations when the Chinese text was published, but the New York Tribune sensibly dismissed the difference as ‘“‘less a matter of importance than of curiosity.” Europeans might afford to treat such assumptions as good-naturedly as the Emperor Vespasian, who was content to reply to the Parthian’s “‘Arsaces, King of Kings, to Flavius Vespasianus,’— “Flavius Vespasianus to Arsaces, King of Kings, greeting.” (Rawlinson ‘‘Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy,” p. 290.)

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have a common interest, we have full confidence as our representative and the exponent of our ideas.

We have also commissioned Chih Kang and Sun Chia Ku,' high officers with the honorary rank of the second grade, to accompany Mr. Burlingame to [name of capital], where Mr. Burlingame, with the two so appointed, will act as our high minister ex- traordinary and plenipotentiary.

We have full confidence in the loyalty, zeal, and discretion of the said three ministers, and are as- sured they will discharge satisfactorily the duties intrusted to them, and we earnestly request that the fullest credence and trust may be accorded to them, and thereby our relations of friendship may be per- manent, and that both nations may enjoy the bless- ings of peace and tranquillity, a result which we are certain will be deeply gratifying. ~ Dated this sixth day of the twelfth moon of the sixth year of our reign, Tung Chih.

Mr. Williams’s commentary upon this letter is of some value:

The preparation and dispatch of these letters of credence marks an advance on the part of this gov- ernment almost as great as that of sending the Mis- sion itself, although apparently a mere consequence of that act. In order to explain this, it is needful to observe that the board of Foreign Office, notwith- standing its great influence and the high rank of its members, has hitherto no legal existence of itself, but at present consists of the presidents of four of the six boards, viz., civic office, revenue, punishments, and works, and two other high officers, who have

1 Chih was born in Peking in 1819, Sun in Suchang in 1823.

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been detailed to join in its deliberations under the chairmanship of Prince Kung. The members act in it conjointly under the style of the T’sung-lz koh kwoh s’z, or general managing office of foreign coun- tries; but individually they are responsible also for the conduct of their own departments to the general council of the government. When the desirableness of appointing Mr. Burlingame and his associates as envoys to foreign countries was proposed, the matter was agreed to by the Empress Regents and others, as a proposal of the Foreign Office chiefly, for the success and results of which it was responsible; but when the question of granting them a letter written directly from the Emperor to other crowned heads, indorsing the Mission and requesting them to accept it, the whole traditionary policy of the empire was interfered with; the supremacy of the Emperor as the Son of Heaven, appointed from on high to rule over mankind, was proposed to be practically ig- nored by his own officers. The propriety of grant- ing the letter was stoutly opposed by many of the members of government, and I am inclined to think that the Mission would have left the shores of China without it if it had not been for the precedent set by the Chinese Government itself, and drawn out of it by the American ministers. In explanation of this remark it may be stated that it has been the usage among most of the foreign ministers accredited to this government not to deliver their letters of cre- dence to the Emperor, because they were not per- mitted to do so in person; but the American ministers have chosen to hand them to the highest official they could meet, accompanied by an open translation. Replies to two of these letters having been issued, it was argued by Mr. Brown and Mr. Hart (who,

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being officials themselves, in the employ of govern- ment, were entitled to a hearing), that if his Majesty could personally reply to a letter from the President of the United States without derogating from his authority or dignity, he certainly could write a letter to him with equal propriety. The question had been often discussed whether it was suitable in every respect for the American minister to transmit his letter of credence to the Emperor instead of delivering it in person, but the result has answered a purpose that one cannot object to, and has prob- ably incidentally furnished a strong argument for those officers who, in a few years, must go further and claim for him an audience at court.

I have read the translation of the letter addressed to the President, and I am confident that you will not find anything in it savouring of the extraordinary assumption on the part of the Emperor which runs through the two replies quoted in the other dispatch. It completes the full authority and authenticalness of this new Mission to the Western world on the part of this ancient empire, the first, I believe, which it ever sent from its shores to other lands on a footing even approaching to equality. Previous embassies have been sent in a patronising, authoritative style, requiring the rulers of other countries humbly to accept the envoys and behests of his Majesty; this goes to confirm and develop an intercourse mutually beneficial to all.

As no written instructions were given their envoy, the following (December 7, 1867) from the Tsung-li Yamén to Mr. Williams — sub-

1 Williams to Seward, January 25, 1868.

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stantially repeated in Prince Kung’s communi- cation to the foreign ministers in Peking and to “the secretaries of state of those treaty powers not yet having diplomatic representatives in China”? — claims attention as the sole author- isation for action abroad vouchsafed by the Imperial Government to its Embassy.

His Imperial Majesty having seen fit to ap- point Anson Burlingame, formerly minister from the United States, with [the Manchu] Chih-Kang and [the Chinese] Sun Chia-ku, two of the members of the Foreign Office, to be his envoys to proceed to all the treaty powers with authority to manage what- ever affairs may arise between those countries and this, the imperial decrees conferring this authority on them were recently copied and sent to you.

But I am somewhat apprehensive that the foreign ministers in this capital, learning that his Majesty has commissioned three persons at once thus to rep- resent him, will conclude that neither of them is to take the lead in conducting affairs with those nations, and I have therefore deemed it proper to explain the reasons of this cause in order to remove all doubt upon this point.

