-ison 3762 62 1 at^om. ^tto fork CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1876 i9ia __ Cornell University Library DS 762.S62 The Tientsin massacre :being documents p 3 1924 023 144 573 pp Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023144573 THE TIENTSIN MASSACRE, BEING DOCUMENTS PUBLISHED IN THE From Jane letli to Sept. lOi, 1870, WITH AN INTRODUCTORY NARRATIVE. SECOND EDITION. SHANGHAI: A. H. D£ CaBVALHO) FjUNTER and PUBLISUKII. THE TIENTSIN MASSACRE, BEING DOCUMENTS PUBLISHED IN THE From June 16th to Sept. Ifllh, 1870, WITH AN INTRODUCTORY NARRATIVE. SECOND EDITION. SHANGHAI: A. H. DE CaHVALHO, rKI-MEK AM) Pl'BLlSBIH. THE TIENTSIN MASSACRE. intokctoirg ^emwrRs. fT is hardly an over-statement to say that the great majority of those foreigners who felt an jinterest in the foreign relations with China, be- lieved that her misunderstandings and quarrels ^with the nations of the west were finally settled for a long time, when, in 1860, the boasted defences of northern cities were stormed, her armies scattered ) chaJP, and her capital entered by foreign troops, the most sumptuous palace of her semi-deified emperor razed to the ground, and the official representatives of foreign powers established as permanent residents at his Court. But it is difficidt to fathom the depths of semi-civilized duplicity, or to estimate how slow human pride and selfishness are to relin- quish exclusive privileges enjoyed for ages; into what volcanic energy popular prejudice and superstition can burst when they are stirred by an agency sufficiently powerful. For some years after the Peiho expedition had opened the way by which foreigners could, in all disputes with provincial satraps, appeal directly to the central government, there were several causes why the Chinese in their intercourse promised to prove all that foreigners expected. The stem lessons of war were stiU freshly remembered ; the Taiping, and thereafter the Nienfei, rebellion fully tasked the energies of the ruling classes and furnished scope for all the turbulent spirits of the IV INTHODUCTORY REMARKS. empire, and foreign munitions of war and active assistance were essential to the very existence of the body politic. But when the r,ebels were subdued; when their troops were being rapidly drilled to foreign tactics; when they^saw foreign arms and vessels of war beginning to issue from their own arsenals and dockyards; when their misinterpretation and flagrant evasions of numerous rights which the Treaty of Tientsin seemed to have secured for foreigners were quietly given up by the foreign representatives : then the dearly bought lessons of 1860 began to be rapidly forgotten, and the jealousy and apprehension with which the privileged classes of China re- garded the introduction of ideas and agencies calculated to overthrow their mischievous ascendency, began to show itself in many forms and places. This uneasiness and hostility were stimulated too by the knowledge that, about the end of 1868, foreigners were entitled to claim a Revision of the Treaty, and were almost certain to demand concessions which would greatly extend their influ- ence. The graind expedient by which, under foreign advice, they sought to ward off this new danger—^while to well- intentioned theorists and persons of sanguine temperament it seemed admirably fitted to break down the wall of separation between China and other nations—^was so conducted as to make her more haughty and exclusive than ever. For when Mr. Burlingame went forth on his mission to foreign nations, to deprecate any quickening on their part of the speed at which China was prepared to accept extended intercourse with for- eigners, he bore with him a commission, and was attended by associates of a character which clearly showed to those who know the Chinese, that his mission was an embodiment of the central error of Chinese policy—the idea namely that China is the one sovereignty of the world, and that all foreign nations are her feudal dependents. And when foreign governments, ignorant of such mischievous pretensions (though well warned of their practical tendency) received the Chinese embassy with cordiality and responded to its pleas for time and forbearance — INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. V by engagements and promises that indefinitely postponed for- eign improvements; the Chinese government regarded this, or professed to regard it, as an acknowledgement on the part of the outside nations of the deference it became them to show to the "Middle Kingdom." Such ideas being carefully disseminated throughout China by the literati, a class much reverenced by the people, and directly interested in the perpetuation of existing misgovern- ment, it was not unnatural, however strange and unseasonable it might appear, that while Mr. Burlingame was drawing pic- tures