hostile part he had played, the palace of Prince Tsai was appropriated as the temporary official residence of Lord Elgin and Baron Gros. Both these buildings were situate in the Tartar quarter, but near the boundary wall of the Chinese city.*

The formal act of ratification was performed in this building on the 24th of October. Lord Elgin proceeded in a chair of state accompanied by his suite, and also by Sir Hope Grant with an escort of 100 officers and 500 troops, through the streets from the Anting or Eastern Gate to the Hall of Ceremonies. Prince Kung, attended by a large body of civil and military mandarins, was there in readiness to produce the Imperial edict authorizing him to attach the Emperor's seal to the treaty, and to accept the responsibility for his country of conforming with its terms and carrying out its stipulations. Some further delay was caused by the necessity of waiting until the edict should be received from the Emperor at Jehol authorizing the publication of the treaty, not the least important point in connection with its conclusion if the millions of China were to understand and perform what their rulers had promised for them. That closing act was successfully achieved, and more rapidly than had been expected. The Pekinese beheld English troops and officers in residence in their midst for the first time, and when the army was withdrawn and the Plenipotentiary, Lord Elgin, transferred to his brother, Mr. Frederick Bruce, the charge of affairs in China as Resident Minister, the ice had been broken in the relations between the officials of the two countries, and the greatest if not the last barrier of Chinese exclusiveness had been removed.†

One of the most gratifying circumstances in connection with this war was the good understanding that prevailed between the foreign powers. General Ignatieff, the Russian ambassador, who knew the interior of Pekin well, supplied the English commander with an excellent map and much information about the chief buildings. Perhaps the kindest act of all was to afford the shelter of the Russian cemetery to the remains of those who had been murdered-an act in which we recognize some stronger feeling than international courtesy.

†The treaty as ratified contained two clauses more than the original convention of Tientsin-one legalizing emigration, the other ceding the peninsula of Kowlun in the rear of Hongkong to the English.

THE OBJECT OBTAINED.

349

The last of the allied troops turned their backs upon Pekin on the 9th of November, and the greater portion of the expedition departed for India and Europe just before the cold weather set in. A few days later the rivers were frozen and navigation had become impossible. Small garrisons were left at Tientsin and the Taku forts for the time being until relations had been arranged on what was to be their permanent basis; and Mr. Bruce took up his residence in the former town while a proper abode was being prepared for his reception at the capital. Lord Elgin's departure from China had been preceded by several interviews of a friendly character with Prince Kung, in which for the first time the conversation between the statesmen of the two countries turned upon the subjects in which they might mutually benefit each other, and upon the advantages that would accrue to China in particular from the adoption of the mechanical contrivances and inventions of Europe. Perhaps the most incontestable token of the change in the Imperial policy was afforded by the disgrace of the Tartar general, Sankolinsin, who had been mainly instrumental in urging Hienfung to continue the struggle, and whose personal feeling towards the foreigners had always been most bitter. With him fell also the high minister, Juilin, who, himself a Manchu, had always advocated resistance to the death, and supported in the Council the strongest measures of war."

The object which the more far-seeing of the English residents had from the first hour of difficulty stated to be necessary for satisfactory relations-direct intercourse with the Pekin Government-was thus obtained after a keen and This piece of land had been let to the English in perpetuity at a small rent. Mr. Loch gives a very graphic description of the scene of the ratification. Prince Kung was anxious and hesitating, but if he felt fear, Mr. Loch says, he concealed his apprehensions. Sir Hope Grant spoke of him as being "evidently overpowered with fear," which is not at all probable. As a matter of fact Prince Kung had a most trying task to perform, for which neither he nor any of his assistants had the least precedent. He passed through the ordeal with remarkable dignity and success for a young man of only twenty-eight years.

