Otin to Thomas Francis Wade, February 22, 1875

Mr. Otin to Mr. Wade.

M. le Ministre:

I wish to place before the council of arbitration my formal protest against the action Which the Tsung li Yamen has deemed it proper to observe on the two following points:

1st. At noon, on the 5th of this month, a communication was sent from this legation to the foreign office, reminding the Chinese ministers of the propriety of limiting the distribution of copies of the report to the five representatives and to the Spanish chargé d’affaires. The same day, between the hours of 5 and 7 p.m., several chiefs of legations established at Peking, not included in the stipulated number of arbitrators, received printed copies of the report. On my just remonstrance against this, the Tsungli Yamen replied, on the 13th instant, (since which date I have heard nothing in relation to it,) that after having infringed the second article of the protocol of November 23, 1873, by giving copies of the report to certain officials who had no right to interfere directly in the affair, they proposed still further to infringe it by sending other copies to those foreign representatives who did not reside in Peking.

When you, sir, proposed, at the conference of mediation held in August, 1873, that a commission of inquiry should be sent to Cuba, I accepted your suggestion in full faith, believing that the only object of this mission was to ascertain and furnish the council of arbitration materials for the final and definite solution of the affair; but I would never have given my consent to it had I supposed that the report of the inquiry would be diverted from its true destination. What right has the Tsungli Yamen to make public a document whose accuracy has not yet been assured by the council of arbitration? If the arbitration never takes place, owing to causes depending on the pleasure of the Chinese government, will not this inquiry made in Cuba, far from being a means of conciliation based on a common accord, be nothing else than an illegal interference, a right of visitation contrary to all law, and whose circumstances may be doubly grave in consequence of the publicity given to the report of the commission?

2d. The Tsungli Yamen refuses to furnish me with a copy of the foreign versions of the report. This commission was not the spontaneous and exclusive act of the Yamen, but rather the result of a common consultation; if, therefore, we intimated that it should be of a mixed character, and Europeans in the Chinese service should be associated with it, our intention surely was not to have them give us their ideas in Chinese. When the protocol was drawn up, in November, 1873, the ministers of the Yamen refused to sign the English text, prepared by Mr. Hart himself, and, truly, if they will not recognize the existence of foreign documents signed by Chinese, I can no more admit the authenticity of Chinese documents signed by Europeans. I cannot consider the report to be complete until the three texts are brought together; and, in view of the immense difficulty of translating the fourteen volumes of the Chinese portion, I find it impossible for me to prepare my defense.

All means of persuasion brought to bear upon the Yamen being thus far without efficacy, I have the honor, sir, to transmit to yon my present protest, and ask the council of arbitration to be good enough to take note of it and give it the effect which they shall deem proper at the right time and place.

Pray accept, M. le Ministre, the assurance of my high consideration.