Matters did not run quite so smoothly at the other end of the island, where missionaries as well as merchants were the object of attack. The campaign was carried on with vigour for some six months. Redress was not only unobtainable from the Chinese authorities, but even personal access to them was rendered impossible by the obstruction of the mob. Mr George Jamieson was obliged to forego a visit to the magistrate at Taiwan in April on the latter confessing that he could not protect him from violence. Mr Gibson, five months later, found his road to the mandarin ambuscaded by three parties of sixty or seventy men each, armed with jingalls, swords, and spears. Outrage succeeded outrage during the whole period. The state of affairs was of course a subject of serious remonstrance with the Central Government, of whom the Minister first demanded, as in the Yangchow case, a joint inquiry into the facts. For this purpose the consul, Mr Swinhoe, who had been absent on other duty, was ordered to his proper post. At the same time Vice-Admiral Keppel was requested to send an adequate naval force to support the consul's position and prevent further outbreaks.
The Yamên went through the form of ordering to the spot a commissioner, who, however, left it again immediately, thus turning the orders of the Yamên into ridicule. This proceeding naturally encouraged the hostility of the local officials and of the mob who executed their behests. The situation became most threatening.
The squadron detached by Admiral Keppel for active operations at Takow and its neighbourhood consisted of three corvettes and five gunboats, to be reinforced if necessary by the flagship Rodney, carrying eighty-two guns. Before this imposing force arrived, however, the task they were intended to achieve had been already accomplished. "Driven to despair, and believing life and property to be in great danger, Mr Gibson, without waiting for instructions, called upon Lieutenant Gurdon of the gunboat Algerine to take possession of the Chinese fort, which resulted in a loss of life and a destruction of Government stores."
Mr Gibson's action was somewhat euphemistically described as "without waiting for instructions," seeing that he had positive instructions to maintain his ground until a naval force should arrive. Both the operation itself and certain details of its execution were adverted upon so severely, first by Sir Rutherford Alcock and then by the British Government, that, notwithstanding Commodore Jones's commendation of "the most brilliant exploit I have heard of in these seas," Lieutenant Gurdon fell under the displeasure of the Lords of the Admiralty, as the acting consul did under that of the Foreign Office. The object of the joint adventure, however, was attained, and the spirit of outrage among the Chinese completely subdued. This happened in December.
There remained, however, yet another centre of turbulence which greatly impeded the operation of the treaty, at the port of Swatow. The villages which lie between that seaport and the district city of Chow-chow-fu, some 12 miles up the river Han, had banded themselves together to oppose foreign intercourse with the latter city. Not only were the business and property of foreign merchants interfered with, but a British man-of-war gig in the river was fired upon, and when the men landed to identify the offender they were overpowered by the whole population of the nearest village. This hostile attitude, resembling very much that of the Canton villages twenty years before, steadily increased until the native officials themselves were not safe in passing to and from the district city. Strong representations were made to the high authorities of the province at Canton. The viceroy had promised to send a military force to quell the riotous villages, but before he had proved the sincerity of his intention the Gordian knot was cut by British initiative in January 1869. The late Sir Challoner Alabaster, a man of uncommon resolution, was at that time acting consul at Swatow; and he, having secured the co-operation of Commodore Jones, led a force of marines and bluejackets against the offending villages. A stout resistance was offered at first, but when several of the villages had been taken and destroyed the whole eighteen made their submission. Thereafter the district enjoyed perfect peace and security. In the following March Sir Rutherford Alcock was able to telegraph to Lord Clarendon that "the accounts from all the ports showed that peace and order had been restored; that at Yangchow and Formosa entire security and an improved position had been obtained; that there was no more cause for anxiety at any point; that the best understanding existed with the foreign body at Peking; and that the relations with China had never been more satisfactory."
The bearing of these occurrences on the revision of the treaty may not at first sight be quite clear, but it is interesting to note in what manner they were connected with that operation in the mind of Sir Rutherford Alcock. He calculated that the necessity of using force to vindicate foreign treaty rights, of which both he and his predecessor had constantly warned them, would bring home to the Peking authorities the alternative which they would always have to face in case of failure to carry out the treaties. How very differently these outrages and the enforced redress affected the situation in Peking will now be seen.
The action taken at Yangchow and in Formosa having been fully explained to the Tsungli-Yamên, Wênsiang and the other Ministers expressed their entire concurrence. But what satisfied the Government of China produced quite another impression on that of Great Britain. Lord Stanley, as Foreign Secretary, had written on November 20, 1868: "Mr Medhurst appears to have acted with great prudence and firmness, and you will convey to him my approval of his proceedings.... I have to instruct you [Sir R. Alcock] to press the case in question upon the Chinese Government." Two months later Mr Medhurst was reprimanded by Lord Clarendon for his action, and the "full satisfaction for the outrage" was attributed exclusively to the "readiness with which the Central Government took measures that proved effectual." The change of Government which had in the interval taken place in England (December 9, 1868) was hardly sufficient to account for so diametrical a change of view in a matter of imperial concern. Another agency had effected the conversion of the British Government. Mr Burlingame had arrived fresh from fervid denunciations in the United States of the "tyrannic policy" and the "throat policy" of Great Britain as applied to China, and adroitly seizing on the repression of the Yangchow and Formosa outrages as flagrant examples, he succeeded in incensing Lord Clarendon against the various British officials concerned in these troubles, whom his lordship visited with punishment which scarcely stopped short of vindictiveness. Mr Medhurst, indeed, a man of long and distinguished service, had only a black mark set against his name; but Mr Gibson was publicly censured and degraded, and ordered to make an apology to the Chinese officials whose lawless aggressions he had lawlessly repelled. With some inconsistency, Lord Clarendon, about the same time, approved the conduct of Acting-Consul Holt at Tamsui, who succeeded in adjusting most serious misunderstandings with the Chinese through no other means than the visible force of the small gunboat Janus, for whose arrival he waited before preferring his demands.
That the sudden change in the policy of the British Government was the work of Mr Burlingame was frankly avowed by Lord Clarendon himself, who based the fresh instructions to the Minister in China on the arrangements he had concluded with the Chinese representative. In his letter of condemnation, January 14, 1869, he, moreover, intimated that he could not wait before pronouncing judgment for Sir Rutherford Alcock's complete report on the Yangchow affair, because his "communication with Mr Burlingame ... rendered it necessary that he should not defer making his observations." That a British Secretary of State could have so demeaned his office would not have been believed save on his own confession. He of course carried the Admiralty with him, and the same influence which inspired the new instructions issued to the Minister and consuls inspired those issued to the commanding officers on the China station.
Taken textually, the negotiations between Mr Burlingame and Lord Clarendon were of a platonic character. H.M.'s Government undertook to apply no pressure to China. It would have been a simple matter to refrain from applying pressure, and a tacit resolution to that effect with corresponding instruction to the Minister in Peking would have secured the object. To make it a subject of direct pledge to the Chinese Government seemed one of those gratuitous acts which all diplomatic experience condemns as fraught with future embarrassments. To save appearances, however, a nominal equivalent was taken. "Mr Burlingame was requested to bear in mind, and to make known to the Chinese Government, that we should henceforward have a right to expect on its part the faithful fulfilment of treaty engagements, the prompt redress of grievances referred to the Central Government, and friendly treatment of British subjects by the Chinese authorities"—as if all that had not been already stipulated for under the solemn sanction of the existing treaty.