John Russell Young to Charles Seymour, January 21, 1884

Mr. Young to Mr. Seymour.

Sir: I have read with painful interest your dispatch No.44, December 8, 1883. The condition of affairs therein narrated shows a disposition towards foreigners much to be regretted, coming especially after the serious outbreak in the Shameen.

Your prompt action in presenting the case to the viceroy meets with the commendation of the legation.

This remonstrance, I think, might have taken a more serious form. The proclamation of Pang was an unwise and unfriendly document, one calculated to inspire the worst feelings in a community where the spirit of intolerance already prevailed. It came from a high official, who spoke in the name of His Majesty. Although disavowed and withdrawn, it was sold about the streets for two days. The viceroy says that it bore on its face the evidence that it was not genuine. And yet I have seen nothing to show that the imperial commissioner Pang did not write or inspire it. The real meaning of the viceroy’s comment, as found in your inclosure C, is not that the proclamation was fraudulent, but simply irregular, informal, not official.

For the viceroy to permit an incendiary proclamation of this nature to circulate for two days was to assume a grave responsibility, and if any outrage had taken place, as at the Shameen, it would have been difficult to have released the Chinese from the responsibility of not alone actual but of exemplary damages.

You will, in your conversations with the viceroy, impress this fact upon the attention of his excellency. The legations here know that Canton is the seat of peculiar irritations and disturbances, that political feeling runs high, and that rulers with the firmest nerves may tremble in the presence of the elements of discontent and misrule which there prevail. But unless his excellency proposes to surrender his high authority to a mob, there is no time in which to end a demonstration of this kind except at the outset. The fact that his excellency should have allowed it to run for two days without check or rebuke is a painful incident.

Your action in taking the matter in hand at once, meets with my commendation. My chief regret is, and out of this regret arises a constant anxiety as to Canton, that the viceroy failed to see at the outset what justice to the foreigner, and even loyalty to the throne, required of him.

I am, &c.,