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his knowledge of the language, sensitivity to ritual propriety, and the impressions of his previous visit among Poklo residents when he and Chalmers had spoken publicly to the mandarin and people would all help to overcome the boiling tensions. The only caution remaining in his mind was one of military reprisals for his own death, a Scottish Protestant Dissenter value he insisted on upholding, though he would on the same basis uphold judicial processes which charged persecutors of the local Chinese Christians. Taking the risk and hoping not to jeopardize the situation so that a further landslide of anti-Christian persecutions resulted, Legge soon afterwards headed to Poklo.
As was expected, land messengers from the Qing bureaucracy were sent hastily to Poklo once news was sent them about the British envoy headed in that direction. Ch’ëa joined the boat party as well, filling in Legge on all the most recent news about the disturbances and threats.78 Consequently, by the time Legge arrived at the small Poklo dockyard in his slow boat ride along the East River, he was better informed and the matter on shore, very much catalysed into action by the boldness of his coming, was in the final stages of resolution. The local superintendent of police had been sent down the river to inform Legge and his party that the matter “was settled”, the mandarin Wang having left for Wye-chow (to “finalize” matters?), but planning to participate in a public ceremony the following day when the “title deeds of the house, regularly stamped” would be placed in Legge’s possession.79 During the public ceremonies and discussions which formalized the sale of the house, involving nine Chinese public officials along with Legge and his military escort, Legge pursued more than just the transfer of the deed. News had reached him through Ch’ëa and others that “placards against foreigners and Christians” had been posted throughout Poklo and Wye-chow.80 These he insisted had to be taken down with public proclamations replacing them, “containing the 8th and 12th Articles of the English Treaty” which dictated terms regarding the “protection of Chinese Christians” and a sizeable list of missionary privileges on Chinese soil. In addition, Legge’s sources had provided the name of the recalcitrant and deceptive gentry person who had fomented much of the trouble, a
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