The I. G. in Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907 [1] 0674443209, 9780674443204

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Contents
Foreword
History of the Hart-Campbell Correspondence
Editorial Note and Aclmowledgments
Official Ranks in the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service
LATE CH'ING - RULERS AND PRINCES
INTRODUCTION by L. K. Little
Introduction
LETTERS Hart to Campbell 1868-1890
Prefatory Note
1868
1. 7 October 1868
2. 9 December 1868
1869
3. 27 January 1869
4. 30 January 1869
5. 13 February 1869
6. 26 February 1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890

Citation preview

THE I. G. IN PEKING

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THE I.G. IN PEKING Letters of Robert Hart Chines e Mariti me Custom s 1868-1907 VOLUME ONE

EDITED BY

John King Fairbank Katherine Frost Bruner Elizabeth MacLeod Matheso n WITH AN INTRODUC TION BY L. K. LITTLE

The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England 1975

Copyright © 197 5 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hart, Robert, Sir, bart., 1835-1911. The I. G. in Peking. Letters written to J. D. Campbell. Includes index. 1. Customs administration-China-History- Sources. 2. Hart, Robert, Sir, bart., 1835-1911. 3. Campbell, James Duncan, 1833-1907. I. Fairbank, John King, 1907II. Bruner, Katherine Frost. III. Matheson, Elizabeth MacLeod. IV. Campbell, James Duncan, 1833-1907. V. Title. HJ7271.A3H37 1975 354'.51'0072460924 [B] 74-15428 ISBN 0-674-44320-9

Contents VOLUME ONE

FOREWORD by J. K. Fairbank

xi

HISTORY OF THE HART-CAMPBELL CORRESPONDENCE EDITORIAL NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

xx

LIST OF OFFICIAL RANKS IN THE CUSTOMS SERVICE LATE CH'ING RULERS AND PRINCES INTRODUCTION by L. K. Little

xvi

xxiv

xxviii

1

The Origin of the Customs Service - The Principals and Their Correspondence Some of Hart's Comments and Personal Relations - The Roles of the I. G. and His Staff - The Customs' Relations with Britain - Relations with the Chinese Superintendents of Customs - Hart and the Customs as Innovators - Defense and Diplomacy: The Chinese Navy and French War - The I.G.'s Personal Life - Hart's Faith in China's Future - The Customs Service after Hart: 1911-1950 - A Retrospect LETTERS AND NOTES

1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875

Letters 1-2 39 3-12 42 13-21 54 22-27 63 ' 28-47 72 96 48-75 76-117 142 185 118-140

1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883

141-162 163-190 191-238 239-265 266-310 311-352 353-393 394-455

209 232 259 290 312 353 399 439

1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890

456-509 510-551 552-590 591-631 632-680 681-732 733-782

1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902

1049-10921099 1093-11261149

1903 1904 1905 1906 1907

1260-13101337 1311-13561392 1357-13931445

513 583 620 654 688 730 777

VOLUME TWO

1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896

783-823 826 824-872 874 873-914 916 915-958 957 959-1001 1004 1002-10481046

GLOSSARY INDEX

1127-11561183 1157-11921214

1193-12301256 1231-12591300

1537

1543

[vii]

1394-14261493 1427-14371526

ILLUSTRATIONS Frontispiece: Robert Hart at his desk. Drawing by Julius Price in the Illustrated London News, 1891. Drew Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library. Following page 410

VOLUME ONE

Mrs. Robert Hart (London, 1866). Drew Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library. James Duncan Campbell (ca. 1870). Drew Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library. Prince Kung. J. Thomson, Illustrations of China and Its People. London, 1873. Vol. I, plate I. Robert Hart (London, 1866). Drew Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library. Holograph Letter. Hart Collection, Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Gustav Detring. Drew Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library. Robert Hart (Isch], 1878). Drew Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library. Prince Ch'ing and Li Hung-chang. Henry Norman, The People and Politics of the Far East. New York. 1903. Sir Chen-tung Liang Ch'eng. Walter Muir Whitehill, Portrait of a Chinese Diplomat: Sir Chentung Liang Cheng. Boston Athenaeum, 1974, Plate II. Hart Coat of Arms. From Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History, ed. Peter Townsend, 105th ed., London, 1970, p. 1269. Hart and his Boy, Chan Afang (Peking, 1908). Hart Collection, the Queen's University, Belfast. Following page 1262

VOLUME TWO

Robert Hart (Peking, 1904). Hart Collection, the Queen's University, Belfast. Robert Hart's Departure from Tientsin. Bowra Collection, Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Robert Hart (Belfast, 1908). Hart Collection, the Queen's University, Belfast. The Mackay Commission. Hart Collection, the Queen's University, Belfast. James Duncan Campbell (ca. 1900). Hart Collection, the Queen's University, Belfast. Customs Language Students. Hart Collection, the Queen's University, Belfast. E. Bruce Hart. Hart Collection, the Queen's University, Belfast. Tiffin at the Statistical Department. Hart Collection, the Queen's University, Belfast.

[viii)

GATES 1 T'ien-an-men (Gate of Heavenly Peace) 2 Ch'ien-men

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Foreword The letters of Robert Hart as Inspector General of Chinese Maritime Customs to his London agent and confidant, James Duncan Campbell, come down to us from the era of the unequal treaties when the commissioners of customs ranked with the British consuls as leading figures in the hybrid Sino-foreign society of the treaty ports in China. Because these weekly or biweekly letters deal both with Hart's public responsibilities and with his personal views, they are a principal historical source for the last half-century of the Ch'ing dynasty and its relations with the West. Great collections of historical documentation develop a life of their own as scholars of later generations continue to find new significance in them- just as great literature undergoes repeated reinterpretations in later ages . Robert Hart's letters sprang from a certain time and place, a distinct milieu which has long since vanished and yet left its contribution to the present. These letters have genetic value ; they help explain Sino-foreign relations today. In the future their precise value to historians will continue to shift as the focus of historical interest shifts. We may be sure that Hart's work in building up and administering the Maritime Customs Service-'-one of the great administrative achievements of the nineteenth century-will be looked at afresh by coming generations, just as we today have a quite different view from that of Hart's contemporaries. In seeking our own perspective on Hart and his work, we must recognize that present-day views of the nineteenth century have greatly diverged in China and in the West. The history of the treaty-port era from 1842 to 1943, in which Hart figured so importantly, has entered into the confrontation in politics and values between China and the outer international world. It may be worth it, therefore, to seek some perspective on our own perspective of today. First of all, we must note the tremendous acceleration of change in the course of China's modern history. If we look before and after, we can see that Hart's treaty-port generation of the 1860s to the 1900s came midway in a long process that is by no means finished- the spread of Western influence over the world and the response of Asia and other regions to it. Thus if we look back to 17 60 we see the final establishment of a strict Chinese domination over the Western contact at Canton, replete with minute regulations for foreign trade and conduct in the Thirteen Factories. In 1860, an even century later, we see the treaty system finally established and the principle of the "foreign inspectorate" (that foreign employees of the Chinese government can best assess the tariff duties due to be paid on foreign trade) fully accepted as part of the Sino-foreign treaty-port order. Yet if we come down still another century to 1960, we find that under the People's Republic, all Western privileges and most Western contacts have been rejected; indeed, this rejection of the outer world has included even the rejection of Soviet tutelage . Within the two hundred years since 1760, a comprehensive system for Chinese domination of China's foreign contact has given way to an even more carefully regulated foreign assertion of special privileges in China but has been followed

[xi]

[xii]

FOREWORD

as of 1960 by a severe reduction of contact and almost a stalemate in Sino-foreign relations. Since 1972 , of course, another phase has opened. To see the motivation behind this contrast of phases, we must note the steady and unremitting growth of the modern Chinese spirit of nationalism. In the early nineteenth century it was still muted under the conquering Manchu (Ch'ing) dynasty's policy to stress the universal nature of imperial Confucianism. Even though the scholar-official elite of the Ch'ing empire were steadily subjected after 1840 to the example of Western nationalism that motivated the British, French, American, Russian, and other Westerners in China, it took more than one generation for this ruling class to respond in a nationalistic manner to the foreign menace that threatened their way of life. The lesson of Japan's nationalistic response to Western contact after 1854 was driven home only forty years later by the Japanese victory over China in 1894. After the Boxer failure in 1900 to expel the foreigner by violence, the new patriotism of "young China" contributed to the end of the alien Ch'ing monarchy, the creation of the Chinese republic in 1911, and the Nationalist unification of the 1920s. Fired by the resistance to Japan in the 1930s and '40s, this rise of Chinese nationalism has more and more vigorously galvanized the formerly inert political mass of the farming population. Patriotism has come like an avalanche, at first slowly and then with gathering volume and momentum. In short, the Chinese revolution which is still unfolding has seen a political mobilization without parallel in history. The world's most anciently rooted peasantry, established for millennia in their semi-self-sufficient and cellular market areas, have steadily found their way into a more active national life. The Maoist revolution in Chinese politics has propagated its version of modern history to meet its ideological needs. China's growing nationalism has been focused in the last two decades on the unequal treaty era as the expression of "Western imperialism," the greatest evil in China's modern experience. We in the West are consequently confronted with a bifocal perspective-that of the Maoist world view and that of the Western record, which has of course been less responsive to the compelling sentiments of China's political revolution. There could hardly be a greater contrast between two views. In the People's Republic today the treaty era stands out as a time of foreign privilege, imperialist exploitation, and Chinese suffering and humiliation. A special series of volumes in Chinese has published translations of archival documents selected to illustrate the theme of "Imperialism and the Chinese Maritime Customs" (Ti-kuo chu-i yii Chung-kuo hai-kuan). In the Victorian view of Robert Hart's day the treaty system in China stood proudly as a product of the beneficent spread of commerce and progress, bringing modern science and civilization to a heathen and backward land. Times have changed. The historical scene in Shanghai of the late nineteenth century as pictured by foreigners at the time and by Chinese today, seems like two utterly different worlds. A wide gamut of interpretations is thus offered to the inquiring student, and much ambivalence hangs over the history of the late nineteenth century in China. Today the perspective on the unequal treaty era which is most generally applied by Western historians sees it as part of a process of "modernization." This is a term which many social scientists hope may be used in a purely technical, "value-free" fashion, if any term can be so used, though I rather doubt that "modernization" can shake off the connotation of "improvement." At all events, modernization is not only what has happened in modern times; it is the process of growth and change in the modern period as analyzed by the concepts of the social sciences and synthesized by the historian, who of course has his own special function of synthesis to perform. From this point of view one may suggest a series of propositions: first, that the Chinese Maritime Customs as an institution, though only indirectly named in the treaties, nevertheless helped importantly to make the treaty system work. Second, that the system was a

(xiii] FOREWORD

modus vivendi worked out between the stronger Western powers led by Britain and the weak Ch'ing government. By it Western treaty-power nationals were given privileged individual rights of access, residence, travel in the interior, trade, and proselytism in China's territory, with the force of Western arms and gunboats held in reserve to maintain the treaties. Third, this system was "semi-colonial," in the sense that the Westernizing sector of China in the treaty ports was dominated by foreign influences, while China's traditional polity and economy in the interior underwent a gradual disintegration and metamorphosis. Like the colonialism of a bygone time in other parts of the world, this dispensation reflected the disparity of power, capacity, resources, and dynamism between the expanding West and a local regime left over from an earlier day. A judgment on whether this whole process was on balance "good" or "bad" is about as feasible as a similar judgment concerning modern history in general. A historian can only say that this situation existed and developed; moral judgment concerning it can be only a personal and piecemeal matter. Within such a perspective certain further distinctions may be made. The treaty system went through several phases: it began in the early nineteenth-century era of commercial expansion with the Treaty of Nanking of 1842, followed by the treaties with the United States and France in 1844. But the treaty ports were not established in full fashion until after the war of 1856-1858 and the final settlement of 1860. The foreign customs inspectorate that began at Shanghai in 1854 thus got started in time to form a basic part of the treaty system as finally constituted. A second phase of the system, the main period of its continued growth and functioning as the matrix of Sino-foreign contact, runs from 1860 to 1911. Yet during this time the ictus of foreign exploitation gradually intensified, particularly after the Japanese war of 1894-1895 required the earmarking of customs revenues to pay off indemnity loans and after the Boxer war of 1900 led further to the enormous Boxer indemnity which was also to be paid from the customs and other revenues. The year 1911 marks the end of this era. The outbreak of revolution and the disintegration of central power in that year led the Maritime Customs commissioners for the first time actually to receive and handle the revenues, which were now almost wholly committed to meeting foreign payments. A third phase of the treaty system continued from 1911to1943. The Washington Conference of 1922 began the attempt to modify the system, and the new Nationalist government at Nanking after 1928 was able to secure tariff autonomy and reclaim certain other elements of Chinese sovereignty. In its final phase the treaty system was thus modified and adjusted part way to meet the demands of Chinese nationalism, and a beginning was made to dismantle it. But the Japanese invasion that began in Manchuria in 1931 seemed to necessitate the continuation of Western privileges in China, partly to check Japan, and so the unequal treaties were not formally abolished until 1943. Viewed in this perspective, the work of Robert Hart belongs to the middle period of constructive effort, when the British hegemony in China fostered the Sino-Western cooperative policy of the 1860s and the foreign powers supported the Ch'ing dynasty as the best prospect for law and order and the continuation of trade. Hart was at work in the same decades as Li Hung-chang and other Chinese Westernizers, who were inaugurating arsenals and industries for China's "self-strengthening" in order to get rid of Western dominance. Like them Hart was loyal to the Ch'ing government as his employer, which was requisite, on the whole, for his continued employment in a position of such trust. As a former British vice-consul who had left Her Majesty's service with British permission to be employed by the Chinese government, Hart took full responsibility for the Customs Service. He reported to the Tsungli Yamen, a subcommittee of the Grand Council which until the mid-eighties included its leading members and served in effect as a proto-foreign office at Peking. Hart was thus an appendage of the Ch'ing court at Peking, and his unusual status as both a British subject and

