Volume Xiv Part 10 (1/2)
Fancy a mind that could think of a treaty obtained by British guns as ent.i.tling him to be a.s.sociated with Wellington! Yet Mr. Reed had the effrontery to say that he ”expected us to make the missionary societies duly sensible of their obligations” to him. That twenty-ninth article was the gem of the treaty; and it had the honor of being copied into that of Lord Elgin, which was signed eight days later.
High-minded, philanthropic, and upright, Lord Elgin made a mistake which led to a renewal of the war. He refused to place Tientsin on the list of open ports, because, as he said, ”Foreign powers would make use of it to overawe the Chinese capital,”--just as if overawing was not a matter of prime necessity. He hastened away to India to aid in suppressing the Sepoy mutiny, eventually becoming viceroy after another campaign in China. His brother, Sir F. Bruce, succeeded him as minister in China; and twelve months later (July, 1859) the ministers of the four powers were again at the mouth of the Peiho on their way to Peking for the exchange of ratified copies of the several treaties. The United States minister was John E. Ward, a n.o.ble-hearted son of Georgia, and the chief of our little squadron was the gallant old Commodore Tatnall.
We were not a little surprised to see the demolished forts completely rebuilt, and frowning defiance. We were told by officers who came down to the sh.o.r.e that no vessel would be allowed to pa.s.s; but that the way to Peking was open to us _via_ Peitang, a small port to the north.
To this Mr. Ward made no objection, but the British, who had so recently held the keys of the capital, were indignant to be met by such a rebuff.
They steamed ahead between the forts, leaving the Chinese to take the consequences. All at once the long line of batteries opened fire. One or two gunboats were sunk; two or three were stranded. A storming party was repulsed, and Admiral Hope, who was dangerously wounded, begged our American commodore to give him a lift by towing up a flotilla of barges filled with a reserve force. ”Blood is thicker than water,” exclaimed Tatnall, in tones that have echoed round the globe, and Ward making no objection, he threw neutrality to the winds, and proceeded to tow up the barges. Our little steamer was commanded by Lieutenant Barker, now Admiral Barker of the New York Navy Yard.
Even this failed to retrieve the day, the tide having fallen too low for a successful landing. For the British admiral nothing remained but to withdraw his shattered forces, and prepare for another campaign. For the United States minister a dazzling prospect now presented itself,--that of intervening to prevent the renewal of war. From Peitang we proceeded by land two days. Then we continued our voyage for five days by boat on the Upper Peiho.
At Peking, calling on the genial old Kweiliang, who had signed the treaty in 1858, Mr. Ward was astonished at his change of tone. ”You wish to see the Emperor. That goes as a matter of course; but his Majesty knows you helped the British, and he requires that you go on your knees before the throne in token of repentance.” ”Tell him,” said Mr. Ward to me, ”that I go on my knees only to G.o.d and woman.” ”Is not the Emperor the same as G.o.d?” replied the old courtier, taking no notice of a tribute to woman that was unintelligible to an Oriental mind. ”You need not really touch the ground with your knees,” he continued; ”but merely make a show of kneeling. There will be eunuchs at hand to lift you up, saying 'Don't kneel! Don't kneel!'” The eunuchs, as Mr. Ward well knew, would be more likely to push us to our knees than to lift us up; and he wisely decided to decline the honor of an audience on such terms.
Displeased by his obstinacy, the Emperor ordered him to quit the capital without delay, and exchange ratifications at the sea-coast. A report was long current in Peking that foreigners have no joints in their knees; hence their reluctance to kneel. Thus vanished for Mr. Ward the alluring prospect of winning for himself and his country the beat.i.tude of the peacemaker.
