educated class in China. But in their ignorance they destroyed trade and population alike, and in their conduct they belied every recognised doctrine of the faith which their pretensions parodied. It required no unusual penetration for Mr. Burlingame to decide from his own observation during the winter that the Imperial Government should be treated not only as the de jure power in the land, but sustained for the sake of humanity in its desperate struggle with anarchy by whatever moral support was allowable in a diplomatic agent.1

Upon his arrival in Peking, July 20, 1862, Mr. Burlingame was resolved not merely to maintain a correct attitude toward the government of the infant Emperor, but to win its confidence, if possible, by an exhibition of candour and cordiality. This done he might hope for some return in kind, though he could not actually

1 That Mr. Burlingame had to make up his own mind upon this matter is fairly evident from the instructions he received from the secretary of state in re the Ningpo situation. "You ought not to be trammelled with arbitrary instructions, especially in view of the peculiar character and habits of the Chinese people and government. In a different case the President would certainly instruct you to refrain most carefully from adopting any means which might disturb the confidence of the Imperial Government or give it any cause of solicitude, even though it might seem to be required for the safety of the property and interests of American citizens. But how can we know here what ability the Imperial Government may have, or even what disposition, to extend protection to foreigners which it had stipulated? Nevertheless, I think that it is your duty to act in the spirit which governs us in our intercourse with all friendly nations, and especially to lend no aid, encouragement,

expect it to abandon its ancient prejudices and consider the practicability of availing itself of the political wisdom of the West. For this end he also employed all the resources of his genial disposition and courageous optimism to secure the co-operation of his colleagues in the British, French, and Russian legations. It was a gallant programme, but the odds were decidedly against him. The United States-no longer united in fact-were for the moment discredited before the European world by the disasters of the first year of a civil war; their demands in Asia could not be supported by a single gunboat. The desire of foreign merchants and adventurers in the ports of China was to push the policy of grab as far as it could be conveniently carried against the Chinese authorities while they were humbled by the defeat of their army before Peking and harried by the depredations of the rebels. The doom of the reigning dynasty seemed to be or countenance to sedition or rebellion against the imperial authority. This direction, however, must not be followed so far as to put in jeopardy the lives or property of American citizens in China. Great Britain and France are not only represented in China by diplomatic agents, but their agents are supported by land and naval forces, while, unfortunately, you are not. The interests of this country in China, so far as I understand them, are identical with those of the two other nations I have mentioned. There is no reason to doubt that the British and French ministers are acting in such a manner as will best promote the interests of all the Western nations. You are, therefore, instructed to consult and co-operate with them, unless in special cases there shall be very satisfactory reasons for separating from them." (Seward to Burlingame, March 6, 1862, "Diplomatic Correspondence," 1862, p. 839.)

at hand, and in the impending anarchy the foreign element, demurely confident of its invincibility against Asiatics, saw no advantage in abiding by the treaties, but imagined, rather, another India prostrate before the first European captain who was resolute enough to conquer the capital and then the empire. The ignorant court, discredited by a long succession of defeats, and fearful of the consequences of every act, wavered and temporised, but showed little inclination to address itself to those reforms in its institutions through which alone it might expect to escape from the imminent peril.

Sincere friends of China, who from that day to this have deplored the apparently shiftless indirection of her policy, have not sufficiently realised that reforms of this sort could not be expected at once, or even from one generation of men; they involve not only a machinery of government but an intellectual point of view based upon the time-honoured models of Confucius. The system of control organised before the time of Christ had become so intimately a part of the life of China that none of its closely articulated parts could be materially altered without changing its whole economy. It is a fundamental of government as understood in the

West that official prerogative should be defined and the nature of its duties expressed. This entire conception was as repugnant to the typical Oriental mind of a generation ago as would be the definition of parental authority by a written contract. If the "modern" idea was to be applied to a highly wrought paternalism like that of China, it meant, to begin with, the inconceivable indignity of limiting the Emperor himself, the Solitary Man, who was the fountain not only of honour but of every function in the state, and relating every underling in the official hierarchy not to his natural chief but to a philosophic creation called law. The principle once admitted contradicts the accepted theory of a patriarchal government. We are watching, at last, the reconstruction of a polity that has withstood every havoc from Asiatics for twenty centuries, but which promises to succumb to the more virulent disintegrating influences generated in Europe. The change is far more radical than most of us appreciate or than any of the earlier Western observers of Chinese affairs anticipated. Because the gigantic nature of this task has never been comprehended, Western literature upon Chinese politics has become, in great part, an issue of polemics against a people saturated with the spirit of a primi

tive age and honourably, if stubbornly, devoted to other ideals than those of our own civilisation.

Yet the situation did not appear to be hopeless to a man inclined to estimate the Chinese character without prejudice and to credit people of every race and colour with the possession of feeling and common-sense. Indeed, the antislavery advocate could not hold consistently any less liberal views. Happily, it was now upon the imperial officials about the throne that the direct responsibility of meeting a difficult situation was imposed; they could no longer resort to the favourite device employed upon foreigners for two centuries by provincial mandarins and shelve all questions for indefinite periods by reference to a higher authority. The location of the foreign legations in Peking had actually brought to the Manchu rulers their first lesson in the meaning of the term "diplomatic intercourse." As to the reputation of America in China, though she did not impress the Chinese imagination as a mighty power, she enjoyed a fairly clean record for probity and civility during the score of years since international treaty relations had begun; and good manners in the Orient constitute an asset of emphatic political importance. Had we as a nation sufficiently