"We have been favoured from infancy by the boundless care and motherly solicitude of Her late Majesty the August Empress-Dowager Tz'u-hsi. When we were commanded to enter upon the great inheritance, it was our fervent hope that Her Majesty would enjoy long years of health and strength, and that we should rejoice in her support and respectfully listen to her instructions, to the completion of our rule and the strengthening of the State's foundations. But the toil and anxiety of the Imperial burden gradually brought infirmity. Potions and remedies were repeatedly administered, and we were looking forward to her recovery, when the death of His late Majesty the Emperor on the 14th November caused her profound sorrow, the gravity of her disease suddenly increased, and on the 15th November at 3 P.M. Her Majesty departed this life. Our grief has no limits, and our lamentations fill earth and heaven.
"We have reverently received Her Majesty's testamentary commands ordering mourning for twenty-seven days, but our feelings are stirred too deeply and will not be easily composed. There will be deep mourning for 100 days, and ordinary mourning for twenty-seven months, as a slight manifestation of our intense affliction.
Her Majesty decreed that we should repress our grief and concentrate our mind on the affairs of the State. We would not dare to disobey Her Majesty's dying mandate, and must compel ourself to subdue our sorrow and thereby solace the spirit of the departed Empress in Heaven."
I avail, &c.
[43873]
(No. 531.) Sir,
No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.—(Received December 16.)
Peking, November 25, 1908.
REFERRING to my telegrams Nos. 188 and 189, I have the honour to report that the reception of the Diplomatic Body to offer their condolences to the Prince Regent at the deaths of their Majesties the Emperor and the Empress Dowager took place in the Palace on the 21st instant.
The accompanying graphic account of the ceremony which has been prepared by Mr. Seeds, Third Secretary of His Majesty's Legation, relieves me of the duty of describing the proceedings in detail, and I shall therefore confine myself to reporting the substance of the conversations which I had with Prince Ching and Yuan Shih-k'ai.
Before doing so, however, there is one point on which I should like to supplement Mr. Seeds' Report. What impressed me most about the whole ceremony was the importance which the Chinese officials of all grades attached to the presence of the foreign Representatives and their staffs on this occasion. They evidently regarded it as sealing with the formal sanction of Europe and America the arrangement which had been made for the succession, and in this respect the proceedings marked an entirely new departure in the intercourse between China and the West.
While we were waiting for the arrival of the Regent, Prince Ch'ing took me to a side-table and entered into a prolonged conversation about the events of the last few days. He first expressed his profound appreciation of His Majesty the King's gracious message of condolence and his grateful thanks for the sympathy shown by yourself and His Majesty's Government. He then spoke pathetically of his long association with the Empress Dowager, and of the great loss which the country and he himself personally had sustained by her unexpected death. Her Majesty, in anticipation, apparently, of her approaching end, had commissioned him to proceed to the Eastern Tombs to see that her last resting-place was in order. She was at that time well enough to see her Ministers and transact business daily with the Grand Council. He was hastily summoned back, and found, when he returned, on the 13th instant, his Imperial mistress on the point of death. It was then that the final arrangements for the succession were made.
The Prince, rather significantly, I thought, deplored the tender age of the Sovereign, but spoke highly of Prince Ch'un, the Regent, with whom he had been associated for some time on the Grand Council, and who was a man of good sense and moderate views. He himself, though broken in health and stricken with years, hoped to devote what was left of life to the service of his country and to supporting the new régime in grappling with the many questions which awaited solution.
He confessed to having been apprehensive of trouble in the south, but things had so far passed off very smoothly in the provinces, with the single exception of Anhui, where there had been a mutiny of some troops in the provincial capital on the 18th instant. The affair in itself had been of serious importance and had been quickly suppressed, but the assassination of the Governor less than a year ago and other indications of disaffection had given the province an unenviable notoriety.
Yuan Shih-k'ai, with whom I had also a few minutes' conversation, contradicted the rumours which had been current about himself and spoke in hopeful terms of the future. Neither he nor the Prince made any reference to the late Emperor, and all their regrets were concentrated upon the Empress Dowager, whose loss they seemed genuinely to deplore.
I have, &c.
(Signed)
J. N. JORDAN.
[2049 q-3]
E
$
efforts, and with united spirit assist in making the foundation of my country strong and durable; and the Emperor should look to the importance of the affairs of State, and, subduing his grief, diligently study the lessons of government. And, in the glory of the days to come, we may surely hope that the counsels of former Emperors will be fulfilled.
"Let there be mourning for twenty-seven days, and let the world know the contents of this my testamentary declaration."
[B]
This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.1721
AFFAIRS OF CHINA,
CONFIDENTIAL.