The summer of 1860 saw the Peiho forts taken, and an allied force of thirty thousand men advancing on Peking. The court fled to Tartary, and the summer palace was laid in ashes to punish the violation of a flag of truce, the bearers of which were bound hand and foot, and left to perish within its walls. For three days the smoke of its burning, carried by a northwest wind, hung like a pall over the devoted city, whose inhabitants were so terrified that they opened the gates half an hour before the time set for bombardment. No soldiers were admitted, but the demands of the Allies were all acceded to, and supplementary treaties signed within the walls by Lord Elgin and Baron Gros. Peking was opened to foreign residence. The French succeeded in opening the whole country to the labors of missionaries. Legations were established at the capital, and a new era of peace and prosperity dawned on the distracted empire.
VI.
THE WAR WITH FRANCE.
If the opening of Peking required a prolonged struggle, it was followed by a quarter-century of pacific intercourse. China had at her helm a number of wise statesmen,--such as Prince Kung and Wensiang. The Inspectorate of Customs begun under Mr. Lay took shape under the skilful management of Sir Robert Hart, and from that day to this it has proved to be a fruitful nursery of reforms, political and social.
Not only were students sent abroad for education at the instance and under the leaders.h.i.+p of Yung Wing, but a school for interpreters was opened in the capital, which, through the influence of Sir Robert Hart, was expanded into the well-known Imperial College. On his nomination the present writer was called to the head of it, and Wensiang proposed to convert it into a great national university by making it obligatory on the members of the Hanlin Academy, the Emperor's ”Forest of Pencils,” to come there for a course of instruction in science and international law.
Against this daring innovation, Wojin, a Manchu tutor of the Emperor, protested, declaring that it would be humiliating to China to have her choicest scholars sit at the feet of foreign professors. The scheme fell through, but before many years the Emperor himself had taken up the study of the English language, and two of our students were selected to be his instructors. One of them is at this present time (1902) Chinese minister at the Court of St. James. Several of our students have had diplomatic missions, and one, after serving as minister abroad, is now a leading member of the Board of Foreign Affairs in Peking. A press opened in connection with the college printed numerous text-books on international law, political economy, physics, and mathematics, translated by the president, professors, and students.
America was fortunate in the choice of the first minister whom she sent to reside at Peking. This was Anson Burlingame, who, after doing much to encourage the Chinese in the direction of progress, was by them made the head of the first emba.s.sy which they sent to foreign nations. His success in other countries was largely due to the sympathy with which he had been received in the United States by Secretary Seward, and to the advice and recommendations with which he was provided by that great statesman. So deep an interest did Mr. Seward take in China that he went in person to study its condition before the close of his career. In his visit to Peking he was accompanied by his nephew, George F. Seward, who was United States Consul at Shanghai. The latter has since that date worthily represented our country as minister at Peking; but it may be doubted whether in that high position he ever performed an international service equal in importance to one performed during his consuls.h.i.+p, for which he has recently received the cross of the Legion of Honor. In laying out their new concession at Shanghai, the French had excited the hostility of the people by digging up and levelling down many of those graves that occupied so much s.p.a.ce outside of the city walls, and where the Chinese who wors.h.i.+pped their ancestors were to be seen every day burning paper and heaping up the earth. A furious mob fell on the French police, chased them from the field, and menaced the French settlement with knife and firebrand. The consuls were appealed to for aid, but no one responded except Mr. Seward, who headed a strong force from one of our men-of-war, dispersed the mob, and secured the safety of the foreign settlement. But for his timely intervention who knows that the French consulate would not have been reduced to ashes? If the consulate had been burned down, a war would have been inevitable, with a chain of consequences that baffles the imagination.
In 1871 a horrid atrocity was perpetrated by Chinese at Tientsin which certainly would have led to war with France if Napoleon III. had not at that very time been engaged in mortal combat with Germany. The populace were made to believe that the sisters at the French hospital had been seen extracting the eyeb.a.l.l.s from their patients to use in the manufacture of magical drugs. They were set upon by a maddened mult.i.tude, a score or more of them slaughtered, and the buildings where they had cared for the sick and suffering turned to a heap of ruins.
Count Rocheschouart, instead of reserving the case to be settled at a later day, thought best to accept from the Chinese government an apology, with an ample sum in the way of pecuniary compensation. That grewsome superst.i.tion has led to bloodshed in more than one part of China.
