worn-out stock the healthy principles which give life and health to governments, rather than to see China become the theater of widespread anarchy, and ultimately the prey of European ambitions.”
Ward seems to have reached a similar conclusion by 1854. Certainly he never made any serious attempt to seek employment with the Taipings (as some Western mercenaries were beginning to do), and hislater statements of opposition to anyusurpation of Chinese imperial authority—which he called an “outrageous doctrine”—further indicate his acceptance (albeit reluctant) of the Manchu dynasty as the lesser of two evils.
That lesser evil could, however, be devilishly irritating. In 1854 Robert M. McLane of Maryland arrived in China as American minister. On attempting to meet with imperial officials in Canton (the notion of foreign ministers from “lesser” states actually residing in Peking was still laughed off as absurdly presumptuous by the Manchus) McLane experienced immediate frustration. In Canton, one high-ranking imperial official repeatedly put McLane off, complaining on one occasion that “[j]ust at the moment I, the minister, am superintending the affairs of the army in several provinces and day and night have no rest. Suffer me then to wait for a little leisure, when I will make selection of a propitious day, that we may have a pleasant meeting.” This represented not merely one man’s obfuscation but a comprehensive policy of avoidance and obstruction, set in Peking and designed to free China from the obligation to open her interior to greater trade and foreign penetration.
If the goal was understandable, the attitude was not. The Chinese apparently failed to comprehend that their ethnocentric arrogance was self-defeating: It only made the Westerners more determined to take by force what they were entitled to by treaty. Part of Robert McLane’s assignment as minister was to assess the Taiping movement and see if it was worthy of American recognition. And while McLane—initially sympathetic to the Nanking government—soon reversed his position regarding the rebels, he also met with this rather startling reply when he requested an audience in Peking: “If you do indeed respect Heaven and recognize the Sovereign, then our celestial court … will most assuredly regard your faithful purpose and permit you year by year to bring tribute.” Along with the tribute, McLane learned, he would be expected to kowtow to the Chinese emperor: to go down on his knees and knock his head against the floor as a sign of obedience and respect. For the representative of a nation that had been born dealing a death blow to the idea of divine representation in monarchs, it was an absurd and maddening requirement.
The unsatisfactory conduct of both Taiping and Manchu officials inChina prompted the United States, along with the other Western powers, to adopt an official policy of neutrality and nonintervention regarding the Middle Kingdom’s internal difficulties. But the impracticality of such a policy soon became evident, nowhere more than in Shanghai. In September 1853 an anti-Manchu sect called the Small Swords—led by an opium-smoking Cantonese who styled himself “Marshal of the Ming Kingdom”—seized control of the Chinese city in the port and took the taotai prisoner, disrupting trade and spreading alarm in the settlements. A pair of adventurous Americans infiltrated the Chinese city and rescued the taotai, but relations with other representatives of the Chinese government were far less cordial. Imperial troops, dispatched by Peking to lay siege to the Small Swords, were typically arrogant and abusive when they crossed paths with the city’s Western residents. When several of these encounters turned violent, the foreigners organized the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, an irregular force bolstered by small contingents of foreign regulars. The corps’s only field action was against not the Small Swords but the offending
Ward seems to have reached a similar conclusion by 1854. Certainly he never made any serious attempt to seek employment with the Taipings (as some Western mercenaries were beginning to do), and hislater statements of opposition to anyusurpation of Chinese imperial authority—which he called an “outrageous doctrine”—further indicate his acceptance (albeit reluctant) of the Manchu dynasty as the lesser of two evils.
That lesser evil could, however, be devilishly irritating. In 1854 Robert M. McLane of Maryland arrived in China as American minister. On attempting to meet with imperial officials in Canton (the notion of foreign ministers from “lesser” states actually residing in Peking was still laughed off as absurdly presumptuous by the Manchus) McLane experienced immediate frustration. In Canton, one high-ranking imperial official repeatedly put McLane off, complaining on one occasion that “[j]ust at the moment I, the minister, am superintending the affairs of the army in several provinces and day and night have no rest. Suffer me then to wait for a little leisure, when I will make selection of a propitious day, that we may have a pleasant meeting.” This represented not merely one man’s obfuscation but a comprehensive policy of avoidance and obstruction, set in Peking and designed to free China from the obligation to open her interior to greater trade and foreign penetration.
If the goal was understandable, the attitude was not. The Chinese apparently failed to comprehend that their ethnocentric arrogance was self-defeating: It only made the Westerners more determined to take by force what they were entitled to by treaty. Part of Robert McLane’s assignment as minister was to assess the Taiping movement and see if it was worthy of American recognition. And while McLane—initially sympathetic to the Nanking government—soon reversed his position regarding the rebels, he also met with this rather startling reply when he requested an audience in Peking: “If you do indeed respect Heaven and recognize the Sovereign, then our celestial court … will most assuredly regard your faithful purpose and permit you year by year to bring tribute.” Along with the tribute, McLane learned, he would be expected to kowtow to the Chinese emperor: to go down on his knees and knock his head against the floor as a sign of obedience and respect. For the representative of a nation that had been born dealing a death blow to the idea of divine representation in monarchs, it was an absurd and maddening requirement.
The unsatisfactory conduct of both Taiping and Manchu officials inChina prompted the United States, along with the other Western powers, to adopt an official policy of neutrality and nonintervention regarding the Middle Kingdom’s internal difficulties. But the impracticality of such a policy soon became evident, nowhere more than in Shanghai. In September 1853 an anti-Manchu sect called the Small Swords—led by an opium-smoking Cantonese who styled himself “Marshal of the Ming Kingdom”—seized control of the Chinese city in the port and took the taotai prisoner, disrupting trade and spreading alarm in the settlements. A pair of adventurous Americans infiltrated the Chinese city and rescued the taotai, but relations with other representatives of the Chinese government were far less cordial. Imperial troops, dispatched by Peking to lay siege to the Small Swords, were typically arrogant and abusive when they crossed paths with the city’s Western residents. When several of these encounters turned violent, the foreigners organized the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, an irregular force bolstered by small contingents of foreign regulars. The corps’s only field action was against not the Small Swords but the offending
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