Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh (Vol. 1&2). Augustus F. Lindley

with the forces of that notorious monster Yeh, and thus contributed to the extermination which desolated the province of Kwang-tung. The city of Canton was almost the only place in the province still held by the Mandarins. It was secured to them by British means, and its security doomed to death more than one million innocent people.

      While Yeh busied himself with exterminating man, woman, and child, and razing to the ground nearly every village through which the rebels had passed, H. B. M.'s ships of war chased the rebel squadrons along the China coast, dealing with them as pirates, because, forsooth, they were armed, and because they had captured Chinese vessels when endeavouring to force the blockade of Canton; H.M.'s ship Bittern and the steamer Paou-shun hemmed in one division of the rebel fleet in the Gulf of Pe-chi-le, sinking nearly every vessel, and giving up the crew of the only one captured to the Manchoo executioners. Two junks escaped and joined another squadron at Chusan. Yet these vessels shortly afterwards allowed two missionaries to pass their blockade, because, as the chiefs said, "they were good men, and preached the faith of Yesu!" In the harbour of Shih-poo the destruction of another fleet is described in "Twelve Years in China":—

"The junks were destroyed, and their crews shot, drowned, or hunted down, until at last the whole number, about 1,000 souls, were sent to their last account—the Bittern's men aiding the Chinese soldiers on shore to complete the wholesale massacre! the whole were not killed; one man was remanded and kept over for examination! The evidence against the fleet as pirates, was to be collected after the execution of the victims!"27

      British policy towards China has, during the last decade, been influenced by men led by a small party of Chinese custom-house mercenaries, who, while hired by the Manchoos, were permitted to bias, not only Sir John Bowring, but even Lord Elgin. The independent and honourable policy of Sir George Bonham and his colleagues gave place to an "interested Mandarin-worshipping" diplomacy that has made England the ally and saviour of the most sanguinary, corrupt, and worn-out despotism in the world. Messrs. Wade and Lay, sometime Lord Elgin's interpreters, and sometime the custom employés of the Manchoo, may have thought the views they imparted to the former were correct; but at all events they were too much personally interested in the welfare of their Mandarin friends to be impartial. The principal effect of this has been that the Manchoo-influenced officials have united the representatives of England with the Jesuit-influenced representatives of France in perpetuating the Tartar cruelties, and in destroying the Ti-ping attempt to liberate China and establish Protestant Christianity throughout the empire.

      At Canton, Shanghae, and elsewhere, in 1854, the Chinese would have succeeded in their righteous endeavours to throw off the Manchoo yoke; at Shanghae, in 1860, at Ningpo and Shanghae in 1862, and upon other occasions, the Ti-ping revolution would have succeeded but for British intervention.

      FOOTNOTES:

      17. See "Impressions of China."

      18. Alluding to Hung-sui-tshuen's visions.

      19. See Appendix A.

20. Dr. Medhurst here makes a misapprehension. The Ti-pings believe the Holy Spirit descended into their midst and possessed Yang-sui-tshuen, the Eastern Prince, who became its mouthpiece and medium. This closely resembles revivalist meetings in Ireland, &c.; but the religious metaphorical language of the original Chinese, with its fine subtilty, makes any literal translation impossible; therefore the most limited signification should be placed upon any English version of this, the bonne bouche of the anti-Ti-pings.

21. See Appendix A.

22. Copies of the first five books of the Old, and the whole of the New Testament, printed by the Ti-pings at Nankin, are now to be seen in the Indian Court of the Crystal Palace (Sydenham), where they are exhibited by Mr. J. C. Sillar.

23. Shanghae was at this time in possession of the Triad rebels.

24. They received ample satisfaction afterwards at Ningpo, when, allied with the British, they obtained 3,000 dollars' worth of heads, with full interest.

25. Page 207.

26. The Triad leader.

27. Hong-kong Gazette, 12th October, 1855.