A Curious confirmation of our strict tures as to the conduct of the adventurer Dupuis, and the subsequent proceedings of the French in Annam, is afforded from no less an authority than the Peking Gazette of the lst December. The Chinese Government is not given to acknowledge that it, or any one connected with it, has been guilty of an error; yet in this matter of the expedition up the Hanoi river, although no force can have bean used to compel the acknowledgment, the Government frankly confesses that its officers have been wrong, and proceeds to inflict punishment on one of the number. The memorial is curious as throwing light on the relations between China and Annam. The former will not allow the King to make use of his official title in correspondence with it, but haughtily calls: the sovereign by his name, Yuan Fuh-she. The lat-for, although submitting to this slur his kinghood, takes care that his position as an independent sovereign shall not be trenched upon. He complains that the officer in charge of the frontier, Chen Teh-kwei, had had the temerity to write on his own account to the Government of Annam, demanding the passage of foreign vessels and arms. Chen Teb-kwei pleaded, and his plea has apparently been accepted, he being himself a useful man, that he had not proceeded to these extremities. He had, however, sent an agent, one Liao King-shen, to Hanoi to report on matters there, and this agent, he averred, met with Dupuis, who was accompanied by a discharged Chinese official named Li Vu-hi, These duced a dispatch from the General-in-chief in Yunnan, Ma Ju-lung, stating that the arms were for use in that province. They drew up a despatch, which was conveyed to Chen by Liao, stating the purport of their expedition, and Chen, persuaded by his agent, did actually write on the subject to the Annamese. These not agreeing with Chen's views in the matter, still refused passage, whereupon Dupuis of his own authority transhipped his stores, and forced his way on his own responsibility into Yunnan. That this course of conduct was indefensible, the Government does not for a moment deny. It does not assert any claim to such a suzerainty as should compel the Annamese to pass unquestioned its military stores. On the contrary, while finding that Chen was not really responsible for the eventual conduct of Dupnis, it consi-dors that he has merited some degree of punishment. Liao, the agent, who is probably a man who can be better spared, is made responsible for those acts which apparently he committed simply as the representative of Chen, and is to suffer banishment to the Amoor. We are not going to reason on the justice of the punishment in-
Chen, Liao, and the Chinese Government. The fact of the actors in the affair being considered worthy of punishment by their own Government, is an acknowledgment on the part of China that she does not claim the right, in consequence of her nominal suzerainty, of interfering in the internal arrangements of. Annam, The only plea which could be "urged by the French, and which we believe was urged, was that the suzerainty of China over Annam extended to the right of interference with the internal arrangements of the kingdom. The letter of the King and the action of the Chinese are both clear evidence that they did not represent the true state of the case. Even were such a plea to be accepted, the subsequent conduct of the French was equally unjustifiable. If the conduct of the Annamese towards Dupuis had been an act of rebellion towards the Emperor, we should probably have heard of the matter through the French Minister at Peking. The very fact of the French Government having subsequently made a treaty with Annam, without submitting it for confirmation at Peking, issufficient proof that no real importance was attached to the plea of suzerainty. The story of the expedition then, stripped of its embellishments, amounts to this. Dupuis desired to get certain guns into Yunnan to sell to the Chinese officers there.
He thought that the Hungkiang, flowing through Annam, offered an easy route. The French Government of the day, pleased with the brilliant idea, offered assistance, and everything was prepared. One of the parties concerned, the Government of Annam, was not even consulted in the matter. It naturally objected to its territory being made use of for the conveyance of military stores to China. This objection was looked upon as a crime by the French, who determined to punish the recalcitrant State. The result is well known. Much as we would wish to see all the coreers of the Asiatic continent opened up, this is not the way in which such a matter should be approached. We can imagine that neither French nor Chinese feel quite content with their conduct in the affair, and certainly the sense of wrong must be the pre-eminent feeling amongst the inhabitants of Annam. The China Mail, in two elaborate articles, has called in question our statements of fact with regard to the French expedition.
If our contemporary bad looked alittle care at our previous notice, he would have discovered that our authority was a paper read at the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. That paper was professedly friendly to the French; its author had collected the facts from original sources, and we have every reason to believe is quite as competent to give a true statement as F, Romanet clu Caillaud, our contemporary's authority. The
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.