Sun came to the Legation a second time, on Sunday, the 11th, and then, evidence of his identity having been obtained, he was made prisoner. It had been supposed that he was about to return to Hong Kong as to a convenient base for further operations; and it was the intention of the Chinese Government to ask for his extradition as soon as he arrived there. In the meanwhile the actual presence of the supposed conspirator in the Legation furnished a temptation which it was found impossible to resist, and he was locked up until instructions with regard to him could arrive from Pekin. There can be little doubt that these instructions, if they had been received and could have been acted upon, would have effectually destroyed his power to engage in any further conspiracies; and it may be assumed that the intervention of Lord Salisbury was not too early. Even as it was Sun appears to have suffered considerable anxiety lest the food supplied to him at the Legation should be unwholesome in its character.
The simple process of cutting a knot is often preferable to the labour of untying it, and we are not very much surprised that the Chinese Minister or his representative should have authorized the adoption of the course which has happily failed of success. But we cannot conceal our surprise that Sir Halliday Macartney, himself an Englishman, should have taken any part in a transaction manifestly doomed to failure, and the success of which