Not for his defence of the Legation will Bir Claude Macdonald find it hard to an-wer at the bar of public opinion; for the ignorance, that made the siege. possible he will. not find it so easy to account. On the 2ist of May, reporting the information before his colleagues by the French Minister, Sir Claude wrote to Lord Salisbury: As regards my own to the danger to which Europeans in Peking are exposed I confess that little has come to my knowledge to confirm the Jloomy anticipations of the French Fathers." Then the British Ministers sources of information in Peking were unreliable or insufficient, a condition readily accounted for by the fact broadly stated by one of his subordinates that non-official information is not accoptable to the Leyation. Did the Legation Secretaries expect. official communic tions from the Tsungli Yamen explaining the origin. and plans of the Boxers? Did they expect Prince Tuan to furnish them with an official copy of his instructions to the Boxer chiefs; and a statement of the designs of the Empress Dowager against foreigners? Tf, such official information was not at their disposal, why despise nonofficial information, deductions from data so convincing that to no non-official resident in Chita acquainted with the history of last winter did the crisis come as s surprissd? From whence came M. Pichon's frformation? Admittedly from the French Fathers. There were.in Peking at the moment Sir Claude Macdonald wrote to Lord Selisbury that "little had come to his knowledge to confirm the gloomy forebodings of the French others," men of -his own nationality equally competent with Bishop Favier to form a judgment on the subject, and whose judgment would have altogether coincided with that of the Bishop. Yet there is no indication in the Blue Book that the British missionaries were asked for information, and indeed the language of the Minister's letters seems to show that no effort was made in that direction. Minister Conger could surely have supported M. Pichon from a similar source, for he had in his possession letters from missionaries of his own nationality with a sound reputation as experts on things Chinese pointing out the threatening nature of the Boxer movement, its rapid development and its possible course. It is a temptation to characterise those guild ty of such optimistic apathy. The men who turned a deaf ear to the warnings of the winter of 1899-1900 must feel the burden of the frightful loss of life during the following summer, which at least might have been saved had they given themselves more intelligently and more vigorously to their work.
22nd October.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.