INVESTITURE OF THE KING OF COCHIN-CHINA BY AN ENVOY OF THE EMPEROR OF CHINA IN 1849.
Last year I sent you an account of the funeral of the king Thien Tri. This year I shall give you some details regarding the investiture accorded to the new king Tu Duc by the Emperor of China.
According to a custom or law prevailing from time immemorial, the kings of Cochin-China must receive investiture from the Emperor of China. Although this investiture consists in a simple formality, since the Anamese kingdom is altogether independent of the Chinese Empire, yet to this day the kings would consider that something was wanting to their royalty, if they had not obtained a diploma from the Emperor of China, and the people also, would not regard as altogether king a sovereign who had not been instituted by a foreign power. Down to the present time the ceremony of investiture has taken place at Kê Cho, the old capital of the kingdom and former abode of the kings, and since Tonquin and Cochin-China have formed only one state, of which the capital is Hué in Northern Cochin-China, the kings have still repaired to Kê Cho and there met the Chinese ambassadors. This journey of the king is made with great pomp, great fatigue for the mandarins and soldiers, and great cost for the people; for in this country it is the people who pay for all. Besides the taxes which they are obliged to pay regularly, if there is anything new or unusual, duties are imposed upon them, or they are obliged to bear all the expenses. When the king Tu Duc ascended the throne, some mandarins directed his attention to the burdens which would be imposed upon the people if he went to Kê Cho as usual, and solicited him to request the Emperor of China to send his am- bassadors to Hué. This reason of the mandarins was only a pretext, for, as I shall presently shew, the people were more oppressed than if the king had gone to Kê Cho. The true motive was that they wished to save themselves the trouble of the journey. However this might be, they succeeded in persuading the king, who besought the Emperor of China that the ambassadors of the Celestial Empire should come to his Capital to give him investiture. It even appears that he was not disposed to submit to this formality, if the Emperor had refused his request. After some negotiation, China acceeded to the demand, and as soon as certain intelligence of this concession was received in Cochin-China, every thing was put in train to give the coming deputies of China a great idea of the Anamite kingdom. For this purpose the population which bordered the road by which they must pass were obliged to set to work, and had to labour during four or five months. It was decided that the ambassadors should only make a short journey each day, so that they might be a long time on the road, and be persuaded that the kingdom was