In the summer of 1885 I was called one day from the Western Hills to the Tsungli-Yamen, or Foreign Office, on business of great urgency. On arriving, I was informed that the Chinese gunboats in the river Min had been sunk by the French the day before; that they had also destroyed the a.r.s.enal at the mouth of the river. ”This,” said the Secretary, ”means war, and we desire to know how non-combatants belonging to the enemy and resident in our country are to be treated according to the rules of International Law.” While I was copying out the principles and precedents bearing on the subject, the same Secretary begged me to hasten my report, ”because,” said he, ”the Grand Council is waiting for it to embody in an Imperial Decree.” True enough, the next day a decree from the throne announced the outbreak of war; but it added that non-combatants belonging to the enemy would not be molested. Two of our professors were Frenchmen, and they were both permitted to continue in charge of their cla.s.ses without molestation.
Hostilities were brought to a happy conclusion by the agency of Sir Robert Hart. One of his customs cruisers employed in the light-house service having been seized by the French, Mr. Campbell was sent to Paris to see the French President and pet.i.tion for its release. Learning that President Grevy would welcome the restoration of peace, and ascertaining what conditions would be acceptable, Sir Robert laid them before the Chinese government, putting an end to a conflict which, if suffered to go on, might have ruined the interests of more than one country. In this war and in those peace negotiations the conduct of the Chinese was worthy of a civilized nation. Yet the result of their experience was to make them more ready to appeal to arms in cases of difficulty.
Li's connection with this war was very real, though not conspicuous.
Changpeilun, director of the a.r.s.enal at Foochow, was his son-in-law. Not only was Li disposed to aid him in taking revenge, he was himself building a great a.r.s.enal in the north; and it was, no doubt, owing to efficient succor from this quarter that Formosa was able to hold out against the forces of the French.
VII.
WAR WITH j.a.pAN.
Both in its inception and in its tragic ending the notable conflict with j.a.pan connects itself with the name of Li Hung Chang. The Island Empire on the East had long been known to the Chinese, though until our times no regular intercourse subsisted between the two countries. It is recorded that a fleet freighted with youth and maidens was despatched thither by the builder of the Great Wall to seek in those islands of the blest for the herb of immortality; but none of them returned. It was to be a colony, and the flowery robe by which its object is veiled is not sufficient to hide the real aim of that ambitious potentate. Yet, through that expedition and subsequent emigrations, a pacific conquest was effected which does honor to both nations, planting in those islands the learning of China, and blending with their native traditions the essential teachings of her ancient sages.
For centuries prior to our age of treaties, non-intercourse had been enforced on both sides,--the j.a.panese confining their Chinese neighbors, as they did the Dutch, to a little islet in the port of Nagasaki; and China seeing nothing of j.a.pan except an occasional descent of j.a.panese pirates on her exposed sea-coast.
To America belongs the honor of opening that opulent archipelago to the commerce of the world. Our s.h.i.+pwrecked sailors having been harshly treated by those islanders, a squadron was sent under Commodore Perry to Yeddo (now Tokio) in 1855, to punish them if necessary and to provide against future outrages. With rare moderation he merely handed in a statement of his terms and sailed away to Loochoo to give them time for reflection. Returning six months later, instead of the glove of combat he was received with the hand of friends.h.i.+p, and a treaty was signed which provided for the opening of three ports and the residence of an American charge d'affaires. In the autumn of 1859 it was my privilege to visit Yeddo in company with Mr. Ward and Commodore Tatnall. We were entertained by Townsend Harris and shown the sights of the city of the Shoguns when it was still clothed in its mediaeval costume. The long swaddling-garb of the natives had a semi-savage aspect, and the abject servility with which their todzies (interpreters) prostrated themselves before their officers excited a feeling of contempt.
Like the mayors of the palace in mediaeval France, the Shoguns or generals had relegated the Mikado to a single city of the interior; while for six hundred years they had usurped the power of the Empire, practically presenting the spectacle of two Emperors, one ”spiritual”