statesmen in the land with sudden and terrible punishment, announced in astounding bursts of passion that recall stories of Elizabeth of England. Yet her judgment was rarely long at fault, if ever it really failed, and unless misled by misapprehension of the facts relating to European interests and affairs, a misapprehension which seemed to Europeans themselves so unaccountable that they refused to credit its reality, she faced the appalling difficulties surrounding her with bravery and sense.

Prince Kung, after his experience in concluding the conventions of 1860 with Great Britain and France, appears to have wisely decided that the safety of his country depended upon a conciliatory policy as to Europeans, so long, at least, as China was weakened by open rebellions in more than half her provinces. In carrying out his plan of maintaining a consistently correct attitude toward all foreigners, there was no evidence of cordiality in his conduct, or of a conviction, like that of the Japanese under similar circumstances, that China might profit by assimilating certain elements of Western culture. Yet, even thus conditioned, he was the liberal partner in the executive, though rather a moderating than an active force. Had he possessed the political ability of his great ancestors

Kang-hsi and Chien-lung, he might, perhaps, have converted the Empresses-Dowager to a policy that could well have saved his country the humiliations of 1895 and 1900. His less famous colleague, Wên-siang, was a Manchu of greater energy and broader intellectual grasp, who, while at first sharing the hostility of his class toward foreigners, presently admitted his appreciation of their character and ideas, and honestly endeavoured to lead his fellows to abandon their prejudices and learn of them.1

In estimating the attitude of the Western envoys toward these men, it must be remembered that at this time none of them possessed adequate or accurate information of the political situation in Peking. They groped their way, and in the darkness of their ignorance it was a genius of shrewdness and common-sense rather than diplomatic training which proved to be

1 Sir Rutherford Alcock described him in a review of the statesmen of China at this period as being "by far the most distinguished" of them all. "As a member of the Grand Secretariat, and vested with other high functions, his influence is very great, both personal and officialsubject, nevertheless, to such attenuation as the active hostility of a very powerful party of anti-foreign functionaries within and without the palace can effect. This party, if party that can properly be called which is composed of nearly the whole of the educated classes of the Empire, officials, literati, and gentry,-are unceasing in their opposition to all progressive measures, whether emanating from the foreign board or elsewhere. But Wên-siang is held in especial hatred as the known advocate of a policy of progressive improvement with foreign aid and appliances." ("Chinese Statesmen and State Papers," I, p. 333, Fraser's Magazine, March, 1871.)

the safest guide. Kung was the first man of princely rank with whom foreigners had come into personal contact in China, and if, through their amity, he could be convinced of the desirability of closer and more friendly relations in the future, they were encouraged to anticipate an end to the old attitude of opposition to the West following the conversion of the court to a policy of free intercourse. They did not then realise the unbroken antipathy of the official class, nor were they aware that the Chinese people as a whole have to be convinced before they can be controlled, or that a sudden break with the ancient Manchu hermit-nation policy required the adhesion of the provincial governments before it could be safely effected. If the hackneyed but handy means of securing a concession at the treaty ports, by employing force at the locality in issue, was deplorable on moral grounds it must be confessed that the alternative process of demanding justice from the capital was often futile in obtaining its necessary enforcement by the educated gentry of the place where trouble had arisen. China as a country neither liked the intruding foreigner nor feared the central authority.1

1 The dispatches of Sir Frederick Bruce and Sir R. Alcock discuss the politics and statesmen of China at this period with considerable fulness

On his arrival by the "overland" steamer in October, 1861, Mr. Burlingame found the American legation in China located in the rented house of its chargé and secretary, S. W. Williams, in the Portuguese settlement of Macao. His desire to proceed at once to Peking and establish the Mission there as soon as possible after the other allies of the late war was frustrated by the lateness of the season, which made it impossible to reach the capital before the river Peiho was frozen over and travel from the coast precluded. Until railways were built in China, Peking during the winter was almost as secure from the intrusion of travellers as Lhassa or Timbuctoo. The six months' delay in southern and central China was, however, a useful introduction to the new minister's career there, since it enabled him to obtain some personal acquaintance with the country and prosecute inquiries into the critical situation at Ningpo and Shanghai, two of the treaty ports threatened by the rebel armies. They actually captured the former city in November, but their general readily consented, upon representations from the three foreign consuls there, to spare the

in the Blue Books of this decade. Mr. A. Michie's discursive life of Sir Rutherford Alcock, entitled "The Englishman in China during the Victorian Era," two vols., Edinburgh, 1900, is perhaps the most authoritative treatment of the subject yet published.

property of aliens and desired them to continue their trade. The Tai-ping leaders proved themselves to be better aware of the value of commercial intercourse with other countries than the imperial authorities, but their utter lack of discipline soon showed that any reliance upon their promises of protection was futile. The foreign community in Ningpo was only preserved during this winter by the presence of French and English war-vessels, and in Shanghai the menace of a rebel attack had to be met by a day's battle undertaken by all the soldiers and volunteers the foreigners could muster. It must be recalled in this connection that the Tai-pings professed to be Christians, and had introduced a travesty of Christian doctrines to their countrymen as the religion of the new dynasty. Europeans had watched their course with anxiety for several years in the hope that these professions might mean a desire to establish a new rule in China in harmony with the spirit and culture of the West. Had the masters of this extraordinary movement been of sufficient calibre to understand the full advantage of foreign counsel and co-operation, they might conceivably, by this factor alone, have swept the Manchus from China despite the very real opposition to them always shown by the entire