The empress-regent's coup d'état of January 1875, when on a bitterly cold night her infant nephew was taken out of his warm bed, conveyed into the palace, and proclaimed emperor the following morning, answered the scheming lady's expectations, for she has ruled the Chinese empire from that day to this. By the same stroke she was enabled to disembarrass herself of her original confederate, Prince Kung, to whose ambition she dealt a crushing blow in ousting his family from the succession. The two had come to hate each other with more than common virulence; and now that Prince Ch'un had been set on an unassailable pedestal as father of the reigning sovereign, the regent placed her trust and confidence in him, and shared with him the sweets of empire. Inasmuch, however, as the regent was a woman, and her imperial brother-in-law neither a man of affairs nor in a position to assume any outward share in the Government, it was necessary to bring in a practical statesman to stand between them and the outer world. This position of confidence was occupied for twenty years by the grand secretary, Li Hung-chang.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE MURDER OF MR MARGARY, 1875—CHEFOO CONVENTION, 1876—RATIFICATION, 1885.
I. THE MURDER OF MR MARGARY, 1875.
Efforts to reach China from Burma—Expedition under Colonel Browne—Mr Margary appointed interpreter—Meets party at Bhamo—Precedes them into China, and is assassinated at Manwyne—Discussion thereon with the Chinese Government—Tsên Yü-ying, Governor of Yunnan—British Minister charges him with the murder—Demands his arraignment—Sends commission from Peking to Yunnan to take evidence—Unsuccessful.
Ever since the conquest of British Burma, and more especially since the treaty concluded with the King of Burma in 1862, political and commercial speculation had been busied with the mountainous country which divides it from the empire of China. The fact that next to nothing was known of that wild region, combined with the prospect of reopening the old caravan route which had been some time closed by disturbances among the frontier tribes and by Chinese insurgents, constituted a great stimulus to exploration. To this end projects were from time to time considered by the Indian Government—sometimes at the instance of enthusiastic officials, sometimes urged by the superior authority of the British Government under pressure from mercantile bodies in England. South-western China, however, was as jealously guarded from intrusion as the sea-coast had been, and no progress was made in penetrating its mystery.
After the failure of an exploring expedition under Colonel Edward B. Sladen in 1868, the Indian Government, in furtherance of the wishes of the Government at home, sanctioned yet another attempt six years later, though with decided misgivings as to any successful issue. Arrangements were made during 1874, and the expedition, under Colonel Horace Browne, was despatched from Burma viâ Bhamo in the beginning of 1875. The British Minister in China had been asked for his co-operation, and in particular he was requested to furnish Colonel Browne with a competent interpreter. It was arranged that this official, armed with a Chinese passport issued by the Government at Peking, should make his own way through China from the coast and join Colonel Browne at Bhamo.
The choice of her Majesty's Minister fell upon one of the most promising officers in the consular service, Mr Augustus Raymond Margary, who proceeded from Shanghai by way of the Yangtze to the province of Yunnan, and in five months accomplished his perilous pioneering journey with perfect success, arriving on the 17th of January at the rendezvous, where he was received with the warmest feelings by Colonel Browne and his party, and with surprise and admiration by the Burmese.
On being joined by Mr Margary, the mission prepared to start from Bhamo towards China. Everything seemed auspicious for the expedition. On arriving at the Burmese frontier, however, the party were met by sinister rumours of armed opposition to their passage through the Kakhyen hills. Margary, having just come safely through these districts, volunteered to proceed alone to ascertain the truth of the reports which they had heard. How he was treacherously assassinated at Manwyne, the first city within the Chinese border, and how Colonel Browne's mission was assailed and driven back by armed bands, has been told by Dr John Anderson in 'A Narrative of the two Expeditions to Western China' of 1868 and 1875, and by Sir Rutherford Alcock, the sympathetic editor of Mr Margary's 'Letters and Journals,' as well as in numerous Government publications.
It became then a question of the gravest import to fix the guilt of this treachery, and to consider what means could be adopted for avenging the death of a young Englishman within Chinese territory, and bearing a passport from the Government of Peking. "Whether it be Burmese, Kakhyens, Shan tribes, or Chinese that are in question, it is impossible we can accept a defeat of this nature, brought on, too, by our own spontaneous acts," was the conclusion of Sir Rutherford Alcock. Governments which resorted to the assassination of individuals under their own safe conduct must be deterred, by persuasion or by force, from the use of such tactics. The demand for redress which was made direct to the Tsungli-Yamên was followed by a wrangling and evasive discussion as to the conditions on which the passport had been granted. These, it must be admitted, had not been so definitely stated as they might have been. Passports, as Mr Wade, then Minister in Peking, explained, were granted in two forms—for "business," meaning trade, or for "pleasure," rendered in Chinese "tour or travel." It was in the latter form that the passport for Colonel Browne was applied for, and the Chinese made a plausible defence of their position on this narrow ground, asserting that the subsequent declaration that the mission was intended to open a trade route through Chinese provinces, where they alleged no trading rights for foreigners existed, could not be covered by a passport granted for pleasure.
The voluminous discussion on international rights which followed, although academical in form and irrelevant to the question at issue, betrayed the animus of the Chinese Government in regard to commercial concessions in the interior; but it is possible that the true motive for the repulse of Colonel Browne's expedition, of which Mr Margary's murder was but an incident, lay deeper. Europeans are accustomed to make light of oriental suspicions, and the idea that Colonel Browne's party was the vanguard of a hostile force to be treacherously introduced into Chinese territory under passport may seem too fantastic to have been entertained in good faith. Yet if we consider on what trivial grounds even the civilised Powers of Europe will at times suspect each other of the most grandiose designs, and how often the suspicion is justified, we need not dismiss as incredible the fact that, in a frontier province which had recently been the scene of a formidable rebellion, an armed escort accompanying a foreign tourist party should have caused sincere misgivings in the minds of the authorities. Nor do the facts of the case exclude the possibility of such suspicions being suggested from without, even if they did not arise spontaneously within. Apart from these special considerations, the chances of success would probably have been greater if the mission had started from the Chinese side, where the right of travel and exploration had already been established.