A copious and facile writer, he has left singularly little in the way of personal history. The only journal he seems ever to have kept was consigned by him to oblivion, a few early dates and remarks having alone been rescued. When in recent years he was approached by friends on the subject of auto-biography, he was wont to reply, "My life is in my work; by that I am content to be remembered." We must needs therefore take him at his word and judge by the fruit what was the nature of the tree.
In the following work the reader may trace in more or less continuous outline the stages by which the present relation between China and foreign nations has been reached. In the earlier portion the course of events indicated is comparatively simple, being confined to Anglo-Chinese developing into Anglo-Franco-Chinese relations. In the latter portion, corresponding roughly with the second volume, the stream becomes subdivided into many collateral branches, as all the Western nations and Japan, with their separate interests, came to claim their share, each in its own way, of the intercourse with China. It is hoped that the data submitted to the reader will enable him to draw such conclusions as to past transactions as may furnish a basis for estimating future probabilities.
The scope of the work being restricted to the points of contact between China and the rest of the world, nothing recondite is attempted, still less is any enigma solved. It is the belief of the author that the so-called Chinese mystery has been a source of needless mystification; that the relation between China and the outer world was intrinsically simple; and that to have worked from the basis of their resemblances to the rest of humanity would have been a shorter way to an amicable understanding with the Chinese than the crude attempt to accommodate Western procedure to the uncomprehended differences which divided them. It needed no mastery of their sociology to keep the Chinese strictly to their written engagements and to deter them from outrage. But discussion was the invitation to laxity; and laxity, condoned and pampered, then defiant and triumphant, lies at the root of the disasters which have befallen the Chinese Empire itself, and now threaten to recoil also upon the foreign nations which are responsible for them. This responsibility was never more tersely summed up than by Mr Burlingame in his capacity of Chinese Envoy. After sounding the Foreign Office that astute diplomatist was able to inform the Tsungli-Yamên in 1869 that "the British Government was so friendly and pacific that they would endure anything." The dictum, though true, was fatal, and the operation of it during thirty subsequent years explains most that has happened during that period, at least in the relations between China and Great Britain.
A word as to the orthography may be useful to the reader. The impossibility of transliterating Chinese sounds into any alphabetical language causes great confusion in the spelling of names. A uniform system would indeed be most desirable, but common practice has already fixed so many of them that it seems better, in a book intended for general reading, not to depart too much from the conventional usage, or attempt to follow any scientific system, which must, after all, be based upon mispronunciation of the Chinese sounds.
As regards personal names, it may be convenient to call attention to the distinction between Chinese and Manchu forms. In the case of the former the custom is to write the nomen, or family name, separately, and the pre-nomen (which by Chinese practice becomes the post-nomen) by itself, and, when it consists of two characters, separated by a hyphen—e.g., Li (nomen) Hung-chang (post-nomen). In the case of Manchus, who are known not by a family name, but by what may be termed, for want of a better expression, their pre-nomen, it is customary to write the name in one word, without hyphens—for example, Kiying, Ilipu. As the Chinese name usually consists of three characters or syllables, and the Manchu usually of two, the form of name affords a prima facie indication of the extraction of the personage referred to. Polysyllabic names, as San-ko-lin-sin, are generally Mongol.
The sovereign is not referred to by name, the terms Kwanghsu, Tungchih, and so forth, being the Chinese characters chosen to designate, or, as we might say, idealise the reign, in the same way as impersonal titles are selected for houses of business.
I desire to express my deep obligation to Sir Rutherford Alcock's stepdaughter Amy, Lady Pelly, without whose efficient aid the book could not have been compiled. It is a subject of regret to all concerned that Lady Alcock herself did not live to see the completion of a task in the inception of which she took a keen and loving interest.
To the other friends who have in different ways helped in the production of the book, and particularly to Mr William Keswick, M.P., for the loan of his valuable Chinnery and Crealock drawings, my best thanks are due.
A. M.
London, November 2nd, 1900.