[xiv) FOREWORD

a Ch'ing employee reflected the special nature of China's government, under which an alien dynasty of conquest was accustomed to using not only Chinese but also Manchus, Mongols, and other non-Chinese in its administration. By the 1860s the Manchu conquerors were in their third century of rule in China. The imperial family was descended from the Tungus tribal chieftain Nurhaci (1559-1626), whose descendants had conquered the Middle Kingdom from their base beyond the Great Wall in Manchuria (known today as China's Northeast). Throughout Hart's career as Inspector General the top powerholder in China was the Empress Dowager, Tz'u-hsi, a Manchu concubine who came to power after the death of her husband, the Hsien-feng Emperor, and who at first was tutored in ruling fot her infant son by the late emperor's brother, Prince Kung. The court at Peking, non-Chinese in origin, was perhaps less moved by the xenophobic sentiments felt by Chinese against foreign invaders. The Ch'ing court used Robert Hart and the Customs Service much as it had originally used its alliance with the Mongols or the services of Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century, for purposes of state in the great task of ruling China. From this point of view it is not so surprising that the Ch'ing rulers of the nineteenth century should have committed themselves to taking the British into a junior partnership, letting China become a part of Britain's world-wide informal empire of trade and missionary proselytism. The Manchu dynasty, still obliged to identify its own interest as a bit different from that of the Chinese people, had been forced to accept the British invaders and take them into the power structure of the empire. Only this can explain how Robert Hart could work for the general foreign interest in the orderly growth of trade while also working steadily to maximize the Manchu dynasty's revenues from foreign trade and facilitate in every way the progress of Western civilization under the wing of the Ch'ing government. In short, the community of interest between the British in China and the Manchu dynasty provided the original platform upon which Hart erected his revenue service. In the end, of course, the rise of Chinese nationalism rejected both Manchu rule and British influence. From this stems the patriotic sense of grievance or victimization among many Chinese of today. This sentiment is now a political fact of life but it cannot alter the facts of the 1860s and the succeeding decades, when Chinese nationalism was still in the future and the old loyalty to imperial Confucianism still animated the Chinese political elite. Robert Hart stands out especially in the perspective of modernization, viewed in its more concrete and technical aspects. Under him the Maritime Customs became China's first modern civil service. It provided public services of value both to the foreign merchant community and to the Chinese government- for example, the coastwise lights of China, charts for navigation, buoys and markers in the harbors, and the services of pilotage and berthing of ships; the whole modern procedure of customs handling and appraisal of goods, with opportunities for bonding, drawbacks, and other transactions in international commerce; the application of the customs tariff and the collection of a growing revenue for the central government; the settling of disputes and claims between the Chinese government and the merchant community; publications of essential trade statistics and information on a great variety of products and problems. Beyond these technical services, the Customs also served frequently in a semidiplomatic capacity to resolve international disputes. Under Hart's leadership the Customs funds were also used for building up an interpreters' college at Peking, creating a Chinese postal service, getting China represented at international exhibitions abroad, financing the establishment of foreign legations and a great variety of other projects in which Hart played an informal if not principal role. The work of this Victorian administrator in China of course invites comparison with the careers of other British subjects who played key roles in developing modern services and maintaining equable foreign relations in other non-European states. During the latter part

[xv] .FOREWORD of Hart's service in China, Sir Evelyn Baring (from 1892 Lord Cromer) was active in Egypt: between 1883 and 1907, as British resident and consul general, he saw to the appointment of a corps of foreign advisers, reorganized the Egyptian government's finances, reformed its tax system, abolished the ancient corvee, and fostered a variety of measures for economic growth, while all the time deeply involved in problems of Egypt's foreign trade, financial obligations, and diplomacy. Hart and Cromer, as foreigners working within sovereign states whose sovereignty had been limited but not eclipsed by unequal treaties, were at one end of a broad spectrum. As colonialism reached its high point toward the end of the nineteenth century, foreign administrators came to power in many lands-not only Englishmen in India, Burma, and Malaya, Dutchmen in the Indies, and Frenchmen in Indochina, but also Japanese in Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria , and Americans in the Philippines. Hart's type of administrative achievement was not unique. As time goes on, it will be studied in comparison with others of his time. This edition of Hart's letters to Campbell has been made possible by the foresight and initiative of the last foreign Inspector General of the Chinese Maritime Customs, Mr. L. K. Little, who has been of inestimable assistance in handling the complexities of the enterprise and has also supplied the valuable introduction which follows. It is therefore appropriate to give here some brief indication of his career. Lester Knox Little was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, on March 20, 1892, and was recruited for the Customs while a senior at Dartmouth College. After graduation in 1914, he entered upon a career of some forty years of service to the Chinese government. A brief outline will indicate the stages through which a young man might rise in this service. With the rank of assistant, Mr. Little spent two years at Peking getting acquainted with the clerical routine at the Inspectorate General while at the same time studying both spoken and written Chinese. The four years from 1916 to 1920 he spent at Shanghai handling clerical work and the assessment of duties at the big Shanghai Custom House. After each half dozen years of service he had a year's leave of absence- in 1920-1921, in 1926-1927, in 1932-1933, and in 1938-1939. In between, his terms of service, usually of two or three years' duration, ran as follows: 1921-1924 at Amoy as acting deputy commissioner in charge of the Native Customs, learning still another side of the work; 1924-1926 at Peking again as acting deputy commissioner but in charge of the Customs pension system; 19271929 at Tientsin as acting deputy commissioner for the port; 1929-1931 at Shanghai again as acting deputy commissioner in charge of the General Office. He was then promoted to deputy commissioner and made acting administrative commissioner at the Shanghai Custom House, a central post. In 1931-1932 at Shanghai, he served in the Inspectorate General as personal secretary to the Inspector General, Sir Frederick Maze. In 1932 Mr. Little was promoted to full commissioner and sent to Geneva in October as adviser to the Chinese delegation to the League of Nations, which was then debating the Manchurian question created by Japan's seizure of the area . After a year's leave, he resumed in 1933-1934 his post at Shanghai as personal secretary to the LG. In 1934-1938 he was commissioner at Canton and after a year's leave resumed this post in 1939-1941. On December 8, 1941, he was put under house arrest by the Japanese invaders, and in 1942 was repatriated and served about a year in New York City in an American government post. By the time he was called back to Chungking to become Acting LG., Mr. Little had thus had many years of experience in different aspects of the Customs work as well as several years' experience at the center of its administration. As indicated at the end of his introduction, he became the last foreigner to be appointed Inspector General in 1944, reopened the Inspectorate General offices in Shanghai in 1946, moved them to Canton in April 1949, and to Taipei in October, where he resigned as LG. in 1950.

History of the Hart-Campbell Correspondence For nearly forty years, from 1868 until Campbell's death in 1907, Robert Hart in Peking wrote his weekly or fortnightly letters to James D. Campbell in London . His part in this correspondence amounted finally to a collection of some fifteen hundred letters. So well did Campbell understand its significance and so seriously regard its safekeeping that he removed it to his own house rather than leave it in the London Office of the Customs Service. In fact, after carefully locking the letters away, he told Mrs. Campbell that if anything happened to him, she was not to hand them over to anyone except Sir Robert himself. , Campbell died in 1907 while Sir Robert was still in China. Asked by Campbell's executor to suggest the disposal of the letters, Hart ruled that the London Office was their proper repository and authorized Mrs. Campbell to give them to the non-resident se~retary, at that time Hart's son Bruce. The letters were thus returned to the London Office. After Sir Robert's own death in 1911, Sir Francis Aglen became Inspector General. Toward the end of his tenure, in 1924, realizing the importance of such a file of letters, he decided to have copies made. It is likely also that on occasion he might have found it convenient to have in Peking a copy of a letter dealing with some matter of still current interest. On his instruction, therefore, two typewritten copies were made in the London Office between 1924 and 1926 by Miss Marion L. Graham under the immediate supervision of the non-resident secretary, then C.A.V. Bowra. Miss Graham had the assistance when needed not only of Mr. Bowra, who was well acquainted with the l.G.'s handwriting, but also of an elderly and experienced typist in the London Office, Miss Sorrel, with both of whom she could consult over difficult words. The result was two remarkably accurate copies (considering especially the increasing complexities of Hart's handwriting over the years), from one of which the present editors have worked. In theory, one copy was to be for use in Peking, one in London. The holograph letters thereafter remained in London, either at the Customs Office or later in a bank vault for safekeeping. The typescript copies, on the other hand, made various trips between London and China according to the needs of the succeeding Inspectors General. Sir Francis Aglen, when he left China for good, purposely did not leave the Peking copy in the Inspectorate archives but brought it to England with him, feeling that the letters were unique and difficult to classify, inasmuch as Hart had employed Campbell as both his official and his private representative . This copy he deposited in the London Office. Some time later, in 1930, Sir Frederick Maze, who had become Inspector General the year before, ordered the holograph letters and the two copies deposited in the London office of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank in what was called the "LG. of Chinese Customs Service Account." After World War II, when the London Office was closed, the nonresident secretary, C.A. Pouncey, sent the two typescript copies, along with other office papers, to the Inspectorate General, which by this time was located in Shanghai. The holograph letters remained in London, still in the bank vault. There they stayed, in fact, until 1965. At that [xvi]

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[xvii)

HISTORY OF THE CORRESPONDENCE

time Mr. B. Foster Hall, a retired commissioner of Customs who had been nonresident secretary during Mr. Little's tenure as Inspector General, suggested that they be stored in the Public Record Office. Mr. Little, in whose name they were still deposited at the bank, concurred and secured the authorization of Mr. Chu Shu-cheng, Inspector General of Customs, Taipei. In 1965, therefore, Mr. Foster Hall conveyed the large dispatch tin containing the holograph letters to their present depository-nt, as it turned out, the Public Record Office, but the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, which the Record Office had ruled more suitable- to be made available to qualified scholars interested in the historical development of the Customs Service. The typescript copies meanwhile had in the course of time both come to the Inspectorate General in Shanghai. One of the copies was in the house of the Inspector General, L. K. Little, at the moment in April 1949 when he was given twenty-four hours' notice to move the Inspectorate offices from Shanghai to Canton. It was therefore included among the papers he hastily threw into a wooden box to be taken to the new headquarters; had it been in the office, as was the other copy, he would not have had time to get it. He took it with him again when, six months later, the Inspectorate was shifted from Canton to Taipei, and with him once more after he resigned as LG. in 1950. After the holograph letters were deposited with the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1965, he felt that some use should be made of the copy in his possession, and in 1968 he approached the East Asian Research Center at Harvard . Hart's last letters to Campbell, from October 1906 to September 1907, were not sent to the London Office with the rest of the file when Hart authorized Mrs. Campbell to deposit it there. For some reason unknown to us, Robert R. Campbell, who served as executor of his father's estate, appears to have held back these letters and edited them . A copied version he lat_er deposited with the Foreign Office, which in turn gave it to the University of London to be included with the rest of the collection at the School. What happened to the holographs of these letters is not known. We have included the edited letters in our published version, believing that even in their truncated form they add something to the total correspondence. This, then, is the history of the Hart-Campbell letters. But what of the other side of the correspondence-the Campbell-Hart letters? All the holograph letters from 1868 to 1900 were destroyed when Hart's house in Peking was burned by the Boxers. It was Campbell's habit, however, faithfully to file copies of all his letters in a press-copy book. Stories still circulate about the late afternoon rush in the London Office: Campbell, after a leisurely morning of business calls and a serious luncheon, getting down in the afternoon to his voluminous correspondence until finally post-time neared, the coachman sat outside ready to convey the letters to the General Post Office, and inside, Mr. G. Sinstadt, the Office-keeper, an autocrat in his own realm, stood by to make the copies. Obviously there was a complete record of Campbell's letters to Hart. When the London Office was closed after World War II, all these copies were sent, with the rest of the office files, to the Inspectorate General at Shanghai. Like the second typescript of the Hart letters, these were left behind when L.K. Little moved the Inspectorate office to Canton. Once again, however, for a reason we do not know, two volumes of the press-copied letters had not been turned over to the London Office but had found their way to Campbell's home and were later given by Robert Campbell to the Foreign Office in London: these were the letters from 1874 to 1877, and from 1898 to 1906. The Foreign Office, as before, transferred them to the University olLondon for deposit at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Many puzzles could doubtless be solved if we had both sides of the complete correspondence at hand; the small sections where this does occur help a little, but not much . Campbell's letters were gracious and well written, betokening a friendly, hospitable, social

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[xviii] HISTORY OF THE CORRESPONDENCE being, occasionally long-winded, but always meticulous in answering whatever points Hart had raised in his latest communication. He reported on Customs business (appointments, banking, points of law, gossip about personnel on leave in Europe) and increasingly, with the prolonging of Hart's own absence from England, on matters relating to his family and personal investments. Never was there evidence of a rift in this consistently trustful and warm relationship. Another rich source of information has recently become available to students of nineteenthcentury China, however, and that is the seventy-seven volumes of Robert Hart's journals, bequeathed by his great-grandson (the last Sir Robert) to the Queen's University, Belfast, the first Sir Robert's alma mater. About this diary Hart was always ambivalent. Though it was the one possession saved from his burning house by a well-meaning colleague in 1900, Hart professed at one time to regret its rescue . "I now wish it had gone to the flames with my other belongings," he wrote in 1902. But he himself never had adequate motivation to destroy the journals, and later researchers can only rejoice at his forbearance . For after puzzling over the enigmas in the Hart-Campbell correspondence, it is a dazzling experience to hold in one's hands the diaries for the same years. Suddenly the man walks the stage before one's eyes-the gestures right, the motives clear, the strengths and weaknesses in focus. Thus the "Emily affair" so tantalizing in the letters ('"Emily 2.3.4.' Poor old man!"letter 5) reveals all its cloak-and-dagger fascination in the diary. Finally, we should note still other sources of information about Hart , some of which we have used in preparing this edition of his letters to Campbell. Many letters from Hart to his commissioners have been preserved. Hosea B. Morse, when preparing his International Relations of the Chinese Empire, seemingly secured Hart's permission to make use of his letters and journals, but then was denied it after Hart's death a few years later. Morse thereupon wrote to old colleagues and made a collection of letters from Hart to the Bowras (C.A.V. and E.C.), E.B. Drew, C. Hannen, H. Kupsch, H.F. Merrill, the Wilzers (Sr. and Jr.), and to Morse himself. This body of letters Morse bequeathed to Harvard University, which has deposited it in its Houghton Library. Other letters from Hart to commissioners are in the School of Oriental and African Studies, as are also the papers of Sir Francis Aglen, which include a number of letters to him from Hart. Aglen was the son of an old school friend of Hart's, Stocker Aglen, and Hart wrote the young recruit with more than usual frankness and detail about the workings and opportunities of the Customs Service. Of the major printed sources of information about Hart, one is S.F. Wright's Hart and the Chinese Customs. Wright, also an alumnus of the Queen's University and a former commissioner in the Customs Service, was allowed access to the Hart-Campbell correspondence during the 1940s when he was at work on his book. The reader is referred to Wright's book especially for detailed information concerning Customs organization and procedures too voluminous to include in this introduction. Other valuable printed sources include two publications of the Customs Service itself. The first is the seven-volume Documents Illustrative of the Origin , Development, and Activities of the Chinese Customs Service, described by F.W. Maze, during whose tenure as Inspector General the books were published, as a selection in compact and handy form of "what may be termed key Circulars, a knowledge of which is essential to an understanding" of the Service. Not only do the volumes include Circulars (from 1861 to 1938), but also dispatches, letters, and memoranda (1842 to 1937), as well as occasional historical summaries like "The Chinese Light-house Service," and notes on the careers of many of the commissioners. The second publication is the many volumes of Service Lists of the Maritime Cus-

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[xix]

HISTORY OF THE CORRESPONDENCE

toms (Shanghai, 1875-1948) which each year listed all personnel, foreign and Chinese, by rank and by port. The last source is perhaps the most delightful one-Hart's collection of photographs left to the Queen's University along with his journals and miscellaneous papers, packed in two trunks in Peking by Hart's servants at the time of his departure from China. The photographs date from 1900 only, since earlier ones were burned, but almost all of these have names and sometimes relationships or comments ("An old friend from Ningpo days") inked on the back in Hart's hand. Piles and piles of photographs, for Hart liked his activities-and especially his garden parties-to be recorded by a professional photographer; and so many of the faces turn out to belong to people one knows well from the letters-Sir Robert himself, a small man in a derby hat, with his brass band; Nolly, dressed for a Centenary Ball in Calcutta ; Jem Hart in Darjeeling, with uniform and sword; Hart and his "boy" Chan Afang ("Par nobile fratrum Arcades ambo," 1 Hart has written below). Suddenly a library alcove becomes the background for one man's memories of fifty years of work in China. 1. Hart here combines parts of two quotations :

Par nobile fratrum (Horace Sermones 2.3 .243), "A fine pair of brothers, forsooth!" Ambo florentes aetatibus. Arcades ambo Et cantare pares et respondere pareti. (Virgil Eclogues 7.4) "Both in the flower of youth, Arcadians both, Who'll sing and sing in turn."

