``In view of all this, no one will say, however much in matters of detail we may have erred in judgment, that Great Britain has failed to secure for herself, on the whole, a considerable number of miscellaneous commercial and political advantages from the facheuse situation arising out of an attitude on the part of the Chinese so hostile to progress.''[42]
[42] ``China,'' pp. 95, 96.
France, as far back as 1787, obtained the Peninsula of Tourane and the Island of Pulu Condore by ``treaty'' with the King of Cochin-China. The French soon began to regard Annam as within their sphere of influence. In 1858, they seized Saigon and from it as a base extended French power throughout Cochin-China and Cambodia, the treaty of 1862 giving an enforced legal sanction to these extensive claims. Not content with this, France steadily pushed her conquests northward, compelling one concession after another until in 1882, she coolly decided to annex Tong-king. The Chinese objected, but the war ended in a treaty, signed June 9, 1885, which gave France the coveted region. These vast regions, which China had for centuries regarded as tributary provinces, are now virtually French territory and are openly governed as such.
The beginnings of Russia's designs upon China are lost in the haze of mediaeval antiquity. Russian imperial guards are frequently mentioned at the Mongol Court of Peking in the thirteenth century.[43] In 1652, the Russians definitely began their struggle with the Manchus for the Valley of the Amur, a struggle which in spite of temporary defeats and innumerable disputes Russia steadily and relentlessly continued until she obtained the Lower Amur in 1855, the Ussuri district in 1860 and finally, by the Cassini Convention of September, 1896, the right to extend the Siberian Railway from Nerchinsk through Manchuria. How Russia pressed her aggressions in this region we shall have occasion to note in a later chapter.
[43] Parker, ``China,'' p. 96.
XIII
THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA
THE relations of the United States with China have, as a rule, been more sympathetic than those of European nations. Americans have not sought territorial advantage in China and on more than one occasion, our Government has exerted its influence in favour of peace and justice for the sorely beset Celestials.
The flag of the United States first appeared in Chinese waters on a trading ship in 1785. From the beginning, Americans had less trouble with the Chinese than Europeans had experienced, partly because they had recently been at war with the English whom the Chinese hated and feared, and partly because they were less violently aggressive in dealing with the Chinese. By the treaties of July and October, 1844, the United States peacefully reaped the advantages which England had obtained at the cost of war. November 17, 1856, two American ships were fired upon by the Bogue Forts, but in spite of the hostilities which resulted, the representatives of the United States appeared to find more favour with the Chinese than those of any other power in the negotiations at Tien-tsin in 1858, and their treaty was signed a week before those of the French and the British. Article X provided that the ``United States shall have the right to appoint consuls and other commercial agents, to reside at such places in the dominions of China as shall be agreed to be opened''; and Article XXX that,
``should at any time the Ta-Tsing Empire grant to any nation or the merchants or citizens of any nation any right, privileges or favour connected with either navigation, commerce, political or other intercourse which is not conferred by this treaty, such right, privilege and favour shall at once freely inure to the benefit of the United States, its public officers, merchants and citizens.''