The Mo-wang was demanded and given up as a pirate. The only evidence against him was given by one Chinaman, and tended to prove that the chief had once stopped a Chinese vessel, on board of which was the witness, endeavouring to run past the Ti-ping Custom House established at Nankin. The junk was confiscated by the Ti-ping authorities. Here we have the main point of the case. This was the only act charged against the Mo-wang. The only question is whether it was piracy. The Colonial authorities, true to the Mandarin-worshipping-and-Ti-ping-destroying policy, answered in the affirmative. Let us examine their decision.
First. The Ti-pings had been recognised as belligerents; and, moreover, as an established power, by repeated acts upon the part of representatives of Great Britain (and other countries); how then could the seizure of a vessel of the enemy by the Mo-wang—a regularly commissioned officer of the Ti-ping Government—be construed into an act of piracy? Why, the United States of America would have stronger (though none the less unreasonable) grounds to demand from England the rendition of every ex-Confederate officer, as a pirate, who might be found within her jurisdiction! The decision of the Hong-kong authorities is clearly against the rights of the case and the law by which it was tried. But what conclusively proves this is the fact that the Mandarins demanded the Mo-wang as a pirate, but executed him as a political offender, and nothing else.
Thus, it cannot fail to be seen that the unfortunate victim was not a pirate—the Hong-kong Solons gave him up as one.
Secondly. The extradition treaty with China specially declares "criminal" offenders as those who may be given up, upon "proof of guilt." The Mo-wang was not a criminal, therefore the Hong-kong authorities violated the law by giving him up as such.
Thirdly. The treaty of Tien-tsin was not the law of Hong-kong, therefore the authorities had no legal right to render up even a criminal subject of China—how much less the innocent Mo-wang! As the Hong-kong China Overland Trade Report, May 30, 1865, truly states, in reviewing this atrocious affair:—"It would appear that the local authorities have not only read the treaty erroneously, but that they have no power whatever to meddle in the matter, no ordinance ever having been passed to enable them to take cognizance of offences under the Tien-tsin treaty....
"The case of the St. Alban's raiders has elicited the fact that a treaty is not a statute, and cannot be adopted by a court of law without a statutory enactment. The Ashburton treaty was not the law of Canada, because the Government had neglected to legalize it by statute. So the Tien-tsin treaty is not the law in Hong-kong, because no ordinance has been passed to legalize it."
The above three objections to the rendition of the Mo-wang pretty strongly prove that his death was a judicial murder by those who unlawfully gave him up to so frightful a doom. Another example of British malversation in China, and a further instance of persecution of the Ti-pings!
It might at least have been expected when British officials exceeded their authority and so misapplied the exterritoriality clause of the treaty in order to oblige the Mandarins, that the latter would have responded. We will observe how they did so.
Within one month of the rendition of the Mo-wang, the Imperialists in the neighbourhood of Amoy captured the mercenary soldier, Burgevine (already noticed in these pages), an Englishman named Green, and a British East Indian subject, whilst endeavouring to join the Ti-pings at Chang-chew. These men had committed no crime, and were caught before having committed any political offence (any previous episode of Burgevine's life constituting another case, which did not concern the Englishman, Green). Even if they had succeeded in joining the revolutionists, and had afterwards been caught levying war against the Imperialists, their only offence would have been a political one, viz., breach of neutrality, punishable by deportation from China or three months' imprisonment.
The American Consul at Amoy, hearing of the seizure, demanded, as in this case he had a perfect right to do, the rendition of Burgevine, according to the terms of the exterritoriality clause of the treaty. The Mandarins refused to fulfil their obligations and give up the men. They carried them into the interior and murdered them by heavily ironing, and then drowning them, afterwards pretending that the three unfortunate prisoners had met their death by the capsize of a boat in which they were being conveyed across a river!