The thing was done, but what I did in saying those half a dozen words agreeing to the Tibetan proposals was considered afterwards to be a grave error of judgment, and was to bring upon me the censure of Government, That, of course, is what I had to risk. I knew that I was not acting within my instructions. I was using my discretion in very difficult circumstances with what the Government of India afterwards described[[39]] to the Secretary of State as “a fearlessness of responsibility which it would be a grave mistake to discourage in any of their agents.” And if I really was in error, I think that those who tied their agent down for time and bound him within such narrow lines before they were aware in what conditions he would find himself at Lhasa, cannot themselves be considered as altogether faultless.
In another matter also I at this time acted on my own responsibility. In the original proposals of the Government of India regarding the terms about which I was, without committing Government, to ascertain how the Tibetan Government would be likely to regard them,[[40]] was one by which the agent at Gyantse was to have the right of proceeding to Lhasa to discuss matters with the Tibetan officials or the Resident. This reached me before I left Gyantse, and when the Tongsa Penlop asked me for our terms to let the Dalai Lama know what we wanted, I gave him this among all the rest. Subsequently, I received instructions not to ask for permission for the Gyantse agent to proceed to Lhasa. I did not, however, at once withdraw the clause from the list of terms, because in the course of negotiations it might prove useful as a point on which I could, if necessary, make concessions to the Tibetans. But when I found the Tibetans raised no special objections to the clause, provided the trade agent went to Lhasa only on commercial, and not political, business, and only after he had found it impossible to get this commercial business disposed of by correspondence or by personal conference with the Tibetan agent at Gyantse, I thought there would be no objection to taking an agreement from the Tibetans to that effect; for, under such limitations and provisions, there could be no grounds for assuming that in going there the trade agent at Gyantse would be taking upon himself any political functions, or adopting the character of a Political Resident.
As this agreement was of a less formal character than the rest of the Convention, I had it drawn up separately. It ran as follows:
“The Government of Tibet agrees to permit the British agent, who will reside at Gyantse, to watch the conditions of the British trade, to visit Lhasa, when it is necessary, to consult with high Chinese and Tibetan officials on such commercial matters of importance as he has found impossible to settle at Gyantse by correspondence or by personal conference with the Tibetan agent.”
To this also the Regent gave his consent.
On September 5 the Resident and the principal Tibetan authorities came to arrange final details and formalities regarding the signing of the Treaty. The first point to decide was who should sign it. I asked the Resident whose name should be entered in the place of the Dalai Lama’s. He said I might enter the name of the Ti Rimpoche, and he added that representatives of the Council, of the three great monasteries, and of the National Assembly would also affix their seals. To this the Tibetans assented. I then said the next point was to settle the time and place for signature. There could be only one place—namely, the Potala Palace—in which I would sign it, and I was ready to sign as soon as the final copies of the Treaty had been prepared. The Resident said that he had no objection to the Treaty being signed in the Potala. He then informed the Tibetans of our decision. The Tibetans objected strongly, but without advancing any reasons except that they did not wish it. I informed them that they had at Khamba Jong and Gyantse grossly insulted the British representative, and I now insisted that I should be shown the fullest respect. I had been prepared to show, and had shown, the utmost consideration for their religion and sacred buildings, but I expected that they on their part should show the fullest respect to the King-Emperor’s representative. They suggested that the Treaty should be signed in the Resident’s Yamen, but I said I would be content with no other place than that in which the Dalai Lama would have received me if he had himself been here to sign the Treaty. The utmost respect it was within their capacity to show I expected should on this occasion be accorded. They began murmuring other objections, but the Resident told them the matter was settled, and did not admit of further discussion.
The question of the exact room in the Palace was then discussed, and a certain room was suggested. I told the Resident that I would send officers that afternoon to inspect the Palace, and satisfy themselves that the room suggested was the most appropriate one, and I asked him to have Chinese and Tibetan officials deputed to accompany my officers. To this he agreed. The date for the ceremony of signing was then fixed for the next day. The Resident said he would himself be present, though he would be unable to agree to the Convention till he had heard from Peking.
Messrs. White and Wilton, and Captain O’Connor, with Majors Iggulden and Beynon from General Macdonald’s staff, went over the Potala in the afternoon, and reported that the hall suggested by the Tibetans was the most suitable one in the Palace. That, therefore, was the one we fixed on for the ceremony on the following day.
Though it was easy enough to speak decisively like this about signing the Treaty in the Potala, I had many qualms that night as to whether I had not perhaps at the last moment made one false step. Since the days of the eccentric Manning—whose name should never be forgotten when Lhasa is mentioned—no European had been inside this Palace, and these 20,000 turbulent monks in and around Lhasa might flare up at the last moment, or else commit some atrocity when we were once and completely in their power inside the buildings. Such things have happened before now to Political Agents in India. On the other hand, the hall we were to go to was not a temple, and the Dalai Lama himself, though considered a sacred being, was also a political personage. It was not in the temple of a god that I insisted upon signing the Treaty; it was in the audience-chamber of a political chief.
And for the effect upon the Tibetans and upon men in general, upon our own soldiers, British and Indian, and upon the Nepalese, Bhutanese, and Sikkimese, and far away up into Kashmir and Turkestan, it was necessary to do something to strike their imagination, and to give some unmistakable sign that the Tibetans had not been able through all these years to flout us without suffering the penalty.