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

Editorial Note and Aclmowledgments In February 1874 Hart first began to number his more personal letters to Campbell in a series coded Z, to distinguish them from his official letters, which were as yet unnumbered. This Z series he started over again in April 1877 and again, for the third and last time, on June 6, 1879. In the summer of 1879 he also began numbering his official letters to Campbell-in a series coded A. From June 1879 to July 1886 the letters are thus numbered in two series, A and Z, although the personal and the official become increasingly intermingled. The last A letter is dated July 18, 1886, and the letters then continue entirely in the Z series, Hart having apparently accepted the impracticability of separation. Though in later years Hart inaugurated yet another A series, completely personal, those letters were not, so far as we know, preserved. The letters came to us arranged according to Hart's numbering, and so were in the following order: Unnumbered letters, October 1868-May 1870 Al-A62, July 1879-July 1886 Zl-Z46, February 1874-February 1877 Zl-Z21, April 1877-February 1878 Zl-Zl102, June 1879-0ctober 1906 The A and Z letters thus overlapped in time and there were three sets of letters numbered Zl-Z2 I. The confusion inherent in reading the letters in this order, and the problems involved in making accurate reference to individual letters led us to arrange and number all the letters in a single chronological series, preserving Hart's own numbers but imposing our own for ease and accuracy of reference. Hart's cross-references to the letters are of course to his own numbers, but all cross-references in the notes are to our numbers, which appear at the beginning of each letter. We have made very few departures from the original in editing the letters, preferring to let Hart speak in his own fashion. It was his custom to include the place of writing in his dateline, but since most of the letters were written from Peking, we have indicated place only when he was elsewhere. Campbell in London methodically entered the date of receipt on each letter as it arrived, and these dates we have included in brackets; where they do not appear, they were lacking from the letters. It was Hart's habit after 1880 to place at the head of his letters the names of people for whom he was enclosing letters; these we have removed to the end of the letter. We have taken a few minor liberties with Hart's punctuation, which tends to be elaborate and far from consistent: we have curtailed his profusion of periods, deleting them where they seemed to serve no purpose or to confuse rather than clarify; we have used square brackets for parentheses within parentheses, and in a few instances we have added parentheses where their need seemed conspicuous and Hart had

(xx]

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[xxi] EDITORIAL NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS supplied none. Hart's practice of placing a period outside parentheses enclosing a complete sentence we have altered by enclosing the period, Finally, we have standardized Hart's erratic use of quotation marks, starting always with double marks and resorting to single marks for internal quotations. We have followed British style as to terminal punctuation in quotations. Insertions in the letters themselves we have tried to avoid, relegating comment and information to the notes. In those rare instances where an insertion seemed truly essential, we have enclosed it in square brackets. Hart's romanizations we have left intact, their very variety being indicative of their time. In our annotations, however, we have used Wade-Giles romanization and, for place names, the accepted modern spellings. Occasionally Hart wrote Chinese characters in his letters, and in such cases we have supplied romanizations in the Wade-Giles form, together with a note, "For original characters, see the glossary." Hart tended to underline many words, and in particular all Chinese names and phrases. These we have printed in italics. In undertaking to annotate these letters we soon realized that we were in an unworked rather than a well-worked field of scholarship. Whereas an American figure like John Adams has been studied for several generations, there is still for Robert Hart no real biography in any language, nor is there any English biography worth mentioning for his contemporary Li Hung-chang. When the reader (or editor) encounters in the letters even a well-known British figure like Thomas Francis Wade, there is as yet no full-scale biography (outside the Dictionary of National Biography) to which he can turn for guidance. The recent spate of research on China has only begun to build up our knowledge of the nineteenth-century treaty ports, for a curious thing has happened in the growth of Chinese studies-researchers trained for the study of China have been drawn into the complex and entrancing field of Chinese history proper, rather than to the study of the foreign presence in China. We are publishing Hart's letters before he and the Chinese Customs have become subjects of extensive research. Our annotation has therefore had to assume the character of a frontier reconnaissance, since it could not be guided by a great quantity of established scholarship. Our aim has been to place the letters in a context of known people and events; hence we have sought to identify everyone mentioned and to supply historical and biographical data to the extent needed for comprehension of the letters-and only to that extent. We have not always succeeded: some people have eluded us, as have some events or situations to which Hart makes cryptic reference, and these of necessity appear without annotation. In annotating any one incident we have followed no set procedure but have been guided by the way it discloses itself in the letters. We have sometimes told the whole story at once in a single note, jumping ahead in time to do so; in other cases we have supplied only current information in support of Hart's unfolding of the tale. Throughout we have made copious use of cross-references. Questionable readings encountered in the typescript used by the editors have been checked against the holograph letters at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London-in most cases by Mr. B. Foster Hall, in some by Mrs. Bruner. Drawings, which for the most part were not included in the typescript, have been photographed from the holograph letters. Researchers on the history of a great institution find many kindred spirits, whose help is invaluable and not easy to acknowledge in mere prose and in the space available. We have had the singular fortune of being able to draw upon the recollections of three retired commissioners who served long in the Chinese Customs: Mr. L.K. Little (1914-1950), Mr. B. Foster Hall (1913-1948), Mr. Hugh G. Lowder (1908-1940). It will be evident to the reader that Mr. Little has been a primary and unfailing resource throughout this enterprise. Mr. Foster Hall, who in 1965 conveyed the holograph letters to their present repository at the

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[xxii]

EDITORIAL NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

School of Oriental and African Studies, has been unstinting in his efforts to secure information for us, making innumerable trips to London from his home in Kent to consult the holograph letters and other Customs materials, as well as Foreign Office and newspaper records. Mr. Lowder, of Cambridge, England, whose father and uncle before him were Customs commissioners, has drawn upon his personal files to supply us with much valuable information. We are especially indebted to colleagues at the East Asian Research Center: to Gerald E. Bunker and to Edward LeFevour (of Mills College) whose interest in Hart's journals at the Queen's University in Belfast has enabled them to give us much valuable information; and to Ezra Vogel, director, Olive Holmes and Anne Stevens, editors, and others in the Research Center who have given us long-continued support in a time of increasing stringency and competition for scarce resources. In various ways we are also indebted to B.C. Bloomfield, Librarian at the School of Oriental and African Studies; W.G. Wheeler, Sub-Librarian, the Queen's University; Immanuel C.Y. Hsii of the University of California at Santa Barbara for help in identifications; Chaoying Fang of the Ming Biographical History Project at Columbia University; Lyman Butterfield, editor of The Adams Papers; and W. Moore, City of London School, and Ann Robbins of the Classics Department of Harvard University, both of whom came to our aid as Latinists. Elizabeth Catherine MacLeod Matheson (1914-1974) mainly set the editorial style of these volumes, bringing to the task an acuity and critical sense enhanced by long experience with China manuscripts. From 1946 to the early 1960s she edited the annual Papers on China for the MA program in Regional Studies-East Asia, and from the late 1950s she was also chief editor at the East Asian Research Center. For twenty-five years she trained Harvard authors in English diction, logical composition, clear expression, and even correct romanization. She became in fact an unseen co-author of many books, several of which without her help would never have been published. Perhaps because of her earlier career, teaching music at Wheaton College, she valued the harmony of thought and word and fought constantly, and eloquently, against all things prolix, irrelevant, redundant, or simply dull. Above all she valued clarity for the uninitiated reader. Her original approach to these letters was exemplified in an office memo of November 19 69. I don't think any of you gentlemen who have worked either in or on the Chinese Customs Service has a notion of what a confusing subject it is to an outsider. It has hounded and haunted me throughout my editorial career. I have always found it a singularly difficult subject on which to get reliable information: there seems to be a great tendency on the part of authors simply to fudge when the Customs comes up for discussion, and I have a strong suspicion that the workings of this Service are as hazy in the minds of a good many China experts as they are in mine. If ever a subject cried out for a brief and clear statement of its origins, development, modus operandi, and ultimate fate, the Customs is it. Libby's curiosity was equally demanding. She wanted precise data. In December 1970 she wrote I am so relieved to hear that you have put someone to work on the Emily affair, which will haunt me forever if not solved. As an incurable reader of who-dun-its, I just can't bear to think of never knowing who Emily was, or what he was up to. (See letter 4n2 .)

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

(xxiii]

EDITORIAL NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Though her final illness obliged her to leave us on our own in constructing the notes to Hart's letters after 1895, her imprint, we hope, is on the whole work. We are grateful accordingly. JKF KFB

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

Official Ranlzs in the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service This is a list of ranks within the Service, not a table of organization; it is the ladder on which men were promoted by definite and well-recognized steps. Having achieved a certain rank within the hierarchy, a man of particular skills might then be eligible for certain prestigious appointments-as Chinese Secretary or audit secretary, for example. Thus, the Inspector General's office staff in Peking in a typical year included the following : chief secretary, Chinese secretary, audit secretary, private secretary, and after 1899 postal secretary, along with various assistants and clerks. These secretaryships, as a rule, were filled by men with the rank of commissioner. Sometimes a man was promoted to commissioner as a preliminary to his appointment to one of these posts; in such case the promotion was to the commissionership, not to the secretaryship. The same man in a later year might be shifted from his secretarial post to become commissioner of a port. His position changed; his rank did not. The Inspectorate General consisted of three offices: the Inspector General's office in Peking, the statistical and printing office in Shanghai, the office of the non-resident secretary in London. In each of these offices, as in the Customs office at each treaty port, personnel were ranked according to this list. We give it in its most developed form at the end of Hart's service in 1908. Inspector General 1. Revenue Department Indoor staff Commissioners Acting commissioners Deputy commissioners Acting deputy commissioners Assistants-in-charge Chief assistants First assistants A First assistants .B Second assistants A and B Third assistants A and B Fourth assistants A Fourth assistants B (the rank at which new men usually started) Clerks (there were relatively few Western clerks) NOTE: Compiled from the Service Lists of the Imperial Maritime Customs through 1908. For a full discussion of ranks and responsibilities, see Wright, Hart and the Chinese Customs, chap. 10, "Building Up the Service." (xxiv]

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[xxv] OFFICIAL RANKS

Miscellaneous unranked (as printing office manager, gas fitter, office keeper, etc.) Surgeons (a separate category, unranked) Outdoor staff Tidesurveyors Assistant tidesurveyors Boat officers Examiners Assistant examiners Tidewaiters (lst, 2nd, 3rd class; also probationary) Watchers Coast staff Commanders (of revenue steamers) Officers (lst, 2nd, 3rd) Engineers (lst, 2nd, 3rd) Launch officers Gunners Boatswains Shipwrights Chinese staff Clerks, or linguists (principal, lst, 2nd, 3rd, 4th; also candidate and supernumerary) Writers (copyists) Shupan (duty calculators) Miscellaneous (shroffs and copyists) 2. Marine Department Engineers staff Engineer-in-chief Assistant engineers Clerk of works Clerks Mechanics Harbors staff Coast inspector (later in charge of Marine Dept.) Harbor masters Berthing officers Signalmen River police Lights staff Inspector of lights Lightship captains Lightship mates Chief lightkeepers Second lightkeepers Third lightkeepers Fourth lightkeepers (Chinese) Chinese staff (apart from 4th lightkeepers) Fairway officers Police, guards

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[xxvi] OFFICIAL RANKS

Engineers, firemen Boatmen, seamen Office boys, coolies Miscellaneous (carpenters, watchmen, signalmen, etc.) 3. Educational Department T'ung-wen kuan, Peking President Professors T'ung-wen kuan, Canton Teacher of English (before 1893) Professors (after 1893) 4. Postal Department (after 1896) Inspector General of Posts Postal secretary (after 1899) Deputy postal secretary Assistant postal secretary Postmasters (these were the port commissioners, who served ex officio as postmasters) Postal officers Assistant postal officers Postal clerks (Chinese) Chinese staff: letter-carriers, sorters, coolies

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

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LATE CH'ING - RULERS AND PRINCES (Omitting early emperors of the dynasty and many other figures)

CHIA-CH'ING Emperor 1796- 1820 (personal name Yung-yen i 760-1820, temple name Jen-tsung Jui Huang-ti) 5 sons, 9 daughters, including II

III

TAO-KUANG Emperor 1821-1850 (personal name Min-ning 1782-1850, temple name Hsiian-tsung Ch'eng Huang-ti) 9 sons, 10 daughters, including HSIEN-FENG Emperor (4th son) 1851-1861 (personal name I-chu 1831-1861 , temple name Wen-tsung Hsien Huang-ti)

I-wei (eldest son)

I-tsung* (5th son)

Tsai-chih (adopted son)

Tsai-i Prince Tuan

m. Yehe Nara (Yehonala) 1835-1908 Empress Hsiao-ch'in Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi

2 sons (1 d. as infant) 1 daughter

IV

v

T'UNG-CHIH Emperor 1862-1874 (personal name Tsai-ch'un 1856-1875, temple name Mu-tsung I Huang-ti)

No male heir; no brother

P'u-lun (suggested as heir 1875, 1908)

P'u-chiin (heir 1900; expelled 1901)

*I-tsung's other sons, Tsai-lien and Tsai-Ian ("Duke Lan"), were prominent in the Boxer movement. **I-hsin's older son, Tsai-ch'eng (1858-1885) died without heirs.

