Translated into practice, these propositions meant that China wished to be let alone; and that, we may safely assume, represented the whole extent of Mr Burlingame's instructions. This claim was embodied in a convention which he made at Washington, comprising certain "additional articles" to the American treaty of 1858, the purport of which was that the United States undertook to apply no pressure to China, which, it may be presumed, that Power had never the intention of doing. The convention was for several reasons not welcomed at Peking, but it served the only purpose which perhaps it was ever expected to serve, that of giving the keynote to the representations which the envoy was afterwards to make to the various Powers in Europe.
The next Government to which Mr Burlingame addressed himself was that of Great Britain, over which he obtained a more important success than over that of the United States. In fact, he persuaded Lord Clarendon to discard all the information that ever reached the Foreign Office from its own responsible agents in China—men who were bound by every consideration of loyalty and public duty to report only what was true, and to accept instead thereof the protestations of an agent hired to make out a case; for it is superfluous to add that Mr Burlingame was far indeed from representing the true state of facts. He succeeded in so altering the course of the British Government that their agent in China was discredited, stultified, and rendered powerless to effect the objects for which he had been labouring. This was the first step of the Foreign Office in the new departure which had many evil results—that, namely, of taking their cue not from agents in their own pay, but from others over whom they could exercise no control, and who had alien interests to serve.
From the Chinese point of view the Burlingame mission was a decided success.
III. CHINESE OUTRAGES—YANGCHOW AND FORMOSA.
Missions attacked at Yangchow—Redress refused by Chinese and enforced by consul—With naval assistance—Satisfactory issue—Continuous outrages in Formosa—Government affords no relief—Disturbances quelled by British forces—Lawlessness near Swatow—Communications with interior controlled by bandits—Order restored by Consul Alabaster with naval force—Peace and good feeling between Chinese and foreigners resulting from these various measures—Which were approved by Imperial Government—Disapproved by British Government in consequence of Mr Burlingame's representations—Consuls punished—Lord Clarendon, prompted by Mr Burlingame, sends fresh instructions to Minister and consuls.
The year 1868 was marked by serious anti-foreign outbreaks in widely distant provinces of the empire. At Yangchow, a wealthy city on the Grand Canal, twelve miles from the left bank of the Yangtze river, a favourite resort for retired officials, rich salt merchants, and gentry, the Inland missionaries under the orders of Mr Hudson Taylor established themselves. In no locality in China could they have been less welcome, for there they met their natural enemies in the greatest force. Before long an attack on them was organised at the instigation of the literati and gentry, and with the connivance of the local authorities. "The onslaught was sudden and severe, the mob set fire to the premises, the ladies and children of the mission had to be thrown out of the windows to save their lives." There was no mistake, therefore, as to the murderous intentions of the assailants. The nearest British consul was at Shanghai, the consulate at Chinkiang, twelve miles from the scene of the outrage, being in charge of an assistant, Mr Clement Allen. That young officer hastened instantly to the assistance of the missionaries, and made his protest against the culpable negligence, to say no more, of the Chinese officials, who on their part made a great to-do of hushing the matter up and repairing the injured house. Consul Medhurst promptly followed up the representations made by Mr Allen by personal appeal to the viceroy at Nanking, fifty miles distant. The mind of that high official had already been prejudiced by ingeniously falsified reports of the transaction supplied to him by the prefect of Yangchow, and in consequence he refused Mr Medhurst's request to depute an official to accompany him to that city for the purpose of investigating the facts. Thereupon Mr Medhurst, availing himself of the arrival of H.M.'s ship Rinaldo at Chinkiang, obtained from her commander a sufficient escort to accompany him to Yangchow; and then only did the viceroy, Tsêng Kwo-fan, appoint an officer, though of totally inadequate rank, to co-operate with the consul. The Chinese officer did not, however, keep his appointment, and Mr Medhurst proceeded without him, and placed in the hands of the prefect at Yangchow a written demand for redress, one of the items being the seizure and punishment of the gentry, whose names were submitted. The prefect at once declared his inability to deal with men of such influence, all being of higher rank than himself. As nothing, therefore, could be settled at Yangchow, the prefect agreed to accompany Mr Medhurst to Nanking to lay the whole matter before the viceroy. A deputy from the viceroy, however, met Mr Medhurst at Chinkiang and endeavoured to dissuade him from proceeding to Nanking, offering instead to accompany him back to Yangchow, according to the original programme. Mr Medhurst, in his turn, persuaded the deputy to return with him to Nanking on H.M.'s ship Rinaldo, which was to start from Chinkiang the following morning. But the deputy Chang did not keep that appointment, any more than he had kept his previous one. The prefect of Yangchow also found means of evading his promise to accompany the consul into the presence of the viceroy. After much pressure on the one side and evasion on the other, the viceroy offered to settle the matter by a charitable gratuity to the missionaries in lieu of damages, and showed his anxiety to get the affair patched up quickly by sending an official of rank to follow Mr Medhurst on board H.M.'s ship Rinaldo, where he spent two hours in attempting to persuade the consul to accept the terms offered. Matters were, in fact, in a fair way of settlement when, "just at this juncture," the commander of the Rinaldo fell sick and determined to proceed with his ship to Shanghai, the consul being thus left in a humiliating and helpless position, as Sir Rutherford Alcock describes it. The Chinese officials at once changed their tone, withdrew from negotiations, and nothing more could be done with them. The action of the naval officer in abandoning the consul was freely criticised at the time, and being in consequence asked by the Admiralty for an explanation, he stated, among other things, "that it never entered his head that the presence simply of a small man-of-war could have the effect of influencing the viceroy." He also stated that he had "been given to understand that the viceroy had expressed his willingness to comply with Mr Medhurst's requests, and would send a letter to that effect that night or the next morning." The gallant officer did not appear to perceive that the withdrawal of his ship before the viceroy's promise had been fulfilled completely changed the situation.
