ANTI-FOREIGN AGITATION.

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compelled to retire into a district still further from the inhabited portions of the country. Here they were reduced to severe straits from absolute want, and early in the year 1725 Sourniama found in death relief from his misfortunes and necessities. His descendants were to owe to the clemency of Keen Lung such reparation for their wrongs as the present can at any time make for the past.

If Yung Ching thus pressed with a heavy hand on those whose assistance and sympathy he felt it doubtful that he could secure, he was certainly not disposed to regard with less sternness or severity the foreign religion towards which he had never felt any sympathy, and under cover of which his enemies appeared to think that they might find shelter. Having settled most of the disputes which threatened the security of his own position, and having restored, as he might reasonably hope, union and tranquillity to the circle of the reigning family, Yung Ching next turned his attention to the effectual humbling of the bold band of foreigners who had established themselves in the capital and throughout the country, and who, having monopolized some of the most important dignities in the service, continued to preach and propagate their gospel of a supreme power and mercy beyond the control of kings, a gospel which was simply destructive of the paternal and sacred claims on which a Chinese Emperor based his authority as superior to all carthly interference, and as transmitted to him direct from Heaven.

Yung Ching's sentiments of aversion were seized and turned to advantage by the official classes, whose hostility to the foreigners had always been pronounced, and which, long pent up, had begun to reveal itself in acts before the death of Kanghi. It was in the provinces that this anti-foreign agitation naturally enough first began to reveal itself in acts of open hostility. In Fuhkien the military governor issued a proclamation denouncing Christianity, forbidding its practice, and ordering all the churches that had been opened within his jurisdiction to be closed. This official condemnation of the foreign religion as a pernicious and demoralizing creed naturally augmented the popular feeling against strangers who had hitherto been regarded with little more than

indifference; and on all sides accusations were freely advanced against the moral character of the Christian converts. The eighteen churches which had been erected by the piety of converted natives were devoted to different public purposes, and the missionaries were ordered to leave Fuhkien without delay and to return to Macao. The success that attended their movements in this particular province encouraged all who were from any cause unfriendly to foreigners to present a petition to the Emperor for the extirpation of Christianity throughout the country. At Pekin the Jesuits lost all their influence. Those who had been well disposed to them either had been banished or were cowed into silence. The Emperor refused to receive them in audience, and they could only wait in inaction, and with such human fortitude as they could muster, until the storm had burst or passed away. Yung Ching expressed in writing his formal approval of everything that had been done, but at the same time he enjoined on his officials the necessity of using as little violence as possible. All the missionaries were to be conducted either to Macao or to the capital, where, if their services were useful, they might still be employed.*

The missionaries, when they saw the results of many years of labour slipping away from them, and as soon as they found

* Some of the views expressed by the Chinese authorities during this crisis may be quoted. The missionaries (Fredelli, Castillon, and De Mailla) entreated a brother of Yung Ching, the thirteenth son of Kanghi, and generally considered as favourably disposed to the Christians, to interfere in their favour. Placed in a judicial position with regard to the throne his favour rapidly cooled, and he declared that since the discussion of their question first began they had been the cause of an infinity of trouble and fatigue to the late Emperor, his father. "What would you say," he continued, "if our people were to go to Europe and wished to change there the laws and customs established by your ancient sages? The Emperor, my brother, wishes to put an end to all this in an effectual manner." The same prince said on a subsequent occasion, "I saw the other day the accusation of the Tsongtou of Fuhkien. It is undoubtedly strong, and your disputes about our customs have greatly injured you. What would you say if we were to transport ourselves to Europe and to act there as you have done here? Would you stand it for a moment? In the course of time I shall master this business, but I declare to you that China will want for nothing when you cease to live in it, and that your absence will not cause it any loss.”—Mailla, vol. xi. pp.392-3.

THE MISSIONARY QUESTION.

651

that the foundations of the position they had gradually attained by the tact and fortitude shown during 150 years, from the days of Matthew Ricci in the reign of the Ming Wanleh, were being sapped, resorted to all the efforts of persuasion to avert the collapse of their influence. Their attempt to enlist the sympathy and support of those members of the Manchu family who had once regarded them with favour signally failed to produce any beneficial result. They had all been won over to Yung Ching's views, and the fate of Sourniama and his family proved an effectual deterrent to prevent any imitating their backsliding in the matter of this strange religion. Yet before the controversy closed, Yung Ching received in audience for the first time a deputation from the Jesuits, when, however, instead of listening to their complaints and demands, he enunciated his own policy with regard to them, and in his sketch of the question he gave some hints as to the lines upon which it was based.