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

Yung-lin 17661820 First Prince Ch'ing (brother of Yungyen, youngest son of Ch'ien-lung Emperor) Min-hsing

I 1-hsin** (6th son) "The Sixth Prince" Prince Kung 1833-1898

Tsai-ying

1-k'uang Second Prince Ch'ing 1836-1916 Regent , 1911

1-huan (7th son) "The Seventh Prince" Prince Ch'un 1840-1891 m. younger sister ofYehonala

KUANG-HSU Emperor 1875 - 1908 (personal name Tsai-t'ien, 1871-1908 , temple name Te-tsung Ching Huang-ti)

Tsai-feng

Tsai-chen

Second Prince Ch'un

"Prince Chen"

Regent 1908-1911

Adopted son of Hsien-feng Emperor P'u-wei Second Prince Kung

HSUAN-T'UNG Emperor 1909-1912 (personal name P'u-i 1906-1967)

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

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INTRODUCTION by L. K. Little Inspector Gen~ral Chinese Customs Service (1943-1950)

The Service which I direct is called the Customs Service, but its scope is wide and its aim is to do good work for China in every possible direction. -Sir Robert Hart

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

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Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

Introduction The private letters of Robert Hart, Inspector General of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, to James Duncan Campbell, his London representative, are not only a source of information about the development of the Chinese Customs Service, but also a unique offthe-record commentary on the political, economic, diplomatic, and social history of China during the last third of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth. They are also a self-portrait of one of the most able and influential administrator-statesmen of the period . The importance, and charm, of these letters (which supplemented the great volumes of official Customs correspondence that passed between Peking and London) lie in their complete candor. Hart commented without constraint on people and events, knowing that what he wrote was for Campbell's eye alone . He had no real intimates in Peking, but to Campbell he expressed his innermost thoughts and feelings of success and failure, high spirits and low, satisfactions and frustrations. Above all, the letters are a record of single-minded dedication to the government and the people of China whom Hart served so long and faithfully . Hart's service to China began two years before the American Civil War and ended three years before the outbreak of the First World War. During this half century, China emerged from her long isolation in foreign relations and began to take her place as a modern state. Hart was an acute and sympathetic witness of this movement and, as his letters amply show, played an important role in it. During this long period there were many armed conflicts throughout the world, and China was herself engaged in three of them: war with France in 1884-1885, with Japan in 18941895, and with international expeditionary forces in 1900. Although China was not a direct participant, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 seriously affected her interests. More than once in the course of these years it seemed as if China might lose her independence and be partitioned among grasping and rival European powers or, harking back to the Taiping Rebellion of 1851-1864, break up through internal rebellion and disaffection. In 1868, when Hart's first letters to Campbell were written, communications with Europe were slow, and two to three months often passed from the time a letter left Peking until a reply was received from London. There were two routes for passengers, cargo, and mail: via the Cape of Good Hope, or via the Mediterranean to Egypt, thence overland to the Red Sea and on to the Far East. The only telegraphic tie with Europe was the line across Russia which terminated at Kiakhta on the Mongolian border of Siberia; from there messages had to be sent overland to Peking. In his very first letter to Campbell, Hart rather plaintively wrote: What a pity the telegraph is not continued to Peking! To be ten days from London would be so charming! Even feeling that one has had a message from Paris only a fortnight old, makes one feel near home! (letter 1). Communications within China were primitive: there were no railroads, no telegraphs, and no national post office. Passengers, cargo, and mails were carried by ship along the coast and on the rivers and canals. Away from water, they depended on carts, animals, and the strong backs of coolies. Peking, located eighty-four miles from its river port of Tientsin, was almost isolated from the rest of the country for several months each year when the Hai River froze 3

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[4]

INTRODUCTION

and shipping was suspended. During these winter months, mail between Peking and Shanghai was carried overland by couriers. By 1907 , when Hart's correspondence with Campbell came to an end, communications both external and internal had been revolutionized . The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the laying of submarine telegraphic cables to Hong Kong and Shanghai in 1871, the completion of the railroads joining the Atlantic and Pacific shores of the United States, and the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway in the 1890s, all brought China closer to the West. Within the country, telegraphs after 1881, railways, and a national postal service inaugurated under the Customs in 1896, all provided China with the beginnings of a modern communications network. Many other examples could be cited to illustrate the pace of technological progress during Hart's decades of service in China. He was himself a central figure in a no less spectacular institutional development , the growth of a multinational civil service in the treaty ports . His career must be viewed first of all as that of a man who saw a job to do and did it. The challenge and opportunity that Hart met and seized can be understood only if we look specifically at the origin of the foreign Inspectorate of Customs. THE ORIGIN OF THE CUSTOMS SERVICE Before 1842 the only port in China open to foreign trade was Canton, where, because of China's traditional fiscal system, foreign merchants and shipping operated under highly restrictive and irregular conditions. The system was similar in many respects to that common in the West until comparatively modern times-for example, under the farmers-general of France: the revenue was farmed out to an official who was required to pay in to the imperial treasury a fixed sum annually, but not required to account for any surplus. At Canton this official was called the Hoppo (always a Manchu appointed directly by the emperor for a three-year term), and he enjoyed what must have been one of the richest plums known to history. In a typical year he would have to pay some 900,000 taels (about $1 ,350,000) to Peking, but his actual income might be as much as 11,000,000 taels (equal to about $16,500,000). Out of this income he had to maintain a huge staff of subordinates and also make frequent large gifts to various influential members of the court in Peking. H.B. Morse, who had a distinguished career in the Customs before he became in retirement the major historian of late Ch'ing foreign relations, states of the Hoppo that "it took the net profit of the first year of his tenure to obtain his office, of the second year to keep it, and of the third year to drop it and to provide for himself." 1 The Hoppo was bound by no published tariff on exports, imports, tonnage dues, or the like, and charged what the traffic would bear according to established custom. It is not surprising that this system encouraged bribery and corruption from top to bottom-a situation taken for granted by both Chinese and foreigners as a normal part of the personal arrangements that were the stuff of Chinese life. In contrast, individual business relations between Chinese and foreign merchants were conducted on the highest level of mutual trust, once they had established the bonds of a personal relationship. "They both had a reputation for commercial honour and integrity such as has not been surpassed in any part of the world or at any time in history," says Morse. 2 The Nanking Treaty of 1842, ending the "Opium War," provided for the opening of four additional ports to foreign trade, and for the first time, required the publication of a fixed tariff. This treaty was followed in 1844 by treaties with the United States and France, 1. Hosea B. Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, 3 vols. (London: Longmans Green, 1910-1918), I, 34-35 . 2. Ibid., p. 85.

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[5]

INTRODUCTION

which incorporated, in general, the provisions of the British treaty. These early treaties also established the system of extraterritoriality, whereby foreign residents were exempted from Chinese law and could be prosecuted only in their own national consular courts. During the first post-treaty decade, Shanghai quickly outstripped Canton as the principal center of China's foreign trade. In spite of the tariffs laid down in the treaties, however, the old customhouse practices continued. False declarations, false manifests, open bribery, and under-the-counter payments were the order of the day, and the business ethics-on both the foreign and Chinese sides-were deplorable, for the Chinese collectors were both timid and venal, and the foreign merchants aggressive and competitive. This situation was a source of constant complaint among honest traders, and the various consuls, especially the British, who were expected to make the treaty system work, became involved in acrimonious disputes with Chinese officials and their own countrymen. In 1853, during the Taiping Rebellion, a political accident gave the consuls an opportunity to improve the situation. In that year the city of Shanghai was taken by a rebel organization called the Small Sword Society (Hsiao-tao hui), which forced the taotai (the official in charge of the customs) to flee and destroyed the customhouse. Although the customhouse had ceased to function, the treaties remained in force, and the treaties required foreign merchants to pay duties to the Chinese government. It was the task of the harassed consuls to see that this treaty stipulation was carried out. As an expedient, the British and American consuls required their nationals to declare exports and imports at the consulates and to give bonds for the eventual payment of the required duties. This expedient, known as the Provisional System, was understandably unpopular with both British and American merchants, who complained that merchants of other nationalities, in the absence of the customhouse, were shipping and landing their cargoes without paying a cent of duty. After the rebels were stalemated, the consuls induced the taotai to return and reopen his customhouse in the British-controlled area of Shanghai. At the same time, they proposed that the customs authorities engage a few foreigners to assist them in collecting the duties. This proposal was accepted and embodied in a document signed on June 29, 1854, by the taotai and by the consuls of Great Britain, the United States, and France. Article I of this agreement reads: The chief difficulty hitherto experienced by the Superintendent of Customs having consisted in the impossibility of obtaining Custom House officials with the necessary qualifications as to probity, vigilance and knowledge of foreign languages required for the enforcement of a close observance of Treaty and Custom House Regulations, the only adequate remedy appears to be the introduction of a foreign element into the Custom House establishment in the persons of foreigners, carefully selected and appointed by the Taotai, who shall supply the deficiency complained of and give to his Excellency efficient and trustworthy instruments wherewith to work. 3 In view of the assumption frequently made that the foreign customs administration was somehow forced on an unwilling Chinese government at bayonet point, in order to place control of China's trade in foreign hands and provide funds for foreign loans and indemnities, it should be noted that the Customs agreement of 1854 was freely signed by the Chinese authorities and that the foreigners engaged as inspectors were appointed and paid by these authorities. Within a year after the beginning of this foreign inspectorate in the Shanghai 3. See Consul R. Alcock's dispatch no. 56 of July 6, 1854, enclosed in Sir John Bowring's no. 77, in FO 97 /100, Public Record Office, London.

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[6]

INTRODUCTION

Customs, these foreign members were held by the British government to be officials of China, and not of any foreign country. Their official loyalties were anchored to their employer, the Chinese government. There was no intention in the minds of the signers of the agreement that it should lead to control of China's foreign trade revenues, and it was not until years later that the Chinese government began to make use of the customs revenue as security for loans and indemnities. Except in the case of the first three foreign inspectors at Shanghai, who were nominated in 1854 by the consuls concerned and appointed by the taotai, foreign governments never participated in the appointment of Chinese Customs officials: all nominations and appointments were made by the head of the Service, acting for the Chinese government. On July 12, 1854, the Shanghai customhouse reopened for business with its first "foreign element"-one man each seconded by the American, British, and French consuls. These men were called inspectors. The infusion of this foreign element into the customs organization was a success from the start. Not the least pleased with the experiment were the higher Chinese officials, who saw the government revenue increase dramatically. Many of the merchants, however, both foreign and Chinese, regretted the end of the old free-wheeling system of personal arrangements and chafed when treaty and customs regulations were enforced to the letter. The new customs administration was cordially disliked by this large segment of the business community, not least because for the first few years Shanghai was the only one of the five treaty ports to have foreign inspectors in the Customs. But the British government favored the foreign inspectorate principle, because it seemed to be the one way to make the treaty system effective: foreign inspectors, speaking English, unafraid of British, American, or Chinese bullies or scallywags, impervious to threats, and uninterested in bribes, could enforce the treaty tariff equally upon all comers. Moreover, they could advise their Chinese superiors how to deal with foreign evildoers while at the same time gaining their confidence as conscientious accountants of revenue. Consequently the treaty settlement that was made in 1858, stipulated that a customs system on the Shanghai model should be established at the other treaty ports. The degree to which this was a British innovation may be seen from the fact that Horatio Nelson Lay, the son of an early British consul, had become the sole foreign inspector at Shanghai, leaving the British consular service for the purpose, and yet in 1858 was re-employed by Lord Elgin as a chief 'British negotiator of the Treaty of Tientsin. In effect, Lay wrote his own ticket. The charter of the Customs was in Rule I 0 of the Tariff Rules negotiated at Shanghai and signed there by the Ch'ing and the British representatives on November 8, 1858, to give effect to the Anglo-Chinese Treaty signed at Tientsin the previous June . Rule 10 was headed "Collection of Duties under one System at all Ports" and read as follows: It being, by Treaty, at the option of the Chinese Government to adopt what means appear to it best suited to protect its Revenue, accruing on British trade, it is agreed that one uniform system shall be enforced at every port. The High Officer appointed by the Chinese Government to superintend Foreign trade will accordingly, from time to time, either himself visit, or will send a deputy to visit, the different ports. The said High Officer will be at liberty, of his own choice, and independently of the suggestion or nomination of any British authority, to select any British subject he may see fit to aid him in the administration of the Customs Revenue; in the prevention of smuggling; in the definition of port boundaries; or in discharging the duties of harbour-master; also in the distribution

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[7]

INTRODUCTION

of Lights, Buoys, Beacons, and the like, the maintenance of which shall be provided for out of the Tonnage Dues. 4 After the exchange of treaty ratifi.C-tf.11~

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so that people can walk round and see everything without moving or pulling about the objects. 10. For the cart and mule litter and saddlery (things used in life and in connection with dwellings etc.) we want you to have made, in wood, rough resemblances of three mules and one pony: the cart mule to be 15 handshigh,-thelitter mules to be 14 hands high and the saddle

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[519]

JANUARY 1884

pony to be 13 high. Among the lay figures we send bearers for the sedan chair. The bride in three dresses can be either with her bridal sedan (best so) or with the dress exhibit in the Albert Hall. 11. The Restaurant ought to be 24 feet deep like the shops and about 30 or 40 feet longto hold so many tables: if you like you can make it much smaller and put in fewer tables: so, too, the Tea House: as for the look of these buildings outside, you must manage that in London. Perhaps they and the shops ought not to have quite the same line of frontage: an indentation might improve the look, either central, thus-

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We'll send a lot of scrolls and pictures and also Peking paper for walls. 12. There will be probably 6 Chinese for the restaurant and 2 for the Tea House: with 5 for the shops: also a mason, carpenter and painter-fifteen or twenty in all. These we must house and feed and provide passages for. 13. We shall also probably send you a good essay or lecture on Chinese education (which Hippisley will provide) and another on Chinese Music by van Aalst. You will have to read the former, and possibly van Aalst may go as one of the Secretaries and read the lattermore especially if I can induce a Chinese string band to go (to make music in the Restaurant, and torture the London ear with the delights of Chinese daily life.) 14. This letter will be with you about the middle of March, and about the same time you will receive a telegram from me telling you whether you are to go ahead in whole, in part, or not at all. I therefore number my paragraphs. Setting to work before the 20th March, you can have things, your buildings etc. ready-by the end of April and can set up the Exhibit etc. to be ready for the 1st June. If there's war with France, we may have to come to a full stop in more ways than one; or, if the Yamen decides not to co-operate (though I don't think that decision is likely), I can merely send you a few articles to "help the show". 15. Now don't forget Economy. The "Fisheries" will probably cost me £3,000 or £4,000 personally, 1 and, if I am let in for as much more for "Health" it means another year or two exile for me: and as this is my 3lst year in China(!) I really don't look with perfect resignation to any further prolongation of the time I have to spend in loneliness-far away from my wife and little folk.

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

(520) THE I. G. IN PEKING

I enclose a cover for Sir Cunliffe Owen: read it yourself and take it to him: Also read this letter to him. There now-that's enough for to-day, so good-bye, old man! Yours truly, Robert Hart 14/1/84 1. Hart does not mean that he would use his private resources. It seems likely that he had a privately controlled I.G. fund, from which he paid

both his own retirement fund and other special costs.

459 A/55

17 January 1884

Dear Campbell, I am sending you a copy of a Memo. I wrote for Parkes anent the Roberts affair :-You can find the Annexes in your own London Archives. I now enclose a copy of the private note which elicited the Memorandum: - you will see from it that Sir Harry is not unfriendly, but that the Legation does not like the F .0. to be gone to either first or direct. He is sending my Memo. to the F.O. and will rather support than oppose it, but he seems to have some difficulty in forming an idea of the nature, form or extent of the relief possible to be got for us. As regards the Yamen's possible or probable unwillingness to continue to employ Britishers, and if British Courts refuse to recognise their changed status when in China's official employ, pray look at Bruce's despatch to the F .0. dated 23rd December 1862 (vide Blue Book: China Papers No. 3 of 1864: page 31): you will there see that the very first note of alarm in this connection was sounded by the British Legation at Peking! I had intended to bring the matter before the F.O. by means of a petition, which Roberts, as a simple British subject, was to address to the British Minister in China, but I shall not now do so. The matter is before the F.O. in its f,arger form, and it is best not to call any more attention to the weak points of the Roberts; affair. It was very good of Mr. Rendel to take up the occurrence, but I did not expect his intervention would take the form of an official communication of the Telegram to the F 0. However: I suppose he had good and adequate reasons for doing so and I can only thank him for his advocacy. TJ:ie Canton claims have not yet been paid: I trust Woodruff wi.ll be .able to get locally what our people ask for. Should he fail, and were the matter to come on to Peking, I fear the Yamen-in a very bad temper about the matter-would say: "we do not compensate Chinese officials for losses resulting from local riots: you are officials-we will not compensate you: if you must have compensation, leave the service!" Worry is like the Jerusalem Artichoke: once sown in the world, there's no uprooting of it! Yours truly, Robert Hart

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

(521 J JANUARY 1884

460 Z/158

21 January 1884 [Red. March 25, 1884]

Dear Campbell, We expected the mail three days ago, but it is not yet in: it left H'kong on the 3lst December, and ought to have been here on the l 8th. That's five lines wasted and two minutes-but how begin when one has nothing special to say, and one's voice, without being "sweet", is as "low" as Annie Laurie's-thanks to late hours, much vigorous dancing, and a consequently very heavy cold? I am sending Mrs. Campbell in another cover two of my 'cello pieces, with the promise of a violin piece for next week. I have heard a good deal lately of Mrs. Campbell's musical powers, and I hope she will do me the favour of composing pianoforte accompaniments for some of my pieces. Mrs. Pirkis of the Legation here who is a fine musician and has published some songs 4nder the name of "Bessie L'Evesque" works with me- i.e. is arranging pianoforte accompaniments for my original pieces: we shall have ten songs, ten drawing-room pieces, and perhaps ten sonatas soon:- but printing and publishing is another matter. Meantime the work is a pleasant occupation and a nice change from tariff questions- which I truly and utterly abominate (although I earn my bread by them)! Without telling Mrs. Campbell of it , I wish you would make (2) copies of these two 'cello pieces and also of the Violin Sonata, and send them to two of the people who compose accompaniments for pay. Spend £5 for each movement, i.e. two sets of £5, for two independent composers: a/c Z. I should like to compare the results- Mrs. Pirkis's, Mrs. Campbell's, and the two paid composers' accompaniments, and their way of treating my originals. Kindly arrange for regular payment of "Empire Club" subscription and Entrance Fee- vide letter to Chinery- (my Agent, I mean O.B.C.). Yours truly, Robert Hart Lady Hart Mrs. Cartwright de Vassal Chinery A/55 1. Enclosures: William Cartwright had resigned from the Customs in 1882 and was now in England. See letter 493n2.

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

(522] THE I. G. IN PEKING

461 25 January 1884 [Red . March 25, 1884]

Z/159

Dear Campbell, Kindly get for me at the "Vanity Fair" Office 12, Tavistock St., Covent Garden, a complete set of the "Vanity Fair Album" (Series one to Fifteen 1867-83). A/c Z. When sending this out, please send me at the same time, and in the same box, two 'cello Tail pieces,

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wooden three-side cases (Hill's). Matlock Bandages :-Don't send me any- many thanks! I fancy a "King David's Plaster" would serve me better!! I'm starved-but it's with heat rather than cold!!! I must stop or I shall use up all the notes of exclamation in my Ink-bottle. Yours truly, Robert Hart P.S. In another cover I am sending Mrs. Campbell the manuscript of one of my violin pieces (no. 11, 1°, 2°, and 3°); last week I sent two 'cello pieces, Nos. 1 and 2. R.H.

462 Z/160

27 January 1884 [Red. March 28, 1884]

Dear Campbell,

I have your letters Z/285 and 286.

Tonquin :-Nothing new. Customs Status: - ! recently gave the Yamen translations of my circulars about summonses etc., and the Yamen has sent them to all the ports for the opinions of Superintendents and Imperial Commissioners, and therefore this particular "kettle" may be expected to boil sooner or later. "Health ":-No orders from Yamen yet, and therefore official co-operation is still uncertain. In any case the things we are now preparing will go forward-but, if not officially, in my name as a Private Exhibitor for I shall have to pay for them. Generally I may remark that you-much less Sir Cunliffe Owen-seem to have no idea at

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[523) FEBRUARY 1884

all of the trouble it would cost to carry out your views: you don't understand our difficulties a bit. Neumann cannot remain. 1 Yours truly, Robert Hart P.S. I send duplicate of A/54 and letter to Owen: if the originals have arrived, you can destroy these. R.H. Lady Hart Owen Dup. A/54 1. Julius Neumann, 3rd assistant A in Swatow in 1883, had been sent to London to set up China's Fisheries exhibit. Actually Hart relented, and

Neumann remained in the London Office for a while before returning to China by way of the New Orleans Exhibition later in 1884.

463 Z/I6I

I I February I884 [Red. April 7, I 884]

Dear Campbell, Your A/306 and Z/287 and 288 have arrived.

Lang:-1 have had nothing more to do with this matter than at L's request ask you to send out men who might ask you for passages as having been engaged by him: I know nothing of his direct application, and would have stopped it had he consulted me. 1 Health: - China will co-operate: so you can act on the letter I sent you, A/54. A telegram from Kleinwachter tells me he is at work, but he seems to fear the shopkeepers I want to go from H'kow, K'kiang, and C'ton will refuse to go (3° B/, C/ and D/); 2 these excepted, I think you can rely on the other things my memo named. There is really not time to do anything hardly, and even the little we can attempt may be knocked on the head by war with France. Neumann can stay for a while. And all Northern people will have to come away by the first Mail in October so as to be back in Peking before winter. Regarding the shops-we are sending nicely carved fronts for the four shops; these fronts are made for a frontage of twelve feet each: as regards the other dimensions and arrangements, do as you please-but I advise you to have an entrance door at one end and an exit do. at the other, of each shop. Tonking:-There's another difficulty at the Yamen-a tremendous row-which may force France to declare what she really intends to do before long. The new man Chang Pei Lun is all for burning the boats! 3

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[524] THE I. G. IN PEKING

Work is very heavy just now and I am seedy. Yours truly, Robert Hart Lady Hart Bruce Evey S. Rendel Mrs. Detring T. Piry 4 Huber 1. William M. Lang, the British naval officer who had undertaken to guide Chinese naval development, applied directly to the British Admiralty in December 1883 for three gunnery instructors to serve in China. The Admiralty referred the application to the Foreign Office, which referred it to Marquis Tseng, who referred it to Campbell, who conferred personally with Sir Cooper Key of the Admiralty. The application was not filled because war between China and France, with whom Britain's relations were delicate, seemed imminent.

2. These are references to numbered items in the memorandum he enclosed with his letter A/54 (letter 458 above). 3. Chang P'ei-lun had been appointed to the Yamen in December 1883 (see letter 451). 4. Enclosures: A.T. Piry, who had joined the Customs in 1874, dropped his first initial on the birth of his son Alphonse and was henceforth known as T. Piry. He was on leave in France from 1883 to 1885.

464 Z/162

17 February 1884 [Red. April 22, 1884]

Dear Campbell, The Yamen has authorised me to arrange for China's participation in the "Health Exhibition". At all times a worry and inconvenient, co-operation in this Exhibition in particular is disheartening: the time is so short-the distance is so great-the general nature of the affair is so unlike anything China is interested in-and the possibility of a foreign war are all considerations which, on the top of daily and heavy work, make us wish the invitation had not come. However we shall try to "put our best foot foremost", and hope our "trap to catch a sunbeam" may be condoned (as the Morning Post puts it)! We have more difficulties to encounter than even I had calculated on: (on your side, you and your friends evidently think there are no difficulties and that, by cracking your fingers in London, you can have what you want a month after from China. You want a "spell" out here again; you have "lost touch", you require to be re-acclimatized). I fear Kleinwachter will not be able to get shopkeepers to go, and I shall not be astonished if the Restaurant people we are recruiting here give us the slip at the last moment. 1 With the Restaurant Party, I am sending six of our Peking operatic people: they can act, sing and play musical instruments; and I shall tell you how I want them to be employed in a future letter: they will be under strict control and without your permission will not be at liberty to do anything for anybody.

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[525] FEBRUARY 1884

You remember the brilliant musical/he with which our Vienna appearance ended? Well: I want you to begin our London appearance this year in a somewhat similar manner. Our things will not arrive and our court will not be ready before the first days or middle of June: can you get a place-a large hall or one of the opera houses for a night: between the lOth and 25th, and can you arrange for a mixed performance-music by a crack military band-music by a crack string band-singing by some of the most celebrated singers-a bit of recitation by some celebrated actor-a Chinese piece and some songs and some music by our Chinese band (this to be their first-their very first appearance in public )-etc., etc., etc. I think by giving some suchfete as this we might launch our affair with eclat and help to make the season a brilliant one by setting such an example :-giving invitations to the selectest of the select-Royalty, Politics, Fashion, Literature, Art etc. Think out this idea and talk it . over with Lady Hart: but keep it to yourselves till you decide whether or not to do it and what to do, and, after that take good care to keep the management and arrangement and invitations in your own hands, and not allow any outsider-like Calice and the Austrian F.0.-to step in and "run" you. I think for a thousand pounds such a fete might be turned out well: and instead of ending, open with it and take front rank at once. Our exhibit will really interest the Londoners and all sight-seers, but its connection with Hygiene will mainly be the amount of pleasure it gives visitors and the extent to which that pleasure benefits their health and sweetens their tempers and makes life happier. Maurice Jametel-formerly in the French Legation here and Japan and now on the staff of the Economiste Francais, is about to produce a book which is to deal with this part of the world. He has written to me for some information-which I am sending him, and also asks leave to put my portrait in as frontispiece-to which I agree, thanking him for the compliment; he will be very appreciative and perhaps laudatory concerning Customs' work, etc., in China. I am writing to him to apply to you for any information he wants: assist him discreetly please. His card is thuswise: Maurice Jametel Redacteur a l'Economiste Frans:ais Maitre de la Societe d'Economie Politique de Paris 16, rue de Vaugirard His last letter to me was dated Sceaux, Seine, le 29 Oct. 83 I enclose this last letter: as it will show you what "spirit"he is in. Return it to me, please. Write him a note, please, and say that by my wish you send him a copy of the report I wrote for Sir. F. Bruce on the working of the Customs (Vide Blue Book: China No. 1 of 1865). He used to be a very nice fellow. Yours truly, Robert Hart P.S. I have not accepted an invitation for a month, and have declined all for a fortnight to come: seedy-headaches, lumbago, cough, etc., etc., etc. I hope I'll not break down: if I do,

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[526) THE I. G. IN PEKING

I fear the "bundle of sticks" will fall to pieces in the scramble, for who is to be the "strap" that's to tie them together. R.H.

If you think you can arrange this fete: telegraph "can arrange fete". lady Hart 1. F. Kleinwiichter, commissioner at Ningpo, was in charge of the grain exhibit, among other things. He was on leave in Europe later in this year, but

was not officially connected with the Customs commission setting up the exhibit in London. See letters 470 and 476n5.

465 Z/163

19 February 1884 [Red. April 22, 1884]

Dear Campbell, With this I send 2 covers, to be sent on to Jametel, also a cover for the O.B.C. enclosing a cheque. Will you kindly see what balance there is at my a/c Z at the O.B.C., and, allowing the hundreds to remain there, get the thousands (if any) well invested. Yours truly, Robert Hart P.S. I am very seedy to-day: frightful headache-distressing cough- and racking lumbago. I shall be 49 tomorrow. · R.H. P.P.S. Did you keep any of the 1878 Adele photos Oarge size) in London? If you did, please send one of them to Jametel. I wish I had the large-sized one Mayall took in 1865: that would do better for a frontispiece, than any since taken. 1 I had spare ones, but they have disappeared. R.H. Jametel 2 O.B.C. 1 1. Mayall, a well-known London photographer, did "photographic portraits" -of Queen Victoria, among others. Hart's picture was taken in 1866

(not 1865), when he was on home leave and was married (see letter 484).

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[527] FEBRUARY 1884

466 Z/164

25 February 1884 [Red. April 14, 1884]

Dear Campbell, I have received your A/307 and Z/289 and 290.

Chance Bros:-Thanks,-but we cannot examine when the things arrive at H'kong or S'hai; we have to send them out in their original packages,-presumably able to carry them further, -to the Islands they are to be put on. For myself, I of course allow that on the whole there is a fair amount of good package, but I am equally certain there is some that is carelessly done, and, just as one weak link in a chain spoils an otherwise excellent cable, wrecks a ship, and drowns a crew, so, too, one careless bit of packing spoils the plant it affects, gives us much trouble here (so far away from Europe first of all, and on an Island so far away from workshops secondly), and is exasperating (as Brown puts it). Dodd Island Light: 1 -When a man, e.g. Henderson, says he hasn't got things, we must supply them. Memo. for F 0 .:- I fear this will be too late. If it is to be like the "False Manifest Memo." 2 it will be a curious monument of research, etc., but, practically, of relatively little value. Medical: - ! am glad the preface will acknowledge Jamieson's work and that of the contributors.Manson is a rarely-met-with Medico, 3 and Jamieson has put much labour and time into his editorial duties and his own S'hai contributions. Naval: - I have just heard that Li advises Govt. to carry out my plans, but to entrust the doing of it to another: (I suppose he has either Detring or Clayson in his eye); fortunately I am not a "dog in the manger" and my desire always is to get work done no matter by whom and no matter where the kudos goes to , but what vexes me is, that not to do it through me means that English influence wanes and some other country's waxes- the result, to a great extent of the differences the Chinese feel in the way English officials and other countries' officials treat their countrymen in the Chinese Customs, respectively. Tonquin:-China will not give in, and France must either fight China or back out. Fisheries:- Glad the Marquis liked our appearance. Health:- The curio man has just been in and says he hears from a high official in the Sheng chi Ying4 (the Emperor's Father's pet establishment) that they are ordered to be ready to go anywhere at a minute's notice,- that war with France is certain, and that he consequently feels no longer inclined to contribute a curio shop to the Health Exhibition. I fear we shall not get any of the shopkeepers to go, and that we shall only send various things to make a display in the Fisheries' court. If we do appear at all, I hope Dr. Gordon and Dr. Macrae will help us by giving a lecture on medical matters, so that China may give three lectures-Medical, Educational, and Musical.

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

(528] THE I. G. IN PEKING

Self·-l am still very seedy: I go to the Yamen this afternoon and it would not surprise me a bit were one of my ffrst duties when I come back be to write a circular to say that I had resigned. The French difficulty of course makes it disagreeable for me to think of going now -it would look so like "ratting": but I begin to doubt whether I possess all the power of "stay" I prided myself on. Long before this letter reaches you, you will know by telegram whether what I have just written is worth writing or not.-Did I tell you Li hinted to Hobson that if there's war with France the Customs will probably collapse? Lang:-He is working hard and doing good work. I am glad the Japs have given that order to A. & Co.: when Li hears of it-for of course, it will leak out from England in due timehe'll be somewhat astonished. He himself-Li-is tiring of naval responsibilities and sees that an Admiralty must be established: the new man-Chang Pei Lun- is of the same idea. Strange to say, before he came to the Yamen, Chang was one of the three men I had put down to fill the post of Naval Lords. Chang told me, face to face, that my plan is good, but that they'll not make me "Naval Inspector General" (part of my plan). 5

The Egyptian news, 6 showing what numbers plus determination can do against armies of inferior numbers plus discipline, arms and European leaders,- encourages China to go ahead: we shall probably see stirring times soon! Yours truly, Robert Hart P.S. Can you manage the fete, do you think? R.H. Lady Hart 1. Dodd is a small island near the coast about twenty-five miles northeast of Amoy; it has a dangerous outlying reef known as Dodd Ledge.

unit (ying means "battalion") generally called by foreigners the "Peking Field Force." 5. On Hart's naval plan, see letter 422.

2. Hart refers here to the case of the ship Taiwan, which in 1878 had submitted a false manifest (see letter 208nl). 3. Sir Patrick Manson. Hart is speaking of the Reports of the Medical Officers to the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, a volume shortly to be published in London (see letter 418n2).

6. The forces of the Mahdi Mohammed Ahmed, rebelling against Egyptian rule of the Sudan, won victories over Egyptian forces until, in January 1884, the Egyptian government decided to abandon the Sudan. On January 18 General Charles George Gordon had been sent out to effect the evacuation of Egyptian garrisons in the Sudan. He had reached Khartoum on February 18.

4. The Shen-chi-ying was a modern-armed military

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[529] MARCH 1884

467 Z/165

8 March 1884 [Red. April 20, 1884]

Dear Campbell, I have received your A/308 and Z/291 and 292.

Fisheries:-! am glad to find that some part of the £4600 was for salaries; as it is the expense of setting up, etc., has been enormous. Medical Reports:-It was Jamieson (Dr.) who originally suggested to me to call for such things and indeed drafted most of the Circular (No. 19 of 1870), and therefore Dr. Gordon should give him and not me, the kudos. Health Exhibition:- If we do manage to send medicines, they can hardly arrive before September. Logan: - Was a useful, well-balanced man for ten years, and there were various extenuating circumstances connected with his doings that unhappy morning; in my opinion, the punishment-according to our English ideas of punishment-was, if anything, too heavy. 1 I am sorry the F.O. hints at consulting the lawyers: I hope it is only to be able to say authoritatively "nothing more can be done"-otherwise, with such a precedent, the F.O. will be eternally requested to reconsider all its (or its agents') decisions. Legations:-Outwardly they look as if they were working together for they hold meetings and consult about all sorts of things; but, in point of fact, every one plays his own game. I don't think our Plenipo' is quite at home here yet : he never had dealings with such Chinese officials before and he has lots to learn; but he is pleasant and well-disposed. He met big men, it is true, at Canton: but, then, there he was master and had an army at his back. Here he meets bigger men-very proud, very self-satisfied, with their own views to guide them and their own ends to aim at, and free to speak and act as they please-and, further, encouraged, too, to "cheek" him by some of his colleagues who like to point out that he "barks" and "cannot bite", and add that both barking and biting are bad form. When Seward came to Peking as Minister, people, judging by his S'hai actions and his S'hai criticisms of Peking doings, expected great things ofhim; 2 I said to him on arrival,-"You come here looking at work through S'hai glasses; I wonder what their colour will be when you are leaving Peking?" In fact, he did nothing; and, unless there's war bounce and big talk will not "set the Peiho on fire". Everyone who lives here recommences or extends his education and knowledge; and our Plenipo' is approaching the "Isosceles triangle" :3 I hope he'll not come to grief before passing it, for once he passes it he'll do well enough. Tonquin:-No news yet : but next week we ought to have the result of the operations at Bac-ninh. I shall not be surprised if the French do not find a single Chinese soldier there! My health is very so-so; I am rid of the lumbago, but rheumatic pains dart about,-my cold, now eight weeks old, has not left me,-and my headaches are more frequent than I like. Work is very heavy, and the number of things I have to keep my eye on and attend to personally is increasing and not diminishing.

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[530) THE I. G. IN PEKING

I have not yet decided who is to come vice McKean:-with war ahead , I do not like to bring families here , so I am waiting till the end of the month before deciding. Detring goes to Canton for three months, vice Woodruff, who , being out of sorts, is going away for a short run. _ I am sending Schoenicke to Kiungchow, so that the French , if they go there, will have a German Commissioner to oust. 4 You will be amused to see from a later circular that the Yamen capsized the new Drawback plan. 5 Will you give that fete in June? Don't attempt it unless sure to make it a success. Of course I shall have to "Fork out" the thousand pounds spent on it, and, therefore unless it is worth doing, and can be done well, I had better save my money . But these Exhibitions will dip into my purse so heavily that I am this year reckless:-1 suppose it means an additional year in China for me, and may be Providence's way of keeping me longer in harness- although I still hold to the "no necessary man" diet. By the way I made the mistake of showing your family photo-the photo of "a necessary man" to a childless couple one evening : I think they "made faces" at each other over it! Yours truly, Robert Hart

Presto, from me, means you can read this to P.,6 but best not to leave any copy. R.H. 9 March '84 P.S. Your Z/293 and 294 came in yesterday. A/c Z. Thanks for investing etc. I sent you 500 in Z/152 : so will be square again . I wish you'd send me my a/c quarterly or half-yearly at latest-so that I may not keep you out of money . Nothing new. On reconsideration, I cancel the presto's in this letter : such sayings would do no good at F.O. and the echo might hit me (as I have before now experienced more than once); so keep my screed to yourself. R.H. Lady Hart Jem Mrs. Hancock Miss Bredon A/56 1. Logan, a member of the Customs' outdoor staff, had been found guilty of manslaughter after shooting three people, one of whom died, in Canton on August 12, 1883 (see letter 433). His sentence

was seven years' penal servitude, the heaviest penalty imposable for his crime under British law. 2. Seward, who was American minister from 1876

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[531] MARCH 1884

to 1880, had earlier been the American consul general at Shanghai. 3. In an isosceles triangle, two sides are equal, but Hart's exact meaning is not clear. 4. Kiungchow (Ch'iung-chou), a port on Hainan, had been a Customs post since 1876. J.F. Schoenicke, a German who had been in the Service since November 1869, went there in April 1884 as lst assistant B (assistant-in-charge) and remained there until June 1, 1885. 5. When foreign goods, on which full import duty had been paid, proved unsalable and were being either re-exported to a foreign country or carried coastwise to another port, the Customs issued a drawback certificate for the amount of duty originally paid. The same was true of duty-paid native goods carried coastwise by foreign traders from one

treaty port to another. Originally such a drawback certificate could not be redeemed for cash; it could only be used to offset future duty payments. After 1877, however, drawback certificates for duty-paid imports re-exported to a foreign country could be cashed. Later still, in 1883, the American minister requested that all drawbacks be cashable at the holder's option, and Hart's circular no. 231 ins.tructed that from January 1884 drawbacks might be used for the payment of all kinds of dues and duties, or be cashed. This plan "capsized" because the Chinese authorities objected to its extension to native produce at the Yangtze ports. In February 1884 (circular no. 270) Hart ordered a reversion to the old system (only drawbacks on foreign goods to be cashed). 6. P. is Sir Julian Pauncefote, Britain's permanent undersecretary of state for foreign affairs.

468 A/56

8March1884 [Red. April 28, 1884]

Dear Campbell, I enclose a copy of the last letter to K.leinwachter from which you will see where we are in re Health Exhibition. All that I proposed to send from Peking will go. The Hankow Tobacco-shop, etc., is uncertain. The K'kiang Chinaware-shop is arranged for. Woodruff has the C'ton miscellaneous goods shop in hand, and K.leinwachter and Hobson are attending respectively to the furniture and grain exhibits to go from N'po arid T'tsin. So far as I to-day can see, everything will go forward by the P. & 0. steamer leaving S'hai on lOth April to be in London by the 4th June. We could not possibly manage it a day earlier. As regards the number of Chinese who will go, it will be about as follows:6 Cooks etc. From Peking6 Musicians 2 Shopmen Painter Mason Carpenter 17

From K'kiang-Shopmen 2 or 4 & ,, C'ton

4 2

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[532) THE I. G. IN PEKING

Cooks, etc. Baker Writer

4

12 In all say 30 You will have to get a place for them to live in the neighbourhood of the Exhibition: you know Chinamen can be packed close and that they will not require palatial apartments. They ought all to be together or near each other, and the roughest kind of lodging will be better than their houses in China. We have to lodge and feed them: rice, vegetables and salt fish and pork will be enough:-they are all more or less coolies so to speak. Their passages to and fro' will cost a heap of money, but I hope the good reports they'll bring back, and the accounts they'll be giving of foreign lands and England in particular to their friends and acquaintances in China will be a useful leaven for the future days. I shall, of course, write about this officially, but the despatch will only reach you when the Chinese themselves are arriving, and I therefore acquaint you with so much in advance. I ought to add that the Chinese from Peking will all have to return by the first mail in October-to save the river; the others can stay, if wanted, till the end of October. The mason, Carpenter and Painter may be sent back as soon as you find you no longer require their services, but you had better retain them till the end of July. In addition to lectures on Music, Medicine and Education, you may perhaps have a fourth : Dudgeon is going home on leave and is anxious to be heard on such an occasion. 1 Yours truly, Robert Hart 1. Dr. John Dudgeon (see letter 26n10) was deeply involved in anti-opium activities. He treated addicts at his hospital in Peking, where he had established an opium refuge, seeking always for a cure. He wrote on the evils of opium for the anti-opium

society in England (see letter l 49n 1) and while home on leave in 1876 had lectured widely under its auspices. In the Health exhibition, however, he proposed to lecture, not on opium but on China's food and dress (see letter 493).

469 Z/166

16 March 1884 [Red. May 12, 1884)

Dear Campbell, Your Z/295 arrived on the 14th.

Tonquin:-News of the fall of Bac-ninh arrived also on the 14th. 1 We shall now soon know whether we are to have war or not. The particulars of the Bac-ninh affair are not yet known: there was possibly no fighting at all- probably hard fighting-and it is also said that the Chinese troops were not in it, having been withdrawn when it was seen the French really meant "fight": but all this is conjecture though not unlikely, for with these people you never know whether it is "brag" they are playing or not till they "cave" in. ,

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[533]

MARCH 1884

Tseng's letter to Fleischer:-Parkes told me the Yamen had asserted no such letter was ever written-when, yesterday, in came the papers with "the Secretary's" reply to Ferry!! Health: - We are doing a great deal for Health- but it is not scientific work: our exhibit will probably be the centre of attraction, and will amuse and interest. The Northern Instalment will all leave this day week, and everything will go forward via Bombay-men and goods by the P. & 0. steamer, of the IOth April, to arrive 4th June: I doubt if the Chinese court will be ready before the lst July. Despatch will go to you in re next week. N.B. All the cases for the Exhibition will be marked I.H.E./No . with several series of numbers: those from Peking I.G./No . 1 to- from S'hai S./No. 1 to-, from Ningpo N./ No. 1 to-. The explanation will show where the contents of each case are to go.

Further:- There are some other cases going forward, marked Campbell, London. R.H./No. 1 toThese are my own private property,-carpets, screens, etc.: godown them, 2 please, and hold them to Lady Hart's order. Bracelets:-for the Parkes girls arrived all right and have been presented and proved acceptable. Miss Mabel is to be married to Lieut. Levett on the 18th, and Miss Parkes to Keswick in Autumn. 3 Work here very heavy: I have too much to do-and too many things to look after. Yours truly, Robert Hart Lady Hart Mrs. Osborne Maze " Price Jem Hart 1. Bacninh, which was the strongest post on the Red River delta, fell to the French on March 12.

2. A godown is a warehouse. 3. See letter 450nl.

470 Z/167

23 March 1884 [Red. May 12, 1884]

Dear Campbell, I have nothing from you to acknowledge yet, but, probably, before this goes the mail of (the *mail of) the lst Feb. (which we know left H'kong on the 11 th March) ought to be in. *N.B. See how old age shows itself: I not only repeat the same word too often in the

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[534] THE I. G. IN PEKING

course of a letter, but here I give you twice the same words in the course of the sentence itself! I have been pretty busy this last week on Exhibition work, and on the 2~st I must have written some twenty lengthy despatches in re, -of which two or three to your address will reatre and the Nanking viceroy Tseng Kuo-ch'iian. Presumably

Hart had been trying for almost a month in Shanghai to pave the way for these negotiations.

490 Z/185

26 August 1884 Peking [Red. October 21, 1884]

Dear Campbell, I got back from Shanghai, unsuccessful, on the 22nd, and on the 23rd received your Z/319.

St. O-oi.x: - 1 enclose a note for Mrs.; I cannot interfere unless remittances stop altogether. 1 Healtheries:- Your telegrams led me to expect greater doings than the papers now tell of. O.B.C :-official a/c. Your telegram anent the Chinese Bonds for 125,000 and Watson's advice to deduct this from our official claim, has added another to my many worries. Until I see the bonds and make enquiries with them in my hand, I can't say whether Govt. will pay them or not; but 1°. seeing how I always supported the Bank, it is not nice to single me out for an attack of this kind, and 2°. the Bonds having been, so to speak, already cancelled by Hu's other failure and debt to Govt., 2 I don't think the liquidation ought to allow them to interfere with my claims-although official.

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[560] THE I. G. IN PEKING

Private a/c:-l have not yet been able to attend to the Powers of Attorney required by the Bank of England. I fear I have mislaid the "general authority". Can you send me another? I propose to put your name in it. Van Aalst:-1 am sorry his impetuosity got him into such difficulty. He has temper written on his face, but he is clever and has a good heart. I shall wire decision in September. Photos:- These are Mayall's work, and are the photos they took of me in 1866. If Jametel decides to put a portrait of myself in his book, ask him to use the photo I return enclosed. Also get Mayall's people to print well and put on neat cardboard five dozen of this special photo; send me out four dozen, and keep the other dozen in London for me. France:-Foochow fighting came off on Saturday the 23rd: result not yet known here. 3 China will fight-perhaps till the death, but at all events till either Powers or Funk intervene. Yours truly, Robert Hart Lady Hart Sutherland Mrs. Ch. Ste. Croix Bank of England 1. See letter 408n4 . 2. Hu Kuang-yung's chain of banks had failed in December 1883; his corner on the silk market had collapsed in May 1884. See letter 455nl. 3. France and China still could reach no agreement on the indemnity. France had reduced its demands to 80,000,000 francs; China had countered with an offer amounting to only around 3,300,000 francs. On August 4 Admiral Lespes called on the forts at Keelung on Taiwan to surrender, and when he received no reply he opened fire and ruined them. He then attempted to enter the town but was re-

pulsed. On August 19 came another French ultimatum, demanding payment of the 80,000,000-franc indemnity. The Chinese refused, and the French charge left Peking. On August 23 France's latest ultimatum expired, and Courbet's fleet, which had been sheltered at Pagoda Anchorage off the new Foochow dockyard on the Min River since midJuly, opened fire on completely unequal Chinese naval forces there. In less than one hour every Chinese ship in the anchorage had been sunk or set afire and the dock had been blown up. China on August 27 declared war on France.

491 Z/186

31 August 1884 (Red. October 23, 1884]

Dear Campbell, Before this can reach you, all the details of the F'chow affair will have met your eyes in the 'papers: so I need merely say that during the last week, arsenal, Fleet and Forts have all been destroyed by Courbet: French loss 6 killed,-Chinese, 3000! What the French will do next remains to be seen:-you will .also know what they will have decided to do and done before this arrives. Today here, we know the fleet has left the Min and is anchored at Matsou -near the White Dogs, and we suppose that it will proceed to seize Makung in the Pescadores as a base for future operations, or seize Amoy, or go on with the reduction of Formosa,

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[561] AUGUST1884

or come north, and have a slap at either Nankin or Port Arthur. If the last place is tried, the fleet will receive some hard knocks, but Parkes says he backs the fleet to win. 1 All this is of course merely clipping the fringe of China's garment, and, now that the Chinese blood is up, will not bring China to terms. If other Powers would allow them to go on thus for years, the absence of "fringe" would assume the shape of internal pressure, and China might have to give way: but will the Powers allow such a buccaneering raid to go on, or will France herself be calm enough or determined enough to play out the game thus? I think neither; and, so, either France will have to "climb down" or send out a big expedition to Pekingfrom 30,000 to 50,000 men : but here again "climbing down" will not be easy, for China will want more than her "pound of flesh" - she'll want an indemnity and Saigon, and as for a big expedition, will either the Cholera or the temper of the French people, or the state of Europe admit of it? If China will only have "the stay" and "the pluck" to hold out-and today it really looks as if she will have both- China may win in the end: but when the end? I am now quite satisfied that my mission to S'hai was a hopeless one, and that it is best for me to have failed; for, from the Yamen's last despatches to the Powers, it is evident that the drawing up of a detailed treaty on the basis of the Tientsin Convention would have led to war: the Chinese maintain that the words of the convention on which France relies for having changed Cochin China from being China's to being France's tributary, are in point of fact a recognition of China's ancient, present and continued suzerainty! With such a difficulty before them, how could people negotiate a detailed treaty? This reading of the text makes it a happy thing for me to have failed to wipe out the Leang Shan episode:2 for had I succeeded, my responsibilities in connection with the Tientsin Convention would then have begun in earnest-as it is, I am out of it altogether. The Chinese determination not to pay any indemnity, and the French want of patience and resort to menace and then guns, made my attempt at an arrangement hopeless from the first and a failure in the end. As for the French doings at Kelung and Foochow, I cannot call them anything else than a series of wilful, unnecessary because unfair, and wicked murders, and I'm quite sure Heaven will pay them out for them yet! As regards those Chinese Bonds with which the 0.B.C. liquidator threatens to pay off my cash claims, I do not agree with the liquidator's action at all. Has he (a British court) the right to impound Chinese funds in my keeping- funds, some to be paid to and some already earned by other individuals- to pay off the O.B.C.'s claim on the Chinese Govt . (or rather on the individual who cashed or pledged the Bonds), or is it fair that the Chinese Govt.'s supposed indebtedness to another party should be handed to me as a set-off fo r the O.B.C.'s unquestionable cash debt to myself? I hope this attempt "to do me" will not succeed! When I receive copies of the Bonds (perhaps they have not been drawn(!)) , I shall wire the particulars Hutchins asks for. When the safe was unpacked it was found that its integral parts were rolling about quite loose and without stays of any kind: the result is that my books have suffered considerably . I was seedy when I left S'hai, but I am now better. Today I took a Phosph. Pill after breakfast, and I feel as if I had smelt hell! Hope you and yours are all well. Do you ever see Rendel? I have not heard of him for an age. Yours truly , Robert Hart

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[562] THE I. G. IN PEKING

Lady Hart de Noidans 1. Foochow is some thirty miles from the mouth of the Min River; Matsu is an island off the coast of Fukien; the White Dogs is an island group off the mouth of the Min on whose outermost island , Middle Dog, the Customs had built a light in 1871. The fleet referred to in connection with Port

Arthur was Li Hung-chang's Peiyang (Northern) fleet, which Li had managed to keep in the north, declaring that it was needed there in case of trouble with the Japanese over Korea (see letter 508). 2. Leang Shan (Liang-shan) is Langson.

492 3 September 1884 [Red . October 23, 1884]

Z/187

Dear Campbell, I enclose a letter for the Bank of England in which I send three "powers of attorney" and the authority to the Madras Railway Co. to pay interest etc. on my investments to Bank of England. One of the Powers refers to the Victorian Govt. Inscribed Stock: I don't know whether the O.B.C. completed the purchase or not, but I send on the Power to be used if wanted. Kindly forward.

Yours truly, Robert Hart P.S. There may possibly be from six to seven Thousand Pounds at my private a/c, B. of E.; if so, can you arrange with Cashier to invest Four Thousand in some safe Four-per-cent-payi,,ng stock. R.H. Bank of England

493 7 September 1884 [Red. November 4, 1884]

Z/188

Dear Campbell, I have received your Z/320, and also your telegram 253.

Health :-! am glad to see from the N'Papers that the public think well of the Chinese court. Two queries occur to me :1°. Why did the Customs detain the Tobacco for analysis , and had they your permission?

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[563) SEPTEMBER 1884

2°. Why are the clothed figures put in glass cases? They would have looked far better in the open arranged in groups and in various attitudes. Whenever Teh-Ah-Keu does see China again, he will not be forgotten. 1 Who is "Franklyn, the Manager"? Used he to be at the Yacht Club? I think in '66 the head waiter bore that name. The news of the fete has as yet only arrived by telegram. You have a curious team-have you not? Kleinwachter junior with his embryonic madness -van Aalst with his tender heart and bad temper- and now Neumann with his loss of head and over-excitement!

Cartwright:- His Parisian trip was made at Detring's request and not mine. 2 D. instead of calling in C ought to have worked through you, but I suppose he likes his own plans best, and assuredly he always makes friends of any one who has left me. Did you see "Figaro" of the 7th July? I don't think D. is disloyal or that he aims at either ousting or succeeding me, but I know he would not serve under another and that he aims at creating a new position for himself-to which I neither object nor offer opposition, for I can't do everything (even if the Chinese asked me to) and the field is wide enough for a dozen leaders. France:- Your telegram 252 was communicated tci the Yamen by me a few days ago. I ought to have written 25!, I see: 252 arrived 36 hours ahead and 252-there it is again!-251 was almost four days en route! The Yamen has not yet opened its mouth on the subject, and I do not think it will either act on the hint or talk to me. 3 The fact is my august chiefs are savage with themselves for not acting on my advice before I went to S'hai-savage with me for not making peace at S'hai-and savage with the fates that have placed such disagreeable affairs in their hands: and, for the moment, they are not inclined to talk about a modus operandi with anyone if such talk can be avoided; they must see the Legation folk, but me, their subordinate, they need not see and I must take my cue from them and not broach subjects likely to elicit anything like a snub: so I am now going to confine myself to Customs. The Court has set its teeth firmly and will fight it out, and any attempt to show that France is willing to treat is now regarded as simply so much to show France is weak and therefore makes China all the more determined to go on with the war. M. Ferry made a mistake when he thought an angry face would bring China to her knees, and I was right when I told Bouree I thought it probable China would stand at bay. The French Govt. has acted very stupidly and the French Navy has acted just as cruelly: at Foochow, France scores what may be called a victory, but really the glory of the day rests with the poor fellows who were beaten, and who, without strategy to meet the well concerted attack of the assailants, stood to their guns to the last and went down in their burning, shot-riddled ships! A telegram just received from Canton of yesterday's date says the French ships were being looked for, one of the entrances closed, and the other ready to be closed. The act of the Viceroy in expelling the French Consul, and the existence of placards offering money rewards for French heads, have probably aroused Courbet's ire, and he's now going to retaliate. 4 If his ships get in, they'll probably shell the city itself. We may have a long continuance of this state of war, and the longer it lasts the less likely is China to give in and the more likely the occurrence of something to help her-trouble in Europe, foreign anti-French intervention, or arrival of foreigners, Germans and Americans, to fight on the Chinese side. An Edict in one of the last Gazettes orders that any one who talks about paying indemnity shall be handed over to the Hsing Pu for severe punishment, 5 and the same Edict ejects from the Yamen six of the Ministers: two of whom had been in it fifteen or sixteen years

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

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THE I. G. IN PEKING

as clerks, Secretaries and Ministers (Chow chia mei and Wu Ting Fen); and now we are left with eight chiefs who have no knowledge of the contents of the Yamen's archives and who have only had three months' experience of foreign affairs. 6 To some extent the stand China is making is in accord with advice of mine: I said "If you could be relied on not to get frightened at two or three beatings, and if you could all determine to hold out and fight I should advise you to fight for the right is all on your side and France, so far away, must tire of it; but as you are likely to be frightened and are not likely to be unanimously determined to fight it out, I do advise you to give in and accept comparatively easy terms now instead of extremely difficult ones by and by". My mistake was that I misjudged China's powers of stay. I assure you there is not the slightest show of funk or wavering yet: on the contrary, the determination to fight it out is hardening daily . 0.B. C Bonds:-I expect copies of the Bonds from S'hai in a couple of days more . Until I see them and make some inquiry as to the way they were lodged with the O.B.C., I can give no additional information. If Govt. has refused to pay them I don't want them to be paid to me: I should be suspected of all sorts of things if I presented them for payment! I am glad the Liquidator according to your telegram just received (253) is instructing S'hai 0.B.C. to have them presented through the Legation. That is the right course-but by Jove! that has another side, for the Yamen may turn round and say "We have no funds to pay with just now, but as the 0.B.C. has the Customs' balances, the amount can be deducted from them". The Yamen is quite capable of doing this, and though this will free me from so much to be accounted for, I as LG. will thereafter be minus so much for Customs' purposes (Retiring allowances, etc.). This will be "out of the saucepan into the fire!" However: can't be helpedthe sun will shine to-morrow! In Z/187 I sent cover for Bank of England, containing Powers of Attorney etc. In Z/183 cheque for £3,300 and in Z/185 draft for £3,000. It might be well to invest £4,000 in some 4-per-cent paying stock. Hippisley's Lecture on Education, goes by this mail. It is good. I hope van Aalst will lecture on Music. Dudgeon would also like to lecture on food and dress. You could introduce him as a Customs' Doctor and get him a chance of being heard: he will appreciate it immensely- as to how he will be appreciated, that's another matter? Yours truly, Robert Hart Sanderson lady Hart Alma ck Batchelor 1. Jury awards in connection with the Chinese exhibits were" ... and, to the Chinese carpenter, Teh-ah-kew, for drawing, carving, and painting in the Chinese Court: one Silver Medal and one Diploma of Honour." 2. Cartwright, who had had long experience in the Customs prior to his resignation in 1882, and who

was to rejoin three years hence and serve as Chinese Secretary for many years, had not at this moment any official connection with China. Campbell's son reports in his Memoir that his father's papers included a bundle of letters written to him by Cartwright from Paris between July and September 1884. Young Campbell concluded that Cartwright had been sent to Paris by his father,

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[565] SEPTEMBER 1884

to report to him on the French scene and temper; but Hart states on several occasions that it was Detring who had sent him.

5. The Hsing-pu was the Board of Punishments, one of the six boards, or ministries, of the central government.

3. In one of his last letters to Campbell from Paris, Cartwright had reported the French as more amenable to the idea of mediation, and he suggested that Britain and Germany be persuaded to propose mediation by the United States. It seems likely that Campbell's telegram had hinted at such a possibility. (China had earlier sought American mediation, but France had rejected it [letter 436] .)

