in his own mind summarily to condemn all this as "not of God?" I repeat, as a designer, and practical establisher of a system to serve only his own ambition, he must have seen in it nothing but the attempts of other impostors to overreach him. As a sincere believer, he conscientiously applied the test, as comprehended by him, "judged the spirits," acknowledged Yang sew tsing as the utterer of the words of God; and thus opened a door to all that is objected to, by Occidental Christians generally, in the doctrines and practice of this new sect of Oriental Christians.

Hung sew tseuen rejoined the Godworshippers about August, 1849. For another year the society retained its exclusively religious nature; but in the autumn of 1850 it was brought into collision with the local authorities, when the movement almost immediately assumed a political character of the highest aims.

CHAPTER IX.

RETROSPECTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MANCHOO POWER IN CHINA.

In order to understand the origin and progress of the allimportant modification mentioned at the close of the last chapter, we must go back a little in time and also devote some space to the consideration of a very different description of Chinese associations. Their object has been to expel the present dynasty; and I have, indeed reached a point where I think it will be a help to the reader if I lay before him some more of the circumstances that attended the establishment of the Manchoo power over China Proper. When I say reader, I mean him who is inspired with a serious desire to acquaint himself with the actual position of things in China, with a view to a better valuation of the probabilities either of the expulsion of the Manchoos, or of their complete re-establishment in power after purifying hardships and a bracing struggle.

On pages 30, 31, which I may beg such a reader not to be too indolent to re-peruse, I have shown that it was a Chinese rebel, Le tsze ching, not the Manchoo Tartars, who overthrew, after an eight years' fight, the last native dynasty, the Mings. In spite of years of internal troubles the latter had then still on the borders a general, Woo san kwei, at the head of an army efficient enough to keep off the Manchoos. At crises of this kind the question which every Chinese has to decide for himself is: Has the Divine Commission been withdrawn from the present house? and if so,

to whom of the various aspirants for the sovereignty has it been given?* Had Woo san kwei and his army recognised Le tsze ching as the new Divinely Appointed, it is highly probable that a new native dynasty would have been firmly established; and that, instead of the Manchoos conquering China, the Chinese would have annexed Manchooria. But Woo san kwei held it his duty to support the Ming family; or at least decided that Le tsze ching was not the new recipient of "the Teen ming, the Divine Commission," but a rebellious usurper. He could not however hope at once to fight him and also to defend the boundaries against the Manchoos. In his dilemma, he resorted to the plan of making peace with the latter, and inviting their co-operation, in the hope that when he had crushed the native usurper he should find means of expelling, or bribing out the foreign barbarians.

This is a fully authenticated instance of that wretched impolicy which consists in hastily violating well established general principles, for the sake of an apparent, or even a real, but temporary expediency. It forms a flagrant and very instructive instance, not only to the Chinese who suffered by it, but also to the Manchoos who profited by it, of the consequence of inviting external interference in internal affairs. And I direct particular attention to the fact because it has influenced, and will largely influence the conduct of the historically well informed Chinese, as well as of their scholars in civilization, the Manchoos, with reference to the intervention of us foreigners in the present struggle. It has made them, and will make them adopt a tone of what we call ignorant, arrogant obstinacy, but which they consider wise and politic consistency.

It had long been an established principle that the true policy towards all non-Chinese peoples or "barbarians" was

* I had once occasion to observe a Chinese official of high rank turning this question over in his own mind, when talking with me about the Tae pings at Nanking, to the neighbourhood of which place he had just received orders to proceed.

to keep them off. A temporary pressure of circumstances induced Woo san kwei to violate this rule, and the consequence was the subjection of his country to barbarians and ultimately the extermination, by them, of his own family. He is consequently looked on historically as a well meaning but most inconsiderate and unwise statesman. He was however undoubtedly an able general. With a numerically much inferior force, consisting of his own army and his Manchoo auxiliaries, he defeated Le tsze ching in several pitched battles, compelling him to evacuate Peking, and retire to the south-western provinces.

The stories which the Chinese still tell of the acts of individual Manchoos, in these and succeeding years, show that the great body, not only of the common men but of those of higher station, were little better than what we should call savages. But a certain portion had, in the struggle of their nation towards increased dominion during the two previous generations, added to their original hardy and active habits of an unsettled race, something of the Chinese mental cultivation. In addition to this they had with them, years before Woo san kwei made his offer, a large body of tried Chinese adherents, composed either of such adventurers as I have shown to have in all times overflowed the bounds of China Proper or of natives who had joined them during previous temporary inroads into that territory.† These original Chinese adherents were a great accession to the physical strength, and a still more important accession to the mental power of the Manchoos. Several of them were Generals, when the latter, as auxiliaries of Woo san kwei, entered Peking. This occurred in 1644; when they almost immediately declared their young king, Emperor. Woo san

See page 34.

+ These Chinese adherents were embodied into what is called the Ham kenn, Chinese force, subject to the same rules and discipline as the Manchoos Proper. The descendants of these people, whom we call naturalized Manchoos, still form a considerable portion of the garrisons of Bannermen in Peking and the provinces.

kwei had been previously induced to leave for the west in pursuit of the usurper Le tsze ching. After the death of this latter rival, the Manchoos had recourse to the old feudal system of government; and, by creating Woo san kwei a vassal prince of one or two of the western provinces, obtained from him and the Chinese peoples allotted to his rule a sullen acquiescence in the domination of a Manchoo suzerain at Peking. It was only by the same expedient that, at the end of seven years of bloody fighting with chequered and doubtful success, that part of the country to which I have directed particular attention, as South Eastern China, was reduced to a state of semi-subjugation. Three of the most powerful of the old Chinese adherents above alluded to were severally constituted vassal princes of Kwang se, Kwang tung and Fuh keen; positions which they or their respective children maintained for some thirty years. Throughout the same period, the Chinese colonies on the west coast of Formosa were altogether independent of the Manchoos, being under the sovereignty of a Fuh keen family which, far from acknowledging even a nominal subjection to the Manchoos, maintained an unceasing war with them by means. of a hereditary naval superiority. They were the descendants of a buccaneering merchant adventurer, who traded and pirated on the coast of China, amongst the Philippines, and in the Indian Archipelago; and who elevated himself into political importance towards the close of the Ming dynasty. It was his son, known to Europeans as Coxinga, who expelled the Dutch from Formosa and established his family in power on that island.

About 1673 Kang he, the second Emperor of the Manchoo dynasty, attained his twentieth year. He was physically and mentally a very superior man. While retaining the hardy and active, hunting and military habits of his progenitors, he had had the advantage of a careful Chinese education from his earliest youth. And he was not only intimately acquainted with Chinese philosophy, history, and institutions,