Dr. Lippitt, who came up with the marines, and the English and Russian surgeons set to work, and tried to patch these poor people together again, and they toiled, the three of them, steadily for many hours. I have never imagined that such stoicism as these wretched creatures exhibited could exist. They never uttered a cry or moved even when the surgeons were operating on them.
Then the question arose as to what should be done with them. They could not stay in the road; the Legations could not have them. Dr. Morrison and Dr. H. James hit upon one of the happiest of ideas—namely, the seizing of a lovely park belonging to a Prince Su, which runs parallel to the British Legation, and is on the other side of the canal. It is so big there would be plenty of room for as many of these poor people as we shall be able to rescue, and being so near us, it will be quite possible for us to defend it. Dr. Morrison saw that the idea was carried out, and Dr. H. James went personally to Prince Su, and interpreted to him that it would not only be kind, but wise, for him to present his palace and park to his distressed fellow-citizens, who were being massacred by the Imperial soldiers in different parts of Peking, and in this way to furnish them with a refuge from the brutes who had killed thousands of them, and who were desirous of killing the rest. Dr. James implied that unless he voluntarily gave up his “fu” (meaning park), we would take it.
Prince Su was most suave, and said nothing would give him greater pleasure. There was probably some truth in what he said. He was only too glad to get as far away as possible from these Legation people, notwithstanding he would have to give up his palace. The danger for his life might be very great if he were suspected, even for a moment, of sympathizing with the foreigners, as might easily have been maintained by his enemies had he continued to live in this palace, which we told him he might do, as it was only his big park we wanted for the Christians. He vacated the same day, leaving all of his treasure and half of his harem. Thanks are due to Dr. Morrison.
How queerly things happen! These poor wretches, who had been tortured and hounded to death only two hours before by Imperial troops, were now housed in the palace of a mighty Prince, and almost within the shadow of the Empress-Dowager’s palace. For three days this splendid work of rescuing has continued, but finally Captain Myers decided that, with all the night-watching and hard, long hours of sentry work, our men could no longer endure it. So it was discontinued, and I believe the other Legations have stopped for the same reason. The English, Russians, and our men usually went on these rescue parties together, and I never heard of friction, though they were sometimes under an officer of one nationality and the next day under another. The ten to twenty marines who were on these parties counted at a very low estimate that they must have killed 350 thieves, Boxers, and Imperial Chinese soldiers.
English Compound, June 21.
Things are rapidly changing for the worse. On the afternoon of the 19th a communication came from the Yamen addressed to all the Ministers, saying that, as all, or most, of the European Powers had fired on the Taku Forts, war was practically declared, and, such being the case, they would be pleased for all the Legations to take their passports, and allow the Chinese Imperial troops to escort them safely to the coast, whence they could leave the country. This was a thunderbolt coming to the Ministers, and yet so plausible and possible did the proposition appear to Sir Claude Macdonald and Mr. Conger that they were almost ready to acquiesce if the Chinese promised proper transportation.
The German Minister, Von Ketteler, was very undecided—so much so that he determined to go by himself the next morning to the Tsung-li Yamen and have a quiet talk with the members, and in this way arrive at a conclusion as to whether there would be foul play in case we accepted their escort. As he had some knowledge of the Chinese language, he was able to probe a little deeper into a conversation than were his colleagues, who were naturally forced to speak entirely through an interpreter.
The majority of the Ministers—De Giers, Cologan, Knobel, Pichon, Salvago Raggi, etc.—were wavering, first to accept the proposition and then not to; but by five o’clock in the afternoon it was so generally believed that the Ministers as a body would accept the Tsung-li Yamen’s ultimatum that all foreigners should leave the next morning at ten, that the executive members of the different Legation staffs had been out buying or procuring in any way possible large numbers of Chinese carts for the Legation personnel, and we women were packing the tiny amount of hand-luggage we were to be allowed to take with us, wondering whether to fill the small bag with a warm coat, to protect us on this indefinite journey to the coast, or to take six fresh blouses. Our hearts were wrung as to what to do, and while we were arranging and worrying about these trivial details the great diplomatic question was at a white-heat.
The Ministers were moving about from one Legation to another, arguing, talking—always talking. The strong men felt we must not leave Peking until our own foreign soldiers arrived to escort us, but the weak men felt in despair as to which course to vote for. They did not like the idea of leaving either, but, oh dear, what a breach of diplomacy to receive their passports and then to decline to go! The strong, who knew, were so few, and the weak, who feared to disobey the Tsung-li Yamen, were so many, that it looked very much as if we were all to start out to our deaths the following morning.
During the afternoon two or three men made a visit to the Legations, hoping to be able to rally the Ministers into promising to cast an undiplomatic vote when the final conference should take place; and at one time Dr. Morrison took the floor, he being the spokesman for the vast crowd of intelligent individuals—engineers, bankers, trades-people, and missionaries—who one and all were in favour of waiting until Seymour and McCalla arrived. He looked the Ministers square in the eyes, and said: