“So early as our interview of June 17th, the Viceroy expressed anxiety as to missionaries at remote points in the interior; and I had about that time suggested to the various missions that women and children would be better at a treaty port.  The missions themselves preferred to recall all their members, and at the Viceroy’s request supplied lists of the stations thus left to the care of the local authorities.  Since then, even in Hupeh, there have been a few cases of plundering, especially in the large district of Sin Chan on the Hunan border, while at Hangchow-fu, in Hunan, the London Mission premises were wrecked early in July and for a time throughout the whole province it appeared probable that the Missions would be destroyed.  The chief cause of this, as of the riots in Hupeh, was the dissemination of an alleged decree of 26th June praising the Boxers and ordering the authorities to imitate the north in exterminating foreigners.  This decree seems to have reached local authorities direct; and those hostile to foreigners acted upon it or let its existence be known to the gentry and people.  The chapels in Hunan were all sealed up; and it was understood that all mission and convert property would be confiscated.  Towards the end of July, however, the Viceroy and the Hunan Governor issued a satisfactory proclamation, and I have heard no more complaints from that province, the western part of which seems tranquil.

“Besides safeguarding foreign life and property in his own province the Viceroy has frequently been asked to aid missionaries retiring from Kansuh, Shensi, Shansi, and Honan.  In [Page 241] every case H. E. has readily consented.  Detailed telegrams have been sent again and again not only to his frontier officers, but to the governors of other provinces with whom H. E. has expostulated, when necessary, in strong terms.  Thus, when Honan seemed likely to turn against us, the Viceroy insisted on the publication of favourable decrees, and even went so far as to send his men to establish a permanent escort depot at Ching Tzu Kuan, an important post in Honan where travellers from the north and northwest have to change from cart to boat.  Happily the acting Governor of Shensi has cooeperated nobly.  But the refugees who testify invariably to the marvellous feeling of security engendered by reaching Hupeh, will, I doubt not, agree that they owe their lives to Chang Chi-tung’s efforts; for simple inaction on his part would have encouraged the many hostile officers to treat them as Shansi has treated its missionaries.

“At times during the past two anxious months the Viceroy’s action in sending troops north, the occurrence of riots at various points, H. E.’s communication of decrees in which the Peking Government sought to gloss over the northern uprising, and his eagerness to make out that the Empress Dowager had not incited the outbreak and had no hostile feeling against foreigners have inevitably made one uneasy.