are beyond "heaven's canopy." It is currently believed in China that our earlier intercourse with the "central land" had only been allowed by the gracious and pitying condescension of the "son of heaven" to supplications that China might be permitted, from her abounding superfluities, to provide for the urgent necessities of the "outer races," which could not otherwise be supplied. "How," said the benevolent councillors of the Great Bright Dynasty, "how, without the rhubarb of the Celestial dominions, can the diseases of the red-*haired races be cured? how can their existence be supported without our fragrant tea? how can their persons be adorned, unless your sacred Majesty will allow their traders to purchase and to convey to them our beautiful silk? Think how far they come—how patiently they wait—how humbly they supplicate for a single ray from the lustrous presence. Let not their hearts be made disconsolate by being sent empty away."
Even after the severe lessons which the Chinese received in the war, and the sad exhibitions of their utter inability to offer any effectual resistance to our forces, the reports made by Keying, the negotiator of our first treaty, as to the proper manner of dealing with "barbarians," are equally amusing and characteristic. These reports were honoured with the autograph approval of the emperor Taou-Kwang, written with "the vermilion pencil,"[1] and were found at Canton among the papers of Commissioner Yeh, to whom they had been sent for his guidance and instruction. In the end they proved fatal to the venerable diplomatist; for he having been sent down from the capital to Tien-tsin in order to meet the foreign ambassadors, and there to give practical evidence that he knew how to "manage and pacify" the Western barbarians, the documents which proved his own earlier treacheries were produced; he was put to open shame, and the poor old man, though a member of the Imperial family, was condemned to be publicly executed: a sentence which the emperor, in consideration for his high rank and extreme age, commuted into a permission, or rather a mandate, that he should commit suicide. Keying gratefully accepted this last favour from his sovereign, and so terminated his long and most memorable career.
It is withal not the less true that these reports represent the concentrated wisdom of the sages of China, and are fair and reasonable commentaries upon the teachings of the ancient books in reference to the proper mode of subduing or taming the "outside nations;" and as they throw much light upon the course of the mandarins, and give us the key by which their policy may be generally interpreted, some account of them will be neither superfluous nor uninstructive.trade and [lower] tariffs. When a trifle is granted on this score they naturally acquiesce and hold their tongues."]
- ↑ The emperor's words are: "This was the only proper arrangement to be made (for the settlement of the treaties). We understand the whole question." In 1854, when the foreign Ministers visited Tien-tsin, the imperial orders were conveyed to the mandarins in the following words:—"At your interview, you must snap short their deceit and arrogance, and foil their malicious sophistry." Another imperial decree says:—"The barbarians study nothing but gain. Their hurrying backwards and forwards only means [more
