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possible conflagration” (ibid: 1478). Although both Hart and Lady Hart were deeply concerned about the issue, they may each have had a different focus. For Hart, his main priority was his considerable reputation as Inspector General (I.G.) of the CIMC - a position of importance spanning almost forty years at this stage (1905) and inheritance of his title - the Baronetcy, while Lady Hart's main concerns were domestic matters and family interest. She married Hart in 1866 when she was 18 and Hart was 31 years of age (Bell, 1985: 24). After marriage, she spent ten years living with Hart in Beijing and then prepared herself to see the wider world. She left China in 1882 and did not return again until 1906. She “enjoyed living alone” (Bell, 1903), “a house in a good part of London, together with a handsome allowance and costly presents, all provided by Hart” (Bruner, Fairbank and Smith 1986: 323). Although Hart did not tell her anything about Ayaou and his three children by her in the first few months of their falling in love, he did later confess to the "mistakes" he made. She took Hart's advice and married him for the future and established a firm marital relationship with him. However, she certainly did not want to see the previous relationship between Hart and Ayaou causing any trouble during her married life. The incident orchestrated by Herbert must have worried her and made her feel the need for a legal document to prevent her family from being troubled by the wards or their descendants after Hart's death, perhaps particularly, with regard to the inheritance of his title and property.

Hart's confession to the relationship with Ayaou

In Declaration 1 and 2, Hart gives a full statement of his relationship with Ayaou. This provides us with a version of his confession that might well indicate the way in which he confessed to the relationship before. Although Hart completely severed his relationship with Ayaou before returning home on leave in 1866, it seemed it was not possible for him to look to the future without some shadow of the past. Hart felt all the awkwardness of his position when confessing to his fiancée Miss Hester Jane Bredon. In his diary, 13 June 1866, Hart writes:

“Let the dead past bury its dead:”- that is easy enough: what is not so easy is to keep the future free from intrusiveness on the part of the products of the past. Does complete confidence mean “to have no secrets for the future”, or “to reveal all that has been done in the past”? (Smith, Fairbank, Burner 1991: 384)

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confession as similar as possible to that which he made in 1866 to his fiancée Miss Hester Jane Bredon, but also acceptable at this later date - almost half a century after his relationship with Ayaou.

Hart's ceasing and resuming his sexual relationship with Ayaou

The duration of Hart's sexual relationship with Ayaou has long been vague to researchers due to limited primary sources concerned with this matter. It has only been possible to give a rough idea: "Hart's years of liaison with Ayaou (roughly 1857-1865)..." (Bruner, Fairbank, Smith 1986: 154)

In Declaration 2 Hart himself states: "Ayaou lived with me at Ningpo during 1857 and went with me when I was transferred to Canton in February 1858. ... In 1866 I went home on leave and on that occasion the connection between Ayaou and myself was finally dissolved." This confirms that Hart did indeed start his relationship with Ayaou in 1857, but it was not finally terminated until 1866. This, however, does not necessarily mean that Hart maintained a sexual relationship with Ayaou for this time. In his diary entry for 6 August 1864 Hart writes:

Temptation to get a concubine is very strong, I must confess: nothing bothers me so much, as my liking for women. It is, however, more than a year since I even touched one! (Smith, Fairbank, Bruner 1991: 171)

In his diaries entry for the 14 August 1864 he also writes: "Now, for a whole year, I have on principle abstained from womanising.” (ibid: 179) These records give us a clue to the time when he ceased his sexual relationship with Ayaou. If "more than a year" is traced from 6 August 1864 back or “a whole year" from 14 August 1864 back, we are talking about the summer of 1863. This tallies with the time indicated in the second gap left in Hart's diaries: it starts on 6 December 1858 and ends on 6 June 1863 - ending at the exact time when he started to abstain from womanising. It indicates that Hart did not have a sexual relationship with Ayaou between the early summer 1863 and the late August 1864.

In both Declaration 1 and 2, Hart states: "Between 1858 and 1864
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high intent, and for Hart it cleared the way, as honourably as he could, for a British marriage.” (ibid: 363) Hart saw his career as I.G. in China as a long-term commitment. He was proud to hold the position of I.G. at twenty-eight years of age and on 24 December 1863 writes in his diary: "My life has been singularly successful: not yet twenty-nine, and at the head of a service which collects nearly three millions of revenue, in, - of all countries in the world! - the exclusive land of China. " (ibid: 53) Thus, when he planned to find a European girl to marry during his home leave in 1866 he definitely hoped that his future wife would stay with him in China. His proposal to Miss Hester Jane Bredon bears this out: "Could you find it in your heart to come to China with me?" (Bell: 57) Planning his future like this, sending the children to England to be educated regardless of the expense seemed the best possible solution to sever all connection with the past and to clear the way for Hart's future married life and career in China.

