There Was No Longer Any Room To
Doubt That The Worst Had Happened, And It Only Remained To Secure The
Safety Of The Expedition.
The Chinese numbered several thousand men under
Lisitai in person, while to oppose them there were only four Europeans and
fifteen Sikhs.
Yet superior weapons and steadfastness carried the day
against greater numbers. The Sikhs fought as they retired, and the
Chinese, unable to make any impression on them, abandoned an attack which
was both perilous and useless.
The news of this outrage did not reach Pekin until a month later, when Mr.
Wade at once took the most energetic measures to obtain the amplest
reparation in the power of the Pekin government to concede. The first and
most necessary point in order to insure not merely the punishment of the
guilty, but also that the people of China should not have cause to suppose
that their rulers secretly sympathized with the authors of the attack, was
that no punitive measures should be undertaken, or, if undertaken,
recognized, until a special Commission of Inquiry had been appointed to
investigate the circumstances on the spot. Mr. Margary was an officer of
the English government traveling under the special permission and
protection of the Tsungli Yamen. The Chinese government could not expect
to receive consideration if it failed to enforce respect for its own
commands, and the English government had an obligation which it could not
shirk in exacting reparation for the murder of its representative. The
treacherous killing of Mr. Margary was evidently not an occurrence for
which it could be considered a sufficient atonement that some miserable
criminals under sentence of death, or some desperate individuals anxious
to secure the worldly prosperity of their families, should undergo painful
torture and public execution in order to shield official falseness and
infamy. Although no one ever suspected the Pekin government of having
directly instigated the outrage, the delay in instituting an impartial and
searching inquiry into the affair strengthened an impression that it felt
reluctant to inflict punishment on those who had committed the act of
violence. Nearly three months elapsed before any step was taken toward
appointing a Chinese official to proceed to the scene of the outrage in
company with the officers named by the English minister; but on June 19 an
edict appeared in the "Pekin Gazette" ordering Li Han Chang, governor-
general of Houkwang, to temporarily vacate his post, and "repair with all
speed to Yunnan to investigate and deal with certain matters." Even then
the matter dragged along but slowly. Li Han Chang, who, as the brother of
Li Hung Chang, was an exceptionally well-qualified and highly-placed
official for the task, and whose appointment was in itself some evidence
of sincerity, did not leave Hankow until August, and the English
commissioners, Messrs. Grosvenor, Davenport and Colborne Baber, did not
set out from the same place before the commencement of October. The
intervening months had been employed by Mr. Wade in delicate and
fluctuating negotiation with Li Hung Chang (who had succeeded Tseng Kwofan
as Viceroy of Pechihli and who had now come to the front as the chief
official in the Chinese service) at Tientsin and with the Tsungli Yamen at
Pekin.
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