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CHAPTER XII
FOREIGNERS AND THE REBELLION
Before considering the final stages of the rebellion, in order to understand more perfectly the relative credit due the foreigners, it is desirable to examine the part played by them in the suppression of the movement.[1]
- ↑ This is undertaken only in order to make clear the character of Tsêng's part in the war. There is need of a careful study of the development of foreign policy and opinion during the decade 1853 to 1863, made from newspapers, official reports, correspondence, and reports of missionaries, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, and from Chinese documents, where such are available. Morse has done this, but chiefly from the first two classes of sources named. The official correspondence of Chinese officials with their government, where it can be had, might throw much light on obscure points. The missionary societies in their archives may possibly have some material not necessarily embodied in their reports. Yet in its general outlines the story of the gradual transformation of a policy of strict neutrality into one of armed intervention is well known. What I have included in this chapter is therefore no new contribution, but the retelling of a story that has been more fully told in such books as those of Morse, Andrew Wilson, The Ever Victorious Army, Hake, Events in the Taiping Rebellion, Montaldo de Jesus, Historic Shanghai, Williams, The Middle Kingdom, and McClellan, The Story of Shanghai. In regard to the change of policy that led to intervention, it is necessary to note that there was widespread opposition to aiding the imperialists. This opposition sometimes advocated a continuation of the policy of neutrality and sometimes almost demanded recognition of an intervention in behalf of the insurgents. This pro-Taiping or anti-imperialist sentiment was not confined to notorious filibusterers such as "Lin-li" (A. F. Lindley), but was expressed even by members of parliament far removed from the immediate scene of conflict, such as Colonel Sykes, whose letters to various newspapers had a great deal to say against the government. In the collection of letters by Sykes, The Taeping Rebellion in China, 1863, are included letters of Dr. Legge and Rev. Griffith John, both eminent missionaries, deprecating the policy of intervention. As late as 1903 in his Cycle of Cathay, p. 141,
