inland and local taxes, the introduction of railroads and telegraph lines, the privileges of opening mines, and the establishment of international courts for collecting from debtor Chinese. This was a fearful prospect to the regents. What might come by time was one thing, but these demands at the mouth of a cannon amounted to ruination.
Here we get some conception both of the Chinese character and of Burlingame. Only one way out occurred to them. It was almost as revolutionary and undignified as the telegraph. That was to send an embassy to these heathen countries in Europe to see what it was all about, if any one could find out, and to persuade them to be reasonable, if perchance such a miracle was possible.
They had made a kind of tentative experimental effort of this sort once before. They had not established embassies to be sure, but still had taken a very radical and doubtful step. They had actually sent Mr. Pin Chun on a scouting expedition to see what those
