most important was that which has now to be described as the main cause of the tightening of the hold of China upon Tibet. The mountain kingdom of Nepaul was equally independent of the British and the Mogul Empire of Delhi. It was ruled by three separate kings, until in the year 1769 the Goorkha chief Prithi Narayan established the supremacy of that warlike race. The Goorkhas cared nothing for trade, and their exactions resulted in the cessation of the commercial intercourse which had existed under the Nepaulese kings between India and Tibet. Their martial instincts led them to carry on raids into both Tibet and India. The Tibetans were unequal to the task of punishing or restraining them, and at last the Goorkhas were inspired with such confidence that they undertook the invasion of their country. It is said that the Goorkhas were encouraged to take this step by the belief that the Chinese would not interfere, and that the lamaseries contained an incalculable amount of treasure. The Goorkhas invaded Tibet in 1791 with an army of less than 20,000 men, and, advancing through the Kirong and Kuti passes, overcame the frontier guards, and carried all before them up to the town of Degarchi, where they plundered the famous lamasery of Teshu Lumbo, the residence of the Teshu Lama. Having achieved this success and gratified their desire for plunder, the Goorkhas remained inactive for some weeks, and wasted much precious time. The Tibetans did not attempt a resistance, which their want of military skill and their natural cowardice would have rendered futile, but they sent express messengers to Pekin entreating the Chinese Emperor to send an army to their assistance. Keen Lung had not sent troops to put a stop to the raids committed on the frontier by the Goorkhas; but when he heard that a portion of his dominions was invaded, and that the predominance of his country in the holy land of Buddhism was in danger, he at once ordered his generals to collect all the forces they could and to march without delay to expel the foreign invader. He may have been urged to increased activity by the knowledge that the Tibetans had also appealed for aid to the British, and by his being ignorant what steps the Indian Government would take. Within a very short time of the receipt of the appeal for assistance a Chinese army of 70,000 men was despatched into Tibet, and the Goorkhas, awed by this much larger force, began their retreat to their own country. Their march was delayed by the magnitude of their spoil, and before they had reached the passes through the Himalaya the Chinese army had caught them up. In the hope of securing a safe retreat for his baggage and booty, the Goorkha commander drew up his force in battle array on the plain of Tengri Maidan, outside the northern entrance of the Kirong pass, and the Chinese general, Sund Fo, made his dispositions to attack the Goorkhas; but before delivering his attack he sent a letter reciting the outrages committed, and the terms on which his imperial master would grant peace. Among these were the restitution of the plunder and the surrender of the renegade lama, whose tales were said to have whetted the cupidity of the Goorkhas. A haughty reply was sent back, and the Chinese were told to do their

worst.

In the desperately-contested battle which ensued it is impossible to doubt that the valiant hillmen showed their usual courage. They were fighting for their lives and the safety of the spoil, which represented the reward of their Tibetan inroad. But notwithstanding these incentives they were unable to hold their ground, and the beaten Goorkha army fled

through the Kirong pass, leaving most of its booty in the hands of the victor. The Chinese commander followed up his success with admirable quickness, and the Goorkhas suffered heavily during their flight. The forts guarding the mountain defiles were captured one after the other. At Rassoa, half-way between Kirong and Daibung, the Goorkhas defended the passage over a chasm for three days, but they were driven from their position with much loss. The Chinese had also suffered heavily; but, when he reached the neighbourhood of Khatmandu, Sund Fo was still at the head of 40,000 confident troops. The Goorkha ruler drew up his remaining forces near the village of Nayakot on the Tadi stream, and in the hope of saving his capital again accepted battle. The position chosen was a strong one, within twenty miles of Khatmandu, and it reflected much credit on the fortitude of the Goorkhas that after so many defeats they were able to make another stand against their relentless and persistent antagonist. The details of this last and most bitterly contested battle of the war have been better preserved than those of any of its predecessors. The Goorkhas fought with the fury of despair, and after some time the Chinese troops hesitated to renew the attack; but Sund Fo was equal to the emergency, and, turning his guns on his own men, drove them forward to assault the Goorkha position. It is said that he kept up the fire after the two armies had become mixed, and that he thus swept a large number of Goorkhas and many of his own soldiers over a precipice. However obtained the victory was decisive, and the Goorkha King at once sued for peace, which was readily granted, as the Chinese had attained all their objects, and Sund Fo was beginning to be anxious about his retreat owing to the approach of winter. When, therefore, the Goorkha embassy entered his camp Sund Fo granted terms which, although humiliating, were as favourable as a defeated people could expect. The Goorkhas took an oath to keep the peace towards their Tibetan neighbours, to acknowledge themselves the vassals of the Chinese Emperor, to send a quinquennial embassy to China with the required tribute, and, lastly, to restore all the plunder that had been carried off from Teshu Lumbo. The exact language of this treaty has never been published, but its provisions have been faithfully kept. The Goorkhas still pay tribute to China; they have kept the peace with one insignificent exception ever since on the Tibetan border; and they are correctly included among the vassals of Pekin at the present time. The gratitude of the Tibetans, as well as the increased numbers of the Chinese garrison, ensured the security of China's position in Tibet, and, as both the Tibetans and the Goorkhas considered that the English deserted them in their hour of need, for the latter when hard pressed also appealed to us for assistance, China has had no difficulty in effectually closing Tibet to Indian trade. China closed all the passes on the Nepaul frontier, and only allowed the quinquennial mission to enter by the Kirong pass. Among all the military feats of China none is more remarkable or creditable than the overthrow of the Goorkhas, who are among the bravest of Indian races, and who, only twenty years after their crushing defeats by Sund Fo, gave the Anglo-Indian army and one of its best commanders, Sir David Ochterloney, an infinity of trouble in two doubtful and keenly-contested campaigns.

