Mr. Chamot was wounded in the hand by a Boxer spear, but never lost ten minutes’ work on that account, going around with his hand tied up, and yet using it whenever occasion required. His bravery was to the point of recklessness, and the wonder is he was not killed. That his country and other nations, especially the French, will substantially recognize his services is surely to be expected.
CHAPTER X
EDICTS ISSUED BY THE EMPRESS DURING SIEGE, WITH A FEW COMMENTS THEREON
An attendant to a Confucian priest
WHILE we were besieged in the legations we were quite unaware of anything going on in the city outside of us until July 18, after the so-called truce, when we paid a native a large sum to smuggle into the compound copies of the Peking “Gazette,” the government organ, of the dates of June 13 to July 19, inclusive. The translations of such parts as relate to the Boxers or foreigners that follow show: first, the duplicity of the Empress in apparently trying to suppress the Boxers prior to the declaration of war, June 19; second, her open encouragement in edicts from that date until the defeat of her armies at Tientsin under Generals Sung Ching, Ma Yu Kun and Nieh Shih Cheng, July 17; and third, her immediate turning around and attempting to curry favor by denouncing the Boxers in the edicts of July 18 and 19. While trying her best to murder all the foreign ministers, she was having her own ministers abroad inform the countries to whom they were accredited that the foreign ministers were perfectly safe here.
The edicts speak for themselves, and are an eloquent appeal to the foreign powers never to allow this most treacherous woman, or any other Manchu for that matter, to occupy the throne of China.
“June 13—Edict: Two days since a member of the Japanese legation, the clerk in chancery, was murdered by desperadoes [her own soldiers in government uniform] outside the Yung Ting gate. We were exceedingly grieved to learn of this.