It is the usage among all the great Western powers, in the interests of peace and goodwill, to appoint envoys to go to each other’s countries to attend to any affairs that may arise; and it would have been proper, during the many years that peace has existed between your honourable country and this, for his Imperial Majesty to have, at a much earlier period, commissioned a high officer to go there for the pur-

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pose of representing him and attending to any affairs arising between us. But owing to our imperfect knowledge of the languages and usages of foreign nations, this step has been delayed from time to time. Now, however, as Mr. Burlingame, a man of honour and peace, and intimately conversant with our intercourse and relations with other countries — one, too, with whom the officers of this government have long had acquaintance and confidence — is willing to act on behalf of China in attending to her interests, a memorial was presented to his Majesty requesting that he might be appointed imperial commissioner to all the treaty powers, and that Messrs. Brown and Deschamps might be also ap- pointed to be first and second secretaries of the lega- tion, to aid him in conducting its duties and accom- plishing its purposes. But if no high officers are sent on the Mission from China also, there will here- after be no one sufficiently acquainted with the necessary details to be qualified to receive the post of envoy; and this consideration induced the Foreign Office again to request his Majesty to appoint both Chih and Sun as his imperial commissioners, to go at the same time. This arrangement would manifest the good feeling existing, and be, moreover, the means of giving them practice and experience in their duties. If they could, in this way, add to the effi- ciency and dignity of Mr. Burlingame and his two secretaries, then the completeness of the Mission for its duties would be all that could be desired. When this government at a future day desires to send her own envoys, she will then have precedents to fol- low, and it will be easier to prepare them for their duties.

Everything, however, that relates to the duties

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of imperial commissioner in the United States will devolve alone on Mr. Burlingame, and his decision will be final; but the correspondence with the Foreign Office at Peking will properly devolve upon the two Chinese commissioners, who will at all times consult with Mr. Burlingame in attending to their duties. In this way the requirements of the entire legation will be provided for without difficulty to any part of it. As one of its members under- stands the languages and peculiarities of all the countries he will visit, so do the other two as fully comprehend the language and affairs of China. This arrangement is, however, rather a temporary one, applicable at the initiation of the Mission, and is not designed to serve as a constant rule in the future. I have, therefore, to request that you will inform the secretary of state of these particulars, so that when these imperial commissioners reach the United States to transact the business of their Mission, he will be fully aware of their position and relative duties.

Evidences of dissatisfaction over the concep- tion of an Embassy to the Western powers were numerous and immediate on the part of the conservative politicians in Peking. They would have been more numerous had the court been less prompt in its action. As it was, the coun- try was not taken into its confidence in this matter, the reason obviously being that to call for counsel upon such an unprecedented propo- sition in the presence of the universal rancour of the literary aristocracy against the “‘bar-

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barians’’ was to invite antagonism. The sin- cerity of the Prince and his confréres in pushing their project is amply testified by their plain intention of thus forestalling criticism. Such criticism was far more general than foreigners at the time were aware of, and in the absence of a native press only a few specimens came into their hands. One of these will suffice as an expression of a malignant feeling that was wide- spread.

Wo-jén, the grand secretary of the imperial library and senior tutor to the Emperor, had become the chief spokesman of the anti-foreign national party by reason of two diatribes which he had issued in 1867 against the establishment of the college in Peking for educating Chinese in European languages and science. The at- tempt had been made to neutralise his opposi- tion by appointing him to the Tsung-li Yamén, and thus render him directly responsible for all those concessions that were inevitable in deal- ing with this irreducible group of outsiders, but Wo was too crafty and too firmly supported by influential backers to be easily checkmated. He never attended the board —a flagrant act of contumacy — but was subsequently allowed to withdraw on account of ill health. His memo- rial upon the Mission deserves attention, both

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on account of his position and because it sums up the chief objections urged by his partisans against this innovation. Categorically stated, these were five in number, viz.: (1) There could be no “‘amicable relations” — quoting the offen- sive expression used in the Yamén’s petition — with the barbarians until their invasion of China and the exile of his late Majesty were avenged and “the hatred of the common people fulfilled.” (2) Pin’s mission was not of a kind to serve as precedent for such an embassy as was now con- templated, while bestowing the rank of imperial envoy’ upon its chief was “an excessive com- pliment” to Americans. (3) The appointment of American, British, and French subjects was putting power into the hands of foreigners, but **still more astounding is the notion of Chinese functionaries in a subordinate position; it is tantamount to acknowledging ourselves a sub- ject state and ignoring the dignity of the empire.” (4) As to observing the customs of foreigners and learning from them — “‘their customs are noth- ing but lasciviousness and cunning, while their inclinations are simply fiendish and malignant.” (5) Finally, “as regards the benefit of treaty revision, the Yamén do not see that any such

1 Precisely the rank and title, by the way, that was objected to by foreign critics of the Mission as insulting the dignity of a self-respecting European in Chinese employ.

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benefit is entirely on the side of the barbarians while the disadvantages all accrue to the Chi- nese. Who will assert that the barbarians are willing to make advantageous concessions to the Chinese?” As a last argument the memor- ialist expresses some characteristic apprehension upon the important item of travelling expenses, “‘which are exorbitant and profuse beyond any- thing known in China. The accounts,” he adds significantly, “will be in the hands of the bar- barians, and it will be next to impossible to check falsification.” 1

The first Chinese Mission to foreign powers was dispatched by Prince Kung and his coad- jutors because they were aware of the appalling hazard of the upper and the nether millstones that threatened to grind the Manchu dynasty to powder. The distress and disasters associated with the reigns of its decadent sovereigns were attributed by their subjects to the incompetent autocrat and his advisers. The history of China has ever shown the course of action to the people when admonitions fail and the misman- agement of their rulers passes endurance. For, as the common man is responsible to his ruler, so is the ruler responsible for the prosperity of

1The memorial is reprinted in the North China Herald, and discussed at some length in the paper entitled “Chinese Statesmen and State Papers,” I, Fortnightly Review, March, 1871.

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his realm to heaven. Every calamity in the country, whether it be famine or pestilence or a foreign foe, is laid at the door of the Emperor, and the instrument of Heaven’s punishment, the means of redress, is rebellion.

This was the nether millstone; the upper was the foreigner — ruthless and pervading, armed with magical arts and valiant in the certainty of his destructive puissance. For while the cul- ture of the barbarians had made little impres- sion upon educated natives, their powers of mischief seemed hardly short of supernatural. Thoughtful men were terrified, yet unconvinced. Foreigners had domineered over the coast towns for ten years since the Arrow War, and their merchants were now urging further aggressions; the crisis demanded prompt action. <A few bold fighters, like Tséng Kwo-fan and Tso Tsung- tang, advised the creation of an army of defence. But this would require years; the statesmen in Peking knew, moreover, that the fighting spirit had departed from the Manchu, and that China was, for the moment at least, too unwarlike to make such a policy feasible. With the same audacity that prompted the Empress-Dowager to enlist the demoniacal mummery of the Boxers to save the situation in 1900, the Tsung-li offi- cials — though better informed and with greater

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judgment — turned to their best friend among the foreigners to help China in the emergency, by appealing directly to the courts of Western nations to be patient and give her time.

We have seen the steps by which their chosen ambassador had won his way to their regard - and impressed them with his extraordinary per- sonalcharm. We are to-day probably far better aware of some of the motives which impelled them than that ambassador was himself. We know now better than any foreigner of that time the risks they took with the vast majority of their own countrymen in appointing him. We know, too, that they were even divided amongst themselves. Had they been less ap- prehensive of another war, they might not have yielded a measure so largely stimulated by their fears; had Mr. Burlingame, on the other hand, known more fully the supineness of the palace and the aggressiveness of the recalcitrants, he might have refused to attempt the seemingly hopeless task of representing a government divided against itself. But he had faith in China, and no one was ever more completely imbued with the courage of his convictions. He perceived, if only imperfectly, the political distress of the empire; he saw the disastrous outcome, not only to China but to the civilised

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world, if the nations of Europe were to fall upon her once more and destroy the reigning dynasty. Convinced that he was right, he volunteered his service to a great state that no one in authority was willing to befriend, because he was, in the words of Prince Kung, “a man of honour and peace.”

THE MISSION IN AMERICA

URING the voyage of thirty days across the Pacific to California, Mr. Burlingame enjoyed abundant opportunity for dis-

cussing with his associates the problems of the Mission and of resolving the policy likely to bring them to a successful issue. There is, so far as is known, no minute of his own upon this supreme affair of his life. He pondered deeply; he discussed freely with those who could aid with their experience or suggestions; he did not write. Discussion with him was a means of clearing the mind and of approaching conclu- sions. He had little patience for inditing letters and none at all for that laborious relegation of thoughts and impressions to note-books or diaries which characterises some men of action.’ He had been charged to exercise his discretion in representing the case of China before the civilised world, but, as we have seen, he had received no instructions directing or limiting him in the execution of this large order. The

1“ Writing was labour and weariness to him,” says Senator Blaine. “It seemed impossible for him to establish a rapid transit between his brain and the end of apen.” (Mr. Burlingame as an Orator,”’ Atlantic Monthly, November, 1870.)

113

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Chinese commissioned with him were present in the réle of “learners” rather than as coadjutors; from them nothing was to be expected except the service of communicating with their gov- ernment. It speaks well for the dignity of that government and for the regard in which the members of his suite held him, that no criticism of his policy seems to have either come from Peking or reached the Tsung-li Yamén through the private correspondence of any one of them. No diplomatic venture of similar importance in modern times has left so meagre a record of authentic documents or been aspersed by its detractors with a slighter basis of proofs upon which to establish their objections. It is the absence of documentary material that makes it difficult to meet these aspersions by the cate- gorical denial which is fairly justified by every reasonable inference from known facts.

Such measure of success and failure as re- sulted from this experimental embassy was due to the temperament of its chief, who was at once its origin and conclusion. His gracious- ness and his fine assurance of better things pre- vailing not only made converts to his ideas wherever he went but conveyed a conviction of sincerity. There are few public careers in re- cent history which exhibit such powers of win-

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ning the minds of others. Some such quality as his is found at rare intervals among great re- ligious leaders, the force of whose appeal rests upon its divine sanction. The Methodist prayer- leader’s son had developed in the school of politics a gift of persuasion like.that which his father had employed in another sphere, and the same idealism marked them both. It is a faculty that always wins its audience; but fifty years ago men cared for their intuitions rather than for academic learning, and responded to their preachers and orators rather than to logic. In the case of Mr. Burlingame — where there was no pretence, of course, of spiritual dignifi- cation — this magnetic quality of converting to his own opinion those before whom he stood face to face rose to something higher than the art of the orator; it was an emanation of genius. It is not surprising that a character of this sort should be often misunderstood or that the en- emies of his great idea should take advantage of its apparently illogical processes. Its success in prosecuting a plan depended upon personal contact, and it had the inevitable drawback that when that personal contact was removed further accomplishment lagged or became im- possible. By keeping in mind the elements of what we nowadays call the “personal equation,”

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it will be easier to comprehend how the ideals of its advocate stirred the minds of those to whom this Mission was presented, and why, when his voice was stilled, the generous impulses of Western nations were smothered by the out- cry from many whose selfish interests the reali- sation of these ideals seemed to threaten.

