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deport himself with a nicer sense of military honour, with more gallantry against the resisting, and with more mercy towards the vanquished, with more disinterested neglect of opportunities of personal advantage, or with more entire devotion to the objects and desires of his own Government, than this officer, who, after all his victories, has just laid down his sword. A history of operations among cities of uncouth names, and in provinces the geography of which is unknown except to special students, would be tedious and uninstructive. The result of Colonel Gordon's operations, however, is this: He found the richest and most fertile districts of China in the hands of the most savage brigands. The silk districts were the scenes of their cruelty and riot, and the great historical cities of Hangchow and Soochow were rapidly following the fate of Nanking, and were becoming desolate ruins in their possession. Gordon has cut the Rebellion in half, has recovered the great cities, has isolated and utterly discouraged the fragments of the brigand power, and has left the marauders nothing but a few tracts of devastated country and their stronghold at Nanking. All this he has effected, first by the power of his arms, and afterwards still more rapidly by the terror of his name.'

I have said so much, against Colonel Gordon's own wishes, because so much has been said on the subject and must be repeated here in order to explain the actual course of recent events in China; but when we come to look carefully at the sweeping statement that it was Colonel Gordon who put an end to the Tai-ping Rebellion, truth compels me to pause. Though perhaps Lí, Futai, in the despatch quoted above, takes a good deal too much credit to himself for his share in the operations * Leading article in the 'Times' of 5th August 1864.

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in Kiangsoo, yet there is no doubt that Gordon and his force, unaided, could not have cleared the province. While the brunt of the fighting fell upon him, he required Imperialists to hold the places which he took; and their forces, under General Ching and others, fought along with him so as greatly to contribute to his success. And it must be remembered, which is of far more importance, that it was the Imperialist victories of Tseng Kwo-fan and his generals which drove the Tai-pings into the seaboard districts of Kiangsoo and Chekiang. The Imperialists appear to have calculated upon the Allies preserving for them the cities of Shanghai and Ningpo. Had they not done so, they would probably have adopted a different course. Our countrymen, alarmed at the proximity of the Rebels to their rich trading settlements, seemed to have imagined that this betokened a general triumph of the Tai-ping cause in China, but nothing could have been further from the real state of the case. There is no doubt that, had the Tai-pings been allowed to take Shanghai and Ningpo, and so to obtain Foreign steamers, arms, and recruits to almost an indefinite extent, they would have given an immense deal more trouble than they did to the Chinese Government; but to have allowed them to do so, would have been to ignore our own treaty obligations to that Government. Hence the Imperialists had a twofold reason for making no great efforts to prevent the advance of the Rebels towards these two consular ports. They calculated that both our interests and our duty would lead us to hold these ports against the Tai-pings, and they calculated rightly. What they might have done in other circumstances is a matter of speculation; but it is quite clear, judged both by the situation and by the results, that their allowing the Tai-pings to

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advance as these did was no proof whatever of their inability to deal with the Rebellion effectually in their own slow and systematic way.

Turning to the political aspect of Colonel Gordon's action, the question arises, whether it was not giving the Imperialists aid on too easy terms, and was not calculated to foster some of the vices of their administration? This point is of the more importance, because at the same period a vigorous attempt was being made by Mr H. N. Lay and Captain Osborn to provide the Chinese Government with a European-manned naval force on terms which they thought would work a beneficial revolution in the state of the empire; and it is necessary to refer briefly to that subject, because of an erroneous supposition which has been entertained, that Colonel Gordon's service with the Chinese was a main cause of the failure of that scheme.

The Imperial maritime customs and the Lay-Osborn fleet form a distinct chapter in the recent history of China, but one closely connected with the main subject of this book. Partly from the corrupt tendencies of Mandarins, and partly from the bullying propensities of Foreign merchants, the Chinese Government found great difficulty in levying its maritime customs. To remedy the evils which thus arose, a Foreign Inspectorate was established at Shanghai, about twenty years ago, for the purpose of arresting, as Lord Elgin phrased it, "a system of irregularity and fraud in the collection of duties at that port, which was introducing confusion into all business transactions there, and converting the payment of duties into a gambling speculation, in which the violent and unscrupulous carried off all the prizes." Out of this there arose a customs service, chiefly composed of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Americans, paid by the Chinese

Government, to collect its maritime revenue. The object of such an arrangement was very obvious. Respectable Foreign merchants in China greatly prefer a fixed rate of duty, rigidly enforced by their own countrymen, to sliding duties, the amount of which depends on the weakness and venality of local Mandarins, and the unscrupulousness of competitors in trade.

In 1859 and 1860 the inspectorship of this service was in the hands of Mr Horatio Nelson Lay, a gentleman who had previously been an interpreter in the consular service, having gone out to China at an early age. When Mr Lay returned to England on a visit in 1861, his place of inspector was taken conjointly by Mr Fitzroy and Mr Robert Hart, but practically by the latter gentleman, who had also been in the consular service, and was well acquainted with Chinese. The change thus made was exceedingly acceptable to the Foreign community in China; and at the invitation of Sir Frederick Bruce, Mr Hart was invited up to Peking, where, as Sir Frederick says in an official despatch, "by his tact, good sense, and modesty, he obtained access to the Prince of Kung, and turned to useful account the favourable impression he made upon his Royal Highness and his advisers." One of the results of this visit was, that Mr Hart persuaded the Imperial Government to sanction the purchase on its account in England of some war-vessels, to be used for the protection of its revenue, for the suppression of piracy, or even, if expedient, against the Rebels at Nanking. On a general authorisation to effect this being sent to Mr Lay, that gentleman seems to have conceived a magnificent scheme for regenerating China and exalting himself. It is difficult to understand how any person of ordinary common sense could have supposed that the Imperial Government would agree to the

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project on which Mr Lay entered; but he himself seems to have foreseen no difficulties in the way. Having simply received orders to purchase some steam-vessels for the Chinese Government, and to make the arrangements for the employment in them of a certain number of European officers and men, he, a subordinate official, arranged that Captain Osborn, the commander of the squadron, should receive no orders except directly from the Emperor, that these orders should only be conveyed through Mr Lay, and that Mr Lay should only convey such of them as he thought proper. Thus he would have placed himself in a position not only independent of the Emperor's viceroys, but practically independent of the Emperor himself, and also of the British Government.*

On this singular understanding seven expensive vessels were actually fitted out and despatched to China under the command of the well-known Captain Sherard Osborn, C.B., of the Royal Navy; but, of course, when Mr Lay and the fleet reached Shanghai, the Imperial Government refused to ratify the arrangement. Still entirely misunderstanding his own position, and over-estimating his influence, Mr Lay went up to Peking, demanded a

*The thing is so incredible that it is necessary to quote the precise words of the agreement, as given in the Blue-Book, China, No. 2 (1864), p. 7 :— "Osborn undertakes to act upon all orders of the Emperor which may be conveyed direct to Lay, and Osborn engages not to attend to any orders conveyed through any other channel.

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Lay, upon his part, engages to refuse to be the medium of any orders of the reasonableness of which he is not satisfied.

"In the event of the death of either Lay or Osborn, these conditions, which are entered into with the authority of the Emperor of China, are not, it is understood, in either case to be departed from."

This last stipulation is really comical; for the death of Lay would have left Osborn still bound to receive orders from no one else, and consequently would have obliged him to cast anchor and remain where he happened to be at the time, until he himself or the four years of the engagement expired.