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the Zongli yámén, he cannot be faulted for missing this major tragic event among Chinese Protestants in southeast China, because it was apparently never reported or discussed by British and Qing officials.
Maybe the "oversight" happened because the turn of events shifted attention to the military problems associated with the resistance of Tàiping forces during the next three years before they were destroyed. They had become the target of a common effort by the Qing armies as well as some foreign (and particularly British/Scottish) militia under General Gordon, probably causing a host of special problems demanding the "immediate attention" of the British Ambassador, Sir Frederick Bruce.4 Nevertheless, it was against the Ambassador that Legge expressed his most piercing salvo of Protestant Dissenter displeasure in 1863, nearly two years after the riots in Poklo and Ch'ëa's murder had taken place.
In a brief note leaked to the public a year after it had been written, Sir Bruce explained his opinion to Lord John Russell (1792-1878), then Secretary of State, that missionaries should not be permitted to enter into China because of the troubles they caused and the dangers they faced. His arguments stood in blatant opposition to the conditions codified by the 1860 treaty, but were nevertheless read with approval by Lord Russell. This occasioned an outburst of righteous anger from Legge, who took Bruce's letter apart piece by piece, and showed its insensitivity to missionary work as well as its incoherence in the face of the recent treaty conditions. In and of itself, this letter written by Legge, first published in the Patriot in London and soon afterward in the local China Mail in Hong Kong, was one of the most perceptive and articulate pieces of political analysis he ever wrote. But the coup de grâce came in the end, where the level of frustration Legge felt against British bureaucratic reticence and its discounting of missionary and Chinese Christians' rights had grown to a new height.
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I will conclude this long letter by referring to a case in point,
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the Zongli yámén, he cannot be faulted for missing this major tragic event among Chinese Protestants in southeast China, because it was apparently never reported or discussed by British and Qing officials.
Maybe the "oversight" happened because the turn of events shifted attention to the military problems associated with the resistance of Tàiping forces during the next three years before they were destroyed. They had become the target of a common effort by the Qing armies as well as some foreign (and particularly British/Scottish) militia under General Gordon, probably causing a host of special problems demanding the "immediate attention" of the British Ambassador, Sir Frederick Bruce."4 Nevertheless, it was against the Ambassador that Legge expressed his most piercing salvo of Protestant Dissenter displeasure in 1863, nearly two years after the riots in Poklo and Ch'ëa's murder had taken place.
In a brief note leaked to the public a year after it had been written, Sir Bruce explained his opinion to Lord John Russell (1792-1878), then Secretary of State, that missionaries should not be permitted to enter into China because of the troubles they caused and the dangers they faced. His arguments stood in blatant opposition to the conditions codified by the 1860 treaty, but were nevertheless read with approval by Lord Russell. This occasioned an outburst of righteous anger from Legge, who took Bruce's letter apart piece by piece, and showed its insensitivity to missionary work as well as its incoherence in the face of the recent treaty conditions. In and of itself, this letter written by Legge, first published in the Patriot in London and soon afterward in the local China Mail in Hong Kong, was one of the most perceptive and articulate pieces of political analysis he ever wrote. But the coup de grace came in the end, where the level of frustration Legge felt against British bureaucratic reticence and its discounting of missionary and Chinese Christians' rights had grown to a new height.
95
I will conclude this long letter by referring to a case in point,
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