ASHMORE, Vice-Consul to Frederick F. Low, July 25, 1870

Mr. W. Ashmore to Mr. F. F. Low.

Sir: It may be of interest to your excellency to learn the effect produced upon the Chinese mind in distant ports by the news of the atrocity at Tien-tsin.

I have the honor, therefore, to communicate to you a digest of observations thus far.

It is proper to remark, in the way of preface, that my opportunities for learning speedily and correctly are full and reliable, for, in connection with my missionary work, I have assistants stationed in nearly all of the principal cities of the prefecture. In accordance with an established usage, these assistants write to me in the early part of every week. Their letters are concerned exclusively with their legitimate work. They are not encouraged to allude to the common gossip of the places where they are. It is only when something stirs up unusual commotion that information on the subject is communicated to me. The week subsequent to the dissemination of the Tien-tsin intelligence, these letters of the assistants came to me freighted with the same stories of what was being said among the Chinese. It is impossible that they could have communication with each other. The letters are therefore independent sources of information, and mutually corroborate each other. Besides the above, I have myself taken special pains to ascertain, by personal converse with persons, the movements of popular feeling, and can therefore make my statements with confidence.

After the exercise of a due discrimination between what is local and what is general, what is rumor and what is substantial, I find myself in possession of information that may be comprised in the following points:

1st. Within a week after the first receipt of the news here it was well known in all the towns and cities in this department. There have been three distinct sources of information: 1st. Intelligence contained in the Hong-Kong papers; 2d. Numerous letters received by the Chinese from Hong-Kong, from Shanghai, and from Tien-tsin; many Chinese from this region in those places in the prosecution of business; and, 3d. Verbal information given at various Yamêns to those who inquire.

2d. In every instance the Chinese version of the affair has received credence. With alight variation, the story given out has been that foreigners have been kidnapping children for the most horrible purposes; that a mandarin went to the Roman Catholic hospital to remonstrate; that he was set upon by the priests and killed, or, as some say, fired upon; that this was more than the people could bear, and then they rose for self-protection; that in the collision which ensued, many Chinese were killed and many foreigners also.

3d. A bitter, malicious rancor toward foreigners suddenly developed itself. Some of this feeling was the natural result of faith in the stories about kidnapping. But it would be a delusion to ascribe it all to that source. It was plain that a long-cherished but suppressed ill-will was taking occasion to assert itself. Truth requires me to state that the general feeling about the massacre was gratulation, amounting in some instances to gloating. Persons connected with us have been threatened, and told that the time for the destruction of the rest of us would come by-and-by. In the first frenzy of the excitement, the soldiers under Pong-ta-yeh assaulted and partially destroyed several houses connected with the English Presbyterian mission. However, on complaint being made, the officer in charge caused some of the ringleaders to be punished, but declined the responsibility of making restitution. One of my own assistants, for expressing abhorrence of the treatment of the Sisters of Charity, was assaulted and beaten, and threatened with death by a squad of soldiers under the command of a petty officer traveling with him at the time on the same passage boat.

4th. The first imperial edict, made in reply to the memorial of Chunghow, and directing inquiry into the truth of the kidnapping story, and also after the originators of the disturbance, became known here about a week after the first news of the massacre. It produced a manifest effect in making people more cautious in expressing themselves. But, unfortunately, the effect is to confirm the mass in opinion that the enormities attributed to the Sisters of Charity were actually perpetrated, and, as the charge remains uncontradicted, the bitter feeling, though smothered a little, remains in force unabated. The extinction of the false impression is a matter of importance to us, even at this remote distance. This can be done effectually only through an imperial edict declaring the falsity of the charges, after a full investigation has been held. Any action taken by the French government which does not involve such a declaration from the throne will leave the adjustment of the difficulty incomplete. I say this for the reason that Chinese of standing and intelligence have told me the mass of the people do believe their own mandarin was assaulted while in the discharge of a legitimate, though disagreeable, duty, and “that it will be hard to bear to be in the right and have to suffer for it also.” The truth should therefore be fully set forth, and then subsequent measures will have their proper moral effect. It is to be feared that a commission, composed exclusively of high Chinese officials, without any foreigners, will fail to present the truth, and we shall suffer in consequence, in the general estimation.

5th. I am told by numbers of Chinese of respectability that upon the mode of settlement of the Tien-tsin difficulty depends the security of our future relations. There has been an opinion gaining ground here for years, and I speak now from personal knowledge, that a time was coming when a different tone should be used toward foreigners, which would be sustained by force if necessary. Such a sentiment in the territory adjacent to a small port is of itself no great moment, save as the constant iteration of it prepares the mind of the people for making the trouble they predict. Now that the massacre of the north has occurred, there has been excited and intense desire to see how it will end. It is plain the Chinese in this region will be influenced by it, for good or for evil, to annoy and hamper us, or allow us the quiet enjoyment of treaty life.