"The late Emperor, my father," he said, addressing the small band of foreign priests who had proved their zeal in the cause of their religion by renouncing all hope of return to their native land, "after having instructed me during forty years, chose me in preference to any of my brothers to succeed him on the throne. I make it one of my first objects to imitate him, and to depart in nothing from his manner of government. Some Europeans in the province of Fuhkien have shown a wish to destroy our laws, and they have been a cause of trouble to our people. The high officials of that province have duly apprised me of these facts. It is my duty to provide a remedy for the disorder. That is a matter for the government, with which I am charged. not to act now as I used to do when I was only a simple prince.

I could not, and ought

"You tell me that your law is not a false one. I believe you; if I thought that it was false, what would prevent me from destroying your churches and from driving you out of the country? False laws are those which, under the pretext of spreading virtue, rouse a spirit of revolt. But what would you say if I were to send a troop of bonzes and lamas into your country in order to preach their doctrines? How would you receive them?

"Limatow (Ricci) came to China in the first year of Wanleh. I will not touch upon what the Chinese did at that time, as I am in no way responsible for it. But then you were very few in numbers. In fact, there were only one or two of you, and you had not your people and churches in every province. It was only in my father's reign that these churches were raised on all sides, and that your doctrines spread with rapidity. We then saw these things clearly enough, and we dared say nothing on the subject. But if you knew how to beguile my father, do not hope to be able to deceive me in the same manner.

"You wish that all the Chinese should become Christians, and indeed your creed demands it. I am well aware of this, but in that event what would become of us? Should we not soon be merely the subjects of your kings? The converts you have made already recognize nobody but you, and in a time of trouble they would listen to no other voice than yours. I know as a matter of fact that we have nothing now to fear, but when the foreign vessels shall come in their thousands and tens of thousands, then it may be that some disasters will

ensue.

"China has on the north the empire of the Russians, which is not to be despised; on the south there are the Europeans and their kingdoms, which are still more considerable; and on the west there is Tse Wang Rabdan, whom I wish to keep back within his borders lest he should enter China and cause us trouble. Lange, Ismaloff's colleague, the Czar's ambassador, solicited that permission should be given the Russians to establish factories for commerce in all the provinces. His request was refused, and trade was only allowed at Pekin or at Kiachta on the frontier, in the Khalka country. I permit you to reside here and at Canton as long as you give no cause for complaint; but, if any should arise, I will not allow you to remain either here or at Canton. I will have none of you in the provinces. The Emperor, my father, suffered much in reputation among the literati by the condescension with which he allowed you to establish yourselves. He could not himself make any change in the laws of our sages, and I will not suffer that in the least degree there shall be cause to

A REMARKABLE SPEECH.

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reproach my reign on this score. When my sons and grandsons are on the throne they may do as shall seem good to them. It matters not to me in the smallest what Wanleh did on your account.

"Do not imagine in conclusion that I have nothing against you, or on the other hand that I wish to oppress you. You are aware how I used to act in your behalf when I was only a Regulo. What I do now, I do in my character of Emperor. My sole care is to govern the Empire well. To that I apply myself from morning to evening. I do not see even my children or the Empress; but only those who are engaged in the public administration. This will continue as long as the term of mourning, which is for three years. When that is over I shall, perhaps, then be able to see you more often."

There is no contesting the ability shown by the Emperor in this speech, which summed up the formal indictment against the Christians as the propagators of a religion incompatible with the constitution and customs of China, and from his point of view much in the argument cannot be gainsaid. The persecution of the Christians, of which the letters. from the Pekin missionaries were so full, did not for a time go beyond the placing of some restraint on the preaching of their religion. No wholesale executions, or sweeping decrees passed against their persons, attended its course or marked its development. Yung Ching simply showed by his conduct that they must count no longer on the favour of the Emperor in the carrying out of their designs. The difficulties inherent in the task they had undertaken stood for the first time fully revealed, and, having been denounced as a source of possible danger to the stability of the Empire, they became an object of suspicion even to those who had formerly sympathised with their persons if not with their creed.

Yung Ching was still engaged in dealing with these difficult questions with his relatives and his alien subjects, when his attention was called away by reports from several of his viceroys on the subject of great floods which had carried destruction to the crops throughout a large part of Northern China. The provinces of Pechihli, Shansi, and Shensi in particular suffered greatly from this cause, and many