That he and his emissaries did not confine themselves to converting sanguine and anxious missionaries, is well attested in the Blue-Book of 1853. There we find one of our consular body officially reporting:—
“All I have heard tends to strengthen my previously expressed conviction that the insurrectionary movement is a national one of the Chinese against the continued rule, or rather misrule, of the Manchous; and that the power of the latter is already irrevocably subverted in the southern half of the Empire. The interference of foreigners in their behalf would now only have the effect of prolonging hostilities and anarchy for an indefinite period; while, if they abstain from interference, it is highly probable that the valley of the Yang-tsze, with the southern provinces, will speedily come under the rule of a purely Chinese dynasty as one internally strong State, governed according to the old national principles of administration.”
Ten years have elapsed since that prophecy. The Manchou has had during that period two wars with Great Britain and France, and rebellions in every one of the eighteen provinces of China. Yet Pekin rules while Nankin plunders. The dynasty was not quite so sick as Mr Meadows supposed.
Following the weak example of the United States representatives in 1853, our authorities actually put themselves into official communication with the Taeping kings. The insolence of their communications was as gross as their mendacity.
Take the following extract for example, written by two subordinate rulers, Lo and Woo, who perhaps had formerly been of the Christian Union:—
“Well do we remember how, in conjunction with Bremer, Elliot, and Wanking, in the province of Canton, we together erected a church, and together worshipped Jesus, our Celestial Elder Brother; all these circumstances are as fresh as if they had happened but yesterday. We are grieved to hear that Bremer has met with a misfortune, and we can never forget the nobleness of his character. As to Elliot and Wanking, we hope they have enjoyed health since we last met—we feel an irrepressible anxiety to meet our old friends.”
So much for the dodge of Christianity, for the whole idea of building a church with Sir Charles Elliot and “Wanking” was evidently coined with the aid of one Mang, the teacher of Mr Meadows, and who, like all these teachers, was handing his master over as a sheep to be shorn by his countrymen. Then in another place a sop is held for the commercial interest:—
“Our Royal Master has received the command of Heaven to show kindness to foreigners, and harmonise them with the Chinese” [Mr Roberts’s testimony, dated ten years afterwards, to wit], “not restricting commercial intercourse, or levying transit duties upon merchandise.”
We may have done right, after all, in allowing these Taepings time to show by their acts how little they intended to fulfil their promises. In ten years they have utterly wrecked the richest portion of China. All the wonders of Chinese art and industry are levelled with the dust and destroyed. The Porcelain Pagoda—the Iron Tower—the Ming Cemetery of Nankin—the beautiful temples and valuable libraries of Golden Island, exist no longer. A district once teeming with hamlets and farms, rich in silks and teas, and all the products of the Flowery Land, is now a wilderness; and the Englishman who looked upon the wondrous scene of Asiatic civilisation and industry, as spread before him in the valley of the Yang-tsze in the year 1842, would never recognise it again in the famine-stricken desolation of to-day. Lest we should allow our indignation at such unchecked barbarism to carry us away, we will quote from two recent visitors, the one a soldier, the other a clergyman. Colonel Wolseley, in 1862, says: “Having had some little experience of the imbecility of the Imperial Government, I went to Nankin strongly prejudiced against it, and only too anxious to recognise any good which we might discover in its rival.... The Imperial Government, with all its weakness, is as far removed above that established at Nankin, as the true religion of our Saviour is above that set up by the impostor Tien-wang.” He confirms the fact that no man of worth or station in China has joined the movement; and after describing all the ruin, crime, and nastiness of the interior of the Taeping stronghold, he urges his countrymen to assist the better classes of Chinese in sweeping away the abomination, because it is the barrier to true progress in China.
Mr Holmes, whose zeal for the spiritual welfare of the Chinese subsequently led to his being slain by some rebels in Shan-tung, bears the following testimony to the hopelessness of anything good from Taepingism. After visiting Nankin in the end of 1861, he says:—