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require some training in international etiquette before they could comprehend what was due to a British plenipotentiary, Sir George Bonham contented himself with a brief notification that if the persons or property of any of his fellow-subjects should be injured, the wrong would be promptly resented. The Hermes then returned to the coast. Is it not amusing to find that the foolish old crotchet of supremacy, which has been more effective in excluding foreigners from China than the great wall in arresting the Tartars, can be turned to account by the rebels with as much gravity as if they were already in possession of Peking and the Imperial crown? Mr. Meadows, however, expresses his conviction that this childish conceit might speedily be dispelled. It is not an essential element, he thinks, in the policy of the insurgents. With a little logic, and a slight degree of instruction in barbarian geography, they would soon learn that China was not the centre of the world, and that there were cleverer empires in Europe and America than any which Asia could produce. Certainly, if their doctrine of human equality is to be strictly interpreted, this haughty assumption of superiority should at once be discarded; for they declare the whole world to be one house, all within the four seas to be brethren, and every distinction between man and man to be void. But who does not know that the most solemn declarations of fraternity may issue from the very lips which affirm the justice of slavery, or be subscribed by the same hand which dyes the lash in a fellow-creature's blood?

Now, as the insurrection in China is perhaps the greatest phenomenon that has occurred in its history for thousands of years, and as one of the chief objects of Mr. Meadows' book is to illustrate the philosophy of Chinese convulsions, we should state that he claims for the people the right to rebel.' There may be something startling to our European notions in the naked enunciation of this principle, but looking at the constitution of the government, and the character of the inhabitants, it would be unreasonable to deny them the prerogative of revolt. In the first place, it is a fair corollary from the doctrines upon which the Imperial power is based. The Emperor is the Son of Heaven, and, as such, he expects to be profoundly revered. But suppose that Heaven withdraws its smiles, and begins to frown. upon His Majesty? In that case the people consider themselves justified in believing that his Sonship is disowned, and that his commission to rule is cancelled. Let any great national calamity occur, and they debit it to His Majesty's account, holding him to be personally responsible for the evil. Does a war break out, and much misery ensue-it is a sign that he has offended the skies, and is unworthy of his post. Does the Yellow River burst

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through its embankments, and lay a city under water-it is plain that the Emperor is in disgrace with the Powers above. When a monarch is pursuing a line of action of which his superiors do not approve, nature will give him a few hints, in the shape of minor disasters; but if he still persists, she will then express her displeasure on a large public scale by sending a pestilence or a famine, or she will summon the people to resistance by hoisting some great comet as a flag of revolt, or by thundering out her injunctions from the lips of some terrible typhoon. Hence, though the government of China is a despotism, it is a despotism tempered by plagues and dearths, by hurricanes and inundations, by great fires and great earthquakes. Nor can we object to this limitation of his Majesty's power, though the principle is expressed in a fanciful and superstitious form. If a man will hold himself out as the Cousin of the Moon,' we think it is fair to expect him to have some little influence amongst the celestial bodies, and to secure us against severe meteorological commotions. If he asks our obedience on the ground that he is the 'Son of Heaven,' we naturally conclude that he will possess sufficient interest to procure rain for the soil when it is consumed with drought, or health for the country when it is ravaged with pestilence. We strongly object to all pretensions where the dutyside of the account is not as conscientiously posted as the privilege column. Just to the extent that a man asserts superior prerogatives, to the same extent let him charge himself with superior responsibilities. It is for this reason that we look back upon the old ceremony of touching for the king's evil with decided satisfaction; for though we are convinced that the palm of a Stuart could no more cure scrofula than Mr. Perkins's once famous tractors could heal dropsy, or than the present Chamberlain's wand can vanquish the gout, yet it is a pleasant thing to remember that our old monarchs had something, however trivial, to show for their dogma of divine right,' and did not shrink from the task, however slight, of stroking their sickly subjects when occasion required.

Nor is this principle of accountability confined to the Chinese Emperor alone. It extends to subordinate officers as well. The governor of a province is liable for all provincial mishaps; the chief of a city for all municipal disasters. This is pretty much as if the Lord Lieutenant of an English county were considered chargeable with any outbreak in his jurisdiction, or as if the mayor of a borough were answerable for any conflagration which might spring up within his civic domain. Should a long drought arise, the Emperor has been known to set the mandarins to work throughout the country, to inquire whether the course of justice

The Manchoo Masters of China.

55

had not been violated in the condemnation of innocent persons, and to ascertain who was the judicial Achan that had brought the wrath of Heaven upon the celestial people. Suppose that, when a stoppage of rain occurred in England, commissioners were appointed by Parliament to examine into the state of the Court of Chancery, in order to discover what unrighteous decree had caused the advent of the clouds to be angrily delayed!

The Chinese, therefore, exhibit a rough sort of consistency in their logic, when they infer that they are at perfect liberty to rebel against a monarch in case his credentials-the Teen-ming -have been revoked by the Powers from whom they are assumed to have been derived. But in the second place, it will be remembered that the present dynasty is an alien dynasty. It is true, that it has been in possession of the throne for upwards of two hundred years. But what are two hundred years in the history of a country which was flourishing when Troy is said to have been taken, and mellow with age before the Romans issued from their shell? To a genuine Chinese, the seizure of the Imperial sceptre by the existing line, in 1644, is an occurrence as of yesterday. The Manchoo conquerors have continued to rule, but they have never yet been naturalized in the land. Intruders they were-intruders they still are; and, if the empire is not broken up and completely remoulded, intruders they must always remain. Under such circumstances, is it surprising that the indigenous tenants of the kingdom-men who talk of settlers having a pedigree extending ten or twelve centuries backwards, as people who have got no forefathers'-should look upon their Manchoo masters just as a Jacobite cavalier might do upon the reigning family during the plots in King William's time, or the rebellions of 1715 and 1745? Believing, as the Tae-pings do, that the Tartars feloniously possessed themselves of their celestial country, and that a Divine commission to expel them has been conferred upon the leader of the insurrection, the rebels have as little compunction in assailing the demon Huns' as Sir John Fenwick had in attempting to depose our Dutchman, or as Mar and Derwentwater displayed in endeavouring to snatch the Crown from the House of Hanover.