[December 16.]
SECTION 3,
(Translation.)
Your Excellency,
Inclosure 10 in No. 1.
Prince Ching to Sir J. Jordan.
I avail, &c.
Peking, November 16, 1908. I HAVE the honour to inform your Excellency that the following Decree of His Majesty the Emperor was received on the 22nd day of the 10th moon of the 34th year of Kuang-hsü (the 15th November, 1908):
"We have been favoured from infancy by the boundless care and motherly solicitude of Her late Majesty the August Empress-Dowager Tz'u-hsi. When we were commanded to enter upon the great inheritance, it was our fervent hope that Her Majesty would enjoy long years of health and strength, and that we should rejoice in ber support and respectfully listen to her instructions, to the completion of our rule and the strengthening of the State's foundations. But the toil and anxiety of the Imperial burden gradually brought infirmity. Potions and remedies were repeatedly administered, and we were looking forward to her recovery, when the death of His late Majesty the Emperor on the 14th November caused her profound sorrow, the gravity of her disease suddenly increased, and on the 15th November at 3 P.M. Her Majesty departed this life. Our grief has no limits, and our lamentations fill earth and heaven.
"We have reverently received Her Majesty's testamentary commands ordering mourning for twenty-seven days, but our feelings are stirred too deeply and will not be easily composed. There will be deep mourning for 100 days, and ordinary mourning for twenty-seven months, as a slight manifestation of our intense affliction.
Her Majesty decreed that we should repress our grief and concentrate our mind on the affairs of the State. We would not dare to disobey Her Majesty's dying mandate, and must compel ourself to subdue our sorrow and thereby solace the spirit of the departed Empress in Heaven."
I avail, &c.
Ο
[43873]
(No. 531.) Sir,
No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received December 16.)
Peking, November 25, 1908. REFERRING to my telegrams Nos. 188 and 189, I have the honour to report that the reception of the Diplomatic Body to offer their condolences to the Prince Regent at the deaths of their Majesties the Emperor and the Empress Dowager took place in the Palace on the 21st instant.
The accompanying graphic account of the ceremony which has been prepared by Mr. Seeds, Third Secretary of His Majesty's Legation, relieves me of the duty of describing the proceeds in detail, and I shall therefore confine myself to reporting the substance of the conversations which I had with Prince Ching and Yuan Shih-k'ai.
Before doing so, however, there is one point on which I should like to supplement Mr. Seeds' Report. What impressed me most about the whole ceremony was the importance which the Chinese officials of all grades attached to the presence of the foreign Representatives and their staffs on this occasion. They evidently regarded it as sealing with the formal sanction of Europe and America the arrangement which had been made for the succession, and in this respect the proceedings marked an entirely new departure in the intercourse between China and the West.
While we were waiting for the arrival of the Regent, Prince Ch'ing took me to a side-table and entered into a prolonged conversation about the events of the last few days. He first expressed his profound appreciation of His Majesty the King's gracious message of condolence and his grateful thanks for the sympathy shown by yourself and His Majesty's Government. He then spoke pathetically of his long association with the Empress Dowager, and of the great loss which the country and he himself personally had sustained by her unexpected death. Her Majesty, in anticipation, apparently, of her approaching end, had commissioned him to proceed to the Eastern Tombs to see that her last resting-place was in order. She was at that time well enough to see her Ministers and transact business daily with the Grand Council. He was hastily summoned back, and found, when he returned, on the 13th instant, his Imperial mistress on the point of death. It was then that the final arrangements for the succession were made.
young
The Prince, rather significantly, I thought, deplored the tender age of the Sovereign, but spoke highly of Prince Ch'un, the Regent, with whom he had been associated for some time on the Grand Council, and who was a man of good sense and moderate views. He himself, though broken in health and stricken with years, hoped to devote what was left of life to the service of his country and to supporting the new He confessed régime in grappling with the many questions which awaited solution.
to having been apprehensive of trouble in the south, but things had so far passed off very smoothly in the provinces, with the single exception of Anhu', where there had been a mutiny of some troops in the provincial capital on the 18th instant. The affair in itself had been of serious importance and had been quickly suppressed, but the assassination of the Governor less than a year ago and other indications of disaffection had given the province an unenviable notoriety.
Yuan Shih-k'ai, with whom I had also a few minutes' conversation, contradicted the rumours which had been current about himself and spoke in hopeful terms of the future. Neither he nor the Prince made any reference to the late Emperor, and all their regrets were concentrated upon the Empress Dowager, whose loss they seemed genuinely to deplore.
I have, &c.
(Signed)
J. N. JORDAN.
[2049 q-3]
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