"In the enclosed letter to Sir James Hope, to which I beg to draw your Lordship's attention, I have stated at length the dangers to which the progress of the insurrection exposes British interests in China.... Our permanent interests are those of trade, the prosperity of which is linked with order and tranquillity. We have, in addition, a temporary interest arising out of the indemnities payable from the custom-house revenue, which is, however, intimately linked with the former.
"What is to become of these interests if the ports fall into the hands of the rebels?"
Here we have the true cause of British hostility to the Ti-pings. Not that our Government feared the trading "interests" would suffer if the Ti-pings captured the treaty ports—by no means; but they dreaded the certain loss of the "temporary interest arising out of the indemnities." They knew full well, as a quotation from dispatch No. 3 will prove, the Ti-pings had never injured our trade; that although the capture of the ports might cause a temporary stagnation, those who would take them came as their "brothers" in Christ, and ultimately would have established a free and general commerce throughout the country; but they also knew that the success of the Ti-pings would imperil their existence, by stopping the indemnification for the last unnecessary and aggressive war with China, and by sweeping away the immense revenue derived from the vile opium traffic.
In the same despatch, Mr. Bruce, with his usual acumen, winds up his syllogism of fallacious assertions—"The nature of the insurrection is destructive" and its religion "blasphemous and immoral;" the insurrectionists are able to capture the Imperial cities, therefore, the "commercial prosperity" of the treaty ports and the "temporary interests" would be destroyed by the success of the Ti-pings—in the following words:—
"The motives of the far larger part of the force are, I apprehend, a desire to live on the spoils of the rich and industrious, to carry off women, and to lead a life of alternate adventure and licence, with little feeling for the Taeping cause.... I see, therefore, little hopes of communities like those of Shanghae and Ningpo escaping destruction.... The commercial prosperity of the ports would receive a fatal blow.... The proceeds of the custom-houses would fall off, and nothing but force would enable us to receive the proportion of duties we are entitled to" (the indemnities) "under the convention of Pekin, out of their diminished receipts."
Now, I submit, these forebodings with regard to the indemnity having been verified by the capture of Ningpo and the rapid success of the Ti-pings, led to the participation of England in the Chinese internecine war. If Mr. Bruce, by the above-quoted statements, intended to advise his Government to assist the Imperialists—and they cannot admit of any other interpretation—how can that distinguished and consistent statesman reconcile them with his strong disapproval of any such policy expressed only a few months before, and which I have already quoted in a previous chapter:—
"No course could be so well calculated to lower our national reputation, as to lend our material support to a Government the corruption of whose authorities is only checked by its weakness."
Mr. Bruce first states, the worst possible policy England could choose would be to interfere against the Ti-pings; and then he declares, if we do not interfere, "that nothing but force would enable us to receive" indemnities and enjoy trade. The present British Government has thought fit to adopt the suicidal course pointed out by Mr. Bruce, and now it has experienced the fact that "no course could be so well calculated to lower our national reputation." The last testimony of Mr., or rather, Sir F. Bruce; of Mr. Lay, C.B., late Inspector-General of Chinese Customs; of Captain Sherrard Osborne, R.N., late Admiral of the so-called Anglo-Chinese flotilla; and of all who have the least opportunity of knowing anything about the subject, unite in confessing the evil of the past policy exercised towards the Ti-pings, and state that the Manchoo Government, despite the fact that it owes its very existence to the help of the British, has thoroughly returned to its exclusiveness, its evasion of treaty obligations, and its hatred of the "outer-barbarians" who have saved it from extinction.
We will now proceed to notice despatch No. 2, addressed by Mr. Bruce to Admiral Hope, which affords further proof of the false principles on which British interference was founded:—