In 1869 Sir Rutherford Alcock Retired, And Was Succeeded In The Difficult
Post Of English Representative In China By Mr. Thomas Wade, Whose Services
Have Been More Than Once Referred To.
In the very first year of his
holding the post an event occurred which cast all the minor aggressive
acts that had preceded it into the shade.
It may perhaps be surmised that
this was the Tientsin massacre - an event which threatened to re-open the
whole of the China question, and which brought France and China to the
verge of war. It was in June, 1870, on the eve of the outbreak of the
Franco-Prussian War, that the foreign settlements were startled by the
report of a great popular outbreak against foreigners in the important
town of Tientsin. At that city there was a large and energetic colony of
Roman Catholic priests, and their success in the task of conversion, small
as it might be held, was still sufficient to excite the ire and fears of
the literary and official classes. The origin of mob violence is ever
difficult to discover, for a trifle suffices to set it in motion. But at
Tientsin specific charges of the most horrible and, it need not be said,
the most baseless character were spread about as to the cruelties and evil
practices of those devoted to the service of religion. These rumors were
diligently circulated, and it need not cause wonder if, when the mere cry
of "Fanquai" - Foreign Devil - sufficed to raise a disturbance, these
allegations resulted in a vigorous agitation against the missionaries, who
were already the mark of popular execration.
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