6. Chou Chia-mei and Wu T'ing-fen were two more of the eight Yamen secretaries who rose to ministerial rank (see letter 4 76nl). Chou had become a minister in the Yamen on December 19, 1881, Wu on February 23, 1883. Wu was later to serve twice again as Yamen minister, 1895-1897 and 1899-1900. The other four dismissed ministers were: Ch'en Lan-pin (see letter 65n8), Chang Yin-huan (see letter 484nl), Chou Te-jun, and K'un-kang. Ch'en had been in the Yamen since April 19, 1882, but the other three, like the eight still remaining, had come to the Yamen only in recent months, subsequent to the Empress Dowager's dismissal of the entire Grand Council on April 8 (see letter 474nl).

4. The Canton viceroy was Chang Chih-tung. In proclaiming war he had offered such rewards for valor as 10,000 to 100 taels for heads of Frenchmen killed in action; 100,000 to 20,000 taels for the capture of warships, and half the amount for their destruction; and 8000 taels for taking a heavy gun.

494 14 September 1884 [Red. November 8, 1884]

Z/189

Dear Campbell, I have your Z/321.

O.B.C:- 1 hope your news that creditors will receive 20/- in the Pound is not too good to be true! Vis vis the Yamen I should cut a "poor figure" at the end of my career, were I to have to tell the new Ministers that the Bank had failed and that the balances in hand when they joined the Yamen had been lost-and such a report would have looked to them all the more strange in the face of the fact that a new O.B. has arisen. Of course, the shareholders are to be pitied, but I hope they escape without a "call". As regards Hutchins- my objection was a very natural one; it would never have done for me (vis vis the Yamen) to have employed him, had he at the same time been employed by the Bank itself to query claims and fight creditors. This mail carries you copies of all we have as yet learnt from S'hai about those Bonds.

a

a

Healtheries: - I can quite understand how busy you are kept. I am sure I wish myself to never hear about Exhibitions again! As it is, we are now preparing an Exhibit for New Orleans (Dec. 84 to May 85), and have received invitations to appear next summer at Antwerp and at Nuremburg! I don't agree with you in getting those musicians to play English airs: I fear they'll only get laughed at! Their own music they can play properly for Chinese ears, and, although English folk may find nothing in it, still it is that nothing we want them to exhibit. France:-Of course France "has acted the part of a bully"- and a very stupid bully too!

If mediation is not arranged for and accepted it will be a "Kilkenny cat fight" over again: you know those demons fought till all that was left was the tail of each! I am curious to know what action will follow my telegram of the lOth asking Rendel to move the F.O. to

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

(566] THE I. G. IN PEKING

do something:-England naturally is pleased at France being too busy here to touch Egypt, and Germany wants France to get into as many muddles as possible-so it is possible those two Powers may "not see why they should interfere etc."! I have just had a telegram from Detring, now at S'hai, to say he has received advices from Paris to the effect that mediation is accepted: I don't know whether this is his doing or not: I do not suppose it is minefor R. can hardly have had time to do anything yet; in any case, if true it is good news, and yet I fear China will go asleep again, and the next time a trouble crops up will be as unprepared as ever! Please the pigs! 1 I'll be gone before that day. I believe the new party in China would like me to hold on, but I-am "tired of it", and want to shake off business and with it worry, work and the anxieties of personal services and national responsibilities. Gordon's epitome has arrived. The outside looks well, but I don't like the way in which the contents of the first and last numbers of the Med. reports are brought forth in the Appendix, or the shortcomings the Preface calls attention to. I hope Jamieson and colleagues will like it, but as both Myers and Jamieson had proposed to prepare epitomes before Gordon came on the field and were told to wait, I dare say they will find things to object to. 2 The volume will however remain as a handsome monument of some of the doings of the Customs' Service. Japan does not intend to side with France against China, or take advantage of China's difficulties to attempt the settlement of the Loo choo aff~ir; but Russia is on the look-out and we may hear of some movements on the frontier if the French sore remains much longer open. Wasn't it curious of the Admiralty to send Lang's Commission through us? and was not that Commission a singularly poor-looking document for a Post Captain-a wrong signature on the letter and no grand official envelope? Lang is now on half-pay, and if the French affair is not ended will leave China in November. Shufeldt is on his way I hear and will probably yet secure the billet and "run the Chinese Navy", 3 and I must say China will be right to employ men who will fight as well as teach. If the F.O. were to "wink" at Lang's fighting or a non-commissioned Britisher doing so, a Consul would seize and deport him! It is hopeless this trying to keep England to the front here; there is no home backing to it! I hope Mrs. Campbell is safely through her "trouble" and that the new baby is welcome. Poor Ryder St. Yours truly, Robert Hart Lady Hart Gordon Dr. 1. A phrase derived originally from Thomas Browne's Letters from the Dead to the Living (1702): "I'll have one of the wigs to carry into the country with me an't please the pigs."

Medicine in China (London, 1884). W.W. Myers and R. Alexander Jamieson were both surgeons in the Customs Service, the former at Ta-kao, the latter at Shanghai.

2. C.A. Gordon, Reports of the Medical Officers to the Chinese Maritime Customs Service from 1871to1882, with Chapters on the History of

3. Commodore Robert W. Shufeldt of the United States Navy. See letters 336 and 341.

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

(567) SEPTEMBER 1884

495 Z/190

21 September 1884 [Red. November 18, 1884)

Dear Campbell, No mail in: so nothing to reply to.Affairs are looking very bad: so one must catch at anything likely to effect a change-or possessing the shadow of the ghost of a chance of provoking a new departure. That's why I wired to you to go to Paris and see Ferry in person: he may damn your-or rather my impudence, but he may also be glad of an opening. I am wondering what you have done, for I sent off a second telegram to say you need not go; but, I have a telegram of the l 9th saying you were off that morning to Paris, and my second telegram would only reach London after your departure. 1 Whether you have acted or not,/ shall be equally satisfied: in the latter case, I trust however you will have got some hint or news of use while personally in Paris. Why did I send the second telegram? you ask. Well, here's why:-After the first had gone a couple of days (via T'tsin), a Chinese friend gave me a hint to this effect, that I had better mind what I am about, for, were F. to consent to let bygones be bygones and to say that the detailed treaty might be proceeded with, the Yamen would probably be ordered by the Ch 'i Ye to spin out the negotiations indefinitely, and in the end refuse to give Tanking to France! "In fact," said he, "the Govt. by its late Edicts has nailed its colours to the mast: it can't surrender, and will not surrender, Tonking: and the only ending possible now is that either France or China should cease to exist, unless indeed Germany and Austria will seize France by the throat and England and America do the same by China, and force them to stop fighting and accept a settlement." Of course were China to act thus, I should "catch it" from France!-Now here's another bit:-I saw my friend again yesterday, and told him about my second. His face grew long and he looked scared-before he could command his muscles, and his manner and talk then gave me a dilemma to puzzle out-either he had told the Yamen about my first telegram and was frightened if it should come out it was not acted on and because he had talked, or he was disgusted that France should not have the chance of falling into a trap, or he was patriotically sad that what he knew would be acceptable to China, notwithstanding his big talk, etc., could not come to pass. His long face meant one of these three things:-here nobody will speak out-except the Ch 'i Ye, and, as for him, he has nobody above him and has therefore the right to be an "opportunist" and to eat his words, go back on his promises, and give the lie to his threats, whenever it suits him to do so. You can't imagine how difficult it is to forge ahead! It is groping in the dark-with pitfalls, man-killing springs, feet-sticking spikes, treacherous quicksands, mirages, lying and trickery all round,-and an Empire at stake! One must stagger on however: notwithstanding the temptation to be quiet and let things slide, conscience and humanity require one to act where there's the slightest possibility of success. I don't see how I shall escape "burning my fingers" before all's done:-but Maskee! That confounded Canton Proclamation, offering rewards to dealers who will sell poisoned provisions and poisoned water to the French, is also a horrible production! Unhappily it lets out what the Chinese nature really is-however much we may struggle to keep up appearances, and it will enrage the French and give them the sympathy of the World. If M. Ferry has heard of it before you see him, I don't envy you your interview:-but you have such a good time of it in London, that I really must be excused if your possible sufferings at the hands of Ju-i Fei-li (is not that a good name for him?) 2 incline me more to merriment than tears!

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[568) THE I. G. IN PEKING

We are rather hard up for men just now: Glover is sick-Detring is detached-and poor Stent is just dead: 3 in addition to these three places to fill up, I have to provide for the places of de Bernieres, Novion, Rocher and d'Arnoux, to whom (as Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners) I have just given three months leave to get them out of the way, for neither officials nor people will tolerate Frenchmen in charge of the·Customs at this juncture. Grimani takes charge at Wenchow, Merrill at Takow, Drew (stat. Sec.) at S'hai, Stokes at C'kiang, and Johnston acts for Rocher at H'kow. I was going to give Brazier a chance in charge, but I asked him some treaty questions and found he knew nothing about them: so he is out of the running! 4 I think that's all I need say to-day. Yours truly, Robert Hart P.S. Enclosed cutting from "Express" announces marriage of T. W. Wright Commissioner H. C.M Customs. (There is no such man in the Customs, and there is certainly no such Commissioner!) R.H. Lady Hart 1. In their accounts of the Sino-French negotiations, Morse, Wright, and Campbell's son make no mention of Campbell's going to Paris at this time. All three agree that he went in January 1885.

2. Hart's romanization of "Jules Ferry" uses characters that can be translated to mean "as he pleases; without reason," or the like. For the Chinese characters, see the glossary. 3. G.C. Stent, in the Service since March 1869, had most recently been assistant-in-charge at Ta-kao (see letter 41 On4 ).

4. Henry F. Merrill, American, was one of the four members of Harvard's class of 1874 to join the Customs in the fall of that year (see letter 282n6). His was a long and distinguished Customs career, extending well into the twentieth century. At the time of this letter he was assistant-in-charge at Ta-kao. Russell Stokes, British, had been 4th assistant A at Foochow. James Russell Brazier was at this time 2nd assistant B in the Peking Office, and so was readily subject to Hart's probing questions.

496 Z/191

28 September 1884

Dear Campbell, I received your A/319 and Z/322 and 323 on the 24th. L.O. a/c:-I see no objection to your keeping all your official moneys in one a/c.

O.B.C.:-I have received the "case for counsel", and I trust the only use it will be of will be to show what are China's rights in respect of funds entrusted to me and placed in a foreign Bank. I hear from S'hai that the Taotai has been ordered to pay and will pay those Bonds that Watson holds, and I do not anticipate any further trouble in that connection. You will how-

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[569)

SEPTEMBER 1884

ever be sent full particulars and Wainwright's opinion when I get them. If the Liquidation pays 20/- in the Pound, I shall be very much relieved.

Cartwright: - He was in Paris on Detring's account-not mine, and I suppose D. or Li pays his expenses etc. I doubt if the news he has sent China-wards has been of either use or value. That Ferry has placed France in a position where, to "save face", she must rob China, is a sad triumph for Christianity plus Republicanism to serve in the nineteenth century. I do not for a moment believe that there was a Li-Fournier understanding that the French should attack and take frontier towns; but it is a fact that Millot's precipitancy upset the T'tsin arrangements 1 -an undertaking to evacuate with the least delay possible; and the proceedings which followed here caused the Govt. to make up its mind to hold out for its own reading of the Chinese text of Fournier's Convention and to decide besides that it will not give up Tonking. (I wonder in your N'paper cuttings, you omitted to send the "Figaro" of the 7th July and following days!) Of course China is now doing all she can to meet France in the field: and she is right to do so; but all this throws her into the arms of America and Germany, and Englishmen and British interests must go to the wall. I don't intend to fight against Chinese proclivities, American flatteries, German seductions or English coldness any longer. I must either go with the current or go under,-perhaps if I strike out strongly I may even get the lead, but I shall never again attempt to lead in the old direction . Kleinwiichter:-What did K. senior do in London and how did you treat him? Did Count Munster take him by the hand at all? 2 - As regards K. junior, I warned you to give him as much leave as you could get him to take; I am sorry for the lad, but not surprised, for I did not expect he would pull through. Healtheries:-1 have had a letter from Cunliffe Owen, and Parkes has had a telegram from the F.O. thanking the "Chinese Govt." for the Health Exhibit and requesting that it may remain another year with such additions illustrating Invention etc., as the Govt. may kindly supply etc., and I have telegraphed to you to ask if the Chinese now in England would willingly stay there another year. (I begin to think we are simply being manipulated cleverly for other peoples' advantage, and that we personally, i.e . you and I, shall not even get thanksmuch less what we might like, and might hope to secure.) I congratulate you on the arrival of another son. What a man you are to be sure! I hope mother and child are as well as well can be.

Yours truly, Robert Hart P.S. Our New Orleans Cotton participation will not be a very grand affair: we only spend Tl s. 10,000. Spinney and Neumann will be the sole Commissioners. I telegraphed to you for Neumann yesterday: to go to New Orleans with Peking Carpenter and Swatow Painter, and to arrive about the middle of November. His instructions are sent there to the care of the Director General of the Exposition, named Burke. We are also invited to exhibit at Antwerp and Nuremburg: but this French affair may make assent impossible. A note just in from Glover to say that he is not strong enough to take charge at S'hai: another fix-who to send? R.H.

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

[570] THE I. G. IN PEKING

Lady Hart Hutchins Mr. Clayton McAuliffe 1. General Millot had commanded the French forces at Bacle.

2. Count Munster was the son of Lord Munster (George Fitzclarence), illegitimate son of William IV of England (formerly the Duke of Clarence).

497 Z/192

10 October 1884 [Red. December 3, 1884]

Dear Campbell, I have only time to say that I have to-day received your 264 telegram via Kiachta: not yet deciphered. I am wondering what all H. can have to say to make so lengthy a message worth sending! I have also received your A/320 and Z/324. Our only colours here to-day are blues that will certainly grow to black, and blacks that result in blues! Yours truly, Robert Hart

P.S. And I am just going to the Yamen to talk Exhibitions! Hulk, Cotton, Inventions, Antwerp and Nuremburg! The idea of having to touch such things at such a time- it's like asking people to give a dance with half a dozen deaths from diphtheria in the house! R.H. Lady Hart Hughes Giquel

498 A/59

11 October 1884

Dear Campbell, Please take note that in Telegrams sent to you by me, or to be sent to me by you, the

Initial letter of the three-letter groups is to be- not as in the code now in your hands, but-in accordance with the table on the other side, on and after the 1st December 1884. Yours truly, Robert Hart

Hart, Robert. The I. G. In Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907, Vol. 1. E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.06891. Accessed 9 Jun 2020. Downloaded on behalf of Stanford University

(571)

Present Code Initial A

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