It is not a light thing, however, which will drive the Chinese to revolt. They are not fond of fighting. It is astonishing how long a couple of natives will carry on a war of words before their fury flowers into blows. Two Englishmen would strip themselves of their coats and run through half-a-dozen rounds before a pair of angry Chinamen would deliver the introductory stroke. The celestial military, though by no means so cowardly as sometimes represented, is far from exhibiting any professional

enthusiasm for war. The soldiers of the empire have no idea of taking the field without urgent cause, and would look upon us as mad if they knew what amateur battles we have fought in Europe. Nothing can be more expressive of the pacific character of the people than the amiable uses to which they apply their gunpowder. We of the West have lavished our ingenuity in the construction of Congreve rockets, Shrapnel and Moorsom shells, Lancaster guns, minié rifles, infernal machines, and other engines for the deadly employment of this compound. We load our

muskets and charge our cannon, and having done so it is necessary to have somebody to fight, or to look out for a kingdom to conquer. But the less pugnacious celestial, though familiar with the properties of powder long before ourselves, has been content to consume it in matchlocks so clumsy that the bow and arrow were held to be far more efficient weapons for their troops. The great purpose to which it is applied in China is the composition of crackers. The natives have quite a passion for these frolicsome things. At a great festival they are exploded by the thousand. On minor occasions of rejoicing the air is kept in commotion by mirthful sallies of saltpetre. Even some of the humblest events of life are honoured by salvoes of this infantile artillery. Let a new house be completed, and the owner signalizes the transaction by an incredible quantity of squibbing; or in case a man should have no particular blessing on hand, he will frequently purchase a number of crackers, and discharge them à propos to nothing. This is not done temperately-squib by squib, as with the economical boys of Britain-but a whole batch is ignited at once, and hundreds of these groups are often expended over an occurrence which intrinsically does not merit a single fulmination.

Just as the Chinese appear to be insensible to the real genius of gunpowder-if we may speak in this way of the most equivocal compound we possess on the globe-do they seem to be destitute of any lofty conceptions of the military art. They have no notion of getting a contest over by a bold and masterly movement, by a prompt and dashing employment of the resources at their command. Their fighting is a kind of squibbing; their soldiers are employed rather as human crackers than as genuine pieces of artillery; they do not understand the philosophy of a great pitched battle, but prefer making war from hand to mouth, and expending their valour in piecemeal exploits. There seems no reason, therefore, why an intestinal convulsion should ever come to an end, so far as it depends upon the troops, until both parties are tired of marching up their hills' and marching down again. What, too, can be more incompatible with a high tone

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of military feeling than the laughable edict of the Emperor that the troops should wear an imposing aspect' before the foreigners who composed the Amherst embassy of 1816? What can be less expressive of prowess than the fact that the imperial warriors hope to appal an enemy when they advance to battle by pulling the most alarming faces they can invent? The figures of tigers and other savage animals delineated on their bucklers are intended to enhance the ferocity of their appearance, and when, in addition to these facial and pictorial terrors, the gallant Manchoos assail their adversaries with frightful shouts, what foe not similarly trained, or not furnished with a corresponding kind of ammunition, ought to resist such an avalanche of horrors?

It is not therefore by simple force of arms, or still less by the exercise of high military genius that China can be tranquillized. In that empire, if anywhere, arms must yield to the gown. Under no circumstances can we expect great bravery in a rice-eating people. That would be contrary to physiology and to observation. Tough pugnacious muscles cannot be extracted out of grain in the same way as they can out of flesh, or flesh and grain combined. Hence it is that the Hindoo has gone down like a ninepin before John Bull and his beefsteaks. The Chinese are not a sufficiently carnivorous race to become formidable in the field, and therefore, following the promptings of their national instinct, they have cast their whole constitution in a literary mould, and sought for guides and rulers in the bookmen rather than in the swordsmen. But as yet the bookmen have not sided with the insurgents.

'At present (says Mr. Meadows) the Tae-pings have the bulk of the learned class against them; but continued success would have with the latter its usual effect on man. If the Tae-pings continue to progress, the learned will go over to them and profess Tae-pingism in constantly increasing numbers; and then that struggle will commence between the Confucian or rational, and the Buddhistic or fanatical elements of the Tae-ping Christianity which I have pointed to as most likely to end in the triumph of the former; and in the definitive establishment of a sect which will make the Bible alone the standard of belief, and will discredit all new revelations. But in the meantime the Manchoo dynasty has on its side all the troops composed of its own nation, together with as many Mongol auxiliaries as it may deem safe to bring in, both backed by the intelligence and wealth of the bulk of the educated and well-to-do Chinese; which intelligence and wealth is employed in raising and supporting Imperialist armies composed of their poorer countrymen. All this may enable the present dynasty to put down the Tae-pings and every other rebel body. Hence .. I must after all repeat what I had occasion to say in the Times some months ago, viz., that the best informed of us cannot possibly

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