Hart certainly could not foresee the future when he made such an arrangement for his children with Ayaou. At that time he probably didn't think that his future wife would eventually return to live in London permanently even though he accepted it when it did happen because he felt "matrimony does interfere with a man's work at times". In 1875 when Lady Hart decided to go home, Hart began to think of a new arrangement for his three wards. In his letter to Campbell on 5 June 1875, he asked him, on his private behalf, to make some rearrangements for his three wards who at that time still lived in London and were cared for by Mrs Davison whose husband was a bookkeeper in Smith, Elder & Co. He wanted the two boys to be sent to boarding school at Clifton College and "when being placed at one of the boarding-houses I want it to be arranged that they shall spend their 1875-1876 vacations there"; he wanted the girl "to be sent for three years to a Protestant boarding school on the Continent" and "Her vacations will also have to be spent at school.” (Fairbank, Bruner, Matheson 1975: 192-3). It should be noted that 1875-1876 is when Lady Hart prepared and finally returned to Europe. Thus it may be argued that Hart's changed arrangements for his wards in 1875 was not simply a random act resulting from some past memory of Ayaou as suggested (Wang: 140). Less than a month later in a letter to Campbell on 2 July 1875 Hart tells his friend quite clearly: "Mrs Hart has positively declared that she'll go home next spring" (Fairbank, Bruner and Matherson 1975: 198) In this case, sending his wards to boarding school and arranging for them
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Hart's house and photographed him: "He was extremely friendly, asked us to dinner, kept us talking, assuring us that he was a man busy enough always to have time to give people. Month after month, year after year, for the last 50 years has found him always at work; for 25 years he has had no holiday; he never goes away and has never been even to the Great Wall. 'My wife used to do my sightseeing and my visiting for me' he said. 'She was very useful to me. It's difficult to live alone.' I didn't know what to answer as Lady Hart seems to find it more difficult not to live alone."

*

7 The marital relationship between Hart and Lady Hart, as Bruner, Fairbank and Smith argued (1986: 322), is that "each offered something the other was seeking." In his journal entry for 22 August 1867 - their first anniversary - he wrote: "No one could have a better wife than I have got & so far, we have got on well together." Then he added: “At the same time, matrimony does interfere a man's work at times." (Volume 9, Transcribed by Deirdre Wildy, 15 September 2003)

$

* Similar statement can also be seen in Declaration 1

"Census place: Cliffton, Gloucester, England. Source: FHL film 1341597, PRO Ref RG11, Piece 2482, Folio 38, Page 22.

10 See Bruner, Fairbank, and Smith edited “Entering China's Service” (1986: 150): "Volume 3, as it now exists, begins on 20 March 1858, after a lapse of almost three years. The first pages of this new book, however, were torn out by Hart, who then wrote on the flyleaf '20 March to 6 Dec. 1858' as if that were the normal content of the volume." "It seems evident that Hart did some tidying-up of his journals years later, perhaps in 1902 when Hosea B. Morse asked

11

permission to see them in connection with a proposed biography."

In March 1866 Hart left for home on leave and in late May he fell in love with Miss Hester Jane Bredon. This happened less than a year after Hart's third child was born. Hart was very determined to find a European girl to marry during his visit home. He knew that his proposal to Hester might be refused if he told her the truth, particularly the year when Arthur was born - giving proof to the fact that he continued his sexual relationship with Ayaou until at least late 1864. For Hart the best way to convince Hester to accept the reality of the situation was to let her believe that all these events had taken place a long time ago and she could therefore "forget the past and welcome the future". Perhaps it is for this reason that there are contradictions between Hart's statements concerning the year of Arthur's birth in Declaration 1 and 2 and those in his letter to Campbell as well as that which is recorded in 1881 British Census,

12 Hart only felt a bit annoyed when he received two letters from her in 1870 and 1872 and troubled by two of his wards by her between 1904 and 1905.

17

13 See Declaration I.

14 The sum of money equals £28,704, as $5 at that time roughly equals £1. In his
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