as fair as they were false of China's rapid progress in all that constitutes national improvement, the misconceptions to which his friendly reception in Europe and America gave rise among the Chinese, became the fruitful cause of many deplor- able acts, which show how utterly false and misleading the Burlingame Mission was, both in its design and in its execution. The celebrated speech delivered by Mr. Burlingame in New York; his successful interviews with Lord Clarendon; and his grand reception in the centre of European diplomacy, were fittingly succeeded by the long smouldering troubles of For- mosa bursting into open violence, and were rapidly followed by those at Chefoo, in Szechuen, at Yangchow, and Swatow. It was supposed that such accumulated evidence of the false- hood of Burlingame's representations would have caused a reaction in England and America against his temporising policy; more especially as the repressive measures of Admiral Keppel and Consuls Medhurst, Gibson and Alabaster—men trained under the vigorous policy of our earlier Chinese inter- course—-proved in the highest degree successful. But, unhap- pily, Burlingame had so skilfully adapted his representations to the favorite ideas of some leading western statesmen—ideas which, however congenial to the condition of Europe at the close of the nineteenth century, are as inapplicable to China now as they would have been to Europe three centuries ago that he was speedily able to notify to the Chinese that England disapproved of the action of her civil and naval officials in the Vi INTHODUCTORY REMARKS. suppression of the wide-spread disturbances above alluded to. The immediate consequence of this intimation was fresh outrages on both English and French missionaries at Nganking. These the English government speedily and without difficulty compromised for a money compensation. It was, perhaps, a significant hint of how the Chinese judged of this peaceable solution, that, when towards the close of 1869 Sir Rutherford Alcoek visited Nankin, so lately the scene of Mr. Medhurst'a triumph, he was subjected to an insulting slight of the Viceroy. But other wrongs against French subjects in Kiangse and Szechuen which the Peking government was unable or un- willing to punish, determined Count Rochechouart, Charg^ d'Affaires for France, to proceed up the Yangtsze in person to enforce the treaty rights of his nationals. And the firmness, energy and thoroughness with which he compelled the Viceroy Ma at Nankin to compensate the sufferers, to ptmish the ring- leaders, and to instruct in their duty to foreigners the people at Nganking; to wring from the governor of Kiangse full in- demnity for wrong done to French chapels with the cognizance of the Taotai at Kiukiang, and the pressure by which he obliged the Viceroy at Wuchang to exercise strict justice in respect of the oppressed Catholic communities of Szechuen; above all, the care he took to secure that the redress promised was actually carried into effect, had a repressive influence which can only be estimated by comparing the events of Nan- king, and other places on the Yangtsze this year, with those which have recently happened at Tientsin.—[Doct. No. l.J But among the retributive measures which Rochechouart •enforced during his visit to the Yangtsze was the degradation of an officer who was proved to have been an active instigator of the wrongs done to the French missionaries, their converts and property. Probably the Count did not know how thorough- ly he had earned his punishment. For that officer was Cheng- Kwo-Shwai, a short account of whose antecedents, character, influence and connection with the recent and existing troubles at Tientsin and Peking will be found in Nob. 41, 8, 9, 10, 35, INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. VU 53, 60, 68, 74, 75 and 78 of the accompanying documents. From these it will be seen that his life has been devoted, with all the energy of a fearless and enthusiastic temperament, with all the stem fixity of purpose to be derived from an inherited vow, to the expulsion of foreigners from China. His degra- dation by Rochechouart lashed his ruling passion into im- govemable fury, the more intense because it now became con- centrated against the French. And this concentration, too, assisted him in giving it expression in action ; for it would be easier to induce the Chinese to attack one foreign power than all combined, and the more definite the object of attack, the more exactly could he fit his machinery to the work to be done. The circumstances of the case were not unfavorable. Bur- lingame was dead, and his death must have weakened the honestly pro-foreign party of Chinese pohticians (if there were any such), who hoped, through him, to introduce foreign im- provements with a gradualness which would obviate social convulsions.