Wensiang, who from the opening of Peking to his death in 1875 bore the leading part in the conduct of foreign affairs, showed great ability in piloting the state through rocks and breakers.  His mental power greatly impressed all foreigners, while it secured him an easy ascendency among his countrymen.  Such men are sure to be overloaded with official duties in a country like China.  Physically he was not strong; and on one occasion when he came into the room wheezing with asthma he said to me:  “You see I am like a small donkey, with a tight collar and a heavy load.”  The success of Prince Kung’s administration was largely due to Wensiang.  Paochuin, minister of finance, and member of the Inner Council, was distinguished as a literary genius.  Prince Kung delighted on festive occasions to call him and Tungsuin to a contest in extempore verse.  To enter the lists with a noted scholar and poet like Tung, showed how the Manchus have come to vie with the Chinese in the [Page 278] refinements of literary culture.  I remember him as a dignified greybeard, genial and jocose.  On the fall of the Kung ministry, he doffed his honours in three stanzas, which contain more truth than poetry: 

   “Through life, as in a pleasing dream,
      Unconscious of my years,
    In Fortune’s smile to bask I seem;
      Perennial, Spring appears.

   “Alas!  Leviathan to take
      Defies the fisher’s art;
    From dreams of glory I awake,—­
      My youth and power depart.

   “That loss is often gain’s disguise
      May us for loss console. 
    My fellow-sufferers, take advice
      And keep your reason whole.”

In more than one crisis, the heart of the nation has cleaved to the Manchu house as the embodiment of law and order.  The people chose to adhere to a tolerably good government rather than take the chance of a better one emerging from the strife of factions.

Three things are required to confirm their loyalty:  (1) the abolition of tonsure and pigtail, (2) the abandonment of all privileges in examinations and in the distribution of offices, (3) the removal of all impediments in the way of intermarriage.

This last has been recently authorised by proclamation.  It is not so easy for those who are in possession of the loaves and fishes to admit others to an equal share.  If to these were added the abolition of a degrading [Page 279] badge, the Manchu dynasty might hope to be perpetual, because the Manchus would cease to exist as a people.

CONCLUSIONS

1.  More than once I have demanded the expulsion of the Manchus, and the partition of China.  That they deserved it no one who knows the story of 1900 will venture to deny.  It was not without reason that Mene tekel and Ichabod were engraved on the medal commemorating the siege in Peking.  If I seem to recant, it is in view of the hopeful change that has come over the spirit of the Manchu Government.  Under the leadership of Dowager Empress and Emperor, the people were more likely to make peaceful progress than under a new dynasty or under the Polish policy of division.