Mr. Burlingame was not unaware of some hos- tility to his Mission. He could meet opposition, but he was sensitive to criticisms which endeav- oured to discredit his enterprise by imputing unworthy personal motives. In a sketch of his career, printed in “Appleton’s Annual Cyclo- pedia”’ for 1870, an old acquaintance describes in the following anecdote the state of his mind upon arriving in America in an unprecedented role: “‘Just before he left the shores of Asia he saw a newspaper which bitterly denounced him for renouncing his American allegiance, as it charged, to take a lucrative appointment from a foreign power. In the weeks of his long jour- ney across the Pacific, it often oppressed him with gloomy forebodings. Before he reached the Golden Gate they became at times almost unendurable. ‘Is it not possible,’ he reasoned to himself, ‘that Americans may regard my acceptance of this foreign trust as a selling out of my birthright?’ He knew he had been con-

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scientious in consenting to take it, in the inter- est of civilisation, humanity, progress, and in- ternational goodwill. But he knew, too, how harshly and unjustly public men are sometimes judged; and when the steamer sailed up to the wharf at San Francisco he was ina state of feverish excitement. The wharf was densely crowded. He looked from the deck of the steamer upon them, and wondered if it were possible that, inflamed by hostile criticism, they had come down there to jeer and insult him. The first man who came upon the deck before the steamer had swung round to its place was a porter, or baggage-man, who, of course, did not know him. Burlingame asked him, as coolly as possible, what all this crowd meant. ‘Why,’ answered the man, ‘the whole city is here to welcome the new Chinese minister, and the city authorities to proffer him its hospitalities.’ The suspense was over, and his heart never throbbed a sincerer Thank God!”

From the moment of this impromptu welcome in April the progress of the Mission throughout the United States was a continual ovation until its departure in November. Such manifesta- tions of cordiality as greeted its appearance everywhere were obviously the good-natured exuberance of people who were gratified at a

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novel spectacle and pleased with the alluring commercial possibilities suggested. The spectre of a yellow peril had not yet harassed the Ameri- can imagination nor had fears of undesirable emi- grants disturbed its dreams of the future. Toa man of his vision Mr. Burlingame’s reception by his countrymen seemed to be the vindication of his idea. As a missionary of goodwill to all na- tions he spoke with ardour of the seemliness of reversing the old policy of belligerent pressure and winning China by patience and conciliation; and all to whom he spoke were persuaded of the justice of his appeal. It was pleasant to turn from the sore stress of reconstruction after a long civil war, and the profitless polemic of a presidential impeachment, to this plea for an unoffending people. Freed from misgivings as well as from animadversion, and conscious of the real nobility of his cause, the advocate of a great though disordered state was aware of no exaggeration when he promised a quickening of its life which, in the nature of things, could only be accomplished in its own way and in the dis- tant future. It happened, unfortunately, that his ready success with his audiences in America was partly due to their entire ignorance of con- ditions across the Pacific, and the consequent lack of any considerable body of men whose

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business experience with the East could divide in the interest of accuracy the orator’s figures of speech by the figures upon their trade ledgers. Had the course of the Mission in the United States been attended by an intelligent and de- termined opposition on the part of an enlight- ened group who were aware of China’s tenacious conservatism, the reaction that followed would have been less severe.?

In both the time and place of its arrival in America the Mission achieved a succés d’estime. The country was ready, through weariness with its own disorders, to welcome any safe distrac- tion, and here was a novelty that appealed both to the imagination and to the pride of the American people. What was true of the whole population was particularly applicable to that portion whose location on the Pacific entitled them, in their own minds at least, to a certain priority of interest in China. In the newest and

1 An editorial in the New York Times of June 7, 1868, among the first to deplore the introduction of Chinese labourers in America, exhibits well enough the ignorance of Chinese politics among professional pub- licists in this country. “The new policy,” it declares, “‘ which the Chinese empire has inaugurated is unquestionably due to the existence of a greater population within the limits of the empire than it can support. The fact that it has reached this condition was proved by the willingness of the government to encourage immigration to California.”’ Of course we know now that the government at that time would willingly have punished every Chinese who broke the law of the empire by leaving that country, but was helpless to prevent the European agencies who were enticing them away to virtual slavery in Cuba, South America, and elsewhere.

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finest hotel on the continent, the citizens of San Francisco, with the governor of the State at their head, gave the Mission an “‘ovation” that was neither without form nor void of those lively hopes for profitable intercourse which stimulate most international courtesies. The splendour of the demonstration produced its effect upon the Chinese guests, but to their chief, who was toasted as “‘the son of the youngest and repre- sentative of the oldest government,” it appealed profoundly, touching his imagination with the magic of a great augury as he rose to reply. “The true gift of every emancipating enthu- siasm,”’ says a recent writer,' “is not solely the emancipation, but the enthusiasm; is not liberty in its formal estate, to be selfishly enjoyed, but that liberty of spirit which sees its own issues and leaps to espouse its own causes under all the forms, wherever found, of negation and re- pression.” He saw a glorious future for China, when she should achieve, perhaps centuries hence, that emancipation from obstinate bigotry which alone shackled the freedom of her spirit. He declared his belief in her honest intention to enter the brotherhood of nations, and pleaded for patience from those who were in danger of misjudging her, as well as for a generous con- 1H. Dyer, “Japan in World Politics,” 1909, p. 88,