* The edict was thus expressed :-" Let Sang-ko-lin-sin be deprived of his nobility. Let Juilin be immediately deprived of his office; as a warning."-Mr. Wade's translation in Blue Book.

bitter struggle of thirty years. The first war, closing with the Treaty of Nankin, had contributed little more towards the solution of the question than to place a few additional facilities in the way of trade. The provisions which might perhaps have possessed greater importance were never enforced and were tacitly allowed to drop. A single disastrous war had not sufficed to bring the Pekin Government to reason or to wean it from traditions always remembered with feelings of pride.

The years following the signature of that treaty were not without their clouds and causes of anxiety. The refusal alone to open the gates of Canton was a most serious breach of treaty. It was followed, as we have seen, by many acts of hostility, and by a general line of policy quite incompatible with friendship. The appointment of Yeh was made for very much the same reasons as that of Lin had been-to humiliate the foreigner. It had been followed by an increased tension in the relations between the Canton yamen and the English authorities. The too-much-debated Arrow case came as the last of a long series of deeds in which all diplomatic courtesy was laid aside; and when once the English Government resorted to force, it was compelled to continue it until satisfactory results were produced and its objects attained. Success at first seemed to come for the asking. Sir Michael Seymour's victorious operations round Canton and at the mouth of the Peiho simplified the task of diplomacy; and Lord Elgin, despite the original disadvantage under which he laboured from the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny and the diversion of the China Expedition, was enabled by the success of the admiral to conclude a favourable treaty at Tientsin.

With the attempt twelve months later to obtain its ratification, the whole complication was suddenly re-opened. Admission to the Peiho was refused, and when an English squadron attempted to carry its way by force, it was repulsed with heavy loss. The defeat was the more important inasmuch as it was admittedly due, not to any mistake or rashness on the part of the admiral, but to the strength of the defences which the Chinese had erected in less than a year.

RETROSPECTIVE.

351

Another twelvemonth was employed in the fitting out and despatch of an expedition of 20,000 men in all, to bring the Court of Pekin to a more reasonable frame of mind, and Lord Elgin was again sent to China to complete the work he had half accomplished. We have seen how these purposes were effected, and how the superiority of European arms and discipline was again established over another brave but illprepared antagonist. Although vanquished, the Chinese may be said to have come out of this war with an increased military reputation. The dissension within the Empire-for, as we have yet to see, the revival of the foreign difficulty had led to increased activity on the part of the Taepingsprevented their utilizing the one great advantage they might have possessed of superior numbers; and had the other conditions of warfare been more equal, the steadiness and stubbornness of the Chinese whenever encountered between the sea and the ramparts of Pekin were such as to justify the belief that with proper arms, and under efficient leading, they would have successfully defended the approach to the capital.

The war closed with a treaty enforcing all the concessions made by its predecessor. The right to station an ambassador in Pekin signified that the great barrier of all had been broken down. The old school of politicians were put completely out of court, and a young and intelligent prince, closely connected with the Emperor, assumed the personal charge of the foreign relations of the country. As one who had seen with his own eyes the misfortunes of his countrymen, he was the more disposed to adhere to what he had promised to perform. Under his direction the ratified treaty of Tientsin became a bond of union instead of an element of discord between the cabinets of London and Pekin; and a termination was put, by an arrangement carried at the point of the sword, to the constant friction and recrimination which had been the prevailing characteristics of the intercourse for a whole generation. The Chinese had been subjected to a long and bitter lesson. They had at last learnt the virtue of submitting to necessity; but although they have profited to some extent both in peace and war by their experience, it requires some assurance to declare that they have even

now accepted the inevitable. There is still greater reason to doubt if they have learnt the practical lesson of profiting by their own experience. That remains the problem of the future; but in 1860 Prince Kung came to the sensible conclusion that for that period, and until China had recovered from her internal confusion, there was nothing to be gained and much to be lost by protracted resistance to the peoples of the West. Whatever could be retained by tact and finesse were to form part of the natural rights of China; but the privileges only to be asserted in face of Armstrong guns and rifles were to be abandoned with as good a grace as the injured feeling of a nation can ever display.