Keen Lung's war in Formosa calls for only brief notice; but, in concluding our notice of his many military conquests and campaigns, some description must be given of the great rising in an island which Chinese

writers have styled "the natural home of sedition and disaffection." In the year 1786 the islanders rose, slaughtered the Tartar garrisons, and completely subverted the Emperor's authority. The revolt was one, not on the part of the savage islanders themselves, but of the Chinese colonists, who were goaded into insurrection by the tyranny of the Manchu officials. At first it did not assume serious dimensions, and it seemed as if it would pass over without any general rising, when the orders of the Viceroy of Fuhkien, to which Formosa was dependent until made a separate province a few years ago, fanned the fuel of disaffection to a flame. The popular leader Ling organised the best government he could, and, when Keen Lung offered to negotiate, laid down three conditions as the basis of negotiation. They were that "the mandarin who had ordered the cruel measures of repression should be executed," that "Ling personally should never be required to go to Pekin," and, thirdly, that "the mandarins should abandon their old tyrannical ways." Keen Lung's terms were an unconditional surrender and trust in his clemency, which Ling, with perhaps the Miaotze incident fresh in his mind, refused. At first Keen Lung sent numerous but detached expeditions to reassert his power; but these were attacked in detail, and overwhelmed by Ling. Keen Lung said that "his heart was in suspense both by night and by day as to the issue of the war in Formosa"; but, undismayed by his reverses, the Emperor sent 100,000 men under the command of a member of his family to crush the insurrection. Complete success was attained by weight of numbers, and Formosa was restored to its proper position in the Empire. Its pacification is still only partial, as a large portion of its surface is held by aboriginal tribes who absolutely defy the Chinese authority.

A rising in Szchuen, which may be considered from some of its features the precursor of the Taeping rebellion, and the first outbreak of the Tungan Mahomedans in the north-west, whom Keen Lung wished to massacre, marked the close of this long reign, which was rendered remarkable by so many military triumphs. The reputation of the Chinese Empire was raised to the highest point, and maintained there by the capacity and energy of this ruler. Within its borders the commands of the central government were ungrudgingly obeyed, and beyond them foreign peoples and states respected the rights of a country that had shown itself so well able to exact obedience from its dependents and to preserve the very letter of its rights. The military fame of the Chinese, which had always been great among Asiatics, attained its highest point in consequence of these numerous and rapidly-succeeding campaigns. The evidences of military proficiency, of irresistible determination, and of personal valour not easily surpassed, were too many and too apparent to justify any in ignoring the solid claims of China to rank as the first military country in Asia-a position which, despite the appearance of England and Russia in that continent, she still retains, and which must eventually enable her to exercise a superior voice in the arrangement of its affairs to that of either of her great and at present more powerful and better-prepared neighbours

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CHAPTER XIV.

THE COMMENCEMENT OF EUROPEAN INTERCOURSE.

