“Everything had gone so fairly,” wrote Macaulay to Sir Clements Markham from Darjiling in October, 1886, “that it was difficult for us here to believe that we should be shipwrecked within sight of the promised land.” Yet so it was, and he took his disappointment so deeply to heart that he completely broke down in health, and died a few years later.
Immediately following on the abandonment of the mission came the most unprovoked aggression on the part of the Tibetans. They crossed the Jelap-la, the pass from Chumbi into Sikkim and the frontier between Tibet and our feudatory State, and they occupied Lengtu, eighteen miles on our side of the frontier, building a guard-house there, and turning out one of our road overseers, placed there to superintend the road which Sir Richard Temple had made when Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. And on hearing that the mission had been countermanded, they became so elated that they boasted that they would occupy Darjiling, only seventy-eight miles off, and something like a panic ensued in this almost unprotected summer resort. At the same time, on the opposite side of Tibet they were still more actively aggressive, expelling the Roman Catholic missionaries from their long-established homes at Batang, massacring many of their converts, and burning the mission-house.
This is a very essential fact to bear in mind in the consideration of the Tibetan question—that after both Tibetan and Chinese susceptibilities had been given way to on every occasion, it was the Tibetans who invaded us. It was a Bhutanese invasion of the plains of Bengal, followed by a letter from the Tashi Lama, that had initiated our relations with Tibet in the time of Warren Hastings. And it was this invasion of Sikkim that forced upon us the regularization of our relations with the Tibetans.
When the Tibetans thus invaded the territory of our feudatory, we should have been well within our right in forthwith expelling them by force; but, in accordance with the policy of forbearance we had so consistently pursued, we referred the matter to the Chinese, and requested them to procure the withdrawal of the Tibetans. We also allowed the Chinese ample time, a year, within which to bring their influence to bear. Then, at the end of 1887, we wrote to the Tibetan commander that unless he evacuated his position before March 15, 1888, he would be expelled by force. This letter was returned unopened. In February we wrote to the Dalai Lama himself to the same effect, but again we received no reply. It was only on March 20, 1888, that a British force assumed the offensive, and advanced upon the Tibetans in the position they had occupied within our frontier at Lengtu.
The Tibetans, for the time being, offered no resistance, and retired to Chumbi, on their own side of the frontier, and our troops occupied a position at Gnatong, on our side. Two months later, however, the Tibetans again showed truculence, and with 3,000 men attacked our camp at Gnatong. They were repulsed, and once more withdrew. But in September they, for the third time, advanced across our border, and in a single night, with that skill in building for which they are so remarkable, threw up a wall three miles long and from 3 to 4 feet high in a position just above Gnatong, and some miles within our border.
This position General Graham attacked on the following day, and drove the Tibetans from it over the Jelap-la Pass, and in the ensuing days pursued them into the Chumbi Valley. But here again, in accordance with our principle of respecting Chinese susceptibilities, our troops did not remain in Chumbi a single day, but returned at once to Gnatong. For two years now the Tibetans had been encroaching on our side of the frontier, but not for one day would we permit our troops to remain on the Tibetan side. Forbearance could scarcely go further than this, but yet it was to be still more strained on many a subsequent occasion.
CHAPTER V
THE CONVENTION WITH CHINA
The Chinese Amban, or Resident, at Lhasa now appeared upon the scene to effect a settlement, and during 1889 we endeavoured to have the frontier line properly fixed and our exclusive supremacy in Sikkim, which was recorded in well-known treaties, definitely recognized. We also wished, if possible, to have trade regulated. Considering that we had abandoned the proposed mission to Lhasa out of deference to Chinese and Tibetan susceptibilities, that the Tibetans had assumed the offensive, and that the Chinese had shown themselves utterly unable to control them, this was not an unreasonable expectation to hold. We made no demand for indemnity or for any accession of territory. We merely asked that the boundary and trade should be regulated. Yet a year of negotiation passed and no result was obtained, and the Government of India told the Chinese negotiators that they had decided “to close the Sikkim incident, so far as China is concerned, without insisting upon a specific agreement.”