This book is volume one of two volumes. Preface. The events of the past
year in China constitute a curious and melancholy commentary on half a
century of diplomatic effort, enforced repeatedly by warlike arguments.
In 1839 there was no foothold where a 'foreign devil' might stand in all
China, and the war of 1840-2 was undertaken in order to obtain those
elementary rights of fair treatment and personal security which
merchants expect from every State. The Treaty of Nanking provided all
this, on paper, and opened five ports to European trade; but the
concession was grudgingly accorded in theory and as often as possible
evaded in practice, and it was only the vigour and alertness of a few
able consular officers that prevented the Treaty becoming wholly
inoperative. Evasion and obstruction still from time to time frustrated
their efforts, especially at Canton, and it was felt that, so long as
the rights and liberties of foreigners at the Treaty ports depended upon
the characters and caprices of mere local mandarins, there could be no
uniformity of treatment and no security of justice. The wisest heads in
Anglo-China agreed that until there was a Minister at Peking in touch
with the Imperial Government there could be neither safety nor common
tranquillity at the ports. The Second China War, with its sequel the
Peiho Expedition of 1860, ended in the establishment of European
Legations at the capital, and it was considered that the main difficulty
of intercourse with China was at length surmounted. Forty years passed,
during which the Plenipotentiaries gradually realised that the Board of
Affairs at Peking was even less amenable to reason than the. local
officials of the earlier system; and finally, in 1900, the foreign
Legations found themselves besieged by a furious soldiery whose violence
was not only unchecked but was evidently stimulated by the Imperial
Government itself. For a month of suspense, which seemed an eternity of
apprehension, it was almost believed that half a century of humanizing
influence at the Chinese capital had been sealed by the blood of every
European in Peking...........