If the reign of Keen Lung was remarkable for its conquests and successful administration it was a not less important epoch in Chinese history as marking the commencement of European intercourse on what may be called a regular basis, and with it of that foreign question which has exercised so powerful an influence on the destiny of China herself, and which is still, after three wars and many treaties, wrapped in uncertainty, if not unsettled. Before his reign there had been what may be called surreptitious visits of foreign envoys to the capital; the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the English had been allowed to found trading settlements on the coast, and there had been one formal treaty with a foreign Power-that of Nerchins with Russia. But Keen Lung was the first Manchu prince to receive formal embassies from the sovereigns of Europe, and to become an object of solicitude and even of political calculation in the great capitals of this continent. It will be appropriate at this stage to carefully review the relations that had subsisted between China and the different countries of Europe.

Among these the Portuguese were the first in point of time, although they never attained the advantage derivable from that priority; and indeed the important period of their connection with China may be said to have terminated before the Manchus had established their authority. Still, as the tenants of Macao, the oldest European settlement in China for more than three centuries and a half, their connection with the Chinese government must always possess some features of interest and originality. The Portuguese paid their rent to and carried on all their business with the mandarins at Canton, who lost no opportunity of squeezing large sums out of the foreigners, as they were absolutely in their power. The Portuguese could only pay with good or bad grace the bribes and extra duty demanded as the price of their being allowed to trade at all. The power of China seemed so overwhelming that they never attempted to make any stand against its arbitrary decrees, and the only mode they could think of for getting an alleviation of the hardships inflicted by the Canton authorities was to send costly embassies to the Chinese capital. These, however, failed to produce any tangible result. Their gifts were accepted, and their representatives were accorded a more or less gratifying reception; but there was no mitigation of the severity shown by the local mandarins, and, for all practical purposes, the money expended on these missions was as good as thrown away. The Portuguese succeeded in obtaining an improvement in their lot only by combining their naval forces with those of the Chinese in punishing and checking the raids of the pirates, who infested the

estuary of the Canton river known as the Bogue. But they never succeeded in emancipating themselves from that position of inferiority in which the Chinese have always striven to keep all foreigners; and if the battle of European enterprise against Chinese exclusiveness had been carried on and fought by the Portuguese it would have resulted in the discomfiture of Western progress and enlightenment.

Nor would the result have been any different if our champions had been either the Dutch or the Spaniards, both of which nations were among the first to establish relations with China. The former, indeed, sent an embassy to Pekin in 1795, but it was treated with such contumely that it does not reflect much credit on those who sent it. The reception has

been compared to a masquerade; the envoy was rudely hustled, and lost his hat; and the Chinese even now turn this embassy into ridicule. The Spaniards never held any relations with the central government, all their business being conducted with the Viceroy of Fuhkien; and the successive massacres of Manila completely excluded them from any good understanding with the Pekin government. With Russia, China's relations have always been different from those with the other Powers, and this is explained partly by the fact of neighbourship, and partly by Russia seeking only her own ends, and not advantages for the benefit of every other foreign nation. The first collision on the Amour in the days of Kanghi had been brought to a speedy and amicable end by the Treaty of Nerchinsk, and such incidents as the surrender of Amursana's body, and the flight of the Tourguts, had not sufficed to seriously ruffle the relations of the two countries. The Empress Catherine, anxious to continue and complete the work of her great predecessor, Peter, in this as in other matters sought to establish cordial relations with Pekin, and even went so far as to suggest to the Emperor Keen Lung the desirability of his sending a resident agent to her Court. The Emperor seems so far to have felt the suggestion as a slight that he refused to receive the envoy who bore it, and when a dispute arose as to the surrender of some criminals on the frontier he wrote a letter of remonstrance to the Empress, and threatened to close the trade viâ Kiachta unless certain escaped criminals were extradited. He wrote, he said, in the character of "an elder brother"; but his eloquence did not effect a settlement of the question, nor did the pressure of his other engagements allow him to seriously attempt to put down the caravan trade viâ Kiachta, which steadily assumed increased dimensions, and was long the most active and flourishing outlet of Chinese trade. Whatever the slights and injuries inflicted, they were confined to the frontier, and the remoteness of the point of contact from the capitals of both Empires served to blunt the edge of these wrongs and to avert the hostile collision which seemed repeatedly inevitable. From that time down to the second foreign war the relations between Russia and China preserved their generally cordial character, and there were far fewer cases of friction or disagreement between them than with any other foreign Power.

With France, the relations of China, owing to a great extent to the efforts and influence of the missionaries, had always been marked with considerable sympathy and even cordiality. The French monarchs had from time to time turned their attention to promoting trade with China and the Far East. Henry the Fourth sanctioned a scheme with this object, but it came to nothing; and Colbert only succeeded in obtaining the right for his countrymen to land their goods at Whampoa, the river port of Canton.