ance in our relations with China, and of danger to the Chinese Government itself no less than to all the foreigners resident in the country" little is seen in Mr. Burlingame's published correspondence. The reason for this may be considered to be the same as that which renders the history of most happy states dull; in this decade of planting new missionary stations in the empire the suspicions and collisions inevitable in a religious propaganda had not developed into a recognised opposition. The first revelation to the Chinese mind of possible dangers involved in militant Christianity appears to have come with the French punitive expedition to Korea, in 1866, when M. de Bellonet, the chargé, demanded that China, as suzerain of that state, should punish her ruler for the slaughter of Catholic priests and converts there, failing which he declared his resolve to take the affair into his own hands and annex the Hermit Kingdom to France.1

The Tientsin massacre of 1870 may not unjustly be accounted a sequel to this stroke of French policy. In their first efforts to secure

1 The expedition was a melancholy failure by which France may be said to have "messed things" for Europeans of all nationalities in the Far East. "It revealed," says Mr. Michie, "the innermost hearts of the foreigners with a vividness not to be forgotten; it was the whole missionary question, from the Eastern point of view, in a nut-shell. To violate the laws and teach the natives to do so, and then appeal to

redress for this outrage, which occurred, it will be remembered, in the opening month of the Franco-Prussian War, the French appealed to the co-operative principle; but in their action since that time there has been no further sign of their acceptance of that plan so far as missionary activities are concerned. This, however, was a development of international relations with China subsequent to Mr. Burlingame's career. It may be an idle speculation to guess what his presence in Peking might have effected in influencing Chinese policy after 1871, but what his attitude would have been toward "aggressive" apostles of the faith may be inferred from his statement to Mr. Seward (May 27, 1867): "You will observe that in my dispatch to the members of the Foreign Office I disclaim the right to interfere between the Chinese and their own authorities in questions submitted to the Chinese legal tribunals, and that in my letter to our consul, Mr. Lord, while I propose to maintain treaty stipulations, I intimate that the Chinese Christians should not

foreign governments to back them in this insidious form of rebellion that was the function of the missionaries. The foreign government thereupon lays claim to the territory, and so the conspiracy is crowned. In the face of such an unveiling of motives, the chance of the Chinese statesmen being led by the friendly counsel poured constantly into their ears by the foreign ministers in Peking must have been small indeed." (A. Michie, "The Englishman in China," vol. II, p. 177. See also "United States Diplomatic Correspondence," 1867, II, p. 419.)

upon

be encouraged to expect protection by forcible intervention on the part of the United States. This is the only course to pursue unless we are prepared to enter in China armed propagandism." The American missionaries in Ningpo had in this case appealed through their consul to the minister to check by his interference a rising anti-foreign spirit, as shown there in the persecution of converts in secular charges by local authorities. The aggravations arising out of such cases are certainly very great. The question is too complex to be dismissed by the historian with the easy reflection that the minister's advice, render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, would, if consistently followed, have been the cure-all for thirty years of trouble which ensued. Yet experience in China has on the whole justified the Burlingame position as the right one that native converts cannot be profitably protected from their own officials by foreigners, even when they suffer unjustly for the truth's sake.

From this summary of his official relations it is scarcely an exaggerated estimate to discern in Mr. Burlingame the adviser who, more than any other, saved China in the period of her greatest peril from the sort of national shipwreck which Korea has met in recent years through similar

recalcitrance and ignorance of foreign states and their power. In defence of this contention it is not necessary to call him a negotiator intellectually supreme above his fellows; he had, as it happened, just the qualities adapted to his task. Such genius as he possessed was applied to the highest advantage where a policy depended for its success upon certain principles clearly conceived and persistently maintained. He was effective, as has been shown, through proclivities of mind and disposition rather than by reason of training in the traditions of diplomatic intercourse between the states of Christendom; but, for the manner in which he reached conclusions well justified by subsequent experience, and in dealing with novel and unexpected conditions, he deserves the title of a diplomatist of original and constructive talent. His success was secured by the exercise of patience and reserve under circumstances that were often difficult and almost always aggravating. His influence endured because he was determined to allow nothing to disturb the confidence already won from the statesmen with whom he was commissioned to deal, and never greatly to anticipate their desires. He perceived that their reluctance was not necessarily the result of bigotry, that the habits and conservatism of

centuries could not be reversed in an hour. If China was to remain an independent power, there was really no legitimate alternative to his plan; if she was not, America had little to hope and everything to lose from a contrary policy of armed intervention and subjugation by European rivals. And if from motives of sympathy and sagacity Mr. Burlingame became sponsor for this policy, the logic of his reasoning was discreetly acknowledged by the representatives of Great Britain.

If foreign powers (writes Sir Rutherford Alcock, the British minister) would guide and not coerce this people, they must begin by convincing and persuading them. If it be a question of compulsion, and forcing upon them changes in their system of government and administration, backed by such foreign appliances as railroads and telegraphs, the treaty powers should be prepared to take upon themselves the whole responsibility of the measures and provide their own machinery for governing the huge empire under a protectorate, or a general dismemberment and division of the fragments. Conquest and occupation have been spoken of; but it is difficult to see to what uses political, military, or commercial - any portion of China could be applied by European powers; and if not prepared to enter upon an enterprise of this kind, they should be slow to adopt a policy paralysing all national development and directly leading to such an issue.1

1 Alcock to Lord Stanley, December 23, 1867. ("Parliamentary Papers, China, no. 5 (1871),” p. 84.)