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struction of the energetic language he was fain to use. He announced his own belief that the dispatch of the Mission was due to the impres- sion made upon Chinese statesmen of the co- operative policy and their new-found under- standing of the advantages of the principles of international law. The Mission, he declared,

means commerce; it means peace; it means a uni- fication of her own interests with the whole human race. I agree with you, sir, here to-night that this is one of the mightiest movements of modern times; and although this ephemeral Mission may soon pass away, that great movement must go on. The great deed is done. The fraternal feeling of four hundred millions of people has commenced to flow through the land of Washington to the elder nations of the West, and it will flow on forever. Who is there who would check it? Who is there that would say to China: We wish to have no other relations with you than such as we established in our own partial and cruel interests at the cannon’s mouth. I trust there are none such as these. I believe, rather, that this generous greeting is a better exponent of the wishes of the West. I believe it represents more truly that large and generous spirit which is not too proud to learn and which is not afraid to teach; that great spirit which, while it would exchange goods with China, would also exchange thoughts with China; that would inquire carefully into the cause of that _ sobriety and industry of which you have made men- tion; that would learn something of the long expe- rience of this people; that would question those institutions which have withstood the storms of

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time — as to the secret of their stability; that would ask what means that competitive system under which the lowest coolie’s son may rise to the highest office in the empire, and which makes scholarship the test of merit; that does not believe that genius is dead in the land of Confucius; that does not believe that the mind may no more be kindled that invented gunpowder, the compass, porcelain, paper, and print- ing; that does not believe that the Christian’s hope shall cease to bloom where the Christian martyrs fell.

‘Tf there ever was a country,” wrote Emerson, ‘where eloquence was a power it is in the United States. Here is room for every degree of it on every one of its ascending scales.’ Yet where oratory is accepted as a power its language re- quires and usually receives the deduction due to any well-developed form of artistic expression; like other arts, the forensic has its conventions and demands their interpretation while convey- ing its message. The orator, especially on festal occasions, speaks primarily to his audience and prepares his speech in terms designed to con- vince those who sit before him. Mr. Burlin- game’s response, inspired by the hope of a com- ing sodality between nations hitherto hardly conscious of each other’s existence, was ad- dressed to a company who, having no traditions of a communal past, lived with their faces turned toward the future. It happened a few years

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later that poignant fears of being supplanted in their mines and industries by Chinese labourers brought them into antagonism with the very plans and prospects which they here acclaimed, and in the sudden reversal of opinion Mr. Bur- lingame’s reputation shared the odium of his cause. But it is difficult to understand how any caution of language on his part could have saved him from a fate common to the emissaries of all novel enterprises. Reactions are inevitable be- fore society can adjust itself to new principles; he had to suffer under a universal law, not only at the hands of his countrymen, but abroad. When this address to Californians reached the ears of foreigners unaware of the envoy’s im- pressionable audience, they called his language fantastic, and derided his promise of a reconsti- tuted China because they saw no prospect of its immediate fulfilment. So his audience under- stood and then forgot, while the Europeans never understood at all.

His effort! was confronted, indeed, with a dilemma which no genius could have foreseen or avoided. Had it not been cordially greeted by Americans the Mission would have been pro- nounced a failure and the Chinese who pro-

1 Henri Cordier calls it “le plus brillant, mais aussi le plus déclamatoire et le plus creux des discours qu’il improvisa au cours de ses pérégrina- tions.” (“Histoire des relations de la Chine,” I, 1901, p. 289.)

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moted it humiliated; as it was, the unusual acclaim in California and the intrepid optimism of its chief awakened ill-will in Europe, besides irritating those foreigners in the East who dis- couraged hopefulness about China’s political re- establishment and much preferred the mainten- ance of foreign prestige supported by war-ships.! As a plenipotentiary aware of the sympathy of the American Government with the objects of his Mission, it was his duty to make plain these objects to his own countrymen and to culti- vate a sentiment of friendliness in behalf of the nation whose cause he was promoting. It cannot properly be said that he misjudged in endeavouring to secure for the representatives of China a cordial reception in the land of his birth. He was aware of the jealousy of Euro- peans over his appointment, but their objection to seeing an American mediator between China and the West was best met by making it evident

1 The attitude of foreign merchants in China is fairly shown in the declaration of the China Mail, “that progress is unattainable save under continuous pressure, and that the exercise of such pressure with judicial and equitable firmness is the indispensable condition upon which not alone progress but the maintenance of existing rights depends for all foreigners in China.” (Hongkong, July 30, 1869.) Of these same mer- chants Sir R. Alcock wrote that ‘“‘they have too plainly shown that they have no regard or consideration for either the rights or the interests of others; and the Chinese have a perfectly clear conception that the coun- try has both sovereign and national interests which it is their business

to uphold, whatever foreigners may think or say to the contrary.” (Alcock to Lord Stanley, April 16, 1868.)

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that his selection by the Chinese Government was chiefly due to his personal qualities. This was perfectly true. There is to this day little variation in the degree of Chinese dislike of all foreign nations; there was none then. It was not a matter that could be formulated without an unpleasant implication of egotism, yet if the actual truth might transpire from observation of his conduct it relieved America from a sus- picion of attempting to champion the cause of China against the world, and China from the charge of avoiding in this way her own respon- sibilities.1

While this was the case the dilemma, never- theless, remained. However creditable and sin- cere his efforts to insure the success of his Mis- sion, it was impossible to escape the inevitable outburst of disappointed hopes cherished by those who anticipated in this Mission a new instrument for exploiting China at the expense of the Chinese. The explosion came when his published utterances in America disclosed his

1 The Shanghai correspondent of the London Times (February 12, 1868) writes: “Cosmopolitan community as we are, we were not sufficiently so at heart to look complacently on the nomination of an American mediator between China and the West. This feeling, however, not an unnatural one, perhaps, at the first blush, has greatly subsided on reflec- tion. I fail myself to see any fair ground for jealousy.”’ He concludes his letter with the assertion that “it is the individual rather than the national who has been selected — Mr. Burlingame rather than the United States minister.”

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loyalty to his principles and to the nation whose cause he advocated. As a man of honour he admitted no double réle; as a lawyer he recog- nised his first obligation to be his client’s interest —with but one explicit reservation that pro- vided for unswerving allegiance to his own coun- try. And the complaint of Europeans in China that the success of the Mission had “‘spoiled the game” was justified in one important sense: it gave fresh courage to the Chinese who identi- fied their patriotism with a strong personal dis- like of foreigners. These had long nursed their antipathy upon acts of interference with the internal administration of their country which they were powerless to prevent. They fondly imagined that the champion who was proclaim- ing in the West that China had a few officials in responsible positions who were capable of form- ing rational views and advising a reasonably pro- gressive policy would raise up friends to defend their reactionary antagonism. In their igno- rance they brought fresh pressure to bear upon their ministers who were engaged with Sir Rutherford Alcock in revising the British treaty, and ultimately prevented them from granting the more substantial privileges which — among foreigners at least — they were expected to yield through this negotiation. From the stand-point

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of Chinese chauvinism the Mission was a decided if unlooked-for success; but no man could serve the God and the mammon of these two opposing races.

Upon reaching Washington the Embassy was installed in Brown’s Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, where the great yellow flag bearing the imperial dragon floating over the roof attracted more attention than had ever before been given to the coming of new envoys to the capital. It was remarked, rather naively, at the time that the Chinese representatives were men of breed- ing and intellect —a suggestive commentary upon American acquaintance with the history and culture of this ancient empire.’ Mr. Bur- lingame immediately after his arrival called at Mr. Seward’s house for the personal interview he had requested in his letter from Shanghai. He was relieved, on consulting his old associate of congressional days, of any remaining com- punctions as to his status as an American citizen by finding that the secretary’s opinion upon this point agreed with his own. As legislation had not then determined points of foreign service

1**Whether in the public assembly or the fashionable soirée or in the domestic circle, they were everywhere at ease. Their gracefulness of manner, their unpretending and cordial politeness, their ready wit and pleasantry were subjects of general remark.” (W. L. Nevius, “China and the Chinese,” 1869, p. 440.)

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and expatriation the question was a more serious one than it would be now. A matter of more vital consequence was the envoy’s presentation at the White House. The Emperor of China had refused to grant audience to the American minister at Peking on terms of equality, and did not demand it in this instance from the Presi- dent. But in this most democratic of the cap- itals of Christendom, where the privilege was accorded to visitors of all ranks, to exclude the Chinese legation was to weaken its prestige in the popular esteem. Both the envoy and the secretary of state were glad to escape the dif_i- culty by agreeing upon the following draft of a reply from the department to a request for a reception by the President:

It is well understood by this government that, owing to the minority of the Emperor of China, the sovereign authority of the empire is now exercised. by a regency. Reserving, therefore, and waiving, though only during the Emperor’s minority, the question concerning the privileges of personal audi- ence by the head of the Chinese Government, the President of the United States will cheerfully receive their excellencies the high ministers of China, on Friday, at twelve o’clock at noon, at the executive mansion.

They were received on the appointed day, June 6, with the customary ceremonies and

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with sincere cordiality by President Johnson in the White House, when Mr. Burlingame ex- pressed his appreciation of the manner in which his change of representative character had “been allowed by the American people.” He announced the intention of the Chinese Government to enter into communication in conformity with established diplomatic usages with the United States of America and ten states of Europe — Austro-Hungary and Portugal being the only ones of consequence omitted. “‘ We are charged,” he concluded, in delivering the Emperor’s letter, at the expense of what might bear the appearance of egotism, to say that there are nine official ranks in China. By way of showing the greatest possible respect to the Western powers, the letters to which I refer were committed to the care of myself, of the first rank, and to Chih Ta-jen and Sun Ta-jen, of the second rank, myself being invested with extraor-

dinary and plenipotentiary functions, and all of us being accredited to you as high ministers and envoys.

The President’s reply was rather more elab- orate and discursive than usual upon such occa- sions. He alluded warily to the way in which the United States had been treated by other nations in the past, and to the improvement in their foreign relations within a few years, ex- tending friendly intercourse to Greece, the Otto- man Porte, and Japan. The touch of patronage

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— inevitable, apparently, when Western nations address Orientals —is as delicate as could be expected: “‘China, having accepted the laws of nations as they are explained in our own ap- proved compilation, now avails herself, through your Mission, of our friendly introduction to the Christian states of Europe and America. These events reveal the pleasing fact of a rapid growth of mutual trust and confidence among the nations resulting from a general suspension of the policy of war and conquest and a sub- stitution of a fraternal and benevolent policy in its place. Your excellencies, we have not failed to appreciate the sagacity with which the Chinese Empire has responded to this change of policy by the Christian nations.” + The irony of his- tory has seldom received more emphatic illustra- tion than by these diplomatic platitudes as read in the light of the warlike events which cloud the last four decades of the nineteenth century.

A state dinner was given to the envoys by the President in the White House, and the represent-

1Mr. Frederick W. Seward, in his biography of his father, says that while presidents, like other heads of states, have their formal speeches prepared for them, Johnson was a most painstaking and scrupulous student of expression, and never liked to accept or sign documents with- out making changes of his own. Usually when a foreign minister had been presented and read his formal speech, the President would wave his hand toward Seward, saying, ‘“‘The secretary of state will read the speech in reply.” We must infer that this exordium of some nine hun- dred words addressed to the Chinese envoys was his own composition,

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atives in Congress subsequently received them on the floor of the House with an address by the speaker, Schuyler Colfax, a noteworthy wel- come in the name of the people of the United States. His compliment to Mr. Burlingame was most appropriately worded for the place in which he spoke: “‘Nor does it lessen our pleas- ure that the chief of this Embassy, transferred, as he was, from membership here to diplomatic duties abroad, so won the confidence of his Imperial Majesty, to whom he was accredited, that he returns to our midst, honoured, with his distinguished associates, as custodians of the most remarkable trust ever committed by an emperor to his envoys.” Replying in behalf of his coadjutors from the floor on which he had often in times past addressed his fellow-members, Mr. Burlingame assured his countrymen that

We seek for China that equality without which nations and men are degraded. We seek not only the good of China, but we seek your good and the good of all mankind. We do this in no sentimental sense. We would be practical as the toiling millions whom we represent. We invite you to a broader trade. We invite you to a more intimate examina- tion of the structure of Chinese civilisation. We in- vite you to a better appreciation of the manners of that people, their temperance, their patience, their

habits of scholarship, their competitive examinations, their high culture of tea and silk; and we shall ask

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for them, from you, modern science, which has taken its great development within the memory of man, and the holy doctrines of our Christian faith. Itis for the West to say whether or not it was sincere when it continued for a long time to invite China to more intimate relations with it. It is for the West to say whether it is for a fair and open pol- icy, or for one founded on prejudice and on that as- sumption of superiority which is justified neither by physical ability nor by moral elevation.1

It is not surprising that under the quite ex- traordinary circumstances of this reception their inspiration should have influenced his reply. They prompted his magnanimous nature to re- spond heartily to the kindly things that were said to him, and to promise rather liberally, in

1 The following extract from a letter written by a Western congressman to a friend in San Francisco has an interest all its own both for its sub- ject and style: ‘A few days ago Burlingame and the Chinese were pre- sented. It was a singular sight to see that ancient Asiatic countenance, lighted by the conceit and shaded by the tyrannies of 4,000 years, led by the smooth-faced Anglo-Saxon, beneath the shadow of the Eagle and Stars, to receive the welcome of men whose creed it is to hate idolatry and despotism, and whose only ineradicable custom it is to despise caste and ceremony and stability (sic). What a grand spectacle to witness the four hundred millions of Chinamen, as it were, stopping in the long tide of centuries, resting on their oars and catching across the ocean the sounds of republican America, the hum of their machinery, the scream of their whistles, the roar of their trains, and all the multitudinous voices of progress so familiar to us. They have heard of our greatness and our invincible power, and now lean forward to catch on the breezes of their East the faint sounds of a civilisation they feel to be the master of their own. You at San Francisco will be the first to be benefited by this great awakening. And your city, if the present is an augury of the future, will be a rival of New York and London as a commercial em- porium.” (Quoted in the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, July 31, 1868.)

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return, future benefits that were not his to be- stow. So it happened that in the fulness of his heart he gave expression to hopes which were in themselves not unjustifiable, but which a less emotional speaker might have thought best to leave unspoken, only because they were remote. Here as elsewhere in America he trusted his countrymen to make the proper subtraction. Before more impassive auditors in Europe, where his cause had to be won against those who would have been glad to antagonise his Mission, he laid himself open to no just criticism of this sort, but prosecuted his task by the exercise of the highest powers of argument and diplomatic per- suasion. Yet, while it is true that he had no immediate warrant from China to ask in her behalf for modern science and “‘the holy doc- trines of our Christian faith’? — whatever the prospect for change of attitude in the coming years — this might properly have been dismissed as the amiable desire of a Western spokesman whose assurance included future generations. The important point of his response lay in his plea for an honest application to China of those Christian principles which have so often been traduced by that “‘assumption of superiority which is justified neither by physical ability nor moral elevation.”

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The same appeal inspired a more famous speech made at a banquet given to the Mission on June 23d by the leading citizens of New York, with the governor in the chair. To this company of merchants and men of affairs, whose chief interest in the Embassy was con- fessedly the material hope of a lucrative com- merce with a populous empire soon to be brought to their doors by the new Pacific railroad, the orator renewed the plea to grant China fair play and leave her time to develop in peace.

You have given a broad and generous welcome to a movement made in the interests of all mankind. We are but the humble heralds of the movement. It originated beyond the boundaries of our own thoughts and has taken dimensions beyond the reach of our most ardent hopes. That East, which men have sought since the days of Alexander, now itself seeks the West. China, emerging from the mists of time, but yesterday suddenly entered your Western gates, and confronts you by its representatives here to-night. What have you to say to her? She comes with no menace on her lips. She comes with the great doc- trine of Confucius, uttered two thousand three hun- dred years ago, “Do not unto others what you would not have others do unto you.”” Will you not respond. with the more positive doctrine of Christianity, “We will do unto others what we would have others do unto us”? She comes with your own international law; she tells you that she is willing to come into relations according to it, that she is willing to abide by its provisions, that she is willing to take its ob-

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ligations for its privileges. She asks you to forget your ancient prejudices, to abandon your assump- tions of superiority, and to submit your questions with her, as she proposes to submit her questions with you—to the arbitrament of reason. She wishes no war; she asks of you not to interfere in her internal affairs. She asks you not to send her lecturers who are incompetent men. She asks you that you will respect the neutrality of her waters and the integrity of her territory. She asks, in a word, to be left perfectly free to unfold herself pre- cisely in that form of civilisation of which she is most capable. She asks you to give to those treaties which were made under the pressure of war a gen- erous and Christian construction. Because you have done this, because the Western nations have reversed their old doctrine of force, she responds, and, in proportion as you have expressed your goodwill, she has come forth to meet you; and I aver, that there is no spot on earth where there has been greater progress made within the past few years than in the Empire of China. She has expanded her trade, she has reformed her revenue system, she is changing her military and naval organisations, she has built or established a great school where modern science and the foreign languages are to be taught. She has done this under every adverse circumstance. She has done this after a great war lasting through thirteen years, a war out of which she comes with no national debt. You must remember how dense is her population. You must remember how difficult it is to introduce radical changes in such a country as that. The introduction of your own steamers threw out of employment a hundred thousand junk- men. The introduction of several hundred foreign-

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ers into the civil service embittered, of course, the ancient native employees. The establishment of a school was formidably resisted by a party led by one of the greatest men of the empire. Yet, in de- fiance of all these, the present enlightened Govern- ment of China has advanced steadily along the path of progress, sustained, it is true, by the enlightened representatives of the Western powers now at Pe- king, guided and directed largely by a modest and able man, Mr. Hart, the inspector-general of cus- toms, at the head of the foreign employees in the Empire of China. . . . Yet, notwithstanding this manifest progress, there are people who will tell you that China has made no progress, that her views are retrograde; and they tell you that it is the duty of the Western treaty powers to combine for the pur- pose of coercing China into reforms which they may desire and which she may not desire — who undertake to say that this people have no rights which you are bound to respect. In their coarse language they say, ‘‘ Take her by the throat.” Using the tyrant’s plea, they say they know better what China wants than China herself does. Not only do they desire to introduce now the reforms born of their own interests and their own caprices, but they tell you that the present dynasty must fall, and that the whole structure of Chinese civilisation must be overthrown. I know that these views are abhorred by the governments and the countries from which these people come; but they are far away from their countries, they are active, they are brave, they are unscrupulous, and, if they happen to be officials, it is in their power to complicate affairs and to involve, ultimately, their distant countries in war. Now it is against the malign spirit of this tyrannical ele-

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ment that this Mission was sent forth to the Chris- tian world. It was sent forth that China might have her difficulties stated. That I happened to be at the head of it was, perhaps, more an accident than any design. It was, perhaps, because I had been longer there than any of my colleagues, and because I was about to leave; and, perhaps, more than all, because I was associated with the establishment of the co-operative policy which by the aid of abler men than myself was established not many years ago; and it is to sustain that policy — which has received the warm approval of all the great treaty powers, and which is cherished by China — that we are sent forth. It is in behalf of that generous policy, founded on principles of eternal justice, that I would rally the strongest thing on earth, the en- lightened public opinion of the world. Missions and men may pass away, but the principles of eternal justice will stand. I desire that the autonomy of China may be preserved. I desire that her inde- pendence may be secured. I desire that she may have equality, that she may dispense equal priv- ileges to all nations. If the opposite school is to prevail, if you are to use coercion against that great people, then who are to exercise the coercion, whose force are you to use, whose views are you to estab- lish? You see the very attempt to carry out any such tyrannical policy would involve not only China, but would involve you in bloody wars with each other. There are men—men of that tyrannical school — who say that China is not fit to sit at the council board of the nations, who call her people barbarians, and attack them on all occasions with a bitter and unrelenting spirit. These things I ut- terly deny. I say, on the contrary, that that is a

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great, a noble people. It has all the elements of a splendid nationality. It is the most numerous peo- ple on the face of the globe; it is the most homo- geneous people in the world; it has a language spoken by more human beings than any other in the world, _and it is written in the rock. It is a country where there is greater unification of thought than any other country in the world. It is a country where the maxims of great sages, coming down memorised for centuries, have permeated the whole people, until their knowledge is rather an instinct than an acquire- ment; a people loyal while living, and whose last prayer, when dying, is to sleep in the sacred soil of their fathers. . ..

China, seeing another civilisation approaching on every side, has her eyes wide open. She sees Russia on the north, Europe on the west, America on the east. She sees a cloud of sail on her coast, she sees the mighty steamers coming from everywhere — bow on. She feels the spark from the electric tele- graph falling hot upon her everywhere; she rouses herself, not in anger, but for argument. She finds that by not being in a position to compete with other nations for so long a time she has lost ground. She finds that she must come into relations with this civilisation that is pressing up around her, and feel- ing that, she does not wait but comes out to you and extends to you her hand. She tells you she is ready to take upon her ancient civilisation the graft of your civilisation. She tells you she is ready to take back her own inventions, with all their developments. She tells you that she is willing to trade with you, to buy of you, to sell to you, to help you strike off the shackles from trade. She invites your mer- chants, she invites your missionaries. She tells the

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latter to plant the shining cross on every hill and in every valley. For she is hospitable to fair argu- CTA. os

Let her alone; let her have her independence; let her develop herself in her own time and in her own way. She has no hostility to you. Let her do this, and she will initiate a movement which will be felt in every workshop of the civilised world. She says now: “Send us your wheat, your lumber, your coal, your silver, your goods from everywhere — we will take as many of them as we can. We will give you back our tea, our silk,free labour, which we have sent so largely out into the world.” It has overflowed upon Siam, upon the British provinces, upon Singa- pore, upon Manila, upon Peru, Cuba, Australia, and California. All she asks is that you will be as kind to her nationals as she is to your nationals. She wishes simply that you will do justice. She is will- ing not only to exchange goods with you, but she is willing to exchange thoughts. She is willing to give you what she thinks is her intellectual civilisation in exchange for your material civilisation. Let her alone, and the caravans on the roads of the north, toward Russia, will swarm in larger numbers than ever before. Let her alone, and that silver which has been flowing for hundreds of years into China, losing itself like the lost rivers of the West, but which yet exists, will come out into the affairs of men... . The imagination kindles at the future which may be, and which will be, if you will be fair and just to China.

This was the speech which, more than any other of his public utterances, aroused the in- dignation of Europeans in the East against Mr.

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Burlingame. It was considered by its hearers to be a well-sustained burst of