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very direct and personal ways during the 1861 missionary tour.
PART FIVE: Legge's risk and Ch’êa's Via Dolorosa
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Having expected some signs of local discontent and not sensing that the level of antiforeignism was high enough to obstruct further developments, Legge arranged to purchase a house in Poklo for the establishment of a chapel and missionary coordinating office the following July. Although these arrangements were protected by the new treaty conditions, a controversy soon arose in which a local gentry claimed previous rights to the house, refusing to admit that the London Missionary Society representatives had the prior option to purchase the place. Consequently, though money had been sent for the purchase, the deeds for the house were never turned over to the missionary society. Social tensions between the district authorities and the opposing gentry rose, so that Legge appealed to both the British and Qing provincial authorities in Canton to help them resolve the problem. All this particular appeal seemed to produce was further obstacles in the way of a normal sale, the provincial authorities refusing to make any independent actions on their own. The issue must have become controversial enough that most active citizens in the Poklo region knew about the problem, making it a heated topic of debate among gentry and common people. In the meantime, as Legge explained in a letter of mid-October, "[One of the gentry] took violent possession [of the house] and proceeded from one act of aggression to another, till affairs wore a very threatening aspect as concerns the safety of our Native Brethren." So desperate was the situation that Ch'ea and others "fled to Canton to ask advice and help from the missionaries."
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Frustrated over the intransigence of both Qing and British authorities, Legge left Hong Kong for Canton in early October, seeking to resolve the problem by making a personal appeal to the presiding British official there. It was a significant move for several reasons left unstated in the missionary publications which followed the event. Certainly, the fact that active threats of persecution against local Chinese Christians in Poklo were now known heightened the stakes of the sale of the house, for the protection of Chinese