Nothing was left for the consul, then, but to lay the whole case before H.M.'s Minister, and in doing so he made these observations: "I can call to mind, out of my experience of British relations with China, scarcely one instance in which the outrage complained of has been more unprovoked on the part of the sufferers, and in which the evidence of neglect and culpability on the part of the local authorities has been more marked and incontrovertible. Few cases can have occurred, moreover, in which the power to grant prompt and reasonable redress was more within the reach of the supreme provincial authority."
The Minister, in his turn, had no resource but to call upon the admiral on the station "to repair the mischief by sending such naval force to the mouth of the Grand Canal as shall enable him, if necessary, to apply effective pressure both on the local authorities and populace at Yangchow and on the viceroy at Nanking," to whom the consul was once more instructed to address himself. Of course the Minister had before this applied in the usual form to the Tsungli-Yamên, and with the usual result. They deprecated hasty conclusions until they themselves had full information from the local authorities; but they admitted without hesitation that, assuming the facts, full redress must be granted.
The Minister's representations to the Central Government were renewed with greater emphasis on receipt of the news of the collapse of the consul's negotiations. Prince Kung then expressed his readiness to make the compensations demanded; but as regarded the punishment of the instigators of the outrage, he contented himself with tacitly indorsing the plea of the viceroy, "that the gentry indicated were men of high rank, and incapable of wilful disregard of treaty provisions, for which reason they need not be called to account." In reply the Minister stated that immunity to such offenders, more especially if highly placed, is wholly incompatible with the treaty rights of foreigners. A new inquiry, however, was instituted at Yangchow, and the Viceroy Tsêng, who had just been gazetted to another post, was warned not to leave Nanking until the affair was concluded. After an interval of two months, Consul Medhurst, escorted by a naval force despatched to his aid by Admiral Keppel, sent his cards once more to the Nanking viceroy. The old tactics were repeated, and negotiations threatened to be indefinitely protracted, but eventually promises were given for the full redress demanded. Promises, however, had been given before, and it was deemed not unreasonable in the circumstances to demand a material guarantee. There happened to be lying at anchor opposite the city a small steamer recently built for the viceroy, which he was induced to place under the orders of Captain Heneage, R.N., pending the execution of the arrangements. The end of the discussion was a complete and satisfactory settlement of the whole affair, which included the deprivation of the prefect and the magistrate of Yangchow. The after-effects have been no less satisfactory. For the last thirty years Yangchow has been the most peaceable missionary field in the whole empire. We have set forth this incident in some detail, because it was typical, isolated, and free from all obscurities.
While these events were passing on the Yangtze, similar troubles, which had been threatening for some time, came to a head in the island of Formosa. Outbreaks of mob-violence against the property and person of both missionaries and merchants took place in different parts of the island. At Banca, in the Tamsui district, two English merchants, Messrs Kerr and Bird, were murderously assaulted by a ferocious armed mob, and Mr Holt, the acting vice-consul at Tamsui, reported in October 1868 that "remonstrance, expostulation, despatches, letters, messages, and visits having alike failed in securing common justice" from the mandarin, he might be "driven at any moment to strike his consular flag and close communication with the authorities. Our lives are threatened by people who have proved that the will to murder us is not wanting," and with whom the authorities either could not or would not interfere. Mr Holt held his ground until assistance reached him, and he made no secret of his intention to back his diplomacy by a show of force whenever he got the chance. "Short of destruction of life and property," he wrote, "I intend using any means in my power to enforce that justice that the people who are supposed to administer it deny me. On the arrival of the gunboat I will at once inform your Excellency of the measures concerted between the commander and myself." Vice-Admiral Keppel reported to the Admiralty in December that "the opportune arrival of H.M. gunboat Janus and the United States Aroostook was followed by a full compliance with the demands of her Majesty's consul."