MR. LAY.—A LETTER FROM CHINA. To THE EDITOR OF THE
" SPECTATOR."
SIR,—I beg leave to point out that the wording of your article on Mr. Lay was calculated to mislead your readers. The article says, " Nanking fell, and the first words addressed to Mr. Lay at the
Foreign Board were, &c.," appearing to imply that the dismissal of Mr. Lay was due to the exultation of the Chinese at the fall of the rebel capital. The fact is Nanking was not captured till eight months after Mr. Lay left China.
The whole tone of your article seems somewhat harsh towards the small body of Chinese statesmen who, under every disadvan- tage, thwarted and embarrassed by intrigue in the palace and revolt in the provinces, by Oriental prejudice and by Western ambition, are endeavouring at the risk of their lives to preserve the independence of their country.
I am not concerned to enter into the intricacies of the Blue- book, the merits of Mr. Lay, and the policy of Sir F. Bruce ; but the utmost of which the Chinese can be accused is this, viz., that they refused to ratify an agreement—entered into, be it remem- bered, through an agent when the principals were 10,000 miles apart—because they found that that agreement, if carried out, would virtually subject their country to a foreign power. Samna salus suprema lex may surely be pleaded at Peking as well as in London, and the Chinese liberally compensated all the parties concerned. Every one in China knows that Mr. Lay was enor- mously paid, and so was Captain Osborn.
.. Mr. Lay's habit of bullying and gross rudeness had quite as much to do with his dismissal as the failure of his scheme. The Chinese " must" do this, and " must " do the other, were the words for ever on his lips. He called one of the Foreign Board to his face a " tsan-t'ou," a term something worse than our " block- head."
Upon the worst point of the whole affair you do not touch. The English Government took from the Chinese the fleet which they had honestly bought and paid for, and have never given them a penny for it. This conduct, which, if it were that of a private individual, would be called by a very ugly name, will do more to create distrust and sow the seeds of war than any success which may attend the Chinese arms.—I am, Sir, yours,
ANGLO-ASIATIC.
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