Later, M. de Freycinet asked the I.G. to continue and arrange the
detail Treaty, as the first had been really little more than a
Protocol. The second went through without a hitch, and on June 9th Li
Hung Chang and M. Patenotre signed it at Tientsin.
Next day the I.G. had a telegram from London from Lord Granville saying that the Gladstone Ministry was about to resign. "If your appointment as British Minister at Peking is to be published before the new Government under Lord Salisbury comes in, it must be gazetted immediately." He was then able to answer. "Yes. Publish whenever you please. The French Treaty was signed yesterday, June 9."
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE INSPECTORATE OF CUSTOMS BEFORE 1900.]
Sir Robert Hart planned to go into the Legation in August, on the anniversary of his wedding day. Of course you may be sure he had reported the matter to the Chinese and sent in his resignation in good time. But, as they gave him no definite answer, there was nothing for it but to remind them that he had agreed to go—and soon. Downcast faces listened; a most unconsenting silence answered.
"Well, are you willing?" said he at last. "Is Her Majesty the
Empress-Dowager agreeable to receiving me as British Minister?"
"Oh, yes," they replied; "she would rather have you than any one else, because, with your great knowledge of China, it will be very pleasant to do business with you. Besides, you are an old friend of ours."
"Then is she willing to have me leave the Inspectorate?" continued the I.G., still feeling a subtle sense of their dissatisfaction. They brightened up at this. It was evidently the cue they had been looking for. "That is the point," said one of the Ministers, plucking up courage. "Her Majesty would much prefer that you stayed with us."
The upshot of it all was that he stayed; he felt that in the face of the Yamên's remarks he could not treat such kind and considerate employers as the Chinese otherwise. But one of the quaintest touches in the whole affair was that his strongest private reason for holding back, at first, from the splendid appointment as British Minister was that he did not wish to tie himself for five years longer in China—and yet after all he was to stay twenty-